Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

478 results found

coolie labor

(Encyclopedia)coolie labor, term applied to unskilled laborers from Asia, especially from India and China. With the discontinuance of slavery, the use of Chinese and Indian contract labor in British and French colo...

relocation center

(Encyclopedia)relocation center, in U.S. history, camp in which Japanese and Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. Fearing a Japanese invasion, the military leaders, under authority of an executive ...

Archimedes

(Encyclopedia)Archimedes ärkĭmēˈdēz [key], 287–212 b.c., Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor. He is famous for his work in geometry (on the circle, sphere, cylinder, and parabola), physics, mechanic...

Dworkin, Ronald Myles

(Encyclopedia)Dworkin, Ronald Myles, 1931–2013, American legal philosopher. b. Worcester, Mass. A professor at Yale (1962–75), Oxford (1969–98), New York Univ. (1975–2013), and University College London (19...

Driesch, Hans Adolf Eduard

(Encyclopedia)Driesch, Hans Adolf Eduard häns äˈdôlf āˈdo͞oärt drēsh [key], 1867–1941, German philosopher, b. Bad Kreuznach, grad. (zoology) Univ. of Jena, 1889. His early interest in biology was gradual...

Chuang-tzu

(Encyclopedia)Chuang-tzu or Chuang-tze both: jwäng-dzŭ [key], c.369–c.286 b.c., Chinese Taoist writer. Little is known about his life. He was a native of the state of Meng, on the border of present-day Shandong...

Empedocles

(Encyclopedia)Empedocles ĕmpĕdˈəklēz [key], c.495–c.435 b.c., Greek philosopher, b. Acragas (present Agrigento), Sicily. Leader of the democratic faction in his native city, he was offered the crown, which h...

ipecac

(Encyclopedia)ipecac ĭpˈĭkăk [key], drug obtained from the dried roots of a creeping shrub, Cephaelis (or Psychotria) ipecacuanha, native to Brazil but cultivated in other tropical climates. There are three var...

immanence

(Encyclopedia)immanence ĭmˈənəns [key] [Lat.,=dwelling in], in metaphysics, the presence within the natural world of a spiritual or cosmic principle, especially of the Deity. It is contrasted with transcendence...

Maskawa, Toshihide

(Encyclopedia)Maskawa, Toshihide, 1940–, Japanese physicist, Ph.D. Nagoya Univ., 1967. Maskawa was a research associate at Nagoya Univ. from 1967–70 and then joined the faculty at Kyoto Univ., where he was appo...

Browse by Subject