Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) roentgenium, artificially produced radioactive chemical element; symbol Rg; at. no. 111; mass number of most stable isotope 280; m.p., b.p., sp. gr., and valence unknown. Situated in Group 11 of the p...

(Encyclopedia) Tell, William, legendary Swiss patriot. According to legend, Tell was a native of Uri, one of the Swiss forest cantons. Gessler, the canton's Austrian bailiff, decreed that Swiss citizens must remove ...

(Encyclopedia) deconstruction, in linguistics, philosophy, and literary theory, the exposure and undermining of the metaphysical assumptions involved in systematic attempts to ground knowledge, especially in academi...

(Encyclopedia) Bering, Vitus Jonassen vēˈto͝os yōˈnäsən bārˈĭng [key], 1681–1741, Danish explorer in Russian employ. In 1725 he was selected by Peter I to explore far NE Siberia. Having finally moved men...

(Encyclopedia) George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert), 1865–1936, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1910–36), second son and successor of Edward VII. At the age of 12 he commenced a naval career, but this en...

(Encyclopedia) hardness, property of matter commonly described as the resistance of a substance to being scratched by another substance. The degree of hardness is relative, different substances being compared with o...

(Encyclopedia) Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf von nēˈkōlous lo͝otˈvĭkh gräf fən tsĭnˈtsəndôrf [key], 1700–1760, German churchman, patron and bishop of the refounded Moravian Church, b. Dresden. Rear...

(Encyclopedia) Polish literature, the literary works of Poland. The regaining of Polish independence in 1919 after generations of partition inspired new literary activity. The Skamander group of urban poets, inclu...

(Encyclopedia) Pasolini, Pier Paolo pyĕr päˈōlō päsōlēˈnē [key], 1922–75, Italian writer and film director. A former Roman Catholic and a Marxist, Pasolini brought to his work a combination of religious ...

(Encyclopedia) Haushofer, Karl kärl housˈhōfər [key], 1869–1946, German geographer, theorist of Nazi geopolitics, including the doctrines that the state is a living organism and that race and territory are lin...