Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Compton effect [for A. H. Compton], increase in the wavelengths of X rays and gamma rays when they collide with and are scattered from loosely bound electrons in matter. This effect provides strong ve...

(Encyclopedia) Cushing, Harvey Williams, 1869–1939, American neurosurgeon, b. Cleveland, B.A. Yale, 1891, M.D. Harvard, 1895. Associated with Johns Hopkins (1896–1912), Harvard (1912–32), and Yale (1933–37),...

(Encyclopedia) Hassel, Odd ôd häsˈəl [key], 1897–1981, Norwegian chemist, b. Christiania (now Oslo), grad. Oslo Univ. (1920), Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin (1924). After pursuing X-ray crystallographic studies in Germ...

(Encyclopedia) King, Coretta Scott, 1927–2006, American civil-rights leader, b. Heiberger, Ala.; the wife (1953–68) of Martin Luther King, Jr. After her husband's assassination, she carried on his civil-rights w...

(Encyclopedia) Scorpius –pēō [key] [Lat.,=the scorpion], conspicuous southern constellation lying on the ecliptic (the sun's apparent path through the heavens) between Sagittarius and Libra; it is one of the con...

(Encyclopedia) Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, astronomical observatory located 35 mi (56 km) S of Tucson, Ariz., at an altitude of 8,500 ft (2,590 m). It is operated jointly by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Obse...

(Encyclopedia) Markham, Edwin, 1852–1940, American poet, b. Oregon City, Oreg. He grew up in California and later taught school there. In 1899 he achieved widespread popularity for the poem “The Man with the Hoe...

(Encyclopedia) Mason, James, 1909–84, British stage and film actor. Mason, trained at Cambridge as an architect, became a leading man in British films in the 1940s and thereafter an international star. With a velv...

(Encyclopedia) genius, in Roman religion, guardian spirit of a man, a family, or a state. In some instances, a place, a city, or an institution had its genius. As the guardian spirit of an individual, the genius (co...

(Encyclopedia) Dawkins, Sir William Boyd, 1837–1929, English geologist and archaeologist. He was a member (1861–69) of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, curator (1870–90) of the Manchester Museum, and pr...