Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Surrey

(Encyclopedia)Surrey, county (1991 pop. 997,000), 653 sq mi (1,691 sq km), SE England. The county seat is Guildford. Administratively, the county is divided into the districts of Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildfo...

Winfrey, Oprah

(Encyclopedia)Winfrey, Oprah, 1954–, African-American television host, actress, and media magnate, b. Kosciusko, Miss., as Orpah Gail Winfrey, grad. Tennessee State Univ. (1976). She began her career as a Nashvil...

Staples, Mavis

(Encyclopedia) Staples, Mavis, 1939- , African American popular singer, b. Chicago, Il. Staples began performing at age 11 with her father, Roebuck “Pops” St...

Price, Vincent Leonard, Jr.

(Encyclopedia) Price, Vincent Leonard, Jr., 1911-93, American film actor, b. St. Louis, Mo., Yale Univ. (B.A., 1933). Price studied English and art in college and th...

Berio, Luciano

(Encyclopedia)Berio, Luciano lo͞ochäˈnō bĕrˈyō [key], 1925–2003, Italian composer, b. Oneglia. After studying at the Milan Conservatory and working as a coach and conductor in Italian opera houses, Berio w...

Berners-Lee, Tim

(Encyclopedia)Berners-Lee, Tim (Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee), 1955–, British computer scientist, b. London, grad. The Queen's College, Oxford (B.A. 1976). He joined CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, as a consultan...

galaxy

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Hubble classification of galaxies: Elliptical galaxies (E) are classified according to the degree of flattening of the ellipse. Spiral galaxies (S) and barred spiral galaxies (SB) are classifie...

Thorne, Kip Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Thorne, Kip Stephen, 1940–, American theoretical physicist, b. Logan, Utah. Ph.D. Princeton, 1965. Thorne has been a professor (emeritus from 2009) at the California Institute of Technology since 19...

Horvitz, H. Robert

(Encyclopedia)Horvitz, H. Robert (Howard Robert Horivtz), 1947–, American geneticist, b. Chicago, Ill., Ph.D. Harvard, 1974. Horvitz has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1978. W...

microelectronics

(Encyclopedia)microelectronics, branch of electronic technology devoted to the design and development of extremely small electronic devices that consume very little electric power. Although the term is sometimes us...

Browse by Subject