Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Morley, Edward Williams, 1838–1923, American scientist, b. Newark, N.J., grad. Williams College, 1860. From 1869 to 1906 he was professor of chemistry at Western Reserve College (now Case Western Re...

(Encyclopedia) motel, public lodging establishment for automobile travelers. Motels have traditionally differed from hotels in that the former have facilities for free parking on the premises, are seldom more than t...

(Encyclopedia) Westminster, Statutes of, in medieval English history, legislative promulgations made by Edward I in Parliament at Westminster. Westminster I (1275) practically constitutes a code of law; it covers a ...

(Encyclopedia) algorithm –rĭzˌəm [key] [for Al-Khowarizmi], a clearly defined procedure for obtaining the solution to a general type of problem, often numerical. Much of ordinary arithmetic as traditionally tau...

(Encyclopedia) devaluation, decreasing the value of one nation's currency relative to gold or the currencies of other nations. It is usually undertaken as a means of correcting a deficit in the balance of payments. ...

(Encyclopedia) imitation, in music, a device of counterpoint wherein a phrase or motive is employed successively in more than one voice. The imitation may be exact, the same intervals being repeated at the same or d...

(Encyclopedia) Fonseca, Rubem, 1925–2020, Brazilian short-story writer and novelist. Fonseca, who studied law and worked for a time as a police officer, is known for urban crime tales, many informed by his police ...

(Encyclopedia) Janša, Janez, 1958–, Slovenian political leader, prime minister of Slovenia (2004–08, 2012–13, 2020–). Working as a journalist and computer programmer, he wrote articles in the 1980s that wer...

(Encyclopedia) Hauptmann, Bruno Richard, 1899–1936, convicted kidnapper and murderer, b. Germany. The infant son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was abducted (Mar. 1, 1932) at Hopewell, N.J., and a ransom of ...

(Encyclopedia) Schenck v. United States, case decided in 1919 by the U.S. Supreme Court. During World War I, Charles T. Schenck produced a pamphlet maintaining that the military draft was illegal, and was convicted ...