Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

464 results found

Allen, Woody

(Encyclopedia)Allen, Woody, 1935–, American actor, writer, and director, one of contemporary America's leading filmmakers, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Allen Stewart Konigsberg. Allen began his career writing for televi...

Altman, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Altman, Robert, 1925–2006, American film director, b. Kansas City, Mo. One of the most original talents in late-20th-century American filmmaking, he created complex, often loosely plotted movies mar...

solar energy

(Encyclopedia)solar energy, any form of energy radiated by the sun, including light, radio waves, and X rays, although the term usually refers to the visible light of the sun. Solar energy is needed by green plants...

air, law of the

(Encyclopedia)air, law of the, in the broadest sense, all law connected with the use of the air, including radio and satellite transmissions; more commonly, it refers to laws concerning civil aviation. The developm...

observatory

(Encyclopedia)observatory, scientific facility especially equipped to detect and record naturally occurring scientific phenomena. Although geological and meteorological observatories exist, the term is generally ap...

navigation

(Encyclopedia)navigation, science and technology of finding the position and directing the course of vessels and aircraft. The next great revolution in navigation occurred in the 20th cent., when radio signals ...

telephone

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Hand telephone telephone, device for communicating sound, especially speech, usually by means of wires in an electric circuit. The telephones now in general use evolved from the device invente...

television

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Video transmission and reception of color and black-and-white television: The camera lens focuses collected light rays into mirrors, which separate the image into its three primary color compon...

infrared radiation

(Encyclopedia)infrared radiation, electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength in the range from c.75 × 10−6 cm to c.100,000 × 10−6 cm (0.000075–0.1 cm). Infrared rays thus occupy that part of the electrom...

McCarthy, Joseph Raymond

(Encyclopedia)McCarthy, Joseph Raymond, 1908–57, U.S. senator from Wisconsin (1947–57), b. near Appleton, Wis. He practiced law in Wisconsin and became (1940) a circuit judge. He served with the U.S. marines in...