Word: actions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first the action was an inter-dorm affair. Some 50 men were battling it out purely for sport but Sergeant Toomey sensed "inherent evil" and broke it up. Several stayed in the Yard however, and began to build a snow woman. A group of Cambridge high schoolers who were wandering through the Yard made what the Harvard men felt were "impolite advances" towards their work of art and after an exchange of opinions there was violence...
Practical calculating machines, explains Dr. Ashby, merely take orders and act upon them, in complicated but predetermined ways. His machine, which he calls a "homeostat," is different. The present model is pretty simple, but it really thinks, he says-at least in the sense that it takes action on its own, according to any change in situation affecting it. So, for that matter, does a seesaw, compass needle, or a sunflower. Dr. Ashby contends that his machine acts in a more complicated way, adjusts itself to a greater variety of circumstances. That, he holds, constitutes thinking...
Three of the four basic values, says Gamow, have already been discovered. They are: 1) the speed of light (the highest possible velocity); 2) Planck's Constant (the smallest possible value of mechanical action); 3) Boltzmann's Constant (having to do with the kinetic energy of gases...
...exercise by hiking through G.M. plants, where he enjoys listening to the syncopated rhythm of the production line. While walking some guests through Chevrolet's forge plant recently, he stopped to watch a young Negro feed long, red-hot rods into a machine which twisted them into knee-action coil springs. "Look," Wilson nudged a visitor. "He's going to let the rods pile up to show us how fast he can work. See how he gives the ends a little twist? He's our best man on this job because he's got rhythm...
Fortunately, the cartoons and live action are kept separated, but there are moments when Disney appears to be matching his studio-made folk songs (the best are Stick-To-It-Ivity and It's Whatcha Do With Whatcha Got) against Burl's classic Billy Boy and Sourwood Mountain. Since a fair portion of Disney may someday become U.S. folklore, this idea is neither pretentious nor uninteresting...