Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

216 results found

Sennett, Mack

(Encyclopedia)Sennett, Mack sĕnˈĭt [key], 1884–1960, American movie director and producer, b. Danville, Que. In 1909 he began working for D. W. Griffith at the Biograph Company, and in 1912 he organized his ow...

Sarnoff, David

(Encyclopedia)Sarnoff, David, 1891–1971, American pioneer in radio and television, b. Russia. Emigrating to the United States in 1900, he worked for the Marconi Wireless Company, winning recognition as the narrat...

communications satellite

(Encyclopedia)communications satellite artificial satellite that functions as part of a global radio-communications network. Echo 1, the first communications satellite, launched in 1960, was an instrumented inflat...

Djerassi, Carl

(Encyclopedia)Djerassi, Carl jərăsˈē [key], 1929–2015, American organic chemist and educator, b. Vienna, Austria. He received his Ph.D. from the Univ. of Wisconsin (1945) and taught at Stanford Univ. from 195...

Cohen, Samuel Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Cohen, Samuel Theodore, 1921–2010, American physicist known as the “father of the neutron bomb,” b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 1943. He worked on the Manhattan Proje...

fiduciary

(Encyclopedia)fiduciary fĭdo͞oˈshēĕˌrē [key], in law, a person who is obliged to discharge faithfully a responsibility of trust toward another. Among the common fiduciary relationships are guardian to ward, ...

Fukuyama, Francis

(Encyclopedia)Fukuyama, Francis, 1952–, American political scientist, b. Chicago, grad. Cornell (B.A., 1974), Harvard (Ph.D., 1981). He has been a political scientist at the RAND Corporation (1979–80, 1983–89...

Murad, Ferid

(Encyclopedia)Murad, Ferid, 1936–, American pharmacologist, b. Whiting, Ind., M.D., Ph.D. Western Reserve Univ. (now Case Western Reserve Univ.), 1965. Murad taught at the Univ. of Virginia (1975–81), Stanford ...

Newport Jazz Festival

(Encyclopedia)Newport Jazz Festival, annual summer music festival, probably the best known of all such festivals, held at Newport, R.I. Originally sponsored by Newport socialites Mr. and Mrs. Louis Lorillard and ja...

autonomy

(Encyclopedia)autonomy ôtŏnˈəmē [key] [Gr.,=self-rule], in a political sense, limited self-government, short of independence, of a political state or, more frequently, of a subdivision. The term is also used f...