Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

nucleosynthesis

(Encyclopedia)nucleosynthesis or nucleogenesis, in astronomy, production of all the chemical elements from the simplest element, hydrogen, by thermonuclear reactions within stars, supernovas, and in the big bang at...

inorganic chemistry

(Encyclopedia)inorganic chemistry, the study of all the elements and their compounds with the exception of carbon and its compounds, which fall under the category of organic chemistry. Inorganic chemistry investiga...

fusion

(Encyclopedia)fusion, in physics. 1 The change of a substance from the solid to the liquid state, also known as melting. The heat given up by a unit mass of a substance during fusion is called the latent heat of fu...

Seaborg, Glenn Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Seaborg, Glenn Theodore sēˈbôrg [key], 1912–99, American chemist, b. Ishpeming, Mich., grad. Univ. of California at Los Angeles, 1934, Ph.D. Univ. of California at Berkeley, 1937. In 1939, he beg...

sun, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Structure of the sun sun, intensely hot, self-luminous body of gases at the center of the solar system. Its gravitational attraction maintains the planets, comets, and other bodies of the sola...

chain reaction

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Chain reaction: A neutron (n) strikes the uranium nucleus (U-235), causing it to split into fission products A and B and release two neutrons. These neutrons can in turn cause further fissions....

Rockville

(Encyclopedia)Rockville, city (1990 pop. 44,835), seat of Montgomery co., W central Md., a NW suburb of Washington, D.C.; settled c.1760s, inc. as a city 1860. It has several scientific research and technology labo...

Joliot-Curie

(Encyclopedia)Joliot-Curie ērĕnˈ [key], 1897–1956, daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie, were married in 1926. Both were assistants at the Radium Institute in Paris, of which Irène, succeeding her mother, was d...

Koizumi, Junichiro

(Encyclopedia)Koizumi, Junichiro jo͝onēˈchērō kōēˈzo͞omē [key], 1942–, Japanese political leader, b. Yokosuka. From a political family, he studied economics at Keio Univ. (grad. 1967). He entered politi...

Dyson, Freeman John

(Encyclopedia)Dyson, Freeman John dīˈsən [key], 1923–2020, British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician, studied Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1945) and Cornell. He did bomber operations resear...