Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Engler, Adolf

(Encyclopedia)Engler, Adolf äˈdôlf ĕngˈlər [key], 1844–1930, German botanist. He emphasized the importance of geological history in the study of plant geography, and worked out an influential system of plan...

Gurugram

(Encyclopedia)Gurugram, formerly Gurgaon gûrˈgoun [key], city, Haryana state, N India, 15 mi (24 km) ...

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

(Encyclopedia)Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, period of Chinese history between the fall of the T'ang dynasty (a.d. 907) and the establishment of the Sung dynasty (a.d. 960). It is named for the five successive sh...

Lycurgus, founder of the Spartan constitution

(Encyclopedia)Lycurgus līkûrˈgəs [key], traditional name of the founder of the Spartan constitution. The earliest mention of him is in Herodotus. Nothing is known of his life—when he lived or if he was a real...

Schekman, Randy Wayne

(Encyclopedia)Schekman, Randy Wayne, 1948–, American cell biologist, b. St. Paul, Minn. Ph.D. Stanford, 1974. He is a professor (since 1976) at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, and an investigator of the Howard...

Pinyin

(Encyclopedia)Pinyin pĭnˈyĭnˈ [key] [Chin. Hanyu pinyin = Chinese phonetic alphabet], system of romanization of Chinese written characters, approved in 1958 by the government of the People's Republic of Chi...

Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm frēˈdrĭkh vĭlˈhĕlm rīfˈīˌzən [key], 1818–88, German leader in the cooperative movement. Between 1845 and 1865 he was mayor of several German towns. After the...

Veterans Affairs, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Veterans Affairs, United States Department of, federal executive department established to operate programs to benefit veterans and their families. The department was established in 1989; its predeces...

momentum

(Encyclopedia)momentum mōmĕnˈtəm [key], in mechanics, the quantity of motion of a body, specifically the product of the mass of the body and its velocity. Momentum is a vector quantity; i.e., it has both a magn...

Lorentz contraction

(Encyclopedia)Lorentz contraction lôrˈĕnts [key], in physics, contraction or foreshortening of a moving body in the direction of its motion, proposed by H. A. Lorentz on theoretical grounds and based on an earli...