Masolino \,ma-so-'le-no\ orig. Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini (b.
1383, Panicale, Romagna—d. probably 1440-47, Florence, Republic of Florence) Italian painter. He came from the same district in Tuscany as his younger contemporary Masaccio, with whom his career is closely linked. The two worked together on frescoes for the Brancacci Chapel in Florence’s Santa Maria del Carmine. Masaccio’s influence is evident in Masolino’s contributions, but upon Masaccio’s death Masolino returned to the more decorative Gothic style of his earlier years.
Mason, George (b. 1725, Fairfax county, Va.—d. Oct. 7, 1792, Fair¬ fax county, Va., U.S.) American Revolutionary statesman. The owner of a large plantation, he became active in efforts to promote the west¬ ward expansion of the colonies. In 1774 he helped his neighbour George Washington draft the Fairfax Resolves (1774), which called for a boycott of English goods. In 1776 he drafted the Virginia state constitution and the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which influenced Thomas Jefferson and was used as a model by other states. A member of the Virginia House of Delegates (1776-88), he attended the Constitutional Conven¬ tion but did not sign the Constitution of the United States, which he believed granted large and indefinite powers to the central government.
Mason, James (b. May 15, 1909,
Huddersfield, Yorkshire, Eng.—d.
July 27, 1984, Lausanne, Switz.)
British film actor. After studying architecture at the University of Cam¬ bridge, he made his screen debut in Late Extra (1935) and soon became a star in British films such as The Man in Grey (1943), The Seventh Veil (1945), and Odd Man Out (1947). He moved to Hollywood in the late 1940s but continued to make films in Britain as well. Noted for his urbane characterizations of flawed individuals, he appeared in more than 100 movies, including Madame Bovary (1949), A Star Is Born (1954), North by Northwest (1959), Lolita (1962), Georgy Girl (1966), The Boys from Brazil (1978), and The Verdict (1982).
Mason, James Murray (b. Nov. 3, 1798, Fairfax county, Va., U.S.—d. April 28, 1871, Alexandria, Va.) U.S. politician. A grandson of George Mason, he practiced law in his native Virginia from 1820. He served in the state legislature (1826, 1828-32), the U.S. House of Rep¬ resentatives (1837-39), and the U.S. Senate (1847-61). An advocate of secession, he resigned his Senate seat in 1861. Appointed Confederate commissioner to England, he was captured at sea with John Slidell aboard the Trent and imprisoned for two months (see Trent Affair). Released in 1862, he remained in England until 1865 but was unable to win support for the Confederate cause.
Mason-Dixon Line Originally, the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The 233-mi (375-km) line was surveyed by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in 1765-68 to define the disputed boundaries between the land grants of the Penns, proprietors of Pennsylvania, and the Balti- mores, proprietors of Maryland. The term was first used in congressional debates leading to the Missouri Compromise (1820) to describe the divid¬
ing line between the slave states to its south and the free-soil states to its north. It is still used as the figurative dividing line between the North and South.
masonry Craft of building in stone, brick, or block. By 4000 bc, Egypt had developed an elaborate cut-stone technique. In Crete, Italy, and Greece, cyclopean work overcame material weaknesses by using enor¬ mous irregularly shaped stones without mortal', thereby reducing the num¬ ber of joints. African stonemasons also were skilled at mortarless work, and Japanese mortarless castle walls resisted collapse during earthquakes. The Roman inventions of concrete and mortar permitted the development of the arch into one of the basic construction forms and gave rise to a number of variations in the facing used for walls: squared stone blocks, concrete studded with rough stones, concrete with diagonal stone courses, brick- and tile-faced concrete, and mixed brick and stone. The Assyrian and Persian empires, which lacked stone outcroppings, used sun-dried clay bricks. Stone and clay were the primary masonry materials in the Middle Ages and later. Precast-concrete blocks, often used as infill in modern steel framing, did not effectively compete with brick until the 20th century. Brick and block are often combined or used in cavity walls. Glass- block walls, which utilize steel rods to reinforce the mortar joints, admit light and afford greater protection against intruders and vandals than ordi¬ nary glass. See also adobe, building stone.
Masqat See Muscat
masque Short dramatic entertainment performed by masked actors. It originated in the folk ceremony known as mummery (see mumming play) and evolved into elaborate court spectacles in the 16th-17th centuries. A masque presented an allegorical theme using speeches, dances, and songs, in a performance often embellished with rich costumes and spectacular scenery. The genre reached its height in 17th-century England when the court poet, Ben Jonson, collaborating with Inigo Jones on many notable masques (1605-34), gave it literary force. The masque later developed into OPERA.
mass Quantitative measure of inertia, or the resistance of a body to a change in motion. The greater the mass, the smaller is the change pro¬ duced by an applied force. Unlike weight, the mass of an object remains constant regardless of its location. Thus, as a satellite moves away from the gravitational pull of the Earth, its weight decreases but its mass remains the same. In ordinary, classical chemical reactions, mass can be neither created nor destroyed. The sum of the masses of the reactants is always equal to the sum of the masses of the products. For example, the mass of wood and oxygen that disappears in combustion is equal to the mass of water vapour, carbon dioxide, smoke, and ash that appears. How¬ ever, Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity shows that mass and energy are equivalent, so mass can be converted into energy and vice versa. Mass is converted into energy in nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. In these instances, conservation of mass is seen as a special case of a more general conservation of mass-energy. See also critical mass.
mass Celebration of the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic church. It is considered a sacramental reenactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus as well as a true sacrifice in which the body and blood of Jesus (the bread and wine) are offered to God. It is also seen as a sacred meal that unifies and nourishes the community of believers. The mass includes readings from Scripture, a sermon, an offertory, a eucharistic prayer, and communion. The rite was greatly changed after the Second Vatican Coun¬ cil, notably in the adoption of vernacular languages in place of Latin. See also SACRAMENT, TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
mass action, law of Fundamental law of chemical kinetics (the study of rates of chemical reactions), formulated in 1864-79 by the Norwegian scientists Cato M. Guldberg (1836-1902) and Peter Waage (1833-1900). The law states that the reaction rate of any simple chemical reaction is proportional to the product of the molar concentrations of the reacting substances, each raised to the power corresponding to the number of mol¬ ecules of that substance in the reaction.
mass-energy equation See Einstein's mass-energy relation
mass flow or convection In physiology, the mechanism responsible for movement of air from the atmosphere into the lungs and for move¬ ment of blood between the lungs and the tissues. It is one of two princi¬ pal mechanisms of exchange by which oxygen and carbon dioxide move between the environment and the tissues, the other being diffusion. Local
George Mason, detail of an oil paint¬ ing by L. Guillaume after a portrait by J. Hesselius; in the collection of the Vir¬ ginia Historical Society
COURTESY OF THE VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
L_
M
N
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.