Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

canvas

(Encyclopedia)canvas, strong, coarse cloth of cotton, flax, hemp, or other fibers, early used as sailcloth. Left in its natural color, bleached, or dyed, it has a wide variety of uses, as for game, duffel, sport, m...

weak interactions

(Encyclopedia)weak interactions, actions between elementary particles mediated, or carried, by W and Z particles and that are responsible for nuclear decay. Weak interactions are one of four fundamental interaction...

bustard

(Encyclopedia)bustard bŭsˈtərd [key], a heavy-bodied, ground-running bird of the family Otididae. Various species are found throughout the arid regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, and S Europe. Bustards range in...

Moley, Raymond Charles

(Encyclopedia)Moley, Raymond Charles mōˈlē [key], 1886–1975, American political economist, b. Berea, Ohio, grad. Baldwin-Wallace College, 1906, Ph.D. Columbia, 1918. He taught at Western Reserve Univ. (1916–...

Morse, Wayne Lyman

(Encyclopedia)Morse, Wayne Lyman, 1900–1974, U.S. Senator (1945–69), b. Madison, Wis. He was a professor of law and later dean at the Univ. of Oregon law school (1931–44) and gained a nationwide reputation as...

Malamud, Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Malamud, Bernard mălˈəməd [key], 1914–86, American author, b. New York City, grad. College of the City of New York (B.A., 1936), Columbia (M.A., 1942). His works frequently reflect a concern wit...

Marvell, Andrew

(Encyclopedia)Marvell, Andrew märˈvəl [key], 1621–78, one of the English metaphysical poets. Educated at Cambridge, he worked as a clerk, traveled abroad, and returned to serve as tutor to Lord Fairfax's daugh...

Koussevitzky, Serge

(Encyclopedia)Koussevitzky, Serge (Sergei Aleksandrovich Koussevitzky) sĕrzh ko͞osəvĭtˈskē; Rus. syĭrgāˈ əlyĭksänˈdrəvĭch ko͝osyĭvētˈskē [key], 1874–1951, Russian-American conductor, studied i...

Kao, Sir Charles Kuen

(Encyclopedia)Kao, Sir Charles Kuen, 1933–2018, British-American physicist, b. Shanghai, China, Ph.D. Imperial College London, 1965. Kao was an engineer and researcher at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories ...

Hodgkin, Howard

(Encyclopedia)Hodgkin, Howard (Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin), 1932–2017, English painter and printmaker, b. London. He attended the Camberwell School of Art, London, and Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, later tea...