Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) neutron star, extremely small, extremely dense star, with as much as double the sun's mass but only a few miles in radius, in the final stage of stellar evolution. Astronomers Baade and Zwicky predict...

(Encyclopedia) Thackeray, William Makepeace thăkˈərē [key], 1811–63, English novelist, b. Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. He is important not only as a great novelist but also as a brilliant satirist. In 1830, ...

(Encyclopedia) bremsstrahlung brĕmˈshträˌləng [key]: see X ray. ...

(Encyclopedia) Fridley, city (2020 pop. 29,590), Anoka co., SE Minn., a suburb north of Minneapolis, on the Mississippi River; settled 1847, inc. as a city 1957. A dis...

(Encyclopedia) Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO), series of four orbiting observatories (see observatory, orbiting) launched between 1966 and 1972 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to...

(Encyclopedia) bichir bĭchˈər [key], common name for African freshwater fishes as of the family Polypteridae, and particularly for those of the genus Polypterus. Bichirs are among the most primitive of the ray-fi...

(Encyclopedia) Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a fundamental document of French constitutional history, drafted by Emmanuel Sieyès, adopted by the Constituent Assembly on Aug. 26, 1789, and embodied i...

(Encyclopedia) Coolidge, William David, 1873–1975, American physical chemist, b. Hudson, Mass., grad. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1896. He joined the General Electric Company in 1905 and served as direc...

(Encyclopedia) cosmic rays, charged particles moving at nearly the speed of light reaching the earth from outer space. Primary cosmic rays consist mostly of protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), some alpha particles (...

(Encyclopedia) Perutz, Max Ferdinand, 1914–2002, British molecular biologist, b. Vienna. One of the pioneers in the field of molecular biology, Perutz studied chemistry at the Univ. of Vienna (1932–36) and then ...