sunfish Any of numerous species o carnivorous freshwater fishes placed with the crappies and black basses in the family Centrarchidae. Usually less than 8 in. (20 cm) long, sun- fishes are fine food and game fishes.
The best-known are the black- banded sunfish ( Enneacanthus cha- etodon) of the eastern U.S. and the bluegill ( Lepomis macrochirus), which has an orange belly and blue markings. The longear sunfish has orange spots and wavy, bright blue streaks. The pumpkinseed, or com¬ mon sunfish, has an orange belly and a red spot on its ear. The rock bass has irregular dark markings.
sunflower Any of 60 species of annual herbaceous plants in the genus Helianthus (composite family), native mostly to North and South America. The common sunflower (H. annuus ) has a rough, hairy stem 3—15 ft (1^1.5 m) high; broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves 3-12 in. (7.5-30 cm) long; and large (3-6
brightly coloured North American
Pumpkinseed sunfish (Lepomis gibbo- sus).
JACQUES SIX
, ✓ *
Sunflower (Helianthus annuus).
JOHN H. GERARD
in., or 7.5-15 cm, in diameter), flat, platelike compound flowers. Disk flowers swirl in a tight brown, yellow, or purple spiral; ray flowers are yellow. The leaves are used as fodder, the flowers yield a yellow dye, and the seeds contain oil and are used for food. The oil is used for cooking, as an ingredient of soaps and paints, and as a lubricant. Only a few spe¬ cies are cultivated, some for their spectacular size.
Sung-chiang See Songjiang Sung dynasty See Song dynasty Sung-hua Chiang See Sungari River
Sungari \ 1 suq-g3- , re\ River Chinese Songhua Vsurj-'hwaV Jiang or Sung-hua Chiang River, northeastern China. Rising in the Changbai Mountains, it is joined by its chief tributary, the Nen River, before it enters the Amur River 1,197 mi (1,927 km) later. The Amur’s largest tributary, it passes through a fertile plain and is navigable for much of its course.
sunna \'su-no\ Body of traditional social and legal custom and practice that constitutes proper observance of Islam. Early Muslims did not concur on what constituted sunna, because of the wide variety of pre-Islamic prac¬ tices among converted peoples that had to be assimilated, reconciled, or abandoned. In the 8th century the sunna of Muhammad, as preserved in eye¬ witness records, was codified as the Hadith by AbO ‘Abd Allah Shaf'iI. Later Muslim scholars strengthened the authority of sunna by devising a system for attesting the authenticity of various practices claimed as descending from Muhammad. See also ‘ilm al-hadith; isnad; SharI'ah; tafsIr.
Sunnite \'su-,nlt\ Larger of the two major divisions of Islam, compris¬ ing 90% of the world’s Muslims. Sunnites regard theirs as the mainstream and traditionalist branch of Islam, as distinguished from the minority branch, the SHfiTEs. Sunnites recognize the first four Umayyad caliphs (see Umayyad dynasty) as Muhammad’s rightful successors. Because the Sun¬ nites understood Muhammad’s theocratic state to have been an earthly, temporal dominion, they were willing to accept unexceptional and even foreign caliphs, provided order and religious orthodoxy were maintained. Sunnite orthodoxy emphasizes consensus based on the views and customs of the majority of the community, thereby enabling them to incorporate various customs and usages that arose historically but that had no roots in the Qur’an. Sunnites recognize the six authentic books of the HadIth and accept the four major schools of Islamic law. In the early 21st cen¬ tury, Sunnite Muslims numbered about one billion.
Sunnyvale City (pop., 2000: 131,760), western California, U.S. Sunny¬ vale was settled in 1850 and was incorporated in 1912. It was originally a fruit-processing centre; its economic base shifted when the U.S. Navy built a dirigible base nearby in the 1930s and the Joshua Hendy Iron Works (later Westinghouse Electric Corp.) expanded in 1942. Its popula¬ tion grew rapidly in the 1960s. Chief manufactures include guided mis¬ siles.
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Preserve, north- central Arizona, U.S. Established in 1930, the monument covers 5 sq mi (13 sq km) and contains the brilliant-hued cinder cone of an extinct vol¬ cano that erupted c. 1064. It rises 1,000 ft (300 m) and has a crater 400 ft (120 m) deep and 1,280 ft (390 m) in diameter. The tract contains numerous lava flows, fumaroles, and lava beds.
sunspot Cooler-than-average region of gas on the Sun’s surface asso¬ ciated with strong local magnetic activity. Sunspots appear as dark spots, but only in contrast with the surrounding photosphere, which is several thousand degrees hotter. Spots several times larger than Earth are visible to the unaided eye (viewed through a filter); very small ones are hard to see even with a telescope. They come and go as part of the solar cycle, usually in pairs or groups, and may last for months; their cause appears to be related to the magnetic field reversals that occur every 11 years. The reality of these apparent flaws in the Sun was generally accepted only c. 1611. Periods of high sunspot activity are associated on Earth with brighter auroras and interference with radio signals.
SUNY See State University of New York
Sunzi or Sun-tzu \'sun-'dzu\ (fl. 5th century bc) Chinese military strat¬ egist. A general who served the state of Wu late in the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 bc), he is traditionally regarded as the author of the ear¬ liest known treatise on war and military science, The Art of War , though it was more likely written early in the Warring States period (475-221 bc). A systematic guide to strategy and tactics, it discusses various maneuvers
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
1846 I Super Bowl ► supply and demand
and the effect of terrain, stresses the importance of accurate information about the enemy’s forces, and emphasizes the unpredictability of battle and the need for flexible responses. Its insistence on the close relation¬ ship between political considerations and military policy influenced mod¬ ern strategists, notably Mao Zedong.
Super Bowl Annual championship game of the National Football League. It is played by the winners of the league’s American Football Conference and National Football Conference. The first Super Bowl com¬ petition was held in 1967. It normally falls in January, usually on the last Sunday, and is watched by more Americans than any other sporting event.
supercharger Air compressor or blower used in piston-type internal- combustion engines to increase the amount of air drawn into the cylinders by the movement of the pistons during each intake stroke. With the addi¬ tional air, more fuel is burned, and the engine’s power is increased. In aircraft engines, supercharging compensates for the reduced atmospheric pressure at high altitudes. Development of the gas turbine, which requires a constant flow of air and fuel, led to the turbosupercharger, a centrifugal blower driven by a small gas turbine powered by the exhaust gases from the engine cylinders.
supercomputer Any of a class of extremely powerful digital comput¬ ers. The term is commonly applied to the fastest high-performance sys¬ tems available at a given time; current personal computers are more powerful than the supercomputers of just a few years ago. Supercomput¬ ers are used primarily for scientific and engineering work. Unlike con¬ ventional computers, they usually have more than one CPU, often functioning in parallel (simultaneously); even higher-performance super¬ computers are now being developed through use of massively parallel processing, incorporating thousands of individual processors. Supercom¬ puters have huge storage capacity and very fast input/output capability, and can operate in parallel on corresponding elements of arrays of num¬ bers rather than on one pair of elements at a time.