Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

wages

(Encyclopedia)wages, payment received by an employee in exchange for labor. It may be in goods or services but is customarily in money. The term in a broad sense refers to what is received in any way for labor, but...

recapitulation

(Encyclopedia)recapitulation, theory, stated as the biogenetic law by E. H. Haeckel, that the embryological development of the individual repeats the stages in the evolutionary development of the species. For examp...

Goodman, Benny

(Encyclopedia)Goodman, Benny (Benjamin David Goodman), 1909–86, American clarinetist, composer, and band leader, b. Chicago. Goodman studied clarinet at Hull House. In Chicago he had the opportunity to hear (and ...

Schnittke, Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Schnittke, Alfred, 1924–98, Russian composer. He studied music in Vienna (1946–48) and at the Moscow Conservatory (1953–58), where he later (1962–72) taught instrumentation. Thereafter, he ear...

Dickson, Leonard Eugene

(Encyclopedia)Dickson, Leonard Eugene, 1874–1954, American mathematician, b. Independence, Iowa, grad. Univ. of Texas, 1893. He studied in Leipzig and Paris and joined the staff of the Univ. of Chicago in 1900. A...

Pissarides, Christopher Antoniou

(Encyclopedia)Pissarides, Christopher Antoniou, 1948–, British-Cypriot economist, b. Nicosia, Cyprus, Ph.D. London School of Economics, 1973. He has been a professor at the London School of Economics since 1976. ...

Cattell, Raymond Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Cattell, Raymond Bernard kətĕlˈ [key], 1905–98, American psychologist, b. Staffordshire, England. He came to the United States in 1937 and served as research professor at the Univ. of Illinois (1...

Habermas, Jürgen

(Encyclopedia)Habermas, Jürgen yûrˈgən häˈbûrmäs [key], 1929–, German philosopher. He is a professor at the Univ. of Frankfurt (emeritus since 1994) and is the best-known contemporary proponent of critica...

sociobiology

(Encyclopedia)sociobiology, controversial field that studies how natural selection, previously used only to explain the evolution of physical characteristics, shapes behavior in animals and humans. The theory has c...

Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice dĭrăkˈ [key], 1902–84, English physicist. He was educated at the Univ. of Bristol and St. John's College, Cambridge, and became professor of mathematics at Cambridge in...

Browse by Subject