Gobi \'go-be\ Desert Desert, Central Asia. One of the great desert and semidesert regions of the world, the Gobi stretches across Central Asia over large areas of Mongolia and China. It occupies an arc of land 1,000 mi (1,609 km) long and 300-600 mi (500-1,000 km) wide, with an esti¬ mated area of 500,000 sq mi (1,300,000 sq km). Contrary to the image often associated with a desert, much of the Gobi is not sandy but covered with bare rock.
Gobind Singh \go- l bin-d3- , siq-g9, 'go-.bind-'siqN orig. Gobind Rai (b. 1666, Patna, Bihar, India—d. Oct. 7, 1708, Nanded, Maharashtra) Sikh Guru. The son of Guru Tegh Bahadur (1664-75), he was trained in the martial arts in the Punjab. When he was nine his father was executed, and he became the 10th and last Guru of Sikhism, presiding over the Sikh court at Anandpur. A scholar and poet, he is credited with putting the Adi Granth into its final form. His other great achievement was the founding (1699) of the Khalsa, the egalitarian community that gave Sikhism its political and religious definition and galvanized its martial energies. He was con¬ tinually at war with local Hindu chiefs and the Mughal authorities, who together forced the Sikhs out of Anandpur in 1704 and killed his four sons. After the death of Aurangzeb, he supported the claim of the future emperor, Bahadur Shah (1643-1712), to the throne. He was assassinated before he could persuade Bahadur Shah to allow the Sikhs’ return to Anandpur.
Gobineau \g6-be-'no\, Joseph-Arthur, count de (b. July 14, 1816, Ville-d’Avray, France—d. Oct. 13, 1882, Turin, Italy) French dip¬ lomat and writer. While serving in the diplomatic service (1849-77), he wrote the Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853-55), which asserted the superiority of the white race over others and labeled the “Aryans,” or Germanic peoples, as the summit of civilization. He claimed that white societies flourished as long as they remained free of “black and yellow strains” and that dilution would lead to corruption. His theory of racial determinism in Essay influenced the racist policies of such figures as Robert F. Wagner, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Adolf Hitler.
goby Any of more than 800 species of carnivorous fishes (suborder Gobioidei, order Perciformes), found worldwide but especially abundant in the tropics. Most species are small bottom dwellers with a weak suction cup formed by the fusion of their pelvic fins. About 700 species are typi¬ cally elongated, sometimes scaleless fishes found along shores and among reefs in tropical and temperate seas. They have two dorsal fins and a rounded tail, lack a lateral line (sensory organ along the side of the body), and are often brightly coloured. Most adults are no longer than 4 in. (10 cm).
God Deity or Supreme Being. Each of the major monotheistic world religions worships a Supreme Being, who is the sole god of the universe, the maker of all things, omniscient and all-powerful. God is also good. In ancient Israel God was named Yahweh. The God of the Hebrew Bible also became the God of Christianity, but generic words, such as theos in Greek or Deus in Latin, were often used to refer to him. In Islam the term is Allah. See also monotheism.
god and goddess Generic terms for the many deities of ancient and modern polytheistic religions. There may be deities of earthly and celes¬ tial phenomena as well as deities related to human values, pastimes, and institutions, including love, marriage, hunting, war, and the arts. They may be capable of being killed but are often immortal and always more pow¬ erful than humans, though they are often described in human terms, with all the flaws, thoughts, and emotions of humans. See also polytheism.
Godard \g6-'dar\, Jean-Luc (b. Dec. 3, 1930, Paris, France) French film director. He wrote film criticism for the influential journal Cahiers du cinema before impressing audiences with his first feature film, the improvisatory and original Breathless (1960), which established him as the apostle of the New Wave. He continued to explore new techniques in films such as My Life to Live (1962), Pierrot le fou (1965), Alphaville (1965), and Weekend (1968), using the camera creatively to express politi¬ cal commentary. He returned to themes of more universal concern with Every Man for Himself (1979) and Passion (1982) but stirred controversy with his updated nativity story in Hail Mary! (1985). He received wide critical acclaim for Histoire(s) du Cinema (1997), a video study of French film, and In Praise of Love (2001).
Godavari River \go-'da-vo-re\ River, central India. It rises in the West¬ ern Ghats and flows east across the Deccan Plateau, along the Maharashtra- Andhra Pradesh border. It crosses Andhra Pradesh state, and turns southeast for its last 200 mi (320 km) before reaching the Bay of Bengal. Its total length is about 910 mi (1,465 km). The development of an irrigation-canal system, linking its delta with that of the Krishna River to the southwest, has made the land one of the richest rice-growing areas of India. The Godavari, throughout its entire length, is sacred to the Hindus.
Goddard family New England cabinetmakers. Of English ancestry, the Goddards intermarried with the Townsend family, equally famous cabi¬ netmakers. John Goddard (1723-1785), the son of a carpenter, moved in the 1720s from Massachusetts to Newport, R.I., where he and his brother worked for Job Townsend. By the 1760s Goddard had established his own workshop and become Newport’s leading cabinetmaker, producing simple adaptations in the Queen Anne style. He originated the blockfront, a dis¬ tinctive front for desks, secretaries, and cabinets, decorated with his char¬ acteristic carved shell ornaments; pieces were made of mahogany from the West Indies and South America. Some 20 Goddard and Townsend craftsmen of four generations are known. Goddard-Townsend furniture was among the finest made in North America in the 18th century.
Goddard, Robert Hutchings (b. Oct. 5, 1882, Worcester, Mass., U.S.—d. Aug. 10, 1945, Baltimore, Md.) U.S. inventor, regarded as the father of modern rocketry. He received his doctorate (1911) from Clark University, where he taught for much of his career. In laboratory work there, he proved that thrust and consequent propulsion can take place in
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a vacuum and was the first to develop a ROCKET engine using liquid pro¬ pellants (static tested in 1925). In 1926 Goddard successfully launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket (gasoline and liquid oxygen) from a farm in Massachusetts. In 1935, having relocated his testing site to New Mexico, he was the first to send a liquid-fueled rocket faster than the speed of sound. He patented the first practical automatic steering apparatus for rockets, developed staged rockets designed to gain great altitudes, and developed the first rocket-fuel pumps, self-cooling rocket engines, and other components of a propulsion system designed for space exploration. Much of his work anticipated that of Wernher von Braun in Germany but was ignored by the U.S. government until after his death at the end of World War II.
Godden, Rumer in full Margaret Rumer Godden Haynes- Dixon (b. Dec. 10, 1907, Eastbourne, Sussex, Eng.—d. Nov. 8, 1998, Dumfries, Scot.) British writer. She grew up in India, and after attending school in Britain she returned to spend many years there. Her novel Black Narcissus (1939; film, 1947) brought her popular success. The story of a group of English nuns in the Himalayas, it deals with her recurring themes of cultural conflicts and obsessive love. She often wrote about children, as in The River (1946; filmed by Jean Renoir in 1951) and The Greengage Summer (1958; film, 1961), and wrote almost two dozen books for chil¬ dren.
Godel Vgoe-d3l,\ English \ , go(r)-d9l\ / Kurt (b. April 28, 1906, Briinn, Austria-Hungary—d. Jan. 14, 1978, Princeton, N.J., U.S.) Austrian-born U.S. mathematician and logician. He began his career on the faculty of the University of Vienna, where he produced his groundbreaking proof (see Godel's theorem) in the early 1930s. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1940 and taught at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. There his close friendship with Albert Einstein led him into the field of general relativity theory and to solutions of some of Einstein’s equations. A quiet and unas¬ suming man, Godel did not at first recognize the importance of his famous theorem, and later in life he declined many of the honours that it brought him.