Word: inert
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Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, for whom the play was created, try very hard to bring the inert bulk of the comedy to life. They assume foreign accents--he, something that sounds like German and is supposed to be Czech; she, cockney--they hurry about the stage a if they were really not more than sixty years old, and they argue about what code to use in their mind reading act as thought the subject held great interest. But, in the end, the Lunts too lose out to mediocre writing. The backstage life of vaudeville performers has so often been...
...alternating between continuous waiting and concentrated action leaves the Volunteer weary after his three-hour period on duty. "The excitement doesn't leave you keyed up, but just exhausted," he says. "Seeing people in agony, you think that you're as far above animals as they are above inert matter. The suffering person has no defenses left, his inhibitions are gone. Often he seems to lose the dignity that makes him human...
...acid and protein molecules. Undegraded rods were taken out of the solution with an ultracentrifuge, and the protein fraction was precipitated by chemical treatment. The nucleic acid part of the virus was isolated by a slightly different method. Now neither part contained any complete virus particles. Both parts were inert chemicals, and thus had no power to infect a tobacco plant...
Even in the simplest organisms, the protoplasm seems to have a goal; it knows what it wants to do. Starting with the single small blob in a fertilized egg cell, it inexorably grows to a special form-frog, pine tree or man. Inert, unorganized matter flows into the growing organism and is at once transformed by the touch of its life. It becomes alive; it creeps or flies or sings or loves. When matter is touched by man's protoplasm, the kind with the highest purpose, it becomes extremely complicated, with thoughts and aspirations that defy scientific pinpointing...
...bomb, say the educated guessers, gets much of its energy from uranium 238, the plentiful isotope of uranium that used to be considered inert and nonfissionable. In theory, such an explosion is entirely possible. So are many other new reactions. Man's armory of nuclear ingredients is growing like a mushroom cloud...