Word: ageing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...truth, Bakelite--whose more chemically formal name is polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride--was just a harbinger of the age of plastics. Since Bakelite's heyday, researchers have churned out a polysyllabic catalog of plastics: polymethylmethacrylate (Plexiglas), polyesters, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC, a.k.a. vinyl), polyhexamethylene adipamide (the original nylon polymer), polytetraperfluoroethylene (Teflon), polyurethane, poly- this, poly-that...
...Wright brothers had been fascinated by the idea of flight from an early age. In 1878 their father, a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, gave them a flying toy made of cork and bamboo. It had a paper body and was powered by rubber bands. The young boys soon broke the fragile toy, but the memory of its faltering flight across their living room stayed with them. By the mid-1890s Wilbur was reading every book and paper he could find on the still earthbound science of human flight. And four years before they made...
...Wrights created one of the greatest cultural forces since the development of writing, for their invention effectively became the World Wide Web of that era, bringing people, languages, ideas and values together. It also ushered in an age of globalization, as the world's flight paths became the superhighways of an emerging international economy. Those superhighways of the sky not only revolutionized international business; they also opened up isolated economies, carried the cause of democracy around the world and broke down every kind of political barrier. And they set travelers on a path that would eventually lead beyond Earth...
...another century, who knows where the next Wright brothers will be found, in what grade of school they're studying, or in what garage they're inventing the next Flyer of the information age. Our mission is to make sure that wherever they are, they have the chance to run their own course, to persevere and follow their own inspiration. We have to understand that engineering breakthroughs are not just mechanical or scientific--they are liberating forces that can continually improve people's lives. Who would have thought, as the 20th century opened, that one of its greatest contributions would...
...research, but take care when you defame the scientist. On that day, Goddard--who would ultimately be hailed as the father of modern rocketry--sank into a quarter-century sulk from which he never fully emerged. And from that sulk came some of the most incandescent achievements of his age...