Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Kahn, Herman

(Encyclopedia)Kahn, Herman kän [key], 1922–83, American military strategist. b. Bayonne, N.J. After graduate work in physics at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the Rand Corporation. Unlike scho...

Clancy, Tom

(Encyclopedia)Clancy, Tom (Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr.), 1947–2013, American popular novelist, b. Baltimore, grad. Loyola Univ. Maryland (B.A., 1969). While working as an insurance agent he wrote The Hunt for Red Octo...

Cohen, Samuel Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Cohen, Samuel Theodore, 1921–2010, American physicist known as the “father of the neutron bomb,” b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 1943. He worked on the Manhattan Proje...

Tolstaya, Tatyana

(Encyclopedia)Tolstaya, Tatyana tōlstīˈyä [key], 1951–, Russian short-story writer and essayist. Increasingly recognized as one of the major European writers of the postwar generation, Tolstaya is part of a R...

Carruthers, George Richard

(Encyclopedia) Carruthers, George Richard, 1939-2020, African-American astrophysicist, b. Cincinnati, OH, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (BS, 1961; MS, nuclear...

Taylor, Maxwell Davenport

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Maxwell Davenport, 1901–87, U.S. general, b. Keytesville, Mo., grad. West Point, 1922. In World War II he served in Europe with the 82d Airborne Division and as commander of the 101st Airbor...

Defense, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Defense, United States Department of, executive department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to nationa...

flerovium

(Encyclopedia)flerovium, artificially produced radioactive chemical element; symbol Fl; at. no. 114; mass number of most stable isotope 289; m.p., b.p., sp. gr., and valence unknown. Situated in Group 14 of the per...

strontium

(Encyclopedia)strontium strŏnˈshēəm [key] [from Strontian, a Scottish town], a metallic chemical element; symbol Sr; at. no. 38; at. wt. 87.62; m.p. 769℃; b.p. 1,384℃; sp. gr. 2.6 at 20℃; valence +2. Stro...

Lafontaine, Oskar

(Encyclopedia)Lafontaine, Oskar, 1943–, German politician. He rose through the Social Democrat Party (SPD) and electoral ranks in the Saar, becoming SPD regional chairman in 1977 and premier of the Saar in 1985. ...