Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

neutron star

(Encyclopedia)neutron star, extremely small, extremely dense star, with as much as double the sun's mass but only a few miles in radius, in the final stage of stellar evolution. Astronomers Baade and Zwicky predict...

Wallace, Alfred Russel

(Encyclopedia)Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823–1913, English naturalist. From his study of comparative biology in Brazil and in the East Indies, he evolved a concept of evolution similar to that of Charles Darwin. Li...

kithara

(Encyclopedia)kithara sĭthˈ– [key], musical instrument of the ancient Greeks. It was a plucked instrument, a larger and stronger form of the lyre, used by professional musicians both for solo playing and for th...

Steppe Geoglyphs

(Encyclopedia)Steppe Geoglyphs or Turgay Geoglyphs, ancient earthworks in Kostanay prov., N Kazakhstan. Located across the Turgay steppe, the more than 250 earthworks consist of squares, crosses, circles, lines, an...

wheel and axle

(Encyclopedia) CE5 Wheel and axle wheel and axle, simple machine consisting of a wheel mounted rigidly upon an axle or drum of smaller diameter, the wheel and the axle having the same axis. It is fundamentally a...

Remington, Eliphalet

(Encyclopedia)Remington, Eliphalet ĭlĭfˈəlĭt [key], 1793–1861, American inventor, gunsmith, and arms manufacturer, b. Suffield, Conn. Trained in blacksmithing, he turned to gunsmithing at an early age. With ...

Scharnhorst, Gerhard Johann David von

(Encyclopedia)Scharnhorst, Gerhard Johann David von gĕrˈhärt yōˈhän däˈvēt fən shärnˈhôrst [key], 1755–1813, Prussian general. A Hanoverian army officer, military writer, and director of the war coll...

vein

(Encyclopedia) CE5 Cross section of vein showing valves vein, blood vessel that returns blood to the heart. Except for the pulmonary vein, which carries oxygenated blood from the lungs to the heart, veins carry ...

Eigen, Manfred

(Encyclopedia)Eigen, Manfred, 1927–2019, German biophysicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Göttingen, 1951. Eigen was on the faculty at the Univ. of Göttingen from 1951 to 1953. He joined the Max Planck Institute for Physica...

Miami, University of

(Encyclopedia)Miami, University of, main campus at Coral Gables, Fla.; partly supported by city, county, and state; coeducational; chartered 1925, opened 1926. Notable programs include a school of marine and atmosp...
 

Browse by Subject