Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

85 results found

tautomer

(Encyclopedia)tautomer tôˈtəmər [key], one of two or more structural isomers that exist in equilibrium and are readily converted from one isomeric form to another. Of the various types of tautomerism that are p...

Göbekli Tepe

(Encyclopedia)Göbekli Tepe, Neolithic site in SE Turkey, c. 9 mi (15 km) NE of Şanlıurfa, that dates to c.11,000 b.c. or earlier. Although previously known, it was first recognized as a Neolithic site in 1994 by...

Thouless, David James

(Encyclopedia)Thouless, David James, 1934–2019, British physicist, b. Bearsden, Scotland, Ph.D. Cornell, 1958. He was a professor at the Univ. of Birmingham, England (1965–78), Yale (1979–80), and the Univ. o...

Devrient, Ludwig

(Encyclopedia)Devrient, Ludwig lo͝otˈvĭkh dəvrēăNˈ [key], 1784–1832, German actor. He abandoned a commercial career in 1804 to join a traveling theatrical company. In Berlin he was a favorite in comedy and...

purine

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Purines found in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) purine, type of organic base found in the nucleotides and nucleic acids of plant and animal tissue. The German chemist Emil Fischer did much of the...

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

(Encyclopedia)Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1895, gave its first concert the following year under the direction of Frederic Archer. Victor Herbert was the chief conductor from 1898 to 1904; he was succe...

Reynard the Fox

(Encyclopedia)Reynard the Fox rĕˈnərd, rāˈnärd [key], the supreme trickster and celebrated hero of the medieval beast epics, works predominantly in verse which became increasingly popular after c.1150. They a...

Mečiar, Vladimír

(Encyclopedia)Mečiar, Vladimír, 1942–, Slovakian political leader. A member of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia, Mečiar was ousted in 1970 after having supported party reforms following the Warsaw Pact in...

Von Sternberg, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Von Sternberg, Joseph (Jo Sternberg), 1894–1969, Austrian-American film director and screenwriter. Von Sternberg, who worked in the United States from 1925, made films that were noted for their dazz...

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...

Browse by Subject