Word: basic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Keynes' basic idea was simple. In order to keep people fully employed, governments have to run deficits when the economy is slowing. That's because the private sector won't invest enough. As their markets become saturated, businesses reduce their investments, setting in motion a dangerous cycle: less investment, fewer jobs, less consumption and even less reason for business to invest. The economy may reach perfect balance, but at a cost of high unemployment and social misery. Better for governments to avoid the pain in the first place by taking up the slack...
...Physical knowledge increased so rapidly after 1900 that theory and experiment soon divided into separate specialties. Enrico Fermi, a supremely self-assured Italian American born in Rome in 1901, was the last great physicist to bridge the gap. His theory of beta decay introduced the last of the four basic forces known in nature (gravity, electromagnetism and, operating within the nucleus of the atom, the strong force and Fermi's "weak force"). He also co-invented and designed the first man-made nuclear reactor, starting it up in a historic secret experiment at the University of Chicago...
Fortunately, Salk had somehow found time to do basic research on the virus and write a few theoretical papers, and it was these that caught the eye of Basil O'Connor, the zealous head of the Infantile Paralysis Foundation, who decided to play a hunch and shove some dimes in Salk's direction with instructions to get going...
...coast of England with civil-defense radar stations. As the hardware got simpler, radar found its way into airplanes, boats and air-traffic-control towers, improving navigation and ensuring that even a cow-pasture airport could operate safely. By the end of the century, the same basic technology was being used to steer spacecraft, track storms and help police catch speeders--proof that even the most arcane science can pay very pedestrian dividends...
...photographer tripped the shutter, out popped a snapshot. The first Polaroids were black-and-white; the company introduced color in 1963. Land's invention added a new dimension to photography, but for him it was just another stop on a long scientific journey. He went on to do basic research on vision and came up with important insights into how the brain perceives color...