Word: goldbergish
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...giving low-voltage kicks to moving ions (charged particles), Lawrence calculated that they could be made to whirl progressively faster in a closed chamber, reaching great speed and high voltages. They could then smash atoms and transmute elements. He first demonstrated this phenomenon with a crude but spectacular Rube Goldbergish kit: a kitchen chair, clothes tree, 4-in. electromagnet, pie-sized vacuum chamber made of glass, brass and sealing wax, all put together for $25. When he hooked this odd gizmo up to an ordinary electric socket, atoms whirled around faster than those emitted by radium...
Most spectators, including Princess Elizabeth, got their biggest chuckles from Rube Goldbergish efforts like W. Heath Robinson's Magnetic Method of Stretching Spaghetti (at the expense of Britain's face-lengthening austerity program) and H. M. Bateman's Tragedy at Wellington Barracks, a study in horror-struck faces as a butter-fingered guardsman on parade drops his rifle. It was dapper Australian-born Cartoonist Bateman who had started the whole thing in a speech to the Royal Society last February, declaring it was high time the British had a "National Academy of Humorous Art." Last week...
Despite the Rube Goldbergish sound of some of his gadgets, Tom Saffady has cashed in heavily on his tinkering. At 27, he is owner and manager of Detroit's Sav-Way Industries. Frequently, he puts in as many as 16 hours a day in his sleek, paneled office, with its private bar, or in his four plants, humming with war contracts. Net income of his company last year: $400,000. Last week he had something besides inventions up his sleeve. He was working on a plan to cut his 600-odd employes in on profits...
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