Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Boyle, Willard Sterling

(Encyclopedia)Boyle, Willard Sterling, 1924–2011, Canadian-American solid-state physicist, b. Amherst, N.S., Canada, Ph.D. McGill Univ., Montreal, 1950. Boyle was a researcher at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill,...

Thompson, Jacob

(Encyclopedia)Thompson, Jacob, 1810–85, U.S. Representative (1839–51) and Secretary of the Interior (1857–61), b. Caswell co., N.C. Thompson was a prosperous lawyer and prominent Democrat of Oxford, Miss. He ...

Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron, 1871–1937, British physicist, b. New Zealand. Rutherford left New Zealand in 1895, having earned three degrees from the Univ. of New Zealand but having fail...

Pellan, Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Pellan, Alfred älfrĕdˈ pĕläNˈ [key], 1906–88, Canadian painter, b. Quebec. Pellan sold his painting Corner of Old Quebec to the National Gallery, Ottawa, when he was 16. He lived in Paris from...

O'Keefe, John

(Encyclopedia)O'Keefe, John, 1939–, British-American neuroscientist, b. New York City, Ph.D. McGill Univ., 1967. O'Keefe has spent his entire career at University College London, beginning as a postdoctoral fello...

Soddy, Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Soddy, Frederick sŏdˈē [key], 1877–1956, English chemist. He worked under Lord Rutherford at McGill Univ. and with Sir William Ramsay at the Univ. of London. After serving (1910–14) as lecturer...

Schally, Andrew V.

(Encyclopedia)Schally, Andrew V., 1926–, American endocrinologist, b. Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania), as Andrzej Viktor Schally, grad. McGill Univ. (Ph.D., 1957). He spent most of his career at Tulane Uni...

Fort Sumter

(Encyclopedia)Fort Sumter, fortification, built 1829–60, on a shoal at the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, S.C., and named for Gen. Thomas Sumter; scene of the opening engagement of the Civil War. Upon pass...

Dawson, Sir John William

(Encyclopedia)Dawson, Sir John William, 1820–99, Canadian geologist and educator, b. Pictou, N.S., studied at the Univ. of Edinburgh. After serving (1850–55) as superintendent of education in Nova Scotia, he wa...

Layton, Irving

(Encyclopedia)Layton, Irving, 1912–2006, Canadian poet, b. Romania as Israel Lazarovitch. His family emigrated to Montreal when he was an infant. He attended Macdonald College (B.Sc., 1939) and McGill Univ. (M.A....