Word: objective
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Geiger counters had been carried aloft in the nose of an Aerobee rocket, and when their records were recovered, scientists could hardly believe the data. If the figures were correct, there was an object up there in the constellation Scorpio that has yet to be spotted by the most sensitive optical or radio telescopes. That object is spewing out more X rays than had been calculated to come from all the rest of the billions of stars in the galaxy put together. But because they are unable to penetrate the earth's atmosphere, the rays remain invisible to instruments...
...human submariner, the built-in sonar system of the porpoise is an object of particular envy. How does a series of clicks and squeaks enable the graceful swimmer to "see" so well through the murkiest water? Scientists from the Lockheed-California Co. are still searching for the answer. But their research is already pointing toward an extra, nonaquatic dividend-a practical aid for blind people walking on land...
Telltale Echoes. The secret is the mix of frequencies in the sound pulses, a formula that Lockheed copied from the porpoises. Small objects such as wires do not reflect the longer sound waves of the lower frequencies. The echoes that they send back are predominantly high-pitched, and a listener quickly learns to judge target size by the tone of the echo. Once he knows the size of an object, he can tell its distance by the loudness of the echo. Judging a target's material is a more subtle job, but in general, such hard materials as metal...
Lockheed's echo-location system may some day have an important impact on antisubmarine warfare, for it shows that the human ear, when working with the proper mixed frequencies, can determine the composition of an unseen object. This could correct a major failing in present sonar systems in which whales are sometimes mistaken for ene my submarines. It may also put the Seeing-Eye dog out of business. Lockheed scientists hope to reduce the sound generator to the size of a flashlight; then the blind may learn to "see" with their skilled ears...
...look at a lamb chop on a plate, and it means death to me," says he. The human figure is contorted into pretzel poses, sodden and stiff as if in rigor mortis. His cubism is boldly uncubical: blurry whorls, bulges, and lumps perform the cubist function of showing one object from all sides in a series of succeeding moments -an idea partly derived from a photo of a chimpanzee in Ozenfant's Foundations of Modern...