Word: diagraming
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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This common condition, Menzel believes, is responsible for many of the saucer sightings (see diagram). The warm air overhead turns downward the light from bright objects, such as street lights or auto headlamps. If the "interface" is too turbulent, it can form no visible image, but if it is just steady enough, it will create bright images that seem to sweep rapidly across the dark sky. This is the explanation, says Menzel, for the famous "Lubbock Lights,"* which have been taken for interplanetary space ships flying in formation. They may be the images of a string of lights...
From an Airplane, Dimly. Other inversions produce other kinds of saucers. Sometimes a warm layer hangs several thousand feet up (see diagram). Often the layer contains dust, which increases its power to divert light. If an airplane is flying just above this layer, the pilot may see the dim displaced image of the sun, the moon or a high, brightly lighted cloud. The image will appear below him; it may be distorted, magnified, or in rapid motion. If the inversion has waves in its surface (common near mountain ridge's), the pilot may see a line of bright objects...
...four times, just after the launching of a big "sky hook" balloon. They appear as roundish objects, apparently at a great height. He believes that they are caused by the balloon itself when it rises through a thin layer of warm air at a thousand feet or so (see diagram). As it rises, it punches a hole in the layer. Cold air flows in, forming a blob of denser air that acts as an imperfect lens. Observers on the ground see a small moving image of the balloon above. The same effect can be produced, says Menzel, by holding...
Apparently, it wasn't too hard for the Famous Physicist, for he replied by return airmail, though he forgot to put a 6? stamp on the envelope. In any case, Johanna got his letter, with a diagram* and instructions on how to do the problem. The Physicist's diagram merely suggested that a right triangle can be formed from 1) the line of centers, 2) a line parallel to the common tangent and running through the center of the smaller circle, and 3) the radius of the larger circle. The length of the tangent can then be found...
...Probably a rather baffling diagram for Johanna. Instead of drawing the tangent circles the problem called for, the Physicist spread his circles apart, introduced a third circle with a radius equal to the difference between the radii of the original...