the 155 U.S. and Canadian medical colleges, his report (1910) had a sen¬ sational impact; many of the colleges he severely criticized closed, and others revised their policies and curricula. Flexner thereafter channeled over half a billion dollars from the Rockefeller Foundation into improv¬ ing U.S. medical education. In 1930 he founded the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., to which he brought some of the world’s out¬ standing scientists.
Flick, Friedrich (b. July 10, 1883, Ernsdorf, near Bonn, Ger.—d. July 20, 1972, near Lake Constance, Switzerland) German industrialist. Before World War II he built an industrial empire that included iron-ore and coal mines, steel mills, trucks, airplanes, and munitions. He became Adolf Hit¬ ler’s biggest industrial supplier, and at the NOrnberg trials he was con¬ victed of using slave labour in his mines and plants. Though much of his empire was confiscated, he later amassed another fortune in coal and steel, and at the time of his death was probably West Germany’s wealthiest man.
flicker Any of six species of New World woodpeckers (genus Colaptes ) noted for spending much time on the ground eating ants. The sticky saliva of the flicker is alkaline, perhaps to counteract the formic acid that ants secrete. Its bill is more slender than that of most woodpeckers and is slightly down-curved. Most flickers have a white rump, black breast band, and varied head markings, and most are about 13 in. (33 cm) long.
flight recorder Instrument that records the performance and condi¬ tion of an aircraft in flight. Regulatory agencies require these devices on commercial aircraft to make possible the analysis of crashes or other unusual occurrences. They are housed in heavy steel within layers of insulation, protecting them against impacts and fires. The recording tape is also protected against inadvertent erasure and contact with seawater. It records airspeed, altitude, heading, vertical acceleration, and aircraft pitch. It also includes a separate device that records voice communi¬ cation within the aircraft and by radio. Both recorders are carried in the tail of the aircraft.
Flinders, Matthew (b. March 16, 1774, Donington, Lincolnshire, Eng.—d. July 19, 1814, London) British mariner and hydrographer. In two expeditions (1795-99, 1801-03) he circumnavigated Australia and Tasmania, charting their coasts and waters. His Voyage to Terra Australis (1814) recounted his adventures. His name was given to several geo¬ graphic entities in Australia. Funders Petrie was his grandson.
Flinders Ranges Mountain region north of Adelaide, South Australia. Continuing the Mount Lofty Ranges from Gulf St. Vincent, it extends some 500 mi (800 km) to the northeast. The Flinders exceed 3,000 ft (900 m) at several points, reaching 3,842 ft (1,171 m) at St. Mary Peak, the state’s second highest peak. The ranges feature scenic landscapes and include Flinders Ranges National Park and Gammon Ranges National Park.
Flinders River River, Queensland, Australia. It rises on the southwest¬ ern slopes of the Gregory Range and flows west and then north to the Gulf of Carpentaria through two mouths, the second known as the Bynoe River, after a course of 520 mi (837 km). The river’s valley was first settled in 1864; its lands are used in part for raising cattle and sheep. Only its lowest 70 mi (113 km) are usually perennial, with the rest of the river drying up during certain seasons of the year.
flint See CHERT AND FLINT
Flint City (pop., 2000: 124,943), eastern Michigan, U.S. Originally the site of a trading post, the city was laid out in 1836 and became a fur¬ trading and agricultural centre. Abundant supplies of timber led to the development in 1886 of the Durant-Dort Carriage Co., and by 1900 it was producing more than 100,000 horse-drawn vehicles a year. Some of the
Yellow-shafted flicker (Colaptes aura- tus)
B.M. SHAUB
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flintlock ► Florida I 683
companies became suppliers for what would become the General Motors Corp. By the 1950s, the city was second only to Detroit in U.S. automo¬ bile manufacturing. The closing of various GM plants in the 1980s and ’90s left Flint with a shrinking economy. The GMI Engineering and Man¬ agement Institute (1919) and the University of Michigan-Flint (1956) are located there.
flintlock Ignition system for firearms developed in the early 16th cen¬ tury. It superseded the matchlock and the wheel lock and remained in use until the mid-19th century. The most successful version, the true flintlock, was invented in France in the 17th century. When the trigger was pulled, a spring action caused the frizzen (striker) to strike the flint, showering sparks onto the gunpowder in the priming pan; the ignited powder, in turn, fired the main charge in the bore, propelling the ball.
Flodden, Battle of (Sept. 9, 1513) English victory over the Scots, fought in Flodden Field, near Branxton, Northumberland, Eng. To honour his alliance with France and divert troops from the main English army, then in France under Henry VIII, James IV of Scotland crossed the English border on August 22 with an army of about 30,000 men supported by artillery. Henry’s lieutenant, the future 3rd duke of Norfolk, gathered an army of 20,000 and issued a challenge to James, who agreed to fight on September 9. By nightfall the Scottish army had been annihilated and James was dead, together with more than 10,000 of his subjects.
flood High-water stage in which water overflows its natural or artificial banks onto normally dry land, such as a river inundating its floodplain. Uncontrollable floods likely to cause considerable damage commonly result from excessive rainfall in a brief period, but they may also result from ice jams during the spring rise in rivers, and from tsunamis. Com¬ mon measures of flood control include improving channels, constructing protective levees and storage reservoirs, and implementing programs of soil and forest conservation to retard and absorb runoff from storms.
floor Rigid building assembly that divides space horizontally into sto¬ ries. It forms the bottom of a room. It may consist of joist-supported wood planks or panels, decking or panels supported by wood or steel beams, a slab of stone or concrete on the ground, or a reinforced-concrete slab car¬ ried by concrete beams and columns. The floor assembly must support its own dead load plus the live load of occupants, activities, and furnishings. The horizontal supports beneath its top surface—and the vertical supports into which they frame—must be sufficiently large and spaced closely enough to prevent sagging of the assembly.
floor covering Finish material on floors, including wood strips, par¬ quet, linoleum, vinyl, asphalt tile, rubber, cork, epoxy resins, ceramic tile, and carpeting. Wood-strip flooring, attached to a subfloor of plywood, is most popular, especially for residences. Vinyl tiles and sheets have dis¬ placed linoleum in most residential and commercial work. Nonslip rubber and cork are used for commercial and industrial applications. Terrazzo provides a hard, durable surface for public spaces. The Greeks used pebble mosaics as early as the 8th century bc. Tessellated pavement (mosaics of regularly shaped cubes) appeared in the Hellenistic Age and by the 1st century ad had come into popular use in and around buildings through¬ out the Roman empire. Inlaid stone, popular in Byzantine, Renaissance, and Gothic architecture, is now only occasionally applied in lobbies and entrance ways of grand spaces.
floor exercise Event in gymnastics competition consisting of various ballet and tumbling movements (including jumps, somersaults, and hand¬ stands) performed without apparatus. Women’s routines are performed with musical accompaniment, men’s routines without it. The whole rou¬ tine must be performed with rhythm and harmony and must be designed to use a major portion of an area 12 m (39 ft 4 in.) square. It was included as an Olympic medal event for men in 1936 and for women in 1952.
floppy disk or diskette Magnetic storage medium used with com¬ puters. Floppy disks are made of flexible plastic coated with a magnetic material, and are enclosed in a hard plastic case. They are typically 3.5 in. (9 cm) in diameter. Data are arranged on their surfaces in concentric tracks. A disk is inserted in the computer’s floppy disk drive, an assem¬ bly of magnetic heads and a mechanical device for rotating the disk for reading or writing purposes. A small electromagnet, called a magnetic head, writes a binary digit (1 or 0) onto the disk by magnetizing a tiny spot on the disk in different directions, and reads digits by detecting the magnetization direction of the spots. With the increasing use of e-mail attachments and other means to transfer files from computer to computer,