Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Riess, Adam Guy

(Encyclopedia)Riess, Adam Guy, 1969–, American astrophysicist, b. Washington, D.C., Ph.D. Harvard, 1996. He has been an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., since 1999 and a prof...

ether, in physics and astronomy

(Encyclopedia)ether or aether, in physics and astronomy, a hypothetical medium for transmitting light and heat (radiation), filling all unoccupied space; it is also called luminiferous ether. In Newtonian physics a...

Sputnik

(Encyclopedia)Sputnik: see satellite, artificial; space exploration. ...

Washington University

(Encyclopedia)Washington University, at St. Louis, Mo.; coeducational; est. as Eliot Seminary 1853, opened 1854, renamed 1857. It has a well-known medical school and school of social work as well as research center...

Miseno, Cape

(Encyclopedia)Miseno, Cape mēzĕˈnō [key], S Italy, at the northwest end of the Bay of Naples. Augustus founded (1st cent. b.c.) a naval station (Misenum) there, which was destroyed by the Arabs (9th cent. a.d.)...

Leduc

(Encyclopedia)Leduc lədo͞okˈ [key], town (1991 pop. 13,970), central Alta., Canada, S of Edmonton. It is the center of the Leduc oil field (discovered 1947), which is now mostly depleted. The town is an oil stor...

Rhode Island, University of

(Encyclopedia)Rhode Island, University of, at Kingston; coeducational; land-grant and state-supported; chartered 1888, opened as a school 1890, as an agricultural and mechanical college 1892. From 1909 to 1951 it w...

Cheboksary

(Encyclopedia)Cheboksary chĕbəksäˈrē [key], city (1989 pop. 420,000), capital of Chuvash Republic, NW European Russia, a port on the Volga River. Both a heavy industrial and an agricultural region, it is the s...

Chusovaya

(Encyclopedia)Chusovaya cho͞osəvīˈə [key], river, c.460 mi (740 km) long, E European Russia. It rises in the central Urals and flows northwest through a major industrial region to join the Kama Reservoir near ...

Gosport

(Encyclopedia)Gosport gŏsˈpôrt [key], city and district, Hampshire, S England. The city is a major port ...