Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Ælfric

(Encyclopedia)Ælfric ălˈfrĭk [key], c.955–1020, English writer and Benedictine monk. He was the greatest English scholar during the revival of learning fostered by the Benedictine monasteries in the second ha...

Bourbaki, Nicolas

(Encyclopedia)Bourbaki, Nicolas, pseudonym under which a group of 20th cent. mathematicians has written a series of treatises on pure mathematics. The mathematicians have all been associated with the Ecole Normale ...

Boerhaave, Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Boerhaave, Hermann hĕrˈmän bo͞orˈhävə [key], 1668–1738, Dutch physician and humanist. One of the most influential clinicians and teachers of the 18th cent., Boerhaave spent almost his entire ...

Steinmetz, Charles Proteus

(Encyclopedia)Steinmetz, Charles Proteus stīnˈmĕts [key], 1865–1923, American electrical engineer, b. Breslau, Germany, studied at the Univ. of Breslau. Forced to flee Germany because of his socialist activiti...

tetraethyl lead

(Encyclopedia)tetraethyl lead tĕtˌrəĕthˈəl [key], (C2H5)4Pb, viscous, colorless, poisonous liquid. It is an organometallic compound prepared by reacting ethyl chloride with a sodium-lead alloy. When added to ...

Updike, Daniel Berkeley

(Encyclopedia)Updike, Daniel Berkeley ŭpˈdīkˌ [key], 1860–1941, American printer and historian of typography, b. Providence, R.I. At the Merrymount Press, which he founded in 1893 in Boston, his stated purpos...

Shaw, Lemuel

(Encyclopedia)Shaw, Lemuel, 1781–1861, American jurist, b. Barnstable, Mass. After a career in the Massachusetts state legislature, Shaw served as chief justice for the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts (18...

chronometer

(Encyclopedia)chronometer krənŏmˈətər [key], instrument for keeping highly accurate time, used especially in navigation. Before the advent of radio time signals it was the only device that provided the time ac...

hourglass

(Encyclopedia)hourglass, glass instrument for measuring time, usually consisting of two bulbs united by a narrow neck. One bulb is filled with fine sand that runs through the neck into the other bulb in an hour's t...

Dana, James Dwight

(Encyclopedia)Dana, James Dwight, 1813–95, American geologist, mineralogist, and naturalist, b. Utica, N.Y., grad. Yale, 1833. His studies of the S Pacific, NW United States, Europe, and elsewhere led to changes ...

Browse by Subject