Vauban \vo-'ba n \, Sebastien Le Presire de (b. May 15, 1633, Saint-Leger-de-Foucherest, France—d. March 30, 1707, Paris) French military engineer. After fighting with the forces of the Conde family (1651— 53), he switched to the royalist side and joined the newly formed engi¬ neer corps, becoming engineer in chief at the siege of Gravelines (1658). He designed fortifications for numerous French towns and outposts and devised tactics that led to many successes in the French wars of Louis XIV’s reign; his innovations revolutionized the art of siege tactics and defensive fortification. He also introduced the tactic of ricochet gunfire and invented the socket bayonet. His treatises on fortification and siege-craft were stud¬ ied for more than 100 years. He was made a marshal of France in 1703.
Vaucanson \vo-kau- , so I1 \ / Jacques de (b. Feb. 24, 1709, Grenoble, France—d. Nov. 21, 1782, Paris) French inventor. In 1739 he constructed an automaton, “The Duck,” which imitated not only the motions of a live duck but also the motions of drinking, eating, and “digesting.” An inspec¬ tor of silk manufacture, Vaucanson automated the loom by means of per¬ forated cards that guided hooks connected to the warp yams (see weaving). His innovation was ignored for decades until J.-M. Jacquard reconstructed and improved on it; the Jacquard loom became one of the most impor¬ tant inventions of the Industrial Revolution.
Vaucheria \vo-'kir-e-9\ Genus of yellow-green algae. It is character¬ ized by oil food reserves and tubular branches that have multiple nuclei and lack cross-walls except in association with reproductive organs or an injury. Vaucheria reproduce both asexually and sexually. The spherical female sex organ and the slender, hook-shaped male sex organ are usu¬ ally produced on branches close to each other. After fertilization, the zygote may enter a resting phase for several weeks before developing into a new plant. Though most species occur in freshwater or are terrestrial, some are marine and others live in ice.
vaudeville \'v6d-,vil\ Light entertainment popular in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It consisted of 10-15 unrelated acts featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, singers, and dancers. The form developed from the coarse variety shows held in beer halls for a primarily male audience. Tony Pastor established a successful “clean variety show” at his New York City theatre in 1881 and influenced other managers to follow suit. By 1900 chains of vaudeville theatres around the country included Martin Beck’s Orpheum Circuit, of which New York’s Palace Theatre was the most famous (1913-32). Among the many entertainers who began in vaudeville were Mae West, W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Milton Berle, and Bob Hope. See also music hall and vari¬ ety THEATRE.
Vaugelas \vo-zho-Ta\, Claude Favre, lord de (b. Jan. 6, 1585, Meximieux, France—d. February 1650, Paris) French grammarian. He played a major role in standardizing the French language of literature and of polite society. His Remarks on the French Language, Useful for Those Who Wish to Speak Well and Write Well (1647) became an authoritative
guide to French usage, and his writings formed the basis of the rules for pure and elegant French promulgated by the Academie Francaise, of which he was an original member.
Vaughan Won, 'van\, Henry (b. April 17, 1622, Llansantffraed, Breconshire, Wales—d. April 23, 1695, Llansantffraed) Anglo-Welsh poet and mystic. Vaughan studied law but from the 1650s practiced medicine. After writing two volumes of secular poems, he read the religious poet George Herbert and gave up “idle verse.” He is chiefly remembered for the spiritual vision or imagination evident in his fresh and convincing religious verse and is considered one of the major practitioners of Meta¬ physical poetry. Works that reveal the depth of his religious convictions include Silex Scintillans (1650, enlarged 1655; “The Glittering Flint”) and the prose Mount of Olives (1652). He also translated short moral and reli¬ gious works and two medical works.
Vaughan, Sarah (Lois) (b. March 27, 1924, Newark, N.J., U.S.—d. April 3, 1990, Hidden Hills, Calif.)
U.S. jazz singer. Vaughan won an amateur contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre in 1942 and soon joined Earl Hines’s big band as vocalist and sec¬ ond pianist. Joining Billy Eckstine’s band in 1944, she gained exposure to the new bebop style; she was espe¬ cially influenced by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and recorded with them in 1945. Alternating between popular song and jazz, she worked as a soloist for the rest of her career. A vast range and wide vibrato in the service of her harmonic sensitivity enabled Vaughan to use her voice with a seemingly instrumental approach, often improvising as a jazz soloist.
Vaughan Williams \v6n-'wil-y3ms\, Ralph (b. Oct. 12,1872, Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, Eng.—d. Aug. 26, 1958, London) British com¬ poser. He attended the Royal College of Music and Cambridge Univer¬ sity, and he also studied in Berlin with the composer Max Bruch. Having collected English folk songs for his academic work, he combined folk melody with modern approaches to harmony and rhythm, forging a musi¬ cal style at once highly personal and deeply English. His nine sympho¬ nies, including Sea Symphony (1909), London Symphony (1913), and Sinfonia Antarctica (1952), were his most exploratory works. Other popu¬ lar pieces include The Lark Ascending (1914) and Serenade to Music (1938); he also wrote five operas, including Riders to the Sea (1936). He conducted extensively throughout his life, and he edited The English Hym¬ nal (1904-06).
vault In building construction, an arched structure forming a ceiling or roof. The masonry vault exerts the same kind of thrust as the arch, and must be supported along its entire length by heavy walls with limited openings. The basic barrel vault, in effect a continuous series of arches, first appeared in ancient Egypt and the Middle East. Roman architects discovered that two barrel vaults intersecting at right angles (a groin vault) could, when repeated in series, span rectangular areas of unlimited length. Because the groin vault’s thrusts are concentrated at the four comers, its supporting walls need not be massive. Medieval European builders devel¬ oped the rib vault, a skeleton of arches or ribs on which the masonry could be laid. The fan vault, popular in the English Perpendicular style, used fan¬ shaped clusters of tracery-like ribs springing from pendants or columns. The 19th century saw the use of large iron skeletons as frameworks for vaults of lightweight materials (see Crystal Palace). An important modern innovation is the reinforced-concrete shell vault, which, if its length is three or more times its transverse section, behaves as a deep beam and exerts no lateral thrust. See illustration opposite.
vaulting Gymnastics exercise in which the athlete leaps over a form that was originally intended to mimic a horse. At one time, the pommel horse was used in the vaulting exercise, with the pommels (handles) removed. The sanctioning body for gymnastic sport, the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), decreed in 2001 that a vaulting table would be intro¬ duced to replace the horse. In men’s vaulting the height of the table is 1.35 m (4.43 ft) from the floor; for women, the height is 1.20 m (3.94 ft). A
Sarah Vaughan.
© HERB SNITZER
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Vavilov ► Veda I 1991
Reuther board, a type of springboard, is placed in front of the near end of the apparatus. The gymnast runs, gathers momentum while nearing the apparatus, rebounds off the springboard, and, supporting the hands on the apparatus, vaults over it and performs an acrobatic maneuver.