Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis

(Encyclopedia)Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis zhôzĕfˈ lwē gā-lüsäkˈ [key], 1778–1850, French chemist and physicist. He was professor in Paris at the Sorbonne, at the Polytechnic School, and at the Jardin des Pla...

gas

(Encyclopedia)gas, in physics, one of the three commonly recognized states of matter, the other two being solid and liquid. A substance in the gaseous state has neither definite shape nor definite volume. Like liqu...

Gaspee

(Encyclopedia)Gaspee găsˈpēˌ [key], British revenue cutter, burned (June 10, 1772) at Namquit (now Gaspee) Point in the present-day city of Warwick on the western shore of Narragansett Bay, R.I. The vessel arri...

Court of Justice of the European Union

(Encyclopedia)Court of Justice of the European Union, judicial institution of the European Union (EU). Located in Luxembourg, it was founded in 1958 as the joint court for the three treaty organizations that were c...

Copernican system

(Encyclopedia)Copernican system, first modern European theory of planetary motion that was heliocentric, i.e., that placed the sun motionless at the center of the solar system with all the planets, including the ea...

consanguinity

(Encyclopedia)consanguinity kŏnˌsăng-gwĭnˈĭtē [key], state of being related by blood or descended from a common ancestor. This article focuses on legal usage of the term as it relates to the laws of marriage...

Pitcairn Island

(Encyclopedia)Pitcairn Island, volcanic island (2005 est. pop. 45), 2.5 sq mi (6.5 sq km), South Pacific, SE of Tuamotu Archipelago. Adamstown is the capital and only settlement. The first British Pacific Islands p...

plebiscite

(Encyclopedia)plebiscite plĕbˈĭsīt [key] [Lat.,=popular decree], vote of the people on a question submitted to them, as in a referendum. The term, however, has acquired the more specific meaning of a popular vo...

primary

(Encyclopedia)primary, in the United States, a preliminary election in which the candidate of a party is nominated directly by the voters. The establishment of the primary system resulted from the demand to elimina...

trapping

(Encyclopedia)trapping, most broadly, the use of mechanical or deceptive devices to capture, kill, or injure animals. It may be applied to the practice of using birdlime to capture birds, lobster pots to trap lobst...