Lashley, Karl S(pencer) (b. June 7, 1890, Davis, W.Va., U.S.—d. Aug. 7, 1958, Paris, France) U.S. psychologist. He taught at the Univer¬ sities of Minnesota (1920-29) and Chicago (1929-35) and at Harvard University (1935-55). In Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence (1929), he demonstrated that certain types of learning are mediated by the cerebral cortex as a whole, refuting the view that every psychological function is localized at a specific place on the cortex, and he showed that some parts of the brain system (e.g., the visual system) can take over the functions of other parts. He also studied the cortical basis of motor activities and the relation between brain mass and learning ability. His paper “The Prob¬ lem of Serial Order in Behavior” (1951) played a major supporting role in the revolt against simple associative psychology.
Lasker, Emanuel (b. Dec. 24, 1868, Berlinchen, Prussia—d. Jan. 11, 1941, New York, N.Y., U.S.) German chess master and mathematician. He first won the world chess championship in 1894 and retained the title until his defeat by Jose Capablanca in 1921; his term remains the longest reign as champion. As the first chess master to demand high fees, he helped strengthen the financial status of chess professionals. He wrote the classic Common Sense in Chess (1896) as well as books on mathematics and philosophy. As a Jew, he was forced to leave Nazi Germany in 1933. With the loss of his property, he ended his eight-year retirement from chess, once again competing at the highest level.
Laski, Harold J(oseph) (b. June 30, 1893, Manchester, Eng.—d. March 24, 1950, London) British political scientist, educator, and political leader. Educated at the University of Oxford, he taught at McGill Univer¬ sity and Harvard University before returning to Britain to work for the Labour Party. He later taught at the London School of Economics (1926- 50). He argued in works such as The State in Theory and Practice (1935) that the economic difficulties of capitalism might lead to the destruction of political democracy, and he came to view socialism as the only alternative to fascism. He was an assistant to Clement R. Attlee during World War II.
Lassalle \la-'sal\, Ferdinand orig. Ferdinand Lasal (b. April 11, 1825, Breslau, Prussia—d. Aug. 31,
1864, near Geneva, Switz.) German socialist, a founder of the German labour movement. He took part in the revolution of 1848-49 and estab¬ lished contact with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In 1859 he settled in Berlin and became a political jour¬ nalist. His advocacy of an evolution¬ ary approach to socialism through a democratic constitutional state based on universal suffrage led to his gradual estrangement from Marx. He helped form the General German Workers’ Association (1863) and was elected its president, but associ¬ ates rebelled against his authoritarian leadership. In 1864 he went to Swit¬ zerland for a rest, fell passionately in love, and was killed at age 39 in a duel with the woman’s former fiance.
Lassalle, c. 1860
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Lassen Peak ► Latin alphabet I 1079
Lassen Peak or Mount Lassen Volcano, southern end of the Cascade Range, northeastern California, U.S. It erupted on May 30, 1914, and inter¬ mittently thereafter until 1921. The peak is 10,457 ft (3,187 m) high and is the principal attraction of Lassen Volcanic National Park, which occupies an area of 106,372 acres (43,047 hectares). In 1821 Luis Argiiello, a Span¬ ish officer, became the first European to discover the peak. It is named for Peter Lassen, an explorer who guided settlers through the area.
Lassus Vla-siBsV Orlande de or Orlando di Lasso \'la-so\ or Roland de Lassus (b. 1530/32, Mons, Spanish Hainaut—d. June 14, 1594, Munich) Flemish composer. He began as a choirboy (with such a beautiful voice that he is said to have been kidnapped to sing elsewhere), and his first known position was in service to the Gonzaga family in Italy (1544). After 1556 he was based in Munich as kapellmeister to the duke of Bavaria, but he pursued an international career, traveling in Italy, Ger¬ many, Flanders, and France. He wrote more than 1,200 works, in every contemporary style and genre, sacred (including some 60 masses and 500 motets) and secular (including hundreds of madrigals and chansons), his attention to the correspondence of music and words being especially remarkable. Because of his range of styles (he always kept up with fash¬ ion) and because his works were printed widely during and after his life¬ time, he influenced many composers and is regarded as one of the greatest masters of his century.
Last Mountain Lake Lake, southern central Saskatchewan, Canada. Draining southward into the Qu'Appelle River, and with an average width of 2 mi (3.2 km) and a length of 60 mi (96 km), it occupies an area of 89 sq mi (231 sq km). It is a popular fishing and resort area.
Lat, al- Northern Arabian goddess of pre-Islamic times. A stone cube near Mecca was held sacred as part of her cult. Two other northern Arabian goddesses. Manat and al- c Uzza, are associated with al-Lat in the Qur’an. According to a contentious account, Muhammad was said to have recog¬ nized these three as goddesses, but a new revelation led him to abandon his attempt to placate Meccan pagans, and he later ordered the sanctuaries of al-Lat and the other two goddesses destroyed. The goddesses were wor¬ shiped by Arab tribes located as far away as Palmyra, Syria.
Late Baroque See Rococo style
latent heat Characteristic amount of energy absorbed or released by a substance during a change in physical state that occurs without a change in temperature. Heat of fusion is the latent heat associated with melting a solid or freezing a liquid. Heat of vaporization is the latent heat associ¬ ated with vapourizing a liquid or condensing (see condensation) a vapour. For example, when water reaches its boiling point and is kept boiling, it remains at that temperature until it has all evaporated; all the heat added to the water is absorbed as latent heat of vaporization and is carried away by the escaping vapour molecules.
Later Le \'le\ dynasty (1428-1788) Greatest and longest-lasting dynasty of traditional Vietnam. Its founder, Le Loi, drove the Chinese out of Vietnam and began the process of recovering the southern portion of the region from the kingdom of Champa. In 1471 the dynasty’s greatest ruler, Le Thanh Tong (d. 1497), completed that work. He divided the country into provinces patterned on the Chinese model and established a triennial Confucian civil-service examination. After 1533 the Le rulers were only theoretically supreme, real power being held by the Trinh and Nguyen families. In 1771 a peasant uprising toppled the dynasty.
laterality or hemispheric asymmetry Characteristic of the human brain in which certain functions (such as language comprehension) are localized on one side in preference to the other. One example is hand¬ edness (the tendency to use one hand or the other to perform activities): Since the left and right cerebral hemispheres control the right and left sides of the body, respectively, right-handed people are typically left- dominant in terms of hemispheric control of various motor functions and also with respect to seeing (right-eyed) and language comprehension. Paul Broca first identified the brain centre for articulate speech in what is now called Broca’s area. Later researchers discovered that functions involving logical or sequential analysis generally reside in the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere seems to control processing of spatio-visual infor¬ mation and musical relations. More left-handers than right-handers dis¬ play a reversal of hemispheric specialization or a more even distribution of functions between the two hemispheres. There is no general agreement about whether laterality is genetically transmitted, developed during ges¬ tation, or learned.