Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) blackbody, in physics, an ideal black substance that absorbs all and reflects none of the radiant energy falling on it. Lampblack, or powdered carbon, which reflects less than 2% of the radiation fall...

(Encyclopedia) Claude Lorrain zhəlāˈ [key], 1600–1682, French painter, b. Lorraine. Claude was the foremost landscape painter of his time. In Rome at about 12 years of age he was employed as a pastry cook for t...

(Encyclopedia) Havel, Václav vätsˈläv hävĕl [key], 1936–2011, Czech dramatist and essayist, president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the Czech Republic (1993–2003). The most original Czech dramatist to ...

(Encyclopedia) Hay-Pauncefote Treaties hā-pônsˈfo͝ot [key], negotiated in 1899 and 1901 by Secretary of State John Hay, for the United States, and Lord Pauncefote of Preston, British ambassador to the United Sta...

(Encyclopedia) Shostakovich, Dmitri dyĭmēˈtrē shŏstŏkôˈvĭch [key], 1906–75, Russian composer, b. St. Petersburg. Shostakovich studied at the Leningrad Conservatory (1919–25). The early success of his Fi...

(Encyclopedia) warbler, name applied in the New World to members of the wood warbler family (Parulidae) and in the Old World to a large family (Sylviidae) of small, drab, active songsters, including the hedge sparro...

(Encyclopedia) Troy. 1 City (1990 pop. 13,051), seat of Pike co., SE Ala., on the Conecuh River; inc. 1843. Products include lumber and wood items, textiles, truck bodies, feed, plastics, and pecans. Troy Univ. and ...

(Encyclopedia) Plath, Sylvia, 1932–63, American poet, b. Boston. Educated at Smith College and Cambridge, Plath published poems even as a child and won many academic and literary awards. Her first volume of poetry...

(Encyclopedia) progressivism, in U.S. history, a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th cent. In the decades following the Civil War rapid industrialization transformed the United St...

(Encyclopedia) Taft, William Howard, 1857–1930, 27th President of the United States (1909–13) and 10th chief justice of the United States (1921–30), b. Cincinnati. Taft retired from public life and taught ...