Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) farsightedness or hyperopia, condition in which far objects can be seen easily but there is difficulty in near vision. It is caused by a defect of refraction in which the image is focused behind the r...

(Encyclopedia) White, Edmund (Edmund Valentine White 3d), 1940–, American writer, b. Cincinnati, B.A. Univ. of Michigan, 1962. White is one of the best known—and probably the finest stylist—of the openly gay w...

(Encyclopedia) Hawkes, John (John Clendennin Burne Hawkes, Jr.), 1925–98, American writer, b. Stamford, Conn., grad. Harvard, 1949. He taught English at Brown Univ. after 1958. Hawkes is considered one of the most...

(Encyclopedia) Bergman, Hjalmar yälˈmär bĕrˈyəmän [key], 1883–1931, Swedish novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer. A popular and prolific writer, Bergman wrote from the background of an unhappy childh...

(Encyclopedia) Bowles, Paul, 1910–99, American writer and composer, b. New York City. He studied in Paris with Virgil Thomson and Aaron Copland and composed (1930s–40s) a number of modernist operas, ballets, son...

(Encyclopedia) macaque məkäkˈ [key], name for Old World monkeys of the genus Macaca, related to mangabeys, mandrills, and baboons. All but one of the 19 species are found in Asia from Afghanistan to Japan, the Ph...

(Encyclopedia) intermolecular forces, forces that are exerted by molecules on each other and that, in general, affect the macroscopic properties of the material of which the molecules are a part. Such forces may be ...

(Encyclopedia) Reymont, Władysław Stanisław vlädĭsˈläf stänēsˈläf rāˈmônt [key], 1867?–1925, Polish short-story writer and novelist. Reymont's poverty-stricken farm childhood and his early manhood as...

(Encyclopedia) Dolet, Étienne ātyĕnˈ dôlāˈ [key], 1509–46, French scholar, painter, and printer of Lyons. He wrote treatises on French grammar, poems, a short history of Francis I, and works in Latin about ...

(Encyclopedia) Droste-Hülshoff, Annette Elisabeth, Freiin or Baroness von änĕtˈə ālēˈzäbĕt frīˈĭn fən drôsˈtə-hülsˈhôf [key], 1797–1848, German poet. Often called the greatest German woman poet...