Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Vorster, Balthazar Johannes yōhänˈəs bältäzärˈ fôrˈstər [key], 1915–83, South African political leader. A lawyer, John Vorster became involved in the Afrikaner nationalist movement and he...

(Encyclopedia) Brahms, Johannes brämz, Ger. yōhänˈnĕs bräms [key], 1833–97, German composer, b. Hamburg. Brahms ranks among the greatest masters of the romantic period. The son of a musician, he early showed...

(Encyclopedia) Damrosch, Walter Johannes, 1862–1950, German-American conductor and composer; son of Leopold Damrosch. At his father's death in 1885, he finished the season as conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, N...

(Encyclopedia) Tillich, Paul Johannes tĭlˈĭk [key], 1886–1965, American philosopher and theologian, b. Germany, educated at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau. In 1912 he was ordained a m...

(Encyclopedia) van der Waals, Johannes Diderik yōhäˈnəs dēˈdərĭk vän dər väls [key], 1837–1923, Dutch physicist. It had been known for some time that the behavior of real gases differs from that of an i...

(Encyclopedia) Moltke, Helmuth Johannes Ludwig, Graf von hĕlˈmo͞ot yōhäˈnəs lo͞otˈvĭkh gräf fən môltˈkə [key], 1848–1916, German army officer. He fought in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) and be...

(Encyclopedia) Jensen, Johannes Hans Daniel, 1907–73, German physicist, Ph.D. Univ. of Hamburg, 1932. Jensen was a professor at the Technical Univ. of Hanover from 1941 to 1949, when he joined the faculty at Heide...

(Encyclopedia) Tilly, Johannes Tserklaes, count of yōhänˈəs tsĕrkläsˈ tĭlˈē [key], 1559–1632, general in Bavarian and later imperial service during the Thirty Years War. A younger son of a noble family o...

(Encyclopedia) planetary system, a star and all the celestial bodies bound to it by gravity, especially planets and their natural satellites. Until the last decade of the 20th cent., the only planetary system known ...

(Encyclopedia) planet [Gr.,=wanderer], a large nonluminous body of rock, gas, or ice that orbits the sun or another star, has a rounded shape due to gravity, and has cleared its orbit of smaller objects. The term, o...