Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

periodic law

(Encyclopedia)periodic law, statement of a periodic recurrence of chemical and physical properties of the elements when the elements are arranged in order of increasing atomic number. Such an arrangement in the for...

law

(Encyclopedia)law, rules of conduct of any organized society, however simple or small, that are enforced by threat of punishment if they are violated. Modern law has a wide sweep and regulates many branches of cond...

labor law

(Encyclopedia)labor law, legislation dealing with human beings in their capacity as workers or wage earners. The Industrial Revolution, by introducing the machine and factory production, greatly expanded the class ...

periodic table

(Encyclopedia)CE5 periodic table, chart of the elements arranged according to the periodic law discovered by Dmitri I. Mendeleev and revised by Henry G. J. Moseley. In the periodic table the elements are arrange...

tenure, in law

(Encyclopedia)tenure, in law, manner in which property in land is held. The nature of tenure has long been of great importance, both in law and in the broader economic and political context. Tenure has varied great...

distributive law

(Encyclopedia)distributive law. In mathematics, given any two operations, symbolized by * and ∘, the first operation, *, is distributive over the second, ∘, if a*(b∘c)=(a*b)∘(a*c) for all possible choices o...

common law

(Encyclopedia)common law, system of law that prevails in England and in countries colonized by England. The name is derived from the medieval theory that the law administered by the king's courts represented the co...

commutative law

(Encyclopedia)commutative law, in mathematics, law holding that for a given binary operation (combining two quantities) the order of the quantities is arbitrary; e.g., in addition, the numbers 2 and 5 can be combin...

Dalton's law

(Encyclopedia)Dalton's law [for John Dalton], physical law that states that the total pressure exerted by a homogeneous mixture of gases is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of the individual gases. The par...

criminal law

(Encyclopedia)criminal law, the branch of law that defines crimes, treats of their nature, and provides for their punishment. A tort is a civil wrong committed against an individual; a crime, on the other hand, is ...