Robinson, Sugar Ray orig. Walker Smith, Jr. (b. May 3, 1921, Detroit, Mich., U.S.—d. April 12, 1989, Culver City, Calif.) U.S. boxer. Robinson began boxing in high school in New York City and won all of his 89 amateur fights. He was six times a world champion, once (1946- 51) as a welterweight (147 lbs) and five times (1951-60) as a middle¬ weight (160 lbs). In 201 professional bouts, he made 109 knockouts. He suffered only 19 defeats, most when he was past 40. His outstanding abil¬ ity and flamboyant personality made him a hero of boxing fans through¬ out the world, and he is sometimes considered the best fighter in history.
robot Any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it may not look much like a human being or function v in a human¬ like manner. The term comes from the play R.U.R. by Karel Capek (1920). Major developments in microelectronics and computer technology since the 1960s have led to significant advances in robotics. Advanced, high- performance robots are used today in automobile manufacturing and air¬ craft assembly, and electronics firms use robotic devices together with other computerized instruments to sort or test finished products.
robotics Design, construction, and use of machines (robots) to perform tasks done traditionally by human beings. Robots are widely used in such industries as automobile manufacture to perform simple repetitive tasks, and in industries where work must be performed in environments haz¬ ardous to humans. Many aspects of robotics involve artificial intelligence; robots may be equipped with the equivalent of human senses such as vision, touch, and the ability to sense temperature. Some are even capable of simple decision making, and current robotics research is geared toward devising robots with a degree of self-sufficiency that will permit mobility and decision-making in an unstructured environment. Today’s industrial robots do not resemble human beings; a robot in human form is called an android.
Roca Vro-koV, Cape Promontory in Portugal. The westernmost point of continental Europe, Cape Roca lies on the Atlantic coast northwest of Lis-
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
1630 I rocaille ► rock music
BON. Known to the Romans as Promontorium Magnum, the cape is a nar¬ row granite cliff, 472 ft (144 m) high, forming the western end of the Sintra Mountains.
rocaille \ro-'kI\ French rock work In Western architecture and deco¬ rative arts, an 18th-century style featuring elaborately stylized shell-like, rocklike, flower, fern, and scroll motifs. Originally designating the fan¬ ciful shellwork of artificial grottoes, rocaille came to be synonymous with Louis XV style. It is most often found in small pieces of furniture and such personal articles as snuffboxes. The term “Rococo” combines “rocaille” and “barocco” (Baroque).
Rochambeau X.ro-.sham-'boV, Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, count de (b. July 1, 1725, Vendome, France—d. May 10, 1807, Thore) French army officer. He served in the War of the Austrian Succession and became a brigadier general in 1761. He was put in com¬ mand of a French army of 6,000 sent to join the Continental Army in the American Revolution (1780). After waiting in vain for French naval sup¬ port, he joined forces with George Washington at White Plains, N.Y., in 1781. They marched to Yorktown, where they besieged British troops and forced their surrender. He returned to France (1783), where he com¬ manded the Army of the North in the French Revolution and was made a marshal of France.
Roche \'rosh\, (Eamonn) Kevin (b. June 14, 1922, Dublin, Ire.) Irish- born U.S. architect. After studying under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, he became Eero Saarinen’s principal design associate. After Saarinen’s death in 1961, Roche and John Dinkeloo (1918-81) completed Saarinen’s unfinished projects, including the Dulles International Airport Terminal Building, near Washington, D.C. (1962), and St. Louis’s Gateway Arch (1965). The two launched their own firm in 1966; their approach, though similar to Saarinen’s, resulted in simpler geometric forms. Well-known works by Roche and Dinkeloo include the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York City (1968), General Foods headquarters in Rye, N.Y. (1977), and the Bouygues world headquarters outside Paris (1983). Roche received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1982.
Roche, Mazo de la See Mazo de la Roche
Roche \'rosh\ limit Minimum distance at which a large natural satellite can orbit its primary body without being torn apart by tidal forces. If sat¬ ellite and primary are of similar composition, the theoretical limit is about 2.5 times the radius of the larger body. The rings of Saturn, for example, lie inside Saturn’s Roche limit and may be the debris of a demolished moon. The limit was first calculated by the French astronomer Edouard Roche (1820-53) in 1850.
Rochefoucauld, duke de La See Frangois VI, duke de La Roche¬ foucauld
Rochester City (pop., 2000: 219,773) and port, northwestern New York, U.S. Founded in 1811 and incorporated as a city in 1834, it became a boomtown with construction of the Erie Canal and rail connections. It was the home of Margaret and Kate Fox, spiritualists who attracted world attention in the 1840s with their seances known as the “Rochester rap- pings.” Frederick Douglass published his antislavery newspaper there in 1847, and the city was a terminus of the Underground Railroad. Susan B. Anthony lived there (1866-1906). In the 1890s George Eastman devel¬ oped photographic equipment there; the city’s manufacturing still includes cameras and photographic equipment. It is a cultural and educational cen¬ tre and the home of the University of Rochester, the Eastman School of Music, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Rochester, John Wilmot, 2nd earl of (b. April 10, 1647, Ditch- ley Manor House, Oxfordshire, Eng.—d. July 26, 1680, Woodstock, Oxfordshire) English poet and wit. The most notorious debauchee of the Restoration court, Rochester was also its best poet and one of the most original and powerful English satirists. A Satyr Against Mankind (1675) is a scathing denunciation of rationalism and optimism that contrasts human perfidy with animal wisdom, and “History of Insipids” (1676) is a devastating attack on the government of Charles II. In 1680 he became ill, experienced a religious conversion, and recanted his past, ordering “all his profane and lewd writings” burned. His single dramatic work is Val- entinian (1685).
rock In geology, a naturally occurring and coherent aggregate of miner¬ als. The three major classes of rock— igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic —are based on the processes that formed them. These three
classes are further subdivided on the basis of various factors, especially chemical, mineralogical, and textural attributes (see e.g., acid and basic rocks; crystalline rock; extrusive rock). See also felsic rock; intrusive rock;
MAFIC ROCK.
rock See rock music
rock art Ancient or prehistoric drawing, painting, or similar work on or of stone. Rock art includes pictographs (drawings or paintings), petro- glyphs (carvings or inscriptions), engravings (incised motifs), petroforms (rocks laid out in patterns), and geoglyphs (ground drawings). The ancient animals, tools, and human activities depicted often help shed light on daily life in the distant past, though the images are frequently symbolic. Some¬ times a single site may have art that dates from several centuries. Rock art may have played a role in prehistoric religion, possibly in connection with ancient myths or the activities of shamans. Important sites occur in southern Africa, Europe, North America, and Australia.