Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Canadian literature, English, literary works produced in Canada and written in the English language. The essayist Northrop Frye is noted for his systematic classification of literature, presented in...

(Encyclopedia) heaven, blissful upper realm or state entered after death; in Western monotheistic religions it is the place where the just see God face to face (sometimes called the beatific vision). In Judaism, hea...

(Encyclopedia) thermoelectricity, direct conversion of heat into electric energy, or vice versa. The term is generally restricted to the irreversible conversion of electricity into heat described by the English phys...

(Encyclopedia) Parker, Matthew, 1504–75, English prelate, archbishop of Canterbury. At Cambridge he was influenced by the writings of Martin Luther and other reformers. In 1535 he was appointed chaplain to Anne Bo...

(Encyclopedia) Nicholas, Saint, patron of children and sailors, of Greece, Sicily, and Russia, and of many other places and persons. Little is known of him, but he is traditionally identified as a 4th-century bishop...

(Encyclopedia) Mother Goose, name associated with nursery rhymes. Most English nursery rhymes have been ascribed to Mother Goose. The origin of the name is still a matter of dispute. Some trace it to a French collec...

(Encyclopedia) Wentworth, Sir John, 1737–1820, colonial governor of New Hampshire, b. Portsmouth, N.H. On the forced resignation of his uncle, Benning Wentworth, he was commissioned (Aug., 1766) to succeed him bot...

(Encyclopedia) Dinesen, Isak ēˈsäk dēˈnəsən [key], pseud. of Baroness Karen Blixen, 1885–1962, Danish author, who wrote primarily in English. In 1914 she married Baron Blixen and went to live in British Eas...

(Encyclopedia) string theory, description of elementary particles based on one-dimensional curves, or “strings,” instead of point particles. Superstring theory, which is string theory that contains a kind of sym...

(Encyclopedia) Urdu o͞orˈdo͞o [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official tongue of Pakistan, Urdu is also one of the 15 langu...