Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

majolica

(Encyclopedia)majolica məyŏlˈĭkə [key] [from Majorca], type of faience usually associated with wares produced in Spain, Italy, and Mexico. The process of making majolica consists of first firing a piece of ear...

Lubitsch, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Lubitsch, Ernst lo͞oˈbĭch [key], 1892–1947, German-American film director, b. Berlin. He studied acting in his native city and in 1911 joined Max Reinhardt's theatre company. Lubitsch turned to d...

X Prize Foundation

(Encyclopedia)X Prize Foundation, private, nonprofit prize institute est. 1995 by commercial space entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Based in Santa Monica, Calif., and funded by foundations and private individuals and ...

Year 2000 problem

(Encyclopedia)Year 2000 problem, Y2K problem, or millennium bug, in computer science, a design flaw in the hardware or software of a computer that caused erroneous results when working with dates beyond Dec. 31, 1...

White, Charles

(Encyclopedia)White, Charles (Charles Wilbert White, Jr.), 1918–79, American figurative painter, printmaker, and teacher, b. Chicago, studied School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A left-leaning activist whose ...

Von Neumann, John

(Encyclopedia)Von Neumann, John noiˈmän [key], 1903–57, American mathematician, b. Hungary, Ph.D. Univ. of Budapest, 1926. He came to the United States in 1930 and was naturalized in 1937. He taught (1930–33)...

Bohigas, Oriol

(Encyclopedia) Bohigas, Oriol, 1925-2021, Spanish modernist architect, b. Barcelona, Spain, as Oriol Bohigas i Guardiola, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de...

Boulle, André Charles

(Encyclopedia)Boulle or Buhl, André Charles both: äNdrāˈ shärl bo͞ol [key], 1642–1732, French cabinetmaker, the master of a distinctive style of furniture, much imitated, for which his name has become a syn...

Bowman, Isaiah

(Encyclopedia)Bowman, Isaiah bōˈmən [key], 1878–1950, American geographer, b. Waterloo, Ont., B.S. Harvard, 1905, Ph.D. Yale, 1909. He taught geography at Yale (1905–15) and was director (1915–35) of the A...

brasses, monumental

(Encyclopedia)brasses, monumental, or sepulchral brasses, memorials to the dead, in use in churches on the Continent and in England in the 13th cent. and for several centuries following. They are usually set in the...