Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Jevons, William Stanley

(Encyclopedia)Jevons, William Stanley jĕvˈənz [key], 1835–82, English economist and logician. After working in Australia as assayer to the mint, he taught at Owens College, Manchester, and University College, ...

Echegaray, José

(Encyclopedia)Echegaray, José hōsāˈ āchāgärīˈ [key], 1832–1916, Spanish dramatist, mathematician, physicist, economist, and politician. He taught science, practiced engineering, and devoted his later lif...

Hägerstrom, Axel

(Encyclopedia)Hägerstrom, Axel äkˈsəl hägˈərstrôm [key], 1868–1939, Swedish philosopher. He was a student (1886–93) at Uppsala Univ. and taught there from 1893 until his retirement in 1933. The son of a...

Haskins, Charles Homer

(Encyclopedia)Haskins, Charles Homer, 1870–1937, American historian, an authority on medieval history, b. Meadville, Pa. At Harvard (1902–31) he was professor and dean of graduate studies (1908–24); in the la...

Sillanpää, Frans Eemil

(Encyclopedia)Sillanpää, Frans Eemil fräns āˈmĭl sĭlˈlänpăˌ [key], 1888–1964, Finnish novelist. As a young man Sillanpää studied natural science at Helsinki and came under the influence of an artisti...

Smith, Goldwin

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Goldwin, 1823–1910, English educator, historian, and journalist. Educated at Oxford, he took a prominent part in executing reforms at the university and became (1858) professor of modern hist...

special effects

(Encyclopedia)special effects, in motion pictures, cinematographic techniques that create illusions in the audience's minds as well as the illusions created using these techniques. Some common examples are the use ...

Spengler, Oswald

(Encyclopedia)Spengler, Oswald spĕngˈglər, Ger. ôsˈvält shpĕngˈglər [key], 1880–1936, German historian and philosopher. His studies covered many fields, among them mathematics, science, philosophy, histo...

Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell

(Encyclopedia)Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell, 1877–1934, American historian, an authority on the antebellum South, b. La Grange, Ga. After teaching at the Univ. of Wisconsin (1902–8), he was professor of history and ...

photonics

(Encyclopedia)photonics, the science and technology based on and concerned with the controlled flow of photons, or light particles. It is the optical equivalent of electronics, and the two technologies coexist in s...

Browse by Subject