Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Rhodes

(Encyclopedia)Rhodes rôˈᵺôs [key], island (1990 est. pop. 90,000), c.540 sq mi (1,400 sq km), SE Greece, in the Aegean Sea; largest of the Dodecanese, near Turkey. The modern city of Rhodes or Ródhos (199...

Sacrobosco, Johannes de

(Encyclopedia)Sacrobosco, Johannes de yōhänˈəs də săkrōbŏsˈkō [key], or John of Hollywood, c.1200–1256, English mathematician and astronomer. He wrote several widely read and influential books: Algorism...

Bond, George Phillips

(Encyclopedia)Bond, George Phillips, 1825–65, American astronomer, b. near Boston, grad. Harvard, 1845. He became the assistant of his father, William Cranch Bond, and in 1859 succeeded him as director of the Har...

Gray, Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Gray, Stephen, 1666–1736, English physicist. Gray, a dyer by trade, cultivated science as a hobby. In 1696 he published an account of a magnifying glass that interested the Royal Society and from th...

Boscovich, Ruggiero Giuseppe

(Encyclopedia)Boscovich, Ruggiero Giuseppe ro͞od-jāˈrō jo͞ozĕpˈpā bôsˈkōvēch [key], 1711–87, Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He became a Jesuit and taught at Rome, Pavia, and Milan. ...

Secchi, Pietro Angelo

(Encyclopedia)Secchi, Pietro Angelo pyĕˈtrō änˈjālō sĕkˈkē [key], 1818–78, Italian astronomer, a Jesuit priest. He was director of the observatory of the Gregorian Univ., Rome, from 1849. He is known es...

Graham, George

(Encyclopedia)Graham, George, 1674?–1751, English instrument maker. A clockmaker by trade, Graham designed clocks and watches that earned him membership in the Royal Society and were still manufactured into the p...

Ganesa

(Encyclopedia)Ganesa gənāˈsə [key], b. 1507, d. after 1564, Indian astronomer. As a boy of 13 in a village N of Mumbai, Ganesa wrote a treatise on astronomy, the Grahalaghava, which has often been reprinted and...

Gunter, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Gunter, Edmund, 1581–1626, English mathematician and astronomer, educated at Westminster School, London, and Christ Church, Oxford. He invented (1618) a small portable quadrant and discovered (1622)...

Habash al-Hasib

(Encyclopedia)Habash al-Hasib häbäshˈ äl-häsēbˈ [key], d. c.870, Arab mathematician and astronomer. Habash al-Hasib was born in what is now Mary, Turkmenistan, and worked in Baghdad. He calculated tables of ...