Word: abstraction
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...question and answer, which will sound over the nation to similar medical societies practicing similar tactics, is no abstract legal issue, but a determination of whether or not such admittedly experimental plans will be granted grace to prove their success or failure. No categorical decision can be rendered on "socialized medicine" versus "private competitive practice," as every high-school debater should know. The issue has too many facets, too large a setting. Doctors (and who should know better?) are sincere in their belief that collectivism will topple the high standards of the profession. The socially conscious, on the other hand...
...hunting is good, it is a message. Cuneiform writing ("cuneiform" means wedge-shaped) is a direct descendant of picture-writing, in which the symbols are so formalized and simplified that they are unrecognizable as representations of real objects. When symbols were assigned for phonetic syllables, the representation of abstract ideas became possible. The Babylonians realized that they could develop an al-phabet-that is, a set of symbols each of which would stand for a single consonant or vowel-but they resisted the innovation for the same reason that moderns resist simplified spelling...
...Abstract & Shiny. At the Greenwich Village A.C.A. Gallery of Herman Baron, patron of proletarians, an exhibition of work by eight young sculptors contained some of the best and some of the worst artistic efforts seen in that neighborhood in years. In the first category were Isamu Noguchi's Monument to Benjamin Franklin, gay, shiny and abstract suggestion of key, kite and lightning; Vladimir Yoffe's Design for Keystone, a powerfully carved hunk; and Milton Hebald's bronze Girl Walking (see cut), a 12-in. figure which almost anybody would like. Critics thought it a promising departure...
Professor Wiener belongs to the school of mathematicians who insist that the most abstract of studies be grounded in reality. His chief practical interest is the study of aeronautics, and last week at the semicentennial meeting of the American Mathematical Society he said: "It is a falsification of the history of mathematics to represent pure mathematics as a self-contained science drawing inspiration from itself alone and morally taking in its own washing." He then plunged eagerly into a discussion of his favorite field, harmonic analysis...
More complex than ordinary posters in that they interpret abstract political aims, the Renau montages are best on the simplest points. To illustrate Point Il, "Liberation of our territory from foreign military forces which have invaded it," the artist combined a silhouette map of Spain with a stormy night cloud, set against it a blasted tree gripping Spanish ground with talons, showed bayonets advancing in daylight over a peaceful plowman to drive away Death (see cut}. For Point VIII, "Through agrarian reform to liquidate the old semifeudal aristocratic estates," Artist Renau produced his most effective picture: a smiling, stubble...