Knut See Canute the Great
Knuth \k9-'nuth\, Donald E(rvin) (b. Jan. 10, 1938, Milwaukee, Wis., U.S.) U.S. computer scientist. Knuth earned a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1963 from the California Institute of Technology. A pioneer in computer science, he took time out during the 1970s from writing his highly acclaimed multi volume The Art of Computer Programming in order to develop TeX, a document-preparation system. Because of its precise con¬ trol of special characters and mathematical formulas, TeX and its variants soon became standard for submitting typeset-ready scientific and math¬ ematical research papers for publication. He has received many awards
John Knox, engraving from leones, by T. Beza, 1580.
COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM; PHOTOGRAPH, J.R. FREEMAN & CO. LTD.
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Ko Hung ► Koestler I 1045
and honours, including the Kyoto Prize (1996), the Turing Award (1974), and the National Medal of Science (1979).
Ko Hung See Ge Hong
koala Tree-dwelling marsupial ( Phascolarctos cine reus) of coastal east¬ ern Australia. About 24-33 in.
(61-85 cm) long and tailless, the koala has a stout, pale gray or yel¬ lowish body; broad face; big, round, leathery nose; small, yellow eyes; and fluffy ears. Its feet have strong claws and some opposable digits.
The koala feeds only on eucalyptus leaves. The single offspring remains in the rearward-opening pouch for up to seven months. Koala popula¬ tions have dwindled seriously, for¬ merly because they were killed for their fur and now because of loss of habitat and the spread of disease.
koan \'ko-,an\ In Zen Buddhism, a brief paradoxical statement or ques¬ tion used as a discipline in meditation.
The effort to solve a koan is designed to exhaust the analytic intellect and the will, leaving the mind open for response on an intuitive level. There are about 1,700 traditional koans, which are based on anecdotes from ancient Zen masters. They include the well-known example “When both hands are clapped a sound is produced; listen to the sound of one hand clapping.”
kobdas \'go-au-,des\ Drum used for inducing trances and for divination by Sami shamans. It consisted of a wooden frame over which a reindeer hide was stretched; the hide was covered with designs representing spir¬ its or deities. In divination, the drum was beaten with a hammer made of reindeer antler, causing a triangular piece of bone or metal called an arpa to move along its surface. From these movements the shaman divined the nature of an illness or learned the location of lost or stolen objects.
Kobe \'ko-ba\ City (pop., 2000 prelim.: 1,493,595), west-central Hon¬ shu, Japan. It is situated on Osaka Bay and occupies a narrow shelf of land between mountains and the sea. With neighbouring cities Osaka and Kyoto, it is the centre of a major industrial zone. Until the Meiji Restora¬ tion it was only a fishing village, but it grew rapidly in the late 19th cen¬ tury. It was severely bombed during World War II and was entirely rebuilt after 1945. It suffered a major earthquake in 1995. Kobe is an important Japanese port and a centre of shipbuilding and steel production; it is the seat of Kobe University.
Koblenz or Coblenz Vk6-,blents\ ancient Confluentes City (pop., 2002 est.: 107,730), western Germany. Situated at the junction of the Rhine and Moselle rivers, it was founded by the Romans in 9 bc. It was a Frank¬ ish royal seat in the 6th century ad and was chartered as a city in 1214. The French occupied the city in 1794, and it passed to Prussia in 1815. After World War I, Koblenz was the seat of the Inter-Allied Control Com¬ mission for the Rhineland (1919-29). Devastated in World War II, it has since been restored. It is a centre for the German wine trade; other indus¬ tries include tourism and the manufacture of furniture, clothing, and chemicals.
Kobo Daishi See Kukai
Kobuk \ko-'buk\ Valley National Park National park, northwest¬ ern Alaska, U.S. Located north of the Arctic Circle, it was made a national monument in 1978 and a national park in 1980. Occupying an area of 1,750,421 acres (708,370 hectares), it preserves the Kobuk River valley, including the Kobuk and Salmon rivers, forest lands, and the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes. Archaeological sites reveal more than 10,000 years of human habitation. It protects caribou migration routes; other wildlife include grizzly and black bears, foxes, moose, and wolves.
Koch \'kach\, Ed(ward Irving) (b. Dec. 12, 1924, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. politician. After serving in the army during World War II, he graduated from New York University Law School. He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1968, and in 1978 he was elected to the first of three
terms as mayor of New York City. Koch is credited with bringing fiscal stability to the insolvent city and with instituting merit selection of city judges. His brash forthrightness made him an entertaining and popular figure, but his demeanour and his rhetoric increasingly came to be seen as unkind and divisive and eventually resulted in his defeat. He later became a columnist and talk-show host.
Koch \'kok,\ English Vkok\, (Heinrich Hermann) Robert (b. Dec. 11, 1843, Clausthal, Hannover—d. May 27, 1910, Baden-Baden, Ger.) German physician. As the first to isolate the anthrax bacillus, observe its life cycle, and develop a preventive inoculation for it, he was the first to prove a causal relationship between a bacillus and a disease. He perfected pure-culture techniques, based on Louis Pasteur’s concept. He isolated the tuberculosis organism and established its role in the disease (1882). In 1883 he discovered the causal organism for cholera and how it is transmitted and also developed a vaccination for rinderpest. Koch’s postulates remain fundamental to pathology: the organism should always be found in sick animals and never in healthy ones; it must be grown in pure culture; the cultured organism must make a healthy animal sick; and it must be reiso¬ lated from the newly sick animal and recultured and still be the same. Awarded a Nobel Prize in 1905, he is considered a founder of bacteriol¬ ogy-
Kochel \'kcek-3l,\ English Vkar-shoL, Ludwig (Alois Ferdinand)
von (b. Jan. 14, 1800, Stein, near Krems, Austria—d. June 3, 1877, Vienna) Austrian scholar and musicologist. After gaining a law degree, he tutored children of wealthy families and traveled, researching books on a number of different topics, including botany, mineralogy, and music. He is best known for his 1862 thematic catalog of Mozart’s works (which are still identified by their “K numbers”), a monument of music scholarship. He also edited Ludwig van Beethoven’s letters.
Kocher Vko-koA, Emil Theodor (b. Aug. 25, 1841, Bern, Switz.—d. July 27, 1917, Bern) Swiss surgeon. He was the first surgeon to remove the thyroid gland to treat goitre (1876). He later found that total removal could cause a state resembling cretinism, but that leaving part of the gland in place made this temporary. He introduced a surgical method for reduc¬ ing shoulder dislocations, as well as many new surgical techniques, instru¬ ments, and appliances. A type of forceps and a gallbladder surgery incision named for him are still used. He adopted Joseph Lister’s principles of com¬ plete asepsis in surgery. In 1909 he won a Nobel Prize.
Kodak Co., Eastman See Eastman Kodak Co.
Kodaly Vk6-,dl\, Zoltan (b. Dec. 16, 1882, Kecskemet, Hung.—d. March 6, 1967, Budapest) Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, and music educator. He played various instruments as a child and studied simultaneously at the university and the Budapest Academy of Music, earning diplomas in composition and teaching and a doctorate in Hun¬ garian folk song. With Bela Bartok, a lifelong friend, he compiled the important Hungarian Folk Songs (1906), and he continued to make field recordings until World War I made it impossible. He came to international attention with his Psalmus hungaricus (1923) and the opera Hary Janos (1926). Kodaly created an individual style that was derived from Hun¬ garian folk music, contemporary French music, and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. He devoted much of his energy to developing a school music curriculum that would develop children’s musicality, and the “Kodaly method” remains in wide use.