Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

diet, in nutrition

(Encyclopedia)diet, food and drink regularly consumed for nourishment. Nutritionists generally recommend eating a wide variety of foods; however, some groups of people survive on a very limited diet. The traditiona...

cloud

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Approximate heights of some types of clouds cloud, aggregation of minute particles of water or ice suspended in the air. Cloudiness (or proportion of the sky covered by any form of cloud),...

Hubble's law

(Encyclopedia)Hubble's law, in astronomy, statement that the distances between galaxies (see galaxy) or clusters of galaxies are continuously increasing and that therefore the universe is expanding. Hubble's law ...

Miami, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Miami mīămˈē, –ə [key]. 1 City (1990 pop. 358,548), seat of Dade co., SE Fla., on Biscayne Bay at the mouth of the Miami River; inc. 1896. The region of Greater Miami encompasses all of Dade co...

microscope

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Compound microscope microscope, optical instrument used to increase the apparent size of an object. The electron microscope, which is not limited by the powers of optical lenses and light,...

birth

(Encyclopedia)birth or labor, delivery of the fetus by the viviparous mammal. Birth is also known as parturition. Human birth normally occurs about 280 days after onset of the last menstrual period before conceptio...

Blaine, James Gillespie

(Encyclopedia)Blaine, James Gillespie, 1830–93, American politician, b. West Brownsville, Pa. As Secretary of State, Blaine was particularly energetic in fostering closer relations with the Latin American natio...

Taney, Roger Brooke

(Encyclopedia)Taney, Roger Brooke tôˈnē [key], 1777–1864, American jurist, 5th chief justice of the United States (1836–64), b. Calvert co., Md., grad. Dickinson College, 1795. The Senate, incensed by Tan...

transistor

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Simple transistor circuit transistor, three-terminal, solid-state electronic device used for amplification and switching. It is the solid-state analog to the triode electron tube; the transist...

Permian period

(Encyclopedia)Permian period pûrˈmēən [key] [from Perm, Russia], sixth and last period of the Paleozoic era (see Geologic Timescale, tablegeologic timescale, table) from 250 to 290 million years ago. Many ma...