Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) videodisc or videodisk, disk used with a special player and television to reproduce both pictures and sound. A videodisc player cannot record television programs off the air for later playback, unlike...

(Encyclopedia) ultrasound or sonography, in medicine, technique that uses sound waves to study and treat hard-to-reach body areas. In scanning with ultrasound, high-frequency sound waves are transmitted to the area ...

(Encyclopedia) umlaut o͝omˈlout [key] [Ger.,=transformed sound], in inflection, variation of vowels of the type of English man to men. In this instance it is the end product of the effect of a y (long since disapp...

(Encyclopedia) Mystic. 1 River, c.10 mi (16 km) long, rising in SE Conn. and flowing S past Old Mystic and Mystic villages to the Long Island Sound. Mystic Seaport, a maritime museum, is at its mouth. 2 River, c.7 m...

(Encyclopedia) Mull, island, 351 sq mi (909 sq km), Argyll and Bute, NW Scotland, largest island of the Inner Hebrides, separated from the mainland by the Sound of Mull and the Firth of Lorn. The land is mountainous...

(Encyclopedia) Mamaroneck məmărˈənĕk [key], residential village (1990 pop. 17,325), Westchester co., SE N.Y., a suburb of New York City, on Long Island Sound; settled 1661, inc. 1895. Initially a farming commun...

(Encyclopedia) McClure Strait, arm of the Beaufort Sea, c.170 mi (270 km) long and 60 mi (100 km) wide, Northwest Territories, Canada. It extends W from Viscount Melville Sound, between Melville and Eglinton islands...

(Encyclopedia) Stratford, town (1990 pop. 49,389), Fairfield co., SW Conn., at the mouth of the Housatonic River on Long Island Sound; inc. 1639. Transportation equipment; helicopters; machinery; hardware items; ele...

(Encyclopedia) compact disc (CD), a small plastic disc used for the storage of digital data. As originally developed for audio systems, the sound signal is sampled at a rate of 44,100 times a second, then each sampl...

(Encyclopedia) Westerly, town (1990 pop. 21,605), Washington co., extreme SW R.I., between the Pawcatuck River and Block Island Sound; inc. 1669. Formerly important industries include textile manufacturing (dating f...