Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Saint-Gaudens, Augustus sānt-gôdˈənz [key], 1848–1907, American sculptor, b. Dublin, Ireland. His family immigrated to New York when he was an infant. An apprentice in cameo cutting at 13, he ga...

(Encyclopedia) reed instrument, in music, an instrument whose sound-producing agent is a thin strip of cane, wood, plastic, or metal that vibrates as air is passed over it. The predecessor of these instruments is th...

(Encyclopedia) Reich, Steve (Stephen Michael Reich), 1936–, American composer, b. New York City. A well-known exponent of minimalism, he attended Cornell (B.A., 1957), Juilliard (1958–61), and Mills College (M.A...

(Encyclopedia) Pennebaker, D. A. (Donn Alan Pennebaker), 1925–2019, pioneering documentary filmmaker, b. Evanston, Ill. His first film, Daybreak Express (1958), is a five-minute short detailing New York's doomed T...

(Encyclopedia) Cape Town or Capetown, city, legislative capital of South Africa, capital of Western Cape prov., and seat of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality; a port on the Atlantic Ocean. It was the c...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Capillarity: Water wets the walls of a capillary tube and thus rises, causing the upper surface, or meniscus, of the liquid to be concave; mercury does not wet the walls of a capillary tube and...

(Encyclopedia) Jackson, Michael Joseph, 1958–2009, American performer, b. Gary, Ind. Jackson was an extremely successful pop singer, superb dancer, and talented composer who often conveyed an androgynous image and...

(Encyclopedia) Warren. 1 City (1990 pop. 144,864), Macomb co., SE Mich., a suburb of Detroit; est. 1837, inc. as a city 1957. It is an important metalworking center where steel is processed. There is tool and die ma...

(Encyclopedia) printer, device that reproduces text, images, or other data from a computer, digital camera, smartphone, or the like on paper or another medium. Impact printers, which mostly have been superseded by i...

(Encyclopedia) radioactive isotope or radioisotope, natural or artificially created isotope of a chemical element having an unstable nucleus that decays, emitting alpha, beta, or gamma rays until stability is reache...