Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) thunderstorm, violent, local atmospheric disturbance accompanied by lightning, thunder, and heavy rain, often by strong gusts of wind, and sometimes by hail. The typical thunderstorm caused by convect...

(Encyclopedia) scandium skănˈdēəm [key], metallic chemical element; symbol Sc; at. no. 21; at. wt. 44.95591; m.p. 1,541℃; b.p. 2,831℃; sp. gr. 2.99 at 20℃; valence +3. Scandium is a soft silver-white metal...

(Encyclopedia) red giant, star that is relatively cool but very luminous because of its great size. All normal stars are expected to pass eventually through a red-giant phase as a consequence of stellar evolution. A...

(Encyclopedia)  Reed, Ishmael Scott, 1938- , African-American novelist, poet, and social critic, b. Chattanooga, Tn. When he was a child, Reed’s family moved ...

(Encyclopedia) sphinx sfĭngks [key], mythical beast of ancient Egypt, frequently symbolizing the pharaoh as an incarnation of the sun god Ra. The sphinx was represented in sculpture usually in a recumbent position ...

(Encyclopedia) amulet ămˈyəlĭt [key], object or formula that credulity and superstition have endowed with the power of warding off harmful influences. The use of the amulet to avert danger and to dispel evil has...

(Encyclopedia) Gwathmey, Robert gwăthˈmē [key], 1903–88, American painter, b. Richmond, Va. Gwathmey taught at Cooper Union from 1942 to 1968. Among the first white artists to portray African Americans with dig...

(Encyclopedia) Frayn, Michael, 1933–, English playwright and novelist, b. London. After graduating from Cambridge he worked as a reporter and columnist for the Manchester Guardian and the Observer. As a playwright...

(Encyclopedia) Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 1775–1851, English landscape painter, b. London. Turner was the foremost English romantic painter and the most original of English landscape artists; in watercolor he...

(Encyclopedia) cosmology, area of science that aims at a comprehensive theory of the structure and evolution of the entire physical universe. The earliest pre-Ptolemaic theories assumed that the earth was the cent...