Billroth Vbil-rot\, (Christian Albert) Theodor (b. April 26, 1829, Bergen auf Riigen, Prussia—d. Feb. 6, 1894, Abbazia, Austria-Hungary) Austrian surgeon. He pioneered the study of bacterial causes of wound fever and adopted early the antiseptic techniques that eradicated the threat of fatal surgical infections. The founder of modem surgery of the abdomi¬ nal cavity, he altered and removed organs previously considered inacces¬ sible. In 1872 he was the first to remove part of an esophagus, joining the ends together; later he performed the first complete larynx removal. In 1881, when he had made intestinal surgery almost commonplace, he suc¬ cessfully removed a cancerous pylorus (lower end of the stomach).
Billy the Kid orig. William H. Bonney, Jr., or Henry McCarty
(b. Nov. 23, 1859/60, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. July 14, 1881, Fort Sum¬ ner, N.M.) U.S. criminal. As a child he migrated with his family to Kan¬ sas, then lived in New Mexico from c. 1868. His career of lawlessness throughout the Southwest began early; by the time he was captured by Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1880 he had allegedly killed 27 men. Convicted in New Mexico in 1881 and sentenced to hang, he escaped from jail, kill¬ ing two deputies, and remained at large until Garrett tracked him down and killed him.
Biloxi \bi-'l3k-se, bi-'lak-se\ Coastal city (pop., 2000: 50,644), south¬ eastern Mississippi, U.S. Located east of Gulfport on the Gulf of Mexico, it was first settled as Fort Louis (established 1719); a nearby earlier fort, Fort Maurepas, was the lower Mississippi valley’s first permanent Euro¬ pean settlement (1699). Biloxi has been under the flags of France, Spain, Britain, the West Florida Republic, and the Confederacy. By the late 20th
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Bilqis ► Bingham I 219
century, casino gambling had become its chief industry, augmented by fishing and seafood processing. Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis’s last home, is nearby. Biloxi has been subject to periodic devastating tropical cyclones, notably Hurricanes Camille (1969) and Katrina (2005).
Bilqis See Queen of Sheba
bimetallism Monetary standard or system based on the use of two metals, traditionally gold and silver, rather than one (monometallism). In the 19th century, a bimetallic system defined a nation’s monetary unit by law in terms of fixed quantities of gold and silver (thus automatically establishing a rate of exchange between the two metals). The system pro¬ vided a free and unlimited market for the two metals, imposed no restric¬ tions on the use and coinage of either metal, and made all other money in circulation redeemable in either gold or silver. Because each nation inde¬ pendently set its own rate of exchange between the two metals, the result¬ ing rates of exchange often differed widely from country to country. When the ratio of the official prices proved different from the ratio of prices in the open market, Gresham's law operated in such a way that coins of only one metal remained in circulation. A monometallic system using the gold standard proved more responsive to changes in supply and demand and was widely adopted after 1867. See also exchange rate; silver standard.
bin Laden, Osama (b. 1957, Riyadh, Saud.Ar.) Leader of a broad- based Islamic extremist movement implicated in numerous acts of ter¬ rorism against the U.S. and other Western countries. The son of a wealthy Saudi family, he joined the Muslim resistance in Afghanistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion of that country. Following his homecoming, he became enraged at the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War (1990-91) and, through a network of like-minded Islamic militants known as al-Qaeda, launched a series of terrorist attacks. These acts included the bombings of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the U.S. warship Cole in Aden, Yemen, in 2000. A self-styled Islamic scholar, bin Laden issued several legal opinions calling on Muslims to take up jihad (holy war) against the U.S., and in 2001 a group of militants under his direction launched the September 11 attacks, which led to the deaths of some 3,000 people. The U.S. thereafter demanded bin Laden’s extra¬ dition from Afghanistan, where he was sheltered by that country’s Tali¬ ban militia, and launched attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda forces when that ultimatum was not met. With the collapse of the Taliban, bin Laden and his associates went into hiding.
binary code Code used in digital computers, based on a binary number system in which there are only two possible states, off and on, usually symbolized by 0 and 1. Whereas in a decimal system, which employs 10 digits, each digit position represents a power of 10 (100, 1,000, etc.), in a binary system each digit position represents a power of 2 (4, 8, 16, etc.). A binary code signal is a series of electrical pulses that represent num¬ bers, characters, and operations to be performed. A device called a clock sends out regular pulses, and components such as transistors switch on (1) or off (0) to pass or block the pulses. In binary code, each decimal number (0-9) is represented by a set of four binary digits, or bits. The four fundamental arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) can all be reduced to combinations of fundamental Bool¬ ean algebraic operations (see Boolean algebra) on binary numbers.
binary star Pair of stars in orbit around a common centre of gravity. Their relative sizes and brightnesses and the distance between them vary widely. Perhaps half of all stars in the Milky Way Galaxy are binaries or members of more complex multiple systems. Some binaries form a class of variable stars (see eclipsing variable star). Stars can be identified as bina¬ ries in various ways—visually by telescope, through spectroscopic obser¬ vation, by changes in apparent brightness (when the dimmer star eclipses its companion), or by changes in the proper motion of the visible member (owing to the gravitational pull of the invisible companion).
binding energy Energy required to separate a particle from a system of particles or to disperse all the particles of a system. Nuclear binding energy is the energy required to separate an atomic nucleus into its con¬ stituent protons and neutrons. It is also the energy that would be released by combining individual protons and neutrons into a single nucleus. Elec¬ tron binding energy, or ionization potential, is the energy required to remove an electron from an atom, molecule, or ion, and also the energy released when an electron joins an atom, molecule, or ion. The binding energy of a single proton or neutron in a nucleus is about a million times greater than that of a single electron in an atom.
bindweed Any plant of the closely related genera Convolvulus and Calystegia , mostly twining, often weedy, and producing funnel-shaped flowers. Bellbine, or greater bindweed ( Calystegia sepium), native in Eur¬ asia and North America, is a twining perennial that grows from creeping, underground stems and is common in hedges and woods and along road¬ sides. Sea bindweed (C. soldanella ) creeps along European seaside sand and gravel. Several Convolvulus species are widespread or conspicuous. The weedy perennial field bindweed (C. arvensis), European but widely naturalized in North America, twines around crop plants and along road¬ sides. Scammony, a purgative, is derived from the rhizomes of C. scam- monia, a trailing perennial native to western Asia. Rosewood oil comes from certain species of Convolvulus.
Binet \bi-'na\, Alfred (b. July 8, 1857, Nice, France—d. Oct. 18, 1911, Paris) French psychologist. His interest in Jean-Martin Charcot’s work on hypnosis prompted him to abandon a law career and study medicine at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris (1878-91). He served as director of a research laboratory at the Sorbonne (1895-1911). A major figure in the development of experimental psychology in France, he founded L 'Annie Psychologique, the first French journal on psychology, in 1895. He devel¬ oped experimental techniques to measure reasoning ability; between 1905 and 1911 he and Theodore Simon developed influential scales for the measurement of intelligence of children. His works include Experimen¬ tal Study of Intelligence (1903) and A Method of Measuring the Devel¬ opment of the Intelligence of Young Children (1915).