Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Poynting, John Henry

(Encyclopedia)Poynting, John Henry, 1852–1914, British physicist. He was educated at Liverpool and Cambridge and was professor of physics at the Univ. of Birmingham for most of his life. He is best known for the ...

Duncan, Robert Kennedy

(Encyclopedia)Duncan, Robert Kennedy, 1868–1914, American industrial chemist and educator b. Brantford, Ont., grad. Univ. of Toronto (B.A., 1892). He was professor at the Univ. of Kansas (1906–10) and at the Un...

Brown, Herbert Charles

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Herbert Charles, 1912–2004, American chemist, b. London, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1938. A professor at Wayne State Univ. (1943–47) and Purdue Univ. (1947–78), he shared the 1979 Nobel Priz...

Butlerov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich

(Encyclopedia)Butlerov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich əlyĭksänˈdər mēkhīlˈəvĭch bo͞otˈlyərôf [key], 1825–86, Russian chemist. As professor at the Univ. of Kazan he founded the first school of Russian chemi...

Pfeffer, Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Pfeffer, Wilhelm vĭlˈhĕlm pfĕˈfər [key], 1845–1920, German plant physiologist. He was professor of botany successively at the universities of Bonn, Basel, Tübingen, and Leipzig (from 1887). W...

law of simple multiple proportions

(Encyclopedia)law of simple multiple proportions, in chemistry, the statement that when two or more elements form more than one compound, the ratio of the weights of one element that combine with a given weight of ...

Boyle, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Boyle, Robert, 1627–91, Anglo-Irish physicist and chemist. The seventh son of the 1st earl of Cork, he was educated at Eton and on the Continent and conducted most of his researches at his own labor...

sulfate

(Encyclopedia)sulfate, chemical compound containing the sulfate (SO4) radical. Sulfates are salts or esters of sulfuric acid, H2SO4, formed by replacing one or both of the hydrogens with a metal (e.g., sodium) or a...

N

(Encyclopedia)N, 14th letter of the alphabet. It is a usual symbol for a voiced alveolar (or dental) nasal, as in the English not. The diagraph ng represents a different sound, a voiced velar nasal, as in the Engli...

Marggraf, Andreas Sigismund

(Encyclopedia)Marggraf, Andreas Sigismund ändrāˈäs zēˈgĭsmo͝ont märkˈgräfˌ [key], 1709–82, German chemist, a pioneer in analytical chemistry. He proved that alumina, magnesia, and lime are distinct ea...