Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

code, in communications

(Encyclopedia)code, in communications, set of symbols and rules for their manipulation by which the symbols can be made to carry information. By this extended definition all written and spoken languages are codes. ...

code, in law

(Encyclopedia)code, in law, in its widest sense any body of legal rules expressed in fixed and authoritative written form. A statute thus may be termed a code. Codes contrast with customary law (including common la...

modulation, in communications

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Modulation modulation, in communications, process in which some characteristic of a wave (the carrier wave) is made to vary in accordance with an information-bearing signal wave (the modulatin...

communications industry

(Encyclopedia)communications industry, broadly defined, the business of conveying information. Although communication by means of symbols and gestures dates to the beginning of human history, the term generally ref...

communications satellite

(Encyclopedia)communications satellite artificial satellite that functions as part of a global radio-communications network. Echo 1, the first communications satellite, launched in 1960, was an instrumented inflat...

data communications

(Encyclopedia)data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications ...

Morse code

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Morse code [for S. F. B. Morse], the arbitrary set of signals used on the telegraph (see code). It may also be used with a flash lamp for visible signaling. The international (or continental) M...

Clarendon Code

(Encyclopedia)Clarendon Code, 1661–65, group of English statutes passed after the Restoration of Charles II to strengthen the position of the Church of England. The Corporation Act (1661) required all officers of...

Code Civil

(Encyclopedia)Code Civil: see Code Napoléon.

Code Napoléon

(Encyclopedia)Code Napoléon sēvēlˈ [key], first modern legal code of France, promulgated by Napoleon I in 1804. The work of J. J. Cambacérès and a commission of four appointed by Napoleon I in 1800 was import...