Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

204 results found

Cotopaxi

(Encyclopedia)Cotopaxi kōtōpăkˈsē [key], active volcano, 19,347 ft (5,897 m) high, N central Ecuador. A symmetrical snowcapped cone in the Andes, it is one of the highest volcanoes in the world. It is continuo...

nitric acid

(Encyclopedia)nitric acid, chemical compound, HNO3, colorless, highly corrosive, poisonous liquid that gives off choking red or yellow fumes in moist air. It is miscible with water in all proportions. It forms an a...

Stock, Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Stock, Frederick (Friedrich Wilhelm August Stock) stŏk [key], 1872–1942, German-American conductor and composer. He came to the United States in 1895 as a violist in the Chicago Orchestra and becam...

Göttingen

(Encyclopedia)Göttingen götˈĭng-ən [key], city, Lower Saxony, central Germany, on the Leine River. It is ...

Kuhn, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Kuhn, Richard rĭkhˈärt ko͞on [key], 1900–1967, Austrian chemist, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Heidelberg. For his research on the carotinoids (he prepared eight of them in pure form...

Willstätter, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Willstätter, Richard rĭkhˈärt vĭlˈshtĕtər [key], 1872–1942, German chemist. He was professor at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry, Berlin (1912–16), and at the Univ. of Munich (191...

Brugmann, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Brugmann, Karl kärl bro͝okˈmän [key], 1849–1919, German philologist. A professor at Leipzig, Brugmann believed that scientific rules of linguistics do not admit of exceptions. With the help of o...

Pabst, G. W.

(Encyclopedia)Pabst, G. W. (Georg Wilhelm Pabst) gāˈôrkh vĭlˈhĕlm päpst [key], 1885–1967, German film director, b. Austria. He used montage in such works of social realism as The Joyless Street (1925), Pan...

contrabassoon

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Contrabassoon contrabassoon, large, deep-toned instrument of the oboe family, also called double bassoon. Its tube, over 16 ft (5 m) long, is doubled upon itself four times. It was first made ...

Tiryns

(Encyclopedia)Tiryns tīˈrĭnz [key], ancient city of Greece, in the NE Peloponnesus, 2.5 mi (4 km) N of Nauplia (now Návplion) and near Argos. The site seems to have been inhabited since the 3d millennium b.c. I...