Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Köthen köˈtən [key], city (1994 pop. 31,860), Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany. Köthen has lignite mines, sugar refineries, textile mills, chemical factories, and heavy engineering industries. The ...

(Encyclopedia) Wartburg värtˈbo͝ork [key], castle near Eisenach, in the state of Thuringia, central Germany. Built c.1070, later enlarged, and renovated in the 18th cent., it was the seat of the medieval landgrav...

(Encyclopedia) Weyprecht, Karl kärl vīˈprĕkht [key], 1838–81, German arctic explorer. With Julius von Payer he made a voyage to Novaya Zemlya in 1871. Weyprecht and Payer were leaders of an Austrian expedition...

(Encyclopedia) Siebold tāˈōdōr ĕrnst [key], 1804–85, also a physician, was one of the foremost biologists of his time. He specialized in the comparative anatomy of invertebrates and wrote the first volume (18...

(Encyclopedia) classicism, a term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms. It is sometimes synonymous with excellence or artistic qual...

(Encyclopedia) Radetzky or Radetzki, Joseph, Graf Radetzky de Radetz yōˈzĕf rädĕtˈskē gräf rädĕtˈskē də räˈdĕts [key], 1766–1858, Austrian field marshal. In the war of 1848–49 against Sardinia (s...

(Encyclopedia) Saxe-Weimar săks-vīˈmär [key], Ger. Sachsen-Weimar, former duchy, Thuringia, central Germany. The area passed in the division of 1485 to the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty and remained wit...

(Encyclopedia) Wickram, Jörg yörk vĭkˈräm [key], c.1505–62, German writer. Wickram wrote Meisterlieder, farces such as Der treue Eckart [faithful Eckart] (1538), biblical drama such as Tobias (1550), and the ...

(Encyclopedia) waltz, romantic dance in moderate triple time. It evolved from the German Ländler and became popular in the 18th cent. The dance is smooth, graceful, and vital in performance. The waltz in Vicente Ma...

(Encyclopedia) Hall effect, experiment that shows the sign of the charge carriers in a conductor. In 1879 E. H. Hall discovered that when he placed a metal strip carrying a current in a magnetic field, a voltage dif...