Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

170 results found

modern architecture

(Encyclopedia)modern architecture, new architectural style that emerged in many Western countries in the decade after World War I. It was based on the “rational” use of modern materials, the principles of funct...

children's book illustration

(Encyclopedia)children's book illustration, any type of picture or decorative work produced for books specifically intended for a youthful audience. During the 1960s a number of seldom-used techniques were introd...

Labour party

(Encyclopedia)Labour party, British political party, one of the two dominant parties in Great Britain since World War I. Harold Wilson, who became leader on Gaitskell's death in 1963, was able to lead the party t...

biography

(Encyclopedia)biography, reconstruction in print or on film, of the lives of real men and women. Together with autobiography—an individual's interpretation of his own life—it shares a venerable tradition, meeti...

secret police

(Encyclopedia)secret police, policing organization operating in secrecy for the political purposes of its government, often with terroristic procedures. Many states, including Chile, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Romania,...

atom

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Bohr-Rutherford atom CE5 Probability distribution of the electron in the hydrogen atom: A. Ground state B. Highly excited state atom [Gr.,=uncuttable (indivisible)], basic unit of matte...

chemistry

(Encyclopedia)chemistry, branch of science concerned with the properties, composition, and structure of substances and the changes they undergo when they combine or react under specified conditions. Organic chemi...

electricity

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Electrical and radio symbols electricity, class of phenomena arising from the existence of charge. The basic unit of charge is that on the proton or electron—the proton's charge is designate...

Nobel Prizes (table)

(Encyclopedia)Nobel Prizes

element

(Encyclopedia)CE5 element, in chemistry, a substance that cannot be decomposed into simpler substances by chemical means. A substance such as a compound can be decomposed into its constituent elements by means o...