Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Chinese examination system, civil service recruitment method and educational system employed from the Han dynasty (206 b.c.–a.d. 220) until it was abolished by the Ch'ing dowager empress Tz'u Hsi in...

(Encyclopedia) Table Bay, inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, 6 mi (9.7 km) wide, lying off Western Cape, South Africa. Table Mt. overlooks the bay, which was visited in the late 15th cent. by Portuguese voyagers to India....

(Encyclopedia) Round Table, in Arthurian legend, the table at which King Arthur and his knights held court. It was allegedly fashioned at the behest of Arthur to prevent quarrels among the knights over precedence. A...

(Encyclopedia)  Elementary Particles Leptons Quarks1 Gauge Bosons Some Sample Hadrons For each of these particles, except the photon, gluon, and Z-boson, there is an antiparticle with the same mass and op...

(Encyclopedia) water table, the top zone of soil and rock in which all voids are saturated with water. The level of the water table varies with topography and climate, and depends on the degree to which the groundwa...

(Encyclopedia) Ssu-ma Ch'ien so͝oˈmä chyĕn [key], 145?–90? b.c., Chinese historian; sometimes called the Father of Chinese History. He succeeded his father, Ssu-ma T'an, as grand historian (an office then deal...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 periodic table, chart of the elements arranged according to the periodic law discovered by Dmitri I. Mendeleev and revised by Henry G. J. Moseley. In the periodic table the elements are arrange...

(Encyclopedia)  Morse Code International Morse Code American Morse CodeThe American Morse differs in the following symbols: ...

(Encyclopedia) Table Mountain, 3,567 ft (1,087 m) high, Western Cape, South Africa. It overlooks Cape Town and Table Bay. The summit is flat, and the dense white mist that often covers it is called the “tablecloth...

(Encyclopedia) Luoyang or Loyang both: lô-yäng [key], city (1994 est. pop. 863,300), NW Henan prov., China, on the Luo River. The city is the hub of several highways and is located on the Longhai RR. A new industr...