Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Macdonald, Ross

(Encyclopedia)Macdonald, Ross, pseud. of Kenneth Millar, 1915–83, American novelist, b. Los Gatos, Calif. He was educated in Canada and at the Univ. of Michigan. Macdonald's mystery novels center on the tough but...

lusterware

(Encyclopedia)lusterware, kind of pottery with an overglaze finish containing copper and silver or other materials that give the effect of iridescence. The process may have been invented and was certainly first pop...

Lucaris, Cyril

(Encyclopedia)Lucaris, Cyril lyo͞okāˈrĭs [key], 1572–1637, Greek churchman, b. Crete (then belonging to Venice). He studied at Venice and Padua and was elected patriarch of Alexandria (1602–20) and of Const...

Laffitte, Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Laffitte, Jacques zhäk läfētˈ [key], 1767–1844, French banker and politician. He rose from poverty to become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in France. He was director (1809) and ...

Bothe, Walther Wilhelm Georg

(Encyclopedia)Bothe, Walther Wilhelm Georg, 1891–1957, German physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1923. Bothe was a researcher at the Reich Physical and Technical Institute (1913–30) and a professor at Heidelberg...

Torres Bodet, Jaime

(Encyclopedia)Torres Bodet, Jaime hīˈmā tôrˈrās bôdĕtˈ [key], 1902–74, Mexican poet, diplomat, short-story writer, and essayist. Torres Bodet's first book of poems, Fervor (1918), reveals the influence o...

blue shift

(Encyclopedia)blue shift or blueshift, in astronomy, the systematic displacement of individual lines in the spectrum of a celestial object toward the blue, or shorter wavelength, end of the visible spectrum. The am...

Scriabin, Aleksandr Nikolayevich

(Encyclopedia)Scriabin, Aleksandr Nikolayevich əlyĭksänˈdər nyēkəlīˈəvĭch skrēäbēnˈ, skrēäˈbĭn [key], 1872–1915, Russian composer and pianist. The name is sometimes spelled Skriabin or Skryabin...

Rochelle salt

(Encyclopedia)Rochelle salt, colorless to blue-white orthorhombic crystalline salt with a saline, cooling taste. It is also called Seignette salt after Pierre Seignette, an apothecary of La Rochelle, France, who wa...

round

(Encyclopedia)round, in music, a perpetual canon on a tune that returns to its beginning in which all the voices enter at the unison or the octave. An example is Sumer Is Icumen In. Rounds were popular in 17th-cent...