Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

lithium

(Encyclopedia)lithium lĭthˈēəm [key] [Gr.,=stone], metallic chemical element; symbol Li; at. no. 3; interval in which at. wt. ranges 6.938–6.997; m.p. about 180.54℃; b.p. about 1,342℃; sp. gr. .534 at 20�...

zinc

(Encyclopedia)zinc, metallic chemical element; symbol Zn; at. no. 30; at. wt. 65.38; m.p. 419.58℃; b.p. 907℃; sp. gr. 7.133 at 25℃; valence +2. Zinc is a lustrous bluish-white metal. It is found in Group 12 o...

Clifton

(Encyclopedia)Clifton, industrial city (2020 pop. 90,296), Passaic co., NE N.J., on the Passaic River; settled 1685, set off from Passaic and inc. 1917. It has steel,...

Marcus, Rudolph Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Marcus, Rudolph Arthur, 1923–, American chemist, b. Montreal, Canada. A professor at the California Institute of Technology, he was awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a theory ...

Sand Springs

(Encyclopedia)Sand Springs, city (1990 pop. 15,346), Tulsa co., NE Okla., an industrial suburb of Tulsa, on the Arkansas River; founded 1907. There are oil and natural-gas wells and food-processing and chemical ind...

F

(Encyclopedia)F, sixth letter of the alphabet. The Greek letter corresponding to it, digamma, which probably represented a sound like w, disappeared before the classical period. In Western alphabets f has usually r...

Newlands, John Alexander Reina

(Encyclopedia)Newlands, John Alexander Reina, 1838–98, British chemist. He studied at the Royal College of Chemistry in London and worked as an industrial chemist. Newlands prepared the first periodic table of el...

P

(Encyclopedia)P, 16th letter of the alphabet, representing the voiceless bilabial stop. It corresponds to Greek pi, but in form it looks like Greek rho (see R). For the technical use of P in higher criticism, see O...

Martínez de Rozas, Juan

(Encyclopedia)Martínez de Rozas, Juan hwän märtēˈnās dā rōˈsäs [key], 1759–1813, Chilean revolutionist, b. Mendoza, Argentina. A lawyer and scholar, he was a leading instigator of revolutionary ideas. I...

Advent

(Encyclopedia)Advent [Lat.,=coming], season of the Christian ecclesiastical year preceding Christmas, lasting in the West from the Sunday nearest Nov. 30 (St. Andrew's Day) until Christmas Eve. In the Roman Catholi...