Word: millions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Welcome to the world of microtechnology, where machines the size of sand grains are harnessed to do useful work. Huge numbers of microscopic sensors are already employed to measure the temperature, air pressure and acceleration of airplanes and automobiles. Delco Electronics alone sells 7 million silicon pressure sensors a year to its parent company, General Motors, for use in power-train controls and diagnostics. But scientists at Berkeley, Stanford, M.I.T., AT&T, IBM and a handful of other research centers around the world see much broader possibilities for minuscule machines. They envision armies of gnat-size robots exploring space, performing...
Engineers and industrialists are rushing to put the new technologies to use. M.I.T. has invested $20 million in a new fabrication facility for micromachining and microelectronics. Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry is considering allocating nearly $70 million for the development of medical microrobots. "I'm absolutely amazed at how fast this field has progressed," says George Hazelrigg, a program director at the NSF, the Government agency spearheading the U.S.'s micromechanics effort...
...Governor's political pain has been no less acute. After years of phenomenal double-digit growth, the Massachusetts economy had at last slowed down. In June, Dukakis was forced to raise temporarily state income taxes by 15% to meet $700 million in last year's unpaid bills. Last week, scarcely four months into the current budget, the deficit had already soared to $730 million, far more than anyone imagined possible. As revenues sagged with no matching reductions in the state's ambitious outlays, deficits rose and credit , ratings withered. The financial ranking of once proud Massachusetts dropped to 49th among...
Dukakis had his own solution: further tax increases of $600 million. Dismayed legislators warned that the public would never accept such hikes. As the debt climbed dangerously, Democratic leaders decided Dukakis was unable to accept or even comprehend what had to be done. Worse, the Governor seemed incapable of bringing rivals together. Under weak leadership, opportunistic legislators are struggling to save pet projects while cutting into school budgets, law enforcement, the environment and aid to the disadvantaged...
...before he taunted the builders of the Wall, he rode four hours through the streets of West Berlin in the midst of a human fury of adoration intensified by the city's constant isolation. Nothing before in Kennedy's exuberant political life had approached this demonstration of between 1 million and 2 million cheering, roaring Germans...