Word: alpha
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Today in 1949, Phi Beta Kappa elects about 100 men to its ranks from each class. When the Alpha Chapter of Massachusetts began at the University of Cambridge in 1781 it had six members and none of the six claimed any particular fame as scholars. Phi Beta Kappa was, as a matter of fact, the first of the social Greek letter organizations which thrive on most college campuses in the United States today...
...similar system: groups of neurons connected in rings. The memory impulses go round & round and are called upon when needed. Some calculators use "scanning" as in television. So does the brain. In place of the beam of electrons which scans a television tube, many physiologists believe, the brain has "alpha waves": electrical surges, ten per second, which question the circulating memories...
...does the brain call up these "memories" when it wants them? Neurologists have known for many years, said Dr. Hoagland, that under certain conditions (when a person is awake with his eyes closed) waves of electricity, about ten a second, pass rhythmically over the top of his brain. These "alpha waves" have been used to diagnose various brain conditions, but for a long time no one understood their function. Now, said Dr. Hoagland, many neurologists believe that they are "scanning devices" like the electron beam that scans the image in a television transmission tube...
...subject sits with his eyes closed and thinks, for instance, about a familiar face. An alpha wave sweeps across his brain. In some mysterious way, not yet understood, the wave is able to select the right impulses stored in the memory circuits. Many impulses, representing color, shape, light and shade, blend together into a picture of the remembered person's face...
Vital Statistics. Age: 64 (born March 22, 1884, in a modest frame house in Grand Rapids). Ancestry: His father, Aaron Vandenberg, was of Dutch descent; his mother, Alpha Hendrick, of English. His father, a native of New York, moved to Michigan in 1878, where he went into the harness-making business. His elder half-brother Collins is the father of General Hoyt Vandenberg, new Air Force chief of staff. Educated: Grand Rapids grade and high schools, one year at the University of Michigan (1901-02). Married: in 1907 to Elizabeth Watson of Grand Rapids, who died...