Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

radiation weapon

(Encyclopedia)radiation weapon or radiological weapon, a bomb or warhead that uses conventional chemical explosives to disperse radioactive material, sometimes called a “dirty bomb.” Designed to produce radiati...

Ouachita

(Encyclopedia)Ouachita wôˈshĭtôˌ [key], river, c.600 mi (970 km) long, rising in the Ouachita Mts., W Ark. It flows east, southeast, and south through a cotton-producing region of S Arkansas and NE Louisiana a...

Flaming Gorge Dam

(Encyclopedia)Flaming Gorge Dam, in a deep canyon of the Green River, NE Utah; built 1958–63 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as a major unit in the Colorado River storage project. The dam regulates the flow of ...

Allegheny

(Encyclopedia)Allegheny ălˈəgāˌnē, ălˈəgäˌnē [key], river, 325 mi (523 km) long, rising in N central Pa., and flowing NW into N.Y., then SW through Pa. to the Monongahela, with which it forms the Ohio R...

Hamun-i-Helmand

(Encyclopedia)Hamun-i-Helmand sēstänˈ [key], marshy lake in the Sistan, c.5,000 sq mi (12,950 sq km), on the Iran-Afghanistan border. The lake, fed by the Helmand, Farah, and other rivers, varies in size during ...

Anguier, François

(Encyclopedia)Anguier, François fräNswäˈ äNgyāˈ [key], 1604–69, French sculptor. He is noted for the monuments of the Longuevilles and of Jacques Souvré (Louvre). His most ambitious work is probably the m...

Abraj Al-Bait

(Encyclopedia)Abraj Al-Bait, complex of seven government-owned, mixed-use buildings in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The most impressive structure, the Makkah Royal Clock Tower, is the tallest building in Saudi Arabia, at 1...

Kendall, Henry Way

(Encyclopedia)Kendall, Henry Way, 1926–99, American physicist. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kendall won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics with Jerome Friedman and Richard Taylor for a s...

Cali

(Encyclopedia)Cali käˈlē [key], city, capital of Valle del Cauca dept., W Colombia, on the Cali River. I...

Pereira, I. Rice

(Encyclopedia)Pereira, I. Rice (Irene Rice Pereira) pərāˈrə [key], 1907–71, American painter, b. Chelsea, Mass. In 1935, Pereira helped found the Federal Art Project design laboratory and taught there for sev...