Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Weissman, Drew

(Encyclopedia)Weissman, Drew 1959–, b. Lexington, Mass., American Immunologist, studied at Brandeis University (B.A., M.A., 1981) and Boston University (M.D, Ph.D.,...

superconductivity

(Encyclopedia)superconductivity, abnormally high electrical conductivity of certain substances. The phenomenon was discovered in 1911 by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who found that the resistance of mercury dropped sudd...

Lawrence, Ernest Orlando

(Encyclopedia)Lawrence, Ernest Orlando, 1901–58, American physicist, b. Canton, S. Dak., grad. Univ. of South Dakota, 1922, Ph.D. Yale, 1925. Affiliated with the Univ. of California from 1928 onward, he became a ...

Lee, Yuan Tseh

(Encyclopedia)Lee, Yuan Tseh yo͞o-änˈ dzûˈ lēˈ [key], 1936–, Taiwanese-American chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of California at Berkeley, 1965. In 1986, Lee shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Dudley R. Herschb...

Milgrom, Paul Robert

(Encyclopedia)Milgrom, Paul Robert, 1948–, American economist, b. Detroit, Ph.D. Stanford, 1979. He has been a professor of economics at Stanford since 1987, and previously taught at Northwestern Univ. (1979–83...

Modigliani, Franco

(Encyclopedia)Modigliani, Franco, 1918–2003, American economist, b. Rome. Jewish, antifascist, and trained as a lawyer, he fled Mussolini's Italy in 1938, settling in the United States in 1939, where he studied e...

McCourt, Frank

(Encyclopedia)McCourt, Frank, 1930–2009, Irish-American memoirist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. When McCourt was four his immigrant family returned to Ireland. He dropped out of school at 13 and had saved enough by 19 to re...

Loewi, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Loewi, Otto lōˈē [key], 1873–1961, American physiologist and pharmacologist, b. Frankfurt, Germany. He was professor of pharmacology (1909–38) at the Univ. of Graz, Austria, until forced into e...

Mehta, Zubin

(Encyclopedia)Mehta, Zubin zo͞oˈbĭn māˈtə [key], 1936–, Indian conductor. Son of the violinist Mehli Mehta, founder and conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, Mehta studied medicine for two years befor...

Mansfield, Sir Peter

(Encyclopedia)Mansfield, Sir Peter, 1933–2017, British physicist, Ph.D. Queen Mary College, London, 1962. He was a professor at the Univ. of Nottingham from 1964 to 1994. In 2003 Mansfield shared the Nobel Prize ...

Browse by Subject