Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) raisin, dried fruit of certain varieties of grapevines bearing grapes with a high content of sugar and solid flesh. Although the fruit is sometimes artificially dehydrated, it is usually sun-dried. Th...

(Encyclopedia) precipitation, in chemistry, a process in which a solid is separated from a suspension, sol, or solution. In a suspension such as sand in water the solid spontaneously precipitates (settles out) on st...

(Encyclopedia) saccharin săkˈərĭn [key], C7H5NSO3, white, crystalline, aromatic compound. It was discovered accidentally by I. Remsen and C. Fahlberg in 1879. Pure saccharin tastes several hundred times as sweet...

(Encyclopedia) Lucian lo͞oˈshən [key], b. c.120, d. after 180, Greek writer, also called Lucianus, b. Samosata, Syria. In late life he held a government position in Egypt. Lucian wrote an easy, masterly Attic pro...

(Encyclopedia) Unitarian Universalist Association, Protestant church in the United States formed in 1961 by the merger of the American Unitarian Association (see Unitarianism) and the Universalist Church of America....

(Encyclopedia) Gregory, Lady Augusta (Isabella Augusta Persse), 1859–1932, Irish dramatist. Though she did not begin her writing career until middle-age, Lady Gregory soon became a vital force in the Irish drama. ...

(Encyclopedia) Hounsfield, Sir Godfrey Newbold, 1919–2004, British electrical engineer. A radar expert for the Royal Air Force during World War II, in the 1950s Hounsfield began developing computer and X-ray techn...

(Encyclopedia) Hess, Victor Francis, 1883–1964, American physicist, b. Austria, Ph.D. Univ. of Graz, 1906. After teaching at the universities of Graz and Innsbruck, he came to the United States in 1938 and was lat...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Mauritania môrĭtāˈnēə [key], officially Islamic Republic of Mauritania, republic (2015 est. pop. 386,000), 397,953 sq mi (1,030,700 sq km), NW Africa. Fort-de-France is the capital. The d...

(Encyclopedia) Charlestown, town on the island of Nevis, St. Kitts and Nevis, West Indies. Charlestown is the chief town and port of the island. Sugar processing is th...