Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

SETI

(Encyclopedia)SETI sĕtˈē [key] [Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence], name given to a series of independent programs to detect radio signals from civilizations beyond the solar system. Modern SETI efforts c...

exobiology

(Encyclopedia)exobiology or astrobiology, search for extraterrestrial life within the solar system and throughout the universe. Philosophical speculation that there might be other worlds similar to ours dates back ...

heat

(Encyclopedia)heat, nonmechanical energy in transit, associated with differences in temperature between a system and its surroundings or between parts of the same system. The study of heat and its relationship ...

Taylor, Joseph Hooton, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Joseph Hooton, Jr., 1941–, American astrophysicist, b. Philadelphia, Ph.D. Harvard, 1968. Taylor was a professor at the Univ. of Massachusetts at Amherst from 1969 to 1980, when he joined th...

Ritchey, George Willis

(Encyclopedia)Ritchey, George Willis, 1864–1945, American astronomer, b. Meigs co., Ohio, studied at the Univ. of Cincinnati (1883–84, 1886–87). He was superintendent of instrument construction (1899–1904) ...

Kuiper, Gerard Peter

(Encyclopedia)Kuiper, Gerard Peter or Gerrit Pieter gĕrˈĭt pēˈtər kīˈpər [key], 1905–73, American astronomer, b. the Netherlands. Kuiper is considered to be the father of modern planetary science for his...

universal time

(Encyclopedia)universal time (UT), the international time standard common to every place in the world, it nominally reflects the mean solar time along the earth's prime meridian (renumbered to equate to civil time)...

Kobayashi, Makoto

(Encyclopedia)Kobayashi, Makoto, 1944–, Japanese physicist, Ph.D. Kyoto Univ., 1972. Kobayashi taught at Kyoto Univ. (1972–79) and the National Laboratory of High Energy Physics, Tsukuba, Japan (1979–97). He ...

Amano, Hiroshi

(Encyclopedia)Amano, Hiroshi, 1960–, Japanese physicist, Ph.D. Nagoya Univ., Japan, 1989. He is a professor at Nagoya Univ. in Japan. Amano is the joint recipient with Shuji Nakamura and Isamu Akasaki of the 2014...

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

(Encyclopedia)Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), physical science research center located near Batavia, Ill., est. 1968 as the National Accelerator Laboratory, renamed 1974 in honor of Enrico Fermi. ...