Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

catabolism

(Encyclopedia)catabolism kətăbˈəlĭzˌəm [key], subdivision of metabolism involving all degradative chemical reactions in the living cell. Large polymeric molecules such as polysaccharides, nucleic acids, and ...

Dounreay

(Encyclopedia)Dounreay do͞onˈrā, do͞onrāˈ [key], village, Highland, N Scotland. Several nuclear breeder reactors are located nearby. ...

Bhabha, Homi Jehangir

(Encyclopedia)Bhabha, Homi Jehangir jəhänˌgērˈ bäˈbä [key], 1909–66, Indian physicist, b. Bombay (now Mumbai). He was educated at the Royal Institute of Science, Bombay, and at Cambridge, England, where h...

carbon cycle

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Carbon cycle carbon cycle, in biology, the exchange of carbon between living organisms and the nonliving environment. Inorganic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is converted by plants into sim...

war

(Encyclopedia)war, armed conflict between states or nations (international war) or between factions within a state (civil war), prosecuted by force and having the purpose of compelling the defeated side to do the w...

Reich, Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Reich, Wilhelm vĭlˈhĕlm rīkh [key], 1897–1957, Austrian psychiatrist and biophysicist. For many years a chief associate at Freud's Psychoanalytic Polyclinic in Vienna, he later broke with Freud ...

Richter, Burton

(Encyclopedia)Richter, Burton rĭkˈtər [key], 1931–2018, American physicist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1956. A professor at Stanford, Richter designed and built a particle a...

Georgia Institute of Technology

(Encyclopedia)Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, Ga.; coeducational; state supported; chartered 1885, opened 1888. It is a member school in the university system of Georgia. Significant among its faciliti...

Pierrelatte

(Encyclopedia)Pierrelatte pyĕrlätˈ [key], town, Drôme dept., SE France. The center of France's nuclear industry, Pierrelatte has a large uranium-producing complex. Other industries include jute weaving and the ...

Commoner, Barry

(Encyclopedia)Commoner, Barry, 1917–2012, American biologist, educator, and activist, one of the founders of the modern environmental movement, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Columbia (B.A., 1937), Harvard (Ph.D., 1941...