Word: compassable
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...erudite conference that met at Venice to discuss new methods of archaeology. Called a proton magnetometer, the gadget is based on a principle of nuclear physics discovered only a few years ago. The nuclei of hydrogen atoms (protons) are, in effect, tiny magnets, and they line up like compass needles parallel to the earth's magnetic field. When nudged out of alignment, they oscillate for a few seconds, the speed of their oscillation changing with the local strength of the earth's magnetism. Buried objects that affect the field show up plainly...
...story on Virologist John Enders (TIME, Nov. 17) was cited for "presenting an exciting and informative view of the world of viruses" that "has set a high standard deserving of emulation." Nobel Prizewinner Enders himself, in a letter to Cant, called the piece "an excellent statement in a short compass of the present state of virology. Comments from colleagues have been uniformly favorable." In fields as specialized as medicine, we try to be intelligible to the layman while keeping the respect of the professionals in the field. Carrying out this double obligation is a specialty of Gilbert Cant...
High-Speed Stall? In the current Idlewild investigation, the CAB hopes for crash clues from the automatic flight recorder, which records time, compass heading, air speed, altitude and "g's" (acceleration) and is mandatory equipment on all jets. When found, it was flown to Washington for study at the Bureau of Standards, its aluminum tape hopefully undamaged. Interest was focused on the speed that it will show, because one theory points to what airmen call a "highspeed stall" as the cause of the accident...
...familiar magnetic compass is another source of trouble; it is unreliable in the northern latitudes near the magnetic pole, and most North Atlantic flights are close to the top of the world. Gyrocompasses have a different affliction: they drift slowly from their true reading and require continual resetting. An error of 3° is not uncommon. Uncorrected, it can carry a 550-m.p.h. jetliner 28 miles off course in a single hour, slanting the course dangerously close to the track of other planes...
Many newspaper publishers question whether such sheer bulk has carried the U.S. Sunday newspaper several compass points off journalism's true course. While the typical metropolitan Sunday paper has grown from 111 to 243 pages in the last 20 years, its news content has shrunk from 11.6% to 6.5%. Unlike its slender-and more single-minded-daily brethren, which are deeply embedded in the work week, the Sunday paper must snare that most elusive of all readers: the American at play. Two-day weekends, new leisure pursuits, and the emergence of television's mesmeric eye all have conspired...