Mobile Vmo-.bel, mo-'bel\ City (pop., 2000: 198,915), southwestern Alabama, U.S. Situated on Mobile Bay at the mouth of the Mobile River, the site was explored by Spaniards in 1519. French colonists built a fort near the river’s mouth in 1702. It served as the capital of French Loui¬ siana until about 1719. It was ceded to the British in 1763 and captured by the Spanish during the American Revolution. It was seized by the U.S. during the War of 1812 and incorporated as a town in 1819. During the American Civil War it was an important Confederate port, but Federal forces won the Battle of Mobile Bay and captured the city. The state’s only seaport, it is a major industrial and manufacturing centre and the site of several institutions of higher education.
mobile \'mo-,bel\ Abstract sculpture that has moving parts, driven either by motors or by the natural force of air currents. Its revolving parts cre¬ ate a new visual experience of con¬ stantly changing volumes and forms.
The term was initially suggested by Marcel Duchamp for a 1932 Paris exhibition of such works by Alex¬ ander Calder, who became the mobile’s greatest exponent.
Mobile Bay Inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, extending 35 mi (56 km) north to the mouth of the Mobile River in southwestern Alabama, U.S.
It is 8-18 mi (13-29 km) wide and enters the gulf through a dredged channel between Dauphin Island and Mobile Point. During the American Civil War it was the scene of the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Mobile Bay, Battle of (Aug. 5,
1864) Naval engagement in the American Civil War. The Union fleet under David Farragut sailed into Mobile Bay, Ala., breaching the protective string of mines (torpedoes) and engaging the Confederate ironclad Tennessee. After a two-hour battle, the
Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, mobile of painted steel wire and sheet aluminum by Alexander Calder, 1939; in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
COLLECTION, THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, GIF OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Union fleet won control of the bay. With the surrender of nearby Fort Morgan, the former Confederate port of Mobile was sealed off from Con¬ federate blockade runners.
mobilization Organization of a nation’s armed forces for active mili¬ tary service in time of war or other national emergency. It includes recruit¬ ing and training, building military bases and training camps, and procuring and distributing weapons, ammunition, uniforms, equipment, and supplies. Full mobilization involves summoning all of a nation’s resources to support the military effort; for example, civilians may gather raw materials needed by the military, conserve scarce resources such as gasoline for military use, or sell war bonds to fund the war effort.
Mobius Vmoe-be-us,\ English \'mo-be-9s\, August Ferdinand (b. Nov. 17, 1790, Schulpforta, Saxony—d. Sept. 26, 1868, Leipzig) German mathematician and theoretical astronomer. He began teaching at the Uni¬ versity of Leipzig in 1815, and established his reputation with many pub¬ lications. His mathematical papers are chiefly concerned with geometry. He introduced homogeneous coordinates into analytic geometry and dealt with geometric transformations, in particular projective transformations. He was a pioneer in topology; in a memoir discovered after his death he discussed the properties of one-sided surfaces, including the famous Mobius strip.
Mobutu Sese Seko Vma-'bii-tu-'sa-sa-'sa-koV orig. Joseph-Desire
Mobutu (b. Oct. 14, 1930, Lisala, Belgian Congo—d. Sept. 7, 1997, Rabat, Mor.) President of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), 1965-97. Mobutu served in the Belgian Congolese army and as a journalist before joining Patrice Lumumba in independence negotiations in Brussels in 1960. When independence was achieved, the coalition gov¬ ernment of Pres. Joseph Kasavubu and Premier Lumumba put Mobutu in charge of defense. In a rift between Kasavubu and Lumumba, Mobutu helped Kasavubu seize control. Four years later, in a power struggle between Pres. Kasavubu and then Premier Moise Tshombe, Mobutu removed Kasavubu in a coup and assumed the presidency. He established single-party rule and Africanized all European names, changing his own to Mobutu Sese Seko (“All-Powerful Warrior”). His repressive regime failed to spur economic growth; corruption, mismanagement, and neglect led to decline, while Mobutu himself amassed one of the largest personal fortunes in the world. He was overthrown by Laurent Kabila in 1997 and died in exile in Morocco.
mocambo See quilombo
moccasin Either of two species of pit viper: the water moccasin or the Mexican moccasin {Agkistrodon bilineatus). The Mexican moccasin, or cantil, is a dangerous snake of lowland regions from the Rio Grande to Nicaragua. About 3 ft (1 m) long, it is brown or black with narrow, irregular, whitish bars on its back and sides. See also copperhead.
Moche \'mo-cha\ Dominant civilization on the northern coast of present- day Peru in the 1 st-8th centuries ad.
The name comes from the great site of Moche in the Moche River valley, which was apparently the capital of the Moche peoples. Their settle¬ ments extended along northern Peru’s hot, arid coast from the Lam- bayeque River valley south to the Nepena River valley. They irrigated extensively, and their agriculture supported many urban centres, which featured stepped pyramids.
They were skilled metalworkers and produced sophisticated craft goods, including fine mold-made pottery.
The cause of their demise is unknown. See also Andean civiliza¬ tion.
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mockingbird Any of several New World birds of a family (Mimidae) known for their mimicry of birdsong.
The common, or northern, mocking¬ bird ( Mimus polyglottos) can imitate
the songs of 20 or more species within 10 minutes. About 10 in. (27 cm) long, it is gray, with darker, white-marked wings and tail. It ranges from
Mask of copper and gold alloy with eyes of shell, found in the Huaca de la Luna, Moche River valley about 400 bc-ad 600; in the Linden-Museum, Stut¬ tgart, Ger.
FERDINAND ANTON
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Moctezuma II > modernization I 1273
the northern U.S. to Brazil; it has been introduced into Hawaii and thrives in suburban areas. It sings from perches, even at night, and vigorously defends its territory. Other Mimus species range from Central America to Patagonia, and the blue mockingbird (genus Melanotis) inhabits much of Mexico. Various subspecies of the Galapagos mockingbird (genus Neso- mimus ) inhabit the different islands.
Moctezuma II See Montezuma II
modal \'mo-d 9 l\ logic Formal systems incorporating modalities such as necessity, possibility, impossibility, contingency, strict implication, and cer¬ tain other closely related concepts. The most straightforward way of con¬ structing a modal logic is to add to some standard nonmodal logical system a new primitive operator intended to represent one of the modali¬ ties, to define other modal operators in terms of it, and to add axioms and/or transformation rules involving those modal operators. For example, one may add the symbol L, which means “It is necessary that,” to clas¬ sical propositional calculus; thus, Lp is read as “It is necessary that p.” The possibility operator M (“It is possible that”) may be defined in terms of L as Mp = —iL—ip (where —i means “not”). In addition to the axioms and rules of inference of classical propositional logic, such a system might have two axioms and one rule of inference of its own. Some character¬ istic axioms of modal logic are: (Al) Lp z> p and (A2) L(p o q) z> (Lp z> Lq). The new rule of inference in this system is the Rule of Necessita- tion: If p is a theorem of the system, then so is Lp. Stronger systems of modal logic can be obtained by adding additional axioms. Some add the axiom Lp z> LLp; others add the axiom Mp z> LMp.
mode In music, any of a variety of concepts used to classify scales and melodies. In Western music, the term is particularly used for the medieval church modes. Keys in tonal music are normally said to be in either major or minor mode, depending particularly on the third degree of the scale. Indian ragas can be regarded as modes. The concept of mode may involve much more than simply a classification of scales, extending to embrace an entire vocabulary of melodic formulas and perhaps other aspects of music that traditionally occur in tandem with a given set of formulas. The term mode has also been used for purely rhythmic patterns such as those of the Ars Antiqua, which were based on ancient Greek poetic metres.