Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Formulas for Various Areas (table)

(Encyclopedia)Formulas for Various Areas 1 The abbreviations used are: b = base (length of any side of a plane figure); a = altitude (perpendicular distance from the farthest point of the figure to t...

Kautsky, Karl Johann

(Encyclopedia)Kautsky, Karl Johann kärl yōˈhän koutˈskē [key], 1854–1938, German-Austrian socialist, b. Prague. A leading figure in the effort to spread Marxist doctrine in Germany, he was the principal dev...

Bruce, Lenny

(Encyclopedia)Bruce, Lenny, 1925–66, American comedian, b. Long Island, N.Y., as Leonard Alfred Schneider. Possessed of a cynical, surreal, and intensely comic view of the world, Bruce brutally satirized such sen...

Sturm und Drang

(Encyclopedia)Sturm und Drang shto͝orm o͝ont dräng [key] or Storm and Stress, movement in German literature that flourished from c.1770 to c.1784. It takes its name from a play by F. M. von Klinger, Wirrwarr; od...

Randolph, John

(Encyclopedia)Randolph, John, 1773–1833, American legislator, known as John Randolph of Roanoke, b. Prince George co., Va. He briefly studied law under his cousin Edmund Randolph. He served in the U.S. House of R...

precession of the equinoxes

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Precession of the equinoxes (the points at which the earth's celestial equator intersects its ecliptic) is due to the slow rotation of the earth's axis around a perpendicular to the ecliptic. ...

Gates, John Warne

(Encyclopedia)Gates, John Warne, 1855–1911, American financier and promoter, known as Bet-a-Million Gates, b. near Chicago. He discovered a market for wire fencing on the Western plains, began the manufacture of ...

Willard, Solomon

(Encyclopedia)Willard, Solomon, 1783–1861, American architect and sculptor, b. Petersham, Mass. Arriving in Boston in 1804, he eventually became a leading architect; he both designed and supervised the erection o...

Dandy, Walter Edward

(Encyclopedia)Dandy, Walter Edward, 1886–1946, American neurosurgeon. Having studied with Harvey Cushing at Johns Hopkins, Dandy soon made himself a notable figure in the developing specialty of neurosurgery. His...

antithesis

(Encyclopedia)antithesis ăntĭthˈĭsĭs [key], a figure of speech involving a seeming contradiction of ideas, words, clauses, or sentences within a balanced grammatical structure. Parallelism of expression serves...