French Shore Area, coast of Newfoundland, Canada. French fisher¬ men were allowed by the English to fish and to dry their catch in the region after France gave up all other claims to Newfoundland in 1713. As defined by the Treaty of Paris (1783), the French Shore extended west around the island from Cape St. John in the north to Cape Ray in the southwest. In the 1880s Newfoundland began to develop a lobster fishery, and the treaty came under dispute. France sold its claims to the territory in 1904.
French Socialist Party originally (1905-69) French Section of the Workers' International Political party, founded in 1905, that supported far-reaching nationalization of the economy. Socialism in France evolved from such 19th-century theorists as Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Louis Auguste Blanqui, and Louis Blanc and from the activi¬ ties of French Marxists. Led by Jean Jaures, the party grew quickly, though it suffered a setback with the separation of the left wing into the French Communist Party (1920). In the 1930s the French Socialist Party was cen¬ tral to Leon Blum’s Popular Front government. In World War II the party participated in the Resistance and cooperated with Charles de Gaulle, emerging after the war as France’s second largest party. It soon lost strength; in 1969 it won only 5% of the vote. Renamed the Socialist Party in 1969, it was revived by Francois Mitterrand and adopted more mod¬ erate policies, but it lost its dominant position in the 1990s. The 2002 elections proved disastrous for the Socialists, who won less than one- fourth of the seats in the National Assembly.
French Somaliland See Djibouti
French Union Political entity created by the constitution of 1946 of the Fourth Republic. It replaced the French colonial empire with a semifederal entity that absorbed the colonies (overseas departments and territories) and gave former protectorates limited local autonomy, with some voice in decision making in Paris. By the constitution of 1958, the French Union was replaced by the French Community.
French West Africa Former federation of French dependencies, west¬ ern Africa. It consisted of what are now the independent republics of Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. The capital was at Dakar. The federation was established in 1895 and dissolved 1958-59. By 1960 the former colonial territories had become independent republics.
Freneau \fre-'no\, Philip (Morin) (b. Jan. 2, 1752, New York, N.Y.—d. Dec. 18, 1832, Monmouth county, N.J., U.S.) U.S. poet, essay¬ ist, and editor, known as the “poet of the American Revolution.” After the outbreak of the revolution he began to write anti-British satire. Not until his return from two years in the Caribbean, during which he wrote such poems as “The Beauties of Santa Cruz” and “The House of Night,” did he become an active participant in the war. He was captured and impris¬ oned by the British, an experience he bitterly recounted in the poem “The British Prison-Ship” (1781).
Freon Trademark for any of several organic compounds containing fluo¬ rine (fluorocarbons) and sometimes chlorine (chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs). Nonflammable, nontoxic, and noncorrosive, they have low boil¬ ing points, which makes them useful as refrigerants. By the mid-1970s they were in wide use in refrigeration and air conditioning systems, as blowing agents for plastic foams, as fire-extinguishing agents, and in
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712 I frequency ► Freyr
aerosol sprays. Evidence has accumulated that decomposition of CFCs in the stratosphere destroys ozone there (see ozone layer), so most of their uses have been banned. International agreements signed by most of the industrialized countries have called for the phasing out of CFC use.
frequency Number of waves that pass a fixed point per unit time; also, the number of cycles or vibrations undergone in unit time by a body in periodic motion. Frequency /is the reciprocal of the time T taken to com¬ plete one cycle (the period), or 1 IT. The frequency with which earth rotates is once per 24 hours. Frequency is usually expressed in units called hertz (Hz). One hertz is equal to one cycle per second; one kilohertz (kHz) is 1,000 Hz, and one megahertz (MHz) is 1,000,000 Hz. The musical pitch A above middle C (the A string of a violin) has been widely standardized as 440 Hz.
frequency distribution In statistics, a graph or data set organized to show the frequency of occurrence of each possible outcome of a repeat- able event observed many times. Simple examples are election returns and test scores listed by percentile. A frequency distribution can be graphed as a histogram or pie chart. For large data sets, the stepped graph of a histogram is often approximated by the smooth curve of a distribu¬ tion function (called a density function when normalized so that the area under the curve is 1). The famed bell curve or normal distribution is the graph of one such function. Frequency distributions are particularly use¬ ful in summarizing large data sets and assigning probabilities.
frequency modulation See FM
fresco painting Method of wall painting in which water-based pig¬ ments are applied to wet, freshly laid lime plaster. The dry-powder colours, when mixed with water, penetrate the surface and become a per¬ manent part of the wall. This technique is also known as buon fresco, or “true fresco,” to distinguish it from fresco secco, or “dry fresco” (paint¬ ing on dry plaster). Early Minoan, Greek, and Roman wall paintings were frescoes. The Italian Renaissance was the greatest period of fresco paint¬ ing, as seen in the works of Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Correggio, and others. Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s in the Vatican are the most famous of all. By the 18th century, fresco had been largely replaced by oil painting. In the early 20th cen¬ tury it was revived by Diego Rivera and others, often as a medium for political art. Fresco painting is also found in China and India.
Frescobaldi \,fres-k3-'bal-de\, Girolamo (b. September 1583, Fer¬ rara, Papal States—d. March 1, 1643, Rome) Italian composer and organ¬ ist. In 1608 he became organist at St. Peter’s, where, except for a six-year sojourn at the Florentine court, he would remain the rest of his life. He was highly celebrated for both his playing and his diverse and ingenious compositions. He wrote numerous toccatas, ricercars, and canzones for organ and harpsichord, along with many sacred vocal works and secular songs. His most famous work is Fiori musicali (1635), a large collection of organ music for the mass.
Fresnel lens \fr3-'nel\ Series of concentric rings, each consisting of a thin part of a simple lens, assembled on a flat surface. G.-L.-L. Buffon (1748) first had the idea of dividing a lens surface into concentric rings to reduce the weight. In 1820 his idea was adopted by Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827) for the construction of lighthouse lenses. Fresnel lenses have the optical properties of much thicker and heavier lenses. They are used in spotlights, floodlights, railroad and traffic signals, and deco¬ rative lights. Some thin Fresnel lenses are molded in plastic, the width of the rings being only a few thousandths of an inch; such lenses are used in cameras and small projectors.
Fresno Vfrez-no\ City (pop., 2000: 427,652), central California, U.S. Located in the San Joaquin River valley, it was settled in 1872 as a sta¬ tion on the Central Pacific Railroad and became an agricultural commu¬ nity in the 1880s. A marketing and shipping centre, it processes cotton, grain, fruits, wines, and dairy products. It is headquarters of the Sierra National Forest and a gateway to resort areas of the Sierra Nevadas. It is the home of California State University, Fresno (1911).