Frost, Sir David (Paradine) (b. April 7, 1939, Tenterden, Kent, Eng.) British television producer. He worked in television from 1961 and hosted several programs in the U.S. and Britain, including That Was the Week That Was (1962-63) and The Frost Reports (1966-67). He con¬ ducted interviews with world leaders on The David Frost Show (1969- 72), winning two Emmy Awards. He was a cofounder of London Weekend Television and in 1983 of Britain’s TV-AM.
Frost, Robert (Lee) (b. March 26, 1874, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.—d. Jan. 29, 1963, Boston, Mass.) U.S. poet. Frost’s family moved to New England early in his life. After stints at Dartmouth College and Har¬ vard University and a difficult period as a teacher and farmer, he moved to England and published his first collections, A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914). At the outbreak of war he returned to New England. He closely observed rural life and in his poetry endowed it with universal, even metaphysical, meaning, using colloquial language, familiar rhythms, and common symbols to express both its pastoral ideals and its dark com¬ plexities. His collections include New Hampshire (1923, Pulitzer Prize), Collected Poems (1930, Pulitzer Prize), A Further Range (1936, Pulitzer Prize), and A Witness Tree (1942, Pulitzer Prize). He was unique among American poets of the 20th century in simultaneously achieving wide
popularity and deep critical admira¬ tion. Many of his poems, including “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Birches,” “The Death of the Hired Man,” “Dust of Snow,”
“Fire and Ice,” and “Home Burial,” are widely anthologized.
frostbite Freezing of living tissue, when it loses enough heat in below- freezing weather for ice to form.
High winds, wet skin, tight clothes, and alcohol use increase the risk of frostbite. Cell damage, tissue dehy¬ dration, and oxygen depletion caused by freezing and thawing can lead to blood-cell disruption, clotting in cap¬ illaries, and gangrene. The toes, fin¬ gers, ears, and nose are usually affected first, becoming cold, hard, white, or bloodless. The lack of pain is dangerous. Core temperature should be brought to near normal before rapid thawing in warm (under 115 °F [46 °C]) water. Toxoid booster injections are recommended. The outlook is best when freezing is short-term, thawing is by rapid rewarming, and large blisters extending to the end of the part develop early. Tissue that is refro¬ zen after thawing must almost always be amputated. Affected parts become more susceptible to recurrence. Frostbite is best prevented by wearing dry, layered, loose clothing and remaining alert. See also hypothermia.
froth flotation See flotation
frottage \fro-'tazh\ French "rubbing" Technique of obtaining an impression of a raised, incised, or textured surface by placing a piece of paper over it and rubbing it with a soft pencil or crayon. Brass rubbings taken from gravestones and funerary monuments are obtained in this way. Max Ernst pioneered the technique in the 20th century. It was much favoured by the Surrealists, since it provided a point of departure for a painting or collage expressing the imagery of the subconscious.
Froude Vfriid\, James Anthony (b. April 23, 1818, Dartington, Devon, Eng.—d. Oct. 20, 1894, Kingsbridge, Devon) English historian and biographer. He was influenced by the Oxford Movement, which sought a renewal of Roman Catholic practices within the Church of England, but later broke with it. Among his historical works, which display both care¬ lessness and his anti-Catholic bias, the best known is History of England from the Fall ofWolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1856—70), which fundamentally altered the direction of Tudor studies. Immensely prolific, he was attacked by reviewers but was popular with the reading public. He later produced a biography (1882-84) of his friend Thomas Carlyle.
Froude, William (b. Nov. 28, 1810, Dartington, Devon, Eng.—d. May 4, 1879, Simonstown, S.Af.) British engineer and naval architect. He was the brother of James Anthony Froude. In 1837 he became an assistant to I.K. Brunel, for whom he oversaw railway construction. For the British Admiralty he conducted experiments using scale models of ships to deter¬ mine the physical laws governing full-sized ships, using a testing tank he built at his home. The Froude number, expressed as the ratio of a vessel’s velocity to the square root of the product of its waterline length and the acceleration of gravity, is still used by marine architects to predict the behaviour of ships from scale models.
Fructidor \fnBk-te-'dor,\ English Vfrsk-ti-.dorX, Coup of 1 8 (Sept. 4, 1799) Purge of conservatives during the French Directory period. Fearing it was losing popularity, the government sent Gen. Pierre F.C. Augereau to command troops guarding the legislative assembly at the Tuileries. On 18 Fructidor, Year V, in the republican calendar (Sept. 4, 1799), Augereau purged more than 130 royalists and counterrevolutionaries from the leg¬ islative body; many others, including journalists and the director, were deported to French Guiana. The republican constitution was also fatally weakened, which confirmed the new power of the army and led to the Coup of 18-19 Brumaire, Year VII (Nov. 9-10, 1799), and Napoleon’s military despotism.
fructose Vfrsk-.tos, 'friik-.tosV or levulose \1ev-ya-,los\ or fruit sugar Organic compound, one of the simple sugars (monosaccharides), chemical formula C 6 H 12 0 6 . It occurs in fruits, honey, syrups (especially com syrup), and certain vegetables, usually along with its isomer glucose.
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fruit ► fuel injection I 717
Fructose and glucose are the components of the disaccharide sucrose (table sugar); hydrolysis of sucrose yields invert sugar, a 50:50 mixture of fructose and glucose. The sweetest of the common sugars, fructose is used in foods and medicines.
fruit In its strict botanical sense, the fleshy or dry ripened ovary (enlarged portion of the pistil) of a flowering plant, enclosing the seed or seeds. Apri¬ cots, bananas, and grapes, as well as bean pods, corn grains, tomatoes, cucumbers, and (in their shells) acorns and almonds, are all technically fruits. Popularly, the term is restricted to the ripened ovaries that are sweet and either succulent or pulpy. The principal botanical purpose of the fruit is to protect and spread the seed. There are two broad categories of fruit: fleshy and dry. Fleshy fruits include berries, such as tomatoes, oranges, and cherries, which consist entirely of succulent tissue; aggregate fruits, including blackberries and strawberries, which form from a single flower with many pistils, each of which develops into fruitlets; and multiple fruits, such as pineapples and mulberries, which develop from the mature ovaries of an entire inflorescence. Dry fruits include the legumes, cereal grains, cap¬ sules, and nuts. Fruits are important sources of dietary fiber and vitamins (especially vitamin C). They can be eaten fresh; processed into juices, jams, and jellies; or preserved by dehydration, canning, fermentation, and pickling.
fruit bat Any of numerous tropical Old World bats in the family Pteropo- didae as well as several species of herbivorous New World bats. Old World fruit bats are widely distributed from Africa to South Asia and Australasia. Most species rely on vision rather than on echolocation to avoid obstacles. Some species are solitary, some gregarious; most roost in the open in trees, though some inhabit caves, rocks, or buildings. Some are red or yellow, and some are striped or spotted. They eat fruit or flow¬ ers (including pollen and nectar). The smallest species in the family, the long-tongued fruit bats, reach a head and body length of about 2.5 in. (6-7 cm) and a wingspan of about 10 in. (25 cm). The same family con¬ tains the largest of all bats, the flying foxes, which attain lengths up to 16 in. (40 cm) and a wingspan of 5 ft (1.5 m). New World fruit bats are generally smaller and make use of echolocation. They are found in the tropics, with many species belonging to the genera Artibeus and Sturnira.