Freemasonry Teachings and practices of the fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons, the largest worldwide secret society. Originating with the guilds of medieval stonemasons, the organization became an honorary society in the 17th and 18 th century, adopting the rites and trap¬ pings of ancient religious orders and chivalric brotherhoods. The first association of lodges, the Grand Lodge, was founded in England in 1717, and Freemasonry soon spread to other countries in the British Empire. Freemasons took an active role in the American Revolution and later in U.S. politics, and in the 19th century popular fears of their influence led to the Anti-Masonic movement. Membership is extended only to adult males willing to express belief in a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul. In Latin countries, the lodges have often attracted freethink¬ ers and anticlerical types; in Anglo-Saxon nations, membership has mostly been drawn from white Protestants. Freemasonry has also given rise to social organizations such as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Noble Mystic Shrine, or Shriners.
freesia Vfre-zhoV Any of the approximately 20 species of South Afri¬ can plants that make up the genus Freesia, in the iris family, with corms, grassy foliage, and wiry spikes of bell-like, lemon-scented flowers in white, yellow, orange, and blue. The flower spikes usually turn at right angles from the stem, displaying the flowers in a horizontal line. Two spe¬ cies much used in hybridization are F. refracta, greenish-yellow to yel¬ low or white, and F. armstrongii, tinged rose-purple. The plants are grown indoors in pots or in gardens in mild climates.
Freetown Capital (pop., 1999 est.: metro, area: 822,000) and largest city of Sierra Leone. Located at the mouth of the Sierra Leone River, it has the best harbour in western Africa. It was founded in 1787 by an English abolitionist, Granville Sharp, as a haven for freed African slaves from England. Later more freed slaves from Nova Scotia and runaway slaves from Jamaica settled there. Their descendants, known as Creoles, are now outnumbered by Mende and Temne immigrants from the interior. In 1821 Freetown became the seat of government for Britain’s West Afri¬ can possessions. Incorporated as a municipality in 1893, it became Sierra Leone’s capital in 1961. It is the nation’s commercial, educational, and transportation centre. The city sustained extensive damage during the civil war that wracked the country in the 1990s and has seen an increase in population due to the war.
freezing Method of food preservation in which low temperatures (0 °F [-18 °C] or lower) inhibit the growth of microorganisms. Used for cen¬ turies in cold regions, it was not until the advent of mechanical refrigera¬ tion in the mid 19th century that the process became widely applicable commercially. In the 20th century, quick (or flash) freezing was devel¬ oped by Clarence Birdseye. Except for beef and venison, which benefit from an aging process, meat is frozen as promptly as possible after slaughter. Fruits and vegetables are often frozen in a syrup or vacuum-sealed to exclude air and prevent oxidation and desiccation.
freezing point Temperature at which a liquid becomes a solid. When the pressure surrounding the liquid is increased, the freezing point is raised. The addition of some solids can lower the freezing point of a liquid, a principle used when salt is applied to melt ice on frozen surfaces. For pure substances, the freezing point is the same as the melting point. In mixtures and certain organic compounds, the early solid formation changes the composition of the remaining liquid, usually steadily lower¬ ing its freezing point, a principle that is applied in mixture separation. The freezing point of pure water at standard atmospheric pressure is 32°F (0°C). To change a liquid at its freezing point to a solid at the same tem¬ perature, the heat of fusion (see latent heat) must be removed.
Frege Vfra-goV, (Friedrich Ludwig) Gottlob (b. Nov. 8, 1848, Wis- mar, Mecklenburg-Schwerin—d. July 26, 1925, Bad Kleinen, Ger.) Ger¬ man mathematician and logician, inventor of modern mathematical logic and one of the founders of the analytic tradition in philosophy. He taught at the University of Jena from 1871 to 1917. His Begriffsschrift (1879, “Conceptscript”), was the first presentation of a system of mathematical logic in the modem sense. Using an original notation of quantifiers and variables, he was able to give formal expression to sentences containing multiple quantification, such as “Everybody loves someone”; this is impossible in the syllogistic derived from Aristotle, which had been con¬ sidered complete until the time of Immanuel Kant (see predicate calculus). In the Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik he attempted to establish the doc¬ trine later known as logicism. He also made significant contributions to the philosophy OF language, including a highly influential theory of the dis¬ tinction between sense and reference. Though Frege’s work was admired by Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, it was unknown to or ignored by most other philosophers and mathematicians during Frege’s lifetime; its significance was not generally appreciated until the mid-20th century.
Frei \'fra\ (Montalvo), Eduardo (b. Jan. 16, 1911, Santiago, Chile—d. Jan. 22, 1982, Santiago) Chilean politician and president (1964-70). He earned a law degree in 1933, held government posts in the 1940s, ran for president in 1958, and became president as a centre-left candidate in 1964. He offered a moderate program of agrarian reform, economic stabilization, “Chileanization” of U.S.-owned copper interests, and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Though he made marked progress in expanding educational opportunities for the poor, most of his reform efforts failed to achieve their objectives, and his administration was plagued by inflation and labour unrest. His son Eduardo Frei Ruiz- Tagle (b. 1942) served as president from 1994 to 2000. See also Salva¬ dor Allende.
Freiburg \'fn-,burk\ (im Breisgau) City (pop., 2002 est.: 208,294), southwestern Germany. It is situated on the western slopes of the Black Forest. Chartered in 1120, Freiburg passed to the counts of Urach (later Freiburg) in 1218. It was ruled by the Habsburgs from 1368 to 1806, when it passed to Baden. The city was heavily bombed by the Allies during World War II. Since rebuilt, it is now the cultural and economic centre of the Black Forest region. Freiburg is the seat of the Albert Ludwig Uni¬ versity of Freiburg (founded 1457).
Freikorps Vfri-,k6r\ (German: “Free Corps”) Private German paramili¬ tary groups that first appeared in late 1918 after Germany’s defeat in World War I. Composed of ex-soldiers and unemployed youth and led by ex-officers, they eventually included over 65 corps of varying sizes. Most were nationalistic and radically conservative, and they were employed unofficially to put down left-wing revolts throughout Germany. Initially sanctioned by the government, they came to be viewed as a nuisance and a threat and were supplanted by regular army and police or absorbed by new units of the Nazis and other political parties.
Freire \'fra-re\, Paulo (b. Sept. 19, 1921, Recife, Braz.—d. May 2, 1997, Sao Paulo) Brazilian educator. His ideas developed from his expe¬ rience teaching Brazil’s peasants to read. His interactive methods, which encouraged students to question the teacher, often led to literacy in as little as 30 hours of instruction. In 1963 he was appointed director of the Brazilian National Literacy Program, but he was jailed following a mili¬ tary coup in 1964. He went into exile, returning in 1979 to help found the Workers Party. His seminal work was Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970).
Frelinghuysen Vfre-liq- I hI-z 3 n\, Frederick Theodore (b. Aug. 4, 1817, Millstone, N.J., U.S.—d. May 20, 1885, Newark, N.J.) U.S. poli¬ tician. Born into a prominent political family, he helped found the New Jersey Republican Party and served as state attorney general (1861-66). He was appointed, then elected, to the U.S. Senate (1866-69, 1871-77). As secretary of state (1881-85) he obtained Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a U.S. naval base and opened treaty relations with Korea (1882).