Word: inert
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...impression one has at looking into the brilliantly illuminated window of a hardware store on a cold winter's night. There we see row upon row of precision instruments, circular saws arranged in geometric patterns, and pneumatic tools wreathed in coils of electric cable; each item, however, is inert and impotent unless it is plugged into the wall to receive the impulse of some source of unseen power. The spectacle is exciting, but it is unrewarding and frustrating . . . The answer lies in our hearts rather than our intellects. The artist. . . if he chooses to retain his stature as prophet...
...brotherly embrace even as they surrender to their manias, "one barking, the other whinnying, one a dog, the other a horse." And the wild, rhetorical prayer that Bébert casts up in his misery also speaks for Novelist Molaine: "Father here we are in the ooze, inert as fishes spawning. Our souls scent the mud, and our eyes are gradualIy closing to the light from the bank . . . Lighten us and regenerate us in the depths where we lie. Save us from darkness and the plague. Let us be filled with that better life towards which we yearn with palpitating...
...first Dr. Jones had to measure the blood flow by holding a Geiger counter over the muscle of a subject who had inhaled a radioisotope of an inert gas such as krypton or argon. That was expensive and took a long time. Now, by measuring the carbon dioxide generated in muscles during exercise, Dr. Jones can get his answers in a few minutes...
Helen Bray feels that she is getting reward enough when a mongoloid child reaches out his hand for her to touch, or another, usually inert, nods his head to her. But last week, 37-year-old Helen Bray got a special reward. Flanked by her husband, son and small daughter, she stood in the hospital's dining room to receive $500 given by the National Association for Mental Health to the "aide of the year to the mentally retarded...
Since Kitty Hawk, the fear of fire in a fuel tank has haunted airplane pilots and manufacturers. Armor plate and pumping systems for getting inert gas into the waste space in fuel tanks have both been tried. Neither method has ever been completely satisfactory. Last week, at Britain's Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, R.A.F. officers learned that a planned explosion, set off at just the right time, may prove to be the best way to prevent an accidental explosion from getting out of hand...