Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Smith, Edmund Kirby

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Edmund Kirby, or Edmund Kirby-Smith, 1824–93, American soldier, Confederate general in the Civil War, b. St. Augustine, Fla. A West Point graduate, he was cited for gallantry in the Mexican W...

Raoult's law

(Encyclopedia)Raoult's law räo͞olzˈ [key] [for F. M. Raoult, a French physicist and chemist] states that the addition of solute to a liquid lessens the tendency for the liquid to become a solid or a gas, i.e., r...

potential, electric

(Encyclopedia)potential, electric, work per unit of electric charge expended in moving a charged body from a reference point to any given point in an electric field (see electrostatics). The potential at the refere...

Carson, Kit

(Encyclopedia)Carson, Kit (Christopher Houston Carson), 1809–68, American frontiersman and guide, b. Madison co., Ky. In 1811 he moved with his family to the Missouri frontier. After his father's death, he was ap...

dimension, in mathematics

(Encyclopedia)dimension, in mathematics, number of parameters or coordinates required locally to describe points in a mathematical object (usually geometric in character). For example, the space we inhabit is three...

Thomas, George Henry

(Encyclopedia)Thomas, George Henry, 1816–70, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Southampton co., Va. He served in the Seminole War and in the Mexican War. Later he taught at West Point and served in Texa...

Olympic Mountains

(Encyclopedia)Olympic Mountains, highest part of the Coast Ranges, on the Olympic Peninsula, NW Wash. Mt. Olympus (7,965 ft/2,427 m) is the highest point in the mountains, which are composed mainly of sedimentary r...

Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Haig, Alexander Meigs, Jr., 1924–2010, American general and public official, U.S. secretary of state (1981–82), b. Philadelphia, grad. West Point, 1947. He served in Korea (1950–51) and held sev...

Perth Amboy

(Encyclopedia)Perth Amboy ămˈboi [key], city (1990 pop. 41,962), Middlesex co., NE N.J., with a harbor on Arthur Kill at the mouth of the Raritan River, which is crossed there to Staten Island, N.Y., by the Outer...

Arnold, Benedict

(Encyclopedia)Arnold, Benedict, 1741–1801, American Revolutionary general and traitor, b. Norwich, Conn. As a youth he served for a time in the colonial militia in the French and Indian Wars. He later became a pr...