Word: cloth
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...professor of the history of science at Johns Hopkins University. "After years of work on rather standard books of history for the specialist," says McCormmach, "I decided to try a kind of spin-off from scholarly material. Enter Victor." But if the physicist is made of whole cloth, the other personae of this remarkable exercise in fiction and historiography are not, and they rise from the pages as Jakob remembers them and their contributions to physics. There is the fascinating Scotsman James Clerk Maxwell, who forged the theory of electromagnetism, and Jakob's fellow Germans, Heinrich Hertz, Hermann...
...Francis Cabot Lowell, a Boston merchant, created the first modern textile factory to combine yarn spinning and cloth weaving under one roof. He traveled to Britain to study established operations, took on some partners and raised $400,000 in venture capital from family and friends. Lowell then sold his cloth through a few large wholesale outlets in New England. He added to his profits by selling copies of the machines he developed to make the cloth. By 1817 his business had annual sales of more than $34,000, and Lowell paid his investors a dividend...
...census taking can be hazardous. The employees counting poison darts and hedgehogs required thick cloth gloves; those cataloguing protozoa developed eyestrain after weeks of staring intently into microscopes; those working with uranium samples had to wear special devices to monitor levels of radiation; and those tallying mammals preserved in alcohol experienced queasy stomachs. "It doesn't smell like Chivas Regal in those collections," sniffed one researcher...
...their faith. Adopting a complex sham, they worshiped publicly at Buddhist temples, then slipped away at night to hold secret Christian prayer meetings. At home, they prayed overtly before Buddhist and Shinto altars, but their real altar became the nan do garni (closet god), innocuous-looking bundles of cloth in which revered Christian statues and medallions were hidden. For 2½ centuries, their fierce faith endured, but it inevitably also turned inward. Because their prayers and rituals had to be transmitted secretly among illiterate peasants, they slowly became garbled. Over the years the words were repeated while the meaning...
...scene in the barren Egyptian desert resembled an elegant military safari from the country's British imperial days-until the explosions began. A mixed group of some 300 U.S. and Egyptian army officers and accompanying gold-braided foreign military attachés lounged under black and red cloth tents in the chilly winter air near Wâdi el Natrûn, an oasis about 78 miles northwest of Cairo. Turbaned waiters, wearing flowing, blue-gray robes, or gallabiyas, served coffee, tea and box lunches...