hard water Water that contains mineral salts of calcium and magne¬ sium, principally as bicarbonates, chlorides, and sulfates, and sometimes iron. Hardness caused by calcium bicarbonate is known as temporary, because boiling converts the bicarbonate to the insoluble carbonate; hard¬ ness from the other salts is called permanent. The calcium and magne¬ sium in hard waters form a hard, adherent scale on boiler plates, increasing fuel consumption and leading to deterioration through overheating. Home water softeners consist of tanks containing zeolite minerals or ion- exchange resins, which contain sodium ions that change places with the calcium and magnesium.
Hardanger Fjord Miar-'daq-or-.fyordV Fjord, southwestern Norway. The country’s second-largest fjord, it extends inland 70 mi (113 km) from the North Sea to the Hardanger Plateau. It has a maximum depth of 2,922 ft (891 m). Waterfalls pour from the surrounding mountains, which rise to about 5,000 ft (1,500 m). Frequented by tourists, the area has many branch fjords. A 17th-century baronial mansion stands at Rosendal, near the fjord’s mouth.
Hardee, William J(oseph) (b. Oct. 12, 1815, near Savannah, Ga., U.S.—d. Nov. 6, 1873, Whytheville, Va.) U.S. military leader. A gradu¬ ate of West Point (1838), he wrote Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (1855), a popular manual that was later used by both sides in the American Civil
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838 I Harden ► hare
War. When Georgia seceded in 1861, Hardee resigned his commission and assumed command of Confederate forces in northeastern Arkansas, later demonstrating his military skills at the Battles of Shiloh and Chat¬ tanooga. As commander of the military department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, he attempted to halt the march of William T. Sher¬ man across Georgia. After the war he retired to his plantation.
Harden, Sir Arthur (b. Oct. 12, 1865, Manchester, Eng.—d. June 17, 1940, Bourne, Buckinghamshire) British biochemist. His more than 20 years of study of sugar fermentation advanced knowledge of metabolic processes in all living forms. In 1929 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chem¬ istry with Hans von Euler-Chelpin. He also produced pioneering studies of bacterial enzymes and metabolism. He was knighted in 1936.
Hardenberg Vhar-dsn-.berkV, Karl August, prince von (b. May
31, 1750, Essenrode, near Gifhorn, Brunswick—d. Nov. 26, 1822, Genoa, Italy) Prussian statesman who preserved the integrity of the Prussian state during the Napoleonic Wars. He won the abiding trust of Frederick Will¬ iam III in 1798 and served as foreign minister (1804-06). He was forced to withdraw from political life, at Napoleon’s behest, after Prussia’s col¬ lapse in the war of 1806-07 against France. When Prussia was faced with insolvency and could not pay war indemnities in 1810, Napoleon agreed to Hardenberg’s reinstatement, and he became prime minister with full powers. He continued the domestic reforms introduced by Karl, imperial baron vom und zum Stein, and liberalized financial, economic, and agri¬ cultural policies. In foreign affairs he exchanged Prussia’s alliance with France for an alliance with Russia in 1813, and in 1814-15 he represented Prussia at the peace negotiations in Paris and Vienna.
hardening In metallurgy, an increase in hardness of a metal induced, deliberately or accidentally, by hammering, rolling, drawing (see wire drawing), or other physical processes. The first few deformations imposed by such treatment weaken the metal, but because of the crystalline struc¬ ture of metal its strength increases with continued deformations. Crystals slip against each other; but, because of the complexity of the crystal structure, the more such slips are multiplied, the more they tend to place obstacles in the way of further slippage, as the various dislocation lines crisscross each other. See also carburizing, heat treating, tempering.
Hardie, J(ames) Keir (b. Aug. 15, 1856, Legbrannock, Lanark, Scot.—d. Sept. 26, 1915, Glasgow) British labour leader. A coal miner, he led strikes and helped form unions, then worked as a journalist and founded two newspapers. Elected to Parliament in 1892, he helped orga¬ nize the Independent Labour Party. In 1906 he became the first leader of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. A pacifist, he sought unsuc¬ cessfully to bind the Second International to declaring a general strike in all countries in the event of war. From 1903 he also acted as chief adviser to the militant suffragists headed by Emmeline Pankhurst.
Harding, Warren G(amaliel)
U.S.—d. Aug. 2, 1923, San Fran¬ cisco, Calif.) 29th president of the U.S. (1921-23). He became a news¬ paper publisher in Marion, Ohio, where he was allied with the Repub¬ lican Party’s political machine. He served successively as state senator (1899-1902), lieutenant governor (1903-04), and U.S. senator (1915—
21), supporting conservative poli¬ cies. At the deadlocked 1920 Republican presidential convention, he was chosen as the compromise candidate. Pledging a “return to nor¬ malcy” after World War I, he defeated James Cox with more than 60% of the popular vote, the largest margin to that time. On his recom¬ mendation, Congress established a budget system for the federal gov¬ ernment, passed a high protective tariff, revised wartime taxes, and restricted immigration. His administra¬ tion convened the Washington Conference (1921-22). His ill-advised cabinet appointments, including Albert Fall as secretary of the interior, led to the Teapot Dome scandal and earned his administration a reputation for coiTuption. After a vacation in Alaska in mid-June 1923, he arrived in San
Francisco reportedly suffering from food poisoning and other ailments; he died there under unclear circumstances. He was succeeded by his vice president, Calvin Cooudge.
hardness Resistance of a mineral to scratching, described relative to a standard scale of 10 minerals known as the Mohs hardness scale. Hard¬ ness is an important diagnostic property in mineral identification. There is a general link between hardness and chemical composition (via crystal structure); thus, most hydrous minerals, halides, carbonates, sulfates, and phosphates are relatively soft; most sulfides are relatively soft (two excep¬ tions being marcasite and pyrite); and most anhydrous oxides and sili¬ cates are hard. See also hardening.
hardness scale See Mohs hardness
hard pan Cemented or compacted and often clayey layer in soil that cannot be penetrated by roots. Lime, gypsum, iron, and other minerals may be carried up to the surface of soil by capillary action and deposited to form a natural concrete. In agricultural situations, special equipment may be used to chisel away hardpan so that crop plants can grow.
hardware Computer machinery and equipment, including memory, cabling, power supply, peripheral devices, and circuit boards. Computer operation requires both hardware and software. Hardware design speci¬ fies a computer’s capability; software instructs the computer on what to do. The advent of microprocessors in the late 1970s led to much smaller hardware assemblies and accelerated the proliferation of computers. Today’s personal computers are as powerful as the early mainframes, while mainframes are now smaller and have vastly more computing power than the early models.
hardwood Timber obtained from broad-leaved, flower-bearing trees. Hardwood trees are deciduous trees, except in the warmest regions. The term, a classification of material, applied originally to such hard Euro¬ pean woods as beech and oak but also includes some of the softest of woods. Included in the category are ebony, various mahoganies (see mahogany family), maple, teak, and American black walnut.
Hardy, Oliver See Laurel, Stan; and Hardy, Oliver
Hardy, Thomas (b. June 2, 1840, Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, Eng.—d. Jan. 11, 1928, Dorchester, Dorset) British novelist and poet. Son of a country stonemason and builder, he practiced architecture before beginning to write poetry, then prose. Many of his novels, beginning with his second, Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), are set in the imaginary county of Wessex. Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), his first success, was followed by The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Caster- bridge (1886), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895), all expressing his stoical pessimism and his sense of the inevi¬ table tragedy of life. Their continuing popularity (many have been filmed) owes much to their richly varied yet accessible style and their combina¬ tion of romantic plots with convincingly presented characters. Hardy’s works were increasingly at odds with Victorian morality, and public indig¬ nation at Jude so disgusted him that he wrote no more novels. He returned to poetry with Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), and The Dynasts (1910), a huge poetic drama of the Napoleonic Wars.