Columbia Encyclopedia

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District of Columbia

(Encyclopedia)District of Columbia, federal district (2020 pop. 689,545), 69 sq mi (179 sq km), on the east bank of the Potomac River, coextensive with the city of Wa...

Albers, Josef

(Encyclopedia)Albers, Josef yōˈzĕf älˈbĕrs [key], 1888–1976, German-American painter, printmaker, designer, and teacher, b. Bottrop, Germany. After working at the Bauhaus (1920–33), Albers and his wife, t...

horizon

(Encyclopedia)horizon, in astronomy, roughly circular line bounding an observer's view of the surface of the earth where the sky and earth seem to meet. This is the visible horizon. At sea the visible horizon is a ...

handkerchief

(Encyclopedia)handkerchief. In classical Greece pieces of fine perfumed cotton, known as mouth or perspiration cloths, were often used by the wealthy. From the 1st cent. b.c., Roman men of rank used an oblong cloth...

Neel, Alice

(Encyclopedia)Neel, Alice, 1900–84, American painter, b. Merion Square, Pa., grad. Philadelphia School of Design for Women (1925). She worked (1933–43) for various Depression-era government arts programs, paint...

luminosity

(Encyclopedia)luminosity, in astronomy, the rate at which energy of all types is radiated by an object in all directions. A star's luminosity depends on its size and its temperature, varying as the square of the ra...

pendentive

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Pendentives pendentive, in architecture, a constructive device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, whic...

surface chemistry

(Encyclopedia)surface chemistry, study of chemical reactions in which the reactants are first adsorbed onto a surface medium (see adsorption) that then acts as a catalyst for the reaction; after the reaction the pr...

Provincetown Players

(Encyclopedia)Provincetown Players, American theatrical company that first introduced the plays of Eugene O'Neill. The company opened with his Bound East for Cardiff at the Wharf Theatre, Provincetown, on Cape Cod ...

Deep Sea Drilling Project

(Encyclopedia)Deep Sea Drilling Project, U.S. program designed to investigate the evolution of ocean basins by core drilling of ocean sediments and underlying oceanic crust. Funded by the National Science Foundatio...