Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

corona, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)corona, luminous envelope surrounding the sun, outside the chromosphere. Its density is less than one billionth that of the earth's atmosphere. The corona is visible only at the time of totality durin...

Goldschmidt, Richard Benedikt

(Encyclopedia)Goldschmidt, Richard Benedikt, 1878–1958, American zoologist and geneticist, b. Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Heidelberg, 1902. Goldschmidt taught at the Univ. of Munich (1903–14) and was at the Kaiser ...

phase, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Phases of the moon phase, in astronomy, the measure of how much of the illuminated surface of a planet or satellite can be seen from a point at a distance from that body; the term is most ofte...

Morgan, Thomas Hunt

(Encyclopedia)Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 1866–1945, American zoologist, b. Lexington, Ky., Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1890. He was professor of experimental zoology at Columbia (1904–28) and from 1928 was director of the l...

Randall, John Ernest, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Randall, John Ernest, Jr., 1924–2020, American ichthyologist, b. Los Angeles, Ph.D. Univ. of Hawaii, Manoa, 1955. A marine taxonomist, he named 30 new genera and hundreds of new species of fish. Par...

Dobzhansky, Theodosius

(Encyclopedia)Dobzhansky, Theodosius dôbzhänˈskē [key], 1900–1975, American geneticist, b. Russia, grad. Univ. of Kiev, 1921. He emigrated to the United States in 1927 and was naturalized in 1937. Dobzhansky ...

Odum, Eugene Pleasants

(Encyclopedia)Odum, Eugene Pleasants, 1913–2002, American ecologist, b. Newport, N.H., Ph.D. Univ. of Illinois, 1939; son of Howard W. Odum. He joined the department of zoology at the Univ. of Georgia in 1940, ev...

bluefish

(Encyclopedia)bluefish, voracious marine fish of the family Pomatomidae, resembling the pompano but more closely related to the sea basses (see bass, in zoology). Bluefish are found in the warm waters of the Indian...

Gesner, Konrad von

(Encyclopedia)Gesner, Konrad von kônˈrät fən gĕsˈnər [key], 1516–65, Swiss scientist and bibliographer. Gesner was noted for his scholarship and erudition in almost every field of knowledge. He lived in Z�...

Driesch, Hans Adolf Eduard

(Encyclopedia)Driesch, Hans Adolf Eduard häns äˈdôlf āˈdo͞oärt drēsh [key], 1867–1941, German philosopher, b. Bad Kreuznach, grad. (zoology) Univ. of Jena, 1889. His early interest in biology was gradual...

Browse by Subject