Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Soulages, Pierre, 1919–, French abstract painter. Largely self-taught, he has been influenced by the carved prehistoric standing stones, Romanesque sculptures, and other art found where he was raise...

(Encyclopedia) Wald, George, 1906–97, American biochemist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Columbia, 1932. He spent most of his career on the faculty at Harvard. In 1967 Wald, Haldan K. Hartline, and Ragnar Granit receive...

(Encyclopedia) Purkinje, Johannes Evangelista yōhänˈəs āˌväng-gālĭsˈtä po͝orˈkĭnyā [key], 1787–1869, Czech physiologist. While professor (1823–50) at the Univ. of Breslau he pioneered in establish...

(Encyclopedia) German silver, name for various alloys of copper, zinc, and nickel, sometimes also containing lead and tin. They were originally named for their silver-white color, but use of the term silver is now p...

(Encyclopedia) Greenberg, Clement, 1909–94, American art critic, b. New York City. Greenberg's criticism was primarily concerned with art produced after abstract expressionism. This art, now known as color-field p...

(Encyclopedia) Hall, John Lewis, 1934–, American physicist, b. Denver, Colo., Ph.D. Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1961. He has been a researcher at the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colo., since 196...

(Encyclopedia) paint, mixture of a pigment and a binding medium, usually thinned with a solvent to form a liquid vehicle. The term includes lacquer, portland cement paint, printing ink, calcimine, and whitewash. Pai...

(Encyclopedia) panda, name for two unrelated nocturnal Asian mammals of the order Carnivora, red pandas, genus Ailurus, and the giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca. Red pandas, also known as lesser pandas and cat be...

(Encyclopedia) cuttlefish, common name applied to cephalopod mollusks that have 10 tentacles, or arms, 8 of which have muscular suction cups on their inner surface and 2 that are longer and can shoot out for graspin...

(Encyclopedia) feldspar fĕlˈspär [key], an abundant group of rock-forming minerals which constitute 60% of the earth's crust. Chemically the feldspars are silicates of aluminum, containing sodium, potassium, iron...