Columbia Encyclopedia

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chancel

(Encyclopedia)chancel, primarily that part of the church close to the altar and used by the officiating clergy. In the early churches it was separated from the nave by a low parapet or open railing (cancellus), its...

League City

(Encyclopedia)League City, city (1990 pop. 30,159), Galveston co., SE Tex.; inc. 1961. The aeronautics industry is of prime importance; NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is nearby. There is also diversified lig...

Riess, Adam Guy

(Encyclopedia)Riess, Adam Guy, 1969–, American astrophysicist, b. Washington, D.C., Ph.D. Harvard, 1996. He has been an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., since 1999 and a prof...

ether, in physics and astronomy

(Encyclopedia)ether or aether, in physics and astronomy, a hypothetical medium for transmitting light and heat (radiation), filling all unoccupied space; it is also called luminiferous ether. In Newtonian physics a...

Sputnik

(Encyclopedia)Sputnik: see satellite, artificial; space exploration. ...

Washington University

(Encyclopedia)Washington University, at St. Louis, Mo.; coeducational; est. as Eliot Seminary 1853, opened 1854, renamed 1857. It has a well-known medical school and school of social work as well as research center...

George Washington University

(Encyclopedia)George Washington University, at Washington, D.C.; coeducational; chartered 1821 as Columbian College (one of the first nonsectarian colleges), opened 1822, became a university in 1873, renamed 1904. ...

aerospace medicine

(Encyclopedia)aerospace medicine: see aviation medicine; space medicine. ...

Hawking, Stephen William

(Encyclopedia)Hawking, Stephen William, 1942–2018, British theoretical physicist, b. Oxford, England, grad. University College, Oxford, 1962, Ph.D. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1966. In 1962 Hawking was diagnosed as ...

Houston, University of

(Encyclopedia)Houston, University of, at Houston, Tex.; coeducational; est. 1927 as a junior college, became a four-year institution in 1934, became a state-supported university in 1963. Campuses at Clear Lake, Vic...