Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

492 results found

United Nations

(Encyclopedia)CE5 CE5 United Nations (UN), international organization established immediately after World War II. It replaced the League of Nations. In 1945, when the UN was founded, there were 51 members; 193...

elementary particles

(Encyclopedia)CE5 elementary particles, the most basic physical constituents of the universe. The first subatomic particle to be discovered was the electron, identified in 1897 by J. J. Thomson. After the...

Elements (table)

(Encyclopedia)Elements 1 Parentheses indicate most stable isotope; brackets enclose lower and upper bounds of weight variation. ...

Tennessee, state, United States

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Tennessee tĕnˈəsēˌ, tĕnˌəsēˈ [key], state in the SE central United States. It is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia (N), North Carolina (E), Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi (S), and,...

time , sequential arrangement of all events

(Encyclopedia)time, sequential arrangement of all events, or the interval between two events in such a sequence. The concept of time may be discussed on several different levels: physical, psychological, philosophi...

tragedy

(Encyclopedia)tragedy, form of drama that depicts the suffering of a heroic individual who is often overcome by the very obstacles he is struggling to remove. The protagonist may be brought low by a character flaw ...

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

(Encyclopedia)Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Rus. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, former republic. It was established in 1922 and dissolved in 1991. The Soviet Union was the first state...

Hitler, Adolf

(Encyclopedia)Hitler, Adolf äˈdôlf hĭtˈlər [key], 1889–1945, founder and leader of National Socialism (Nazism), and German dictator, b. Braunau in Upper Austria. By July, 1944, the German military si...

magnetism

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Lines of induction around a single bar magnet and between opposite poles of different magnets magnetism, force of attraction or repulsion between various substances, especially those made of i...

cosmology

(Encyclopedia)cosmology, area of science that aims at a comprehensive theory of the structure and evolution of the entire physical universe. The earliest pre-Ptolemaic theories assumed that the earth was the cent...