Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Hertwig, Oscar

(Encyclopedia)Hertwig, Oscar ôsˈkär hĕrtˈvĭkh [key], 1849–1922, German embryologist. He studied medicine with Haeckel and Gegenbaur. In 1875 he established the fact that fertilization consists of the union ...

Higgins, William

(Encyclopedia)Higgins, William, b. 1762 or 1763, d. 1825, Irish chemist. After study at Oxford he became supervisor of the Royal Dublin Society's mineralogical collection and in 1800 the Society's professor of chem...

Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawney

(Encyclopedia)Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawney, 1864–1929, English philosopher, sociologist, and journalist. He taught at Oxford and at the Univ. of London. Hobhouse sought to show with evidence from anthropology and ...

Haavelmo, Trygve

(Encyclopedia)Haavelmo, Trygve trügˈvə hävelmō [key], 1911–99, Norwegian economist. In the 1940s, he was a pioneer in the field of econometrics, using mathematics and statistics in the formation of economic ...

Playfair, John

(Encyclopedia)Playfair, John, 1748–1819, Scottish mathematician, physicist, and geologist. He was educated at St. Andrews and Edinburgh and taught first mathematics and then physics and astronomy at the latter un...

Bennett, Hugh Hammond

(Encyclopedia)Bennett, Hugh Hammond, 1881–1960, American soil scientist, b. near Wadesboro, N.C. Known as the father of soil conservation, he first proposed the theory of sheet erosion of soils in 1905. He direct...

Lacan, Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Lacan, Jacques zhäk läkäNˈ [key], 1901–81, French psychoanalyst. After receiving a medical degree, he became a psychoanalyst in Paris. Lacan was infamous for his unorthodox methods of treatment,...

Lassalle, Ferdinand

(Encyclopedia)Lassalle, Ferdinand fĕrˈdēnänt läsälˈ [key], 1825–64, German socialist. The son of a Jewish merchant, he studied at the universities of Breslau and Berlin, where he became a philosophical Heg...

denial

(Encyclopedia)denial, in psychology, an ego defense mechanism that operates unconsciously to resolve emotional conflict, and to allay anxiety by refusing to perceive the more unpleasant aspects of external reality....

Panofsky, Erwin

(Encyclopedia)Panofsky, Erwin pănŏfˈskē [key], 1892–1968, American art historian, b. Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Freiburg, 1914. After teaching (1921–33) at the Univ. of Hamburg and serving as professor of fine...