Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Siebold

(Encyclopedia)Siebold tāˈōdōr ĕrnst [key], 1804–85, also a physician, was one of the foremost biologists of his time. He specialized in the comparative anatomy of invertebrates and wrote the first volume (18...

Krautheimer, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Krautheimer, Richard kroutˈhīmər [key], 1897–94, American art historian, b. Germany. In 1935, Krautheimer began teaching in American universities, becoming professor of fine arts at New York Univ...

Wickram, Jörg

(Encyclopedia)Wickram, Jörg yörk vĭkˈräm [key], c.1505–62, German writer. Wickram wrote Meisterlieder, farces such as Der treue Eckart [faithful Eckart] (1538), biblical drama such as Tobias (1550), and the ...

Strauss, Franz Josef

(Encyclopedia)Strauss, Franz Josef shtrous [key], 1915–88, West German political figure, leader of the Christian Social Union. He became prominent in the Bavarian Christian Social Union (the Bavarian wing of the...

Hall effect

(Encyclopedia)Hall effect, experiment that shows the sign of the charge carriers in a conductor. In 1879 E. H. Hall discovered that when he placed a metal strip carrying a current in a magnetic field, a voltage dif...

Minucius Felix, Marcus

(Encyclopedia)Minucius Felix, Marcus märˈkəs mĭnyo͞oshˈəs fēˈlĭks [key], fl. 2d cent., Christian apologist, author of a dialogue, Octavius, one of the earliest Latin apologies. In it a pagan and a Christi...

Lucius

(Encyclopedia)Lucius, in the New Testament. 1 Christian teacher at Antioch, a Cyrenian. 2 Christian at Rome.

Gestalt

(Encyclopedia)Gestalt gəshtältˈ [key] [Ger.,=form], school of psychology that interprets phenomena as organized wholes rather than as aggregates of distinct parts, maintaining that the whole is greater than the ...

Oberth, Hermann Julius

(Encyclopedia)Oberth, Hermann Julius, 1894–1989, Austro-German astronautical pioneer, b. Hermannstadt, Austria-Hungary (now Sibiu, Romania). Beginning his studies in astronautics before World War I, he first prop...

Lenau, Nikolaus

(Encyclopedia)Lenau, Nikolaus nēmpsh ādˈlər fən shtrāˈlənou [key], 1802–50, Austrian romantic poet, b. Hungary. He is considered Austria's chief lyric poet. Pessimism and melancholy dominate his work, whi...