Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) goldenrod, any species of the large genus Solidago of the family Asteraceae (aster family), chiefly North American weedy herbs. They have small yellow flowers clustered, often in panicles, along a wan...

(Encyclopedia) Gresham, Sir Thomas grĕshˈəm [key], 1519?–1579, English merchant and financier. As the royal financial agent in Antwerp after 1551 he proved himself very able, though his methods were frequently ...

(Encyclopedia) acceleration, change in the velocity of a body with respect to time. Since velocity is a vector quantity, involving both magnitude and direction, acceleration is also a vector. In order to produce an ...

(Encyclopedia) conducting, in music, the art of unifying the efforts of a number of musicians simultaneously engaged in musical performance. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance the conductor was primarily a time beat...

(Encyclopedia) Steichen, Edward stīˈkən [key], 1879–1973, American photographer, b. Luxembourg, reared in Hancock, Mich. Steichen is credited with the transformation of photography into an art form. At 16, whil...

(Encyclopedia) uncertainty principle, physical principle, enunciated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, that places an absolute, theoretical limit on the combined accuracy of certain pairs of simultaneous, related measur...

(Encyclopedia) Liberalia lĭbərāˈlēə [key], in Roman religion, festival of Liber and Libera. The rustic festival of great rejoicing and merrymaking was held on Mar. 17. Roman youths generally first assumed the ...

(Encyclopedia) Lincoln Memorial, monument, 107 acres (45 hectares), in Potomac Park, Washington, D.C.; built 1914–17. The building, designed by Henry Bacon and styled after a Greek temple, has 36 Doric columns rep...

(Encyclopedia) Luton lo͞oˈtən [key], borough and unitary authority (1991 pop. 163,209), S central England on the Lea River. Hats, automobiles, ball bearings, and aircraft parts are among the products manufactured...

(Encyclopedia) Ozias ōzīˈəs [key] [Gr.,=Heb. Uzziah], in the Bible. 1 Same as Uzziah (1.) 2 Ruler of Bethulia at the time of Judith. ...