Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Ross, Sir James Clark

(Encyclopedia)Ross, Sir James Clark, 1800–1862, British polar explorer and rear admiral. In 1818 he accompanied his uncle, Sir John Ross, in search of the Northwest Passage and commanded the Erebus. He later stud...

Baker, James Addison, 3d

(Encyclopedia)Baker, James Addison, 3d, 1930–, U.S. political leader, b. Houston, Tex. After graduating from Princeton, he served in the U.S. Marines and earned a law degree from the Univ. of Texas. A successful ...

Peebles, Phillip James Edwin

(Encyclopedia)Peebles, Phillip James Edwin, 1935–, Canadian-American astrophysicist and cosmologist, b. Winnipeg, Man., Ph.D. Princeton, 1962. He spent his entire career as a researcher at Princeton, becoming a f...

Head, Sir Edmund Walker

(Encyclopedia)Head, Sir Edmund Walker, 1805–68, British governor-general of Canada (1854–61), cousin of Sir Francis Bond Head. An Oxford scholar and tutor, he published several books. His success as lieutenant ...

alcohol

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Alcohols alcohol, any of a class of organic compounds with the general formula R–OH, where R represents an alkyl group made up of carbon and hydrogen in various proportions and –OH represe...

macromolecule

(Encyclopedia)macromolecule, term that may refer either to a crystal such as a diamond, in which the atoms are identical and held by covalent bonds (see chemical bond) of equal strength, or to one of the units that...

peptide

(Encyclopedia)peptide, organic compound composed of amino acids linked together chemically by peptide bonds. The peptide bond always involves a single covalent link between the α-carboxyl (oxygen-bearing carbon) o...

whiskey

(Encyclopedia)whiskey [from the Gaelic for “water of life”], spirituous liquor distilled from a fermented mash of grains, usually rye, barley, oats, wheat, or corn. Inferior whiskeys are made from potatoes, bee...

carbonyl group

(Encyclopedia)carbonyl group kärˈbənĭl [key], in chemistry, functional group that consists of an oxygen atom joined by a double bond to a carbon atom. The carbon atom is joined to the remainder of the molecule ...

formula, in chemistry

(Encyclopedia)formula, in chemistry, an expression showing the chemical composition of a compound. Formulas of compounds are used in writing the equations (see chemical equations) that represent chemical reactions....

Browse by Subject