Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

calculator

(Encyclopedia)calculator or calculating machine, device for performing numerical computations; it may be mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic. The electronic computer is also a calculator but performs other...

Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

(Encyclopedia)Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, at Tallahassee; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered and opened 1887; predominantly African American. It has divisions of arts and s...

jack, mechanical device

(Encyclopedia)jack, mechanical device used to multiply a relatively small applied force so that it can lift and support heavy loads, or sometimes, move massive objects into a desired position. The lever jack, often...

cam, mechanical device

(Encyclopedia)cam, mechanical device for converting a rotating motion into a reciprocating, or back-and-forth, motion, or for changing a simple motion into a complex one. A simple form of cam is a circular disk set...

Lovelace, Ada

(Encyclopedia)Lovelace, Ada (Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace), 1815–1852, English mathematician, b. London as Augusta Ada Byron. The daughter of the poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke, she was...

slide rule

(Encyclopedia)slide rule, instrument for making numerical computations and readings, the results of which may be read easily and quickly after performing simple mechanical manipulations. Multiplication and division...

liquid crystal

(Encyclopedia)liquid crystal, liquid whose component particles, atoms or molecules, tend to arrange themselves with a degree of order far exceeding that found in ordinary liquids and approaching that of solid cryst...

Browse by Subject