Word: honeycomb
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Carmelita C. Honeycomb Easton, Connecticut...
Carmelita C. Honeycomb Easton, Connecticut...
...averages only 2.8 cm thick. What prevents this marvel from fracturing under its own weight is a supporting truss composed of thousands of glass ribs that are cast as part of the mirror's underlying structure. Arrayed in a striking hexagonal pattern, the ribs form an airy honeycomb that confers on the mirror the structural strength of solid glass at one-fifth the weight. Because the hexagonal cells are hollow, air can be circulated through them to keep the mirror in constant thermal balance...
Although the conceptual design appears straightforward, the casting of a honeycomb mirror requires considerable technical know-how -- and time. Angel's team tackles the job in their hangar-like mirror lab located, improbably enough, under the stands of the University of Arizona football stadium. In the center of the lab is a huge round furnace. To make a mirror, a complex ceramic mold is assembled inside the furnace and filled with glittering chunks of Pyrex-type glass. Once the furnace lid is sealed, the temperature will slowly ratchet up over a period of several days, at times rising no more...
...Secretary also toured the still unfinished chancery at the site of the new U.S. embassy and later told Western and Soviet correspondents, "We now find we have a honeycomb of listening devices" in the building's walls and structural columns. Investigators, however, have had only mixed success in locating bugs. They discovered reinforcing rods in five pillars that were apparently designed to serve as antennas. But after ripping into one wall with pneumatic drills in search of a suspicious object, workers found nothing more ominous than an empty beer can embedded in the concrete...