Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Salzburg zältsˈbo͝ork [key], province (1991 pop. 482,365), c.2,760 sq mi (7,150 sq km), W central Austria, bordering Germany in the north and northwest. It is a predominately mountainous region, wi...

(Encyclopedia) Boston Public Library, founded in 1848, chiefly through the gift of Joshua Bates, and opened to the public in 1854. It is the oldest free public city library supported by taxation in the world and the...

(Encyclopedia) frigate frĭgˈĭt [key], originally a long, narrow nautical vessel used on the Mediterranean, propelled by either oars or sail or both. Later, during the 18th and early 19th cent., the term was appli...

(Encyclopedia) Melbourne, city (2016 pop. 47,285, Greater Melbourne 2016 pop. 4,485,211), capital of Victoria, SE Australia, on Port Phillip Bay at the mouth of the Yarra River. Melbourne, Australia's second largest...

(Encyclopedia) pi, in mathematics, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The symbol for pi is π. The ratio is the same for all circles and is approximately 3.1416. It is of great importance in...

(Encyclopedia) Moore's Law, a projection of semiconductor manufacturing trends made by Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of the Intel Corp., in a 1965 magazine article. He observed that the number of transistors per square...

(Encyclopedia) statistics, science of collecting and classifying a group of facts according to their relative number and determining certain values that represent characteristics of the group. The most familiar stat...

(Encyclopedia) e, in mathematics, irrational number occurring widely in mathematics and science, approximately equal to the value 2.71828; it is the base of natural, or Naperian, logarithms. The number e is defined ...

(Encyclopedia) Close, Chuck (Charles Thomas Close), 1940–2021, American painter, b. Monroe, Wash., Univ. of Washington (B.A., 1962), Yale Univ. (B.F.A., 1963; M.F.A...

(Encyclopedia) cornice kôrˈnĭs [key], molded or decorated projection that forms the crowning feature at the top of a building wall or other architectural element; specifically, the uppermost of the three principa...