Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Evans, Maurice, 1901–89, Welsh-American actor. Evans came into prominence in 1928 and in 1934 was a leading man with the Old Vic. He first appeared on Broadway in 1936 in Romeo and Juliet with Katha...

(Encyclopedia) Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, Baron frēˈdrĭkh mĕlˈkhēôr bärōnˈ grĭm [key], 1723–1807, German man of letters in France. He contributed to the Encyclopédie articles on music that were bellige...

(Encyclopedia) Davis, Andrew Jackson, 1826–1910, American spiritualist, b. Blooming Grove, N.Y. He became a professional clairvoyant, known as the “Poughkeepsie Seer,” after being mesmerized in 1843. He was po...

(Encyclopedia)  West, Kanye Omari, 1977- , African American rapper, b. Atlanta (some sources give Douglasville), Al. West’s father, Ray, was a Black Panther who ...

(Encyclopedia) dark energy, repulsive force that opposes the self-attraction of matter (see gravitation) and causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. The search for dark energy was triggered by the discov...

(Encyclopedia) Jones, Quincy (Quincy Delight Jones, Jr.), 1933–, African-American musician, composer, bandleader, and music executive, b. Chicago. Jones played trumpet and sang gospel growing up, and studied brief...

(Encyclopedia) Teller, Edward, 1908–2003, American physicist, b. Budapest, Hungary, Ph.D. Univ. of Leipzig, 1930, where he studied under Werner Heisenberg. Fleeing the Nazis, he came to the United States in 1935 a...

(Encyclopedia) Geiger counter or Geiger-Müller (G-M) counter gīˈgər-mŭlˈər, –myo͞oˈlər [key], instrument for the detection and quantitative determination of ionizing radiation such as the alpha and beta ...

(Encyclopedia) black hole, in astronomy, celestial object of such extremely intense gravity that it attracts everything near it and in some instances prevents everything, including light, from escaping. The term was...

(Encyclopedia) Roth, Philip (Philip Milton Roth), 1933–2018, American author, one of the most important novelists of the 20th cent., b. Newark, N.J., B.A. Bucknell Univ., 1954, M.A. Univ. of Chicago, 1955. His wri...