Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Ritz, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Ritz, Walter, 1878–1909, Swiss physicist. He taught at the universities of Zürich and Göttingen. Ritz's combination principle, confirmed by later research, stated that the frequencies of spectral ...

Scott, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Scott, Walter, 1867–1938, Canadian journalist and political leader, b. Ontario. A newspaper editor and publisher, he became (1900) a member of the House of Commons from Assiniboia West and was instr...

Clarke, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Clarke, Walter, c.1638–1714, colonial governor of Rhode Island, b. Newport, R.I. He was deputy governor (1679–86, 1700–1714) and was three times governor (1676–77, 1686, 1696–98) of Rhode Is...

Walter Sans Avoir

(Encyclopedia)Walter Sans Avoir, Fr. Gautier Sans-Avoir, d. 1096, French Crusader, known as Walter the Penniless. He joined Peter the Hermit as leader of an army to the Holy Land. In what came to be known as the Po...

Walter, Thomas Ustick

(Encyclopedia)Walter, Thomas Ustick, 1804–87, American architect, b. Philadelphia. In 1819 he entered the office of William Strickland in Philadelphia as a student. In 1830 he began practice, the county prison (1...

Baade, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Baade, Walter välˈtər bäˈdə [key], 1893–1960, German-born American astronomer. From 1919 to 1931 he was on the staff of the Hamburg observatory; from 1931 to 1958, at the Mt. Wilson observator...

Map, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Map or Mapes, Walter, c.1140–c.1210, English author, b. Wales. A favorite of Henry II, he traveled with the king and became archdeacon of Oxford. The one work indubitably his, De nugis curialium [co...

Francis, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Francis, Saint, or Saint Francis of Assisi əsēˈzē [key], 1182?–1226, founder of the Franciscans, one of the greatest Christian saints, b. Assisi, Umbria, Italy. Two years before his death (122...

Francis, Dick

(Encyclopedia)Francis, Dick (Richard Stanley Francis), 1920–2010, English novelist. He was a champion steeplechase jockey (1946–57) and a racing writer for a London newspaper (1957–73). Francis parlayed his k...

Gilbert, Walter

(Encyclopedia)Gilbert, Walter, 1932–, American molecular biologist, b. Boston, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1957. In 1968 he became a professor of biophysics at Harvard, where he had taught since 1959. He helped formulate a ...