Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Theorell, Axel Hugo Teodor

(Encyclopedia)Theorell, Axel Hugo Teodor, 1903–82, Swedish biochemist, M.D. Caroline Institute, Stockholm, 1930. The results of an illness caused him to abandon his career as a physician, and he began to teach at...

Reinhardt, Ad

(Encyclopedia)Reinhardt, Ad (Adolph Reinhardt), 1913–67, American painter, b. New York City. Both a painter and an art theorist, Reinhardt is best known for his black paintings, begun in 1960. Associated with min...

heat capacity

(Encyclopedia)heat capacity or thermal capacity, ratio of the change in heat energy of a unit mass of a substance to the change in temperature of the substance; like its melting point or boiling point, the heat cap...

erbium

(Encyclopedia)erbium ûrˈbēəm [key] [from Ytterby, a town in Sweden], metallic chemical element; symbol Er; at. no. 68; at. wt. 167.259; m.p. 1,529℃; b.p. 2,863℃; sp. gr. 9.05 at 25℃; valence +3. Erbium is...

graining

(Encyclopedia)graining, process of painting by which natural wood grain is imitated. It was common practice in the late 19th cent. to grain cheap, soft woods to give them the appearance of rare, expensive ones. A l...

Merrifield, Robert Bruce

(Encyclopedia)Merrifield, Robert Bruce, 1921–2006, American chemist, b. Fort Worth, Tex., Ph.D. Univ. of California at Los Angeles, 1949. As a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (later R...

Klaproth, Martin Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Klaproth, Martin Heinrich märˈtēn hīnˈrĭkh kläpˈrōt [key], 1743–1817, German chemist. He is often referred to as the father of analytic chemistry. He recognized (1789) the presence of zirco...

distribution

(Encyclopedia)distribution, in economics, the allocation of a society's total wealth among various economic groups. Distribution, in that sense, does not refer to the physical marketing or circulation of goods, whi...

Triangle Waist Company

(Encyclopedia)Triangle Waist Company, often called the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., manufacturers of women's cotton and linen blouses. Located in lower Manhattan in the early 20th cent., on Mar. 25, 1911 it was the sit...

Lattimore, Owen

(Encyclopedia)Lattimore, Owen, 1900–1989, American author and educator, b. Washington, D.C. He was educated (1915–19) at St. Bees School, Cumberland, England, and did graduate research (1928–29) at Harvard. F...

Browse by Subject