Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

semiotics

(Encyclopedia)semiotics or semiology, discipline deriving from the American logician C. S. Peirce and the French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. It has come to mean generally the study of any cultural product (e.g....

livermorium

(Encyclopedia)livermorium, artificially produced radioactive chemical element; symbol Lv; at. no. 116; mass number of most stable isotope 292; m.p., b.p., sp. gr., and valence unknown. Situated in Group 16 of the p...

David, Félicien César

(Encyclopedia)David, Félicien César fālēsyăNˈ sāzärˈ dävēdˈ [key], 1810–76, French composer. His ode-symphony Le Desert (1844) and his opera Lalla-Roukh (1862) contain Eastern elements, presaging the ...

Ha

(Encyclopedia)Ha, formerly the suggested symbol for the name hahnium, which was applied variously to two elements, now called dubnium and hassium. ...

Ns

(Encyclopedia)Ns, formerly the suggested symbol for the name nielsbohrium, which was applied variously to two elements, now called bohrium and dubnium. ...

Udall, Nicholas

(Encyclopedia)Udall, Nicholas, 1505–56, English dramatist, educated at Oxford. He was headmaster of Eton (1534–41) and of Westminster School (from 1554). His one extant play, Ralph Roister Doister (c.1545), is ...

Boisbaudran, Paul Émile Lecoq de

(Encyclopedia)Boisbaudran, Paul Émile Lecoq de pôl āmēlˈ ləkôkˈ də bwäbōdräNˈ [key], 1838–1912, French discoverer of the elements gallium, samarium, and dysprosium. He also made contributions in the ...

Rockburne, Dorothea

(Encyclopedia)Rockburne, Dorothea, 1932–, American artist, b. Quebec, Canada. The configurations of Rockburne's constructions are predetermined by the nature of her materials and by various limiting rules of her ...

halogen

(Encyclopedia)halogen hălˈəjĕn [key] [Gr.,=salt-bearing], any of the chemically active elements found in Group 17 of the periodic table; the name applies especially to fluorine (symbol F), chlorine (Cl), bromin...

Delvaux, Laurent

(Encyclopedia)Delvaux, Laurent lōräNˈ dĕlvōˈ [key], 1695–1778, Flemish sculptor. After studying in Rome, Delvaux developed a style that combined French neoclassic and Italian baroque elements. Ornate in the...

Browse by Subject