Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Clarke, James Freeman

(Encyclopedia)Clarke, James Freeman, 1810–88, American Unitarian clergyman and author, b. Hanover, N.H. While in charge of the Unitarian church in Louisville, Ky. (1833–40), he was for three years editor of the...

Eudoxus of Cnidus

(Encyclopedia)Eudoxus of Cnidus yo͞odŏkˈsəs, nīˈdəs [key], 408?–355? b.c., Greek astronomer, mathematician, and physician. From the accounts of various ancient writers, he appears to have studied with Plat...

serenade

(Encyclopedia)serenade [Ital. sera=evening], term used to designate several types of musical composition. Opera and song literature yield numerous examples of the serenade sung or played by a lover at night beneath...

Wigman, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Wigman, Mary, 1886–1973, German dancer, choreographer, and teacher. After studying with Rudolf von Laban, Wigman performed in Germany and opened her own school in Dresden (1920). She became the most...

Moon, Sun Myung

(Encyclopedia)Moon, Sun Myung sŭn yŭng mo͞on [key], 1920–2012, South Korean religious leader. He was an engineering student in Japan and a dockworker before founding (1954) the Unification Church with a doctri...

McBay, Shirley

(Encyclopedia) McBay, Shirley , 1935-2021, American mathematician and educator, b. Bainbridge, Ga.,as Shirley Ann Mathis, Paine College (B.S., 1954), Atlanta Univ. (M...

Karpinsky, Alexander Petrovich

(Encyclopedia)Karpinsky, Alexander Petrovich əlyĭksänˈdər pētrôˈvĭch kärpēnˈskē [key], 1846–1936, Soviet geologist. From 1869 to 1885 he was at the Mining Institute, St. Petersburg as student and tea...

Mourou, Gérard Albert

(Encyclopedia)Mourou, Gérard Albert, 1944–, French physicist, Ph.D. Pierre and Marie Curie Univ. (now part of Sorbonne Univ.), 1973. Mourou was a professor at the Univ. of Rochester, New York, from 1977 to 1988,...

Hewish, Antony

(Encyclopedia)Hewish, Antony, 1924–, British astrophysicist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1952. Hewish spent his entire career as a faculty member at Cambridge, retiring in 1989. He shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics wit...

Andrić, Ivo

(Encyclopedia)Andrić, Ivo ēˈvō änˈdrĭch [key], 1892–1975, Yugoslav novelist and poet, b. Bosnia. As a student Andrić worked for the independence and unity of the South Slavic peoples, and after the format...