Word: pipeful
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...bases will blame all sorts of ailments on the screaming jets. The truth about jets seems to be that their noise, when heard in the open and at a reasonable distance, is not at all harmful. But the intense "sound fields,"* which extend a short way behind the tail pipe, can have alarming and possibly harmful effects on people who enter them. When afterburners come into general use, adding their basso profundo to the scream of the jets, the fields of sound may become serious menaces...
...into its sound field. Few emerged without respect for what sound waves can do. When they get strong enough, the sound waves not only hurt the ears but make other parts of the body vibrate. A man standing in a sound field of 120 decibels (common near the tail pipe of a jet) feels the waves in surprising ways. If he holds out his hand, his fingers get painfully hot whenever they touch one another. If he partially opens his mouth, his nasal cavities may resonate like organ pipes. Sometimes his lower jaw vibrates so strongly that...
...lack of oil pipe, already scarce, U.S. wildcatters have had to cut back their drilling plans by 100 wells...
Hydraulic presses bent the lengths of 27-in. steel pipe to fit every bump, dip, peak and ravine along the snaking route. Winches and big tractors swung the 30-ft. sections into position, and welders sealed the joints. The outer covering was finally tested with the pipeliners' "conscience": a machine that uses a 10,000-volt electrical charge, and registers a short circuit at any spot where the covering is too thin. Then bulldozers filled in the trench, leaving only a great scar winding across the forest and the mountains...
...just come in out of a high wind. His laughter often shakes the walls of the room, and he will discuss his ideas by the hour, sometimes humorously, with nearly anybody who happens to visit him. These discussions, accompanied by toothy grins and constant puffs from a pipe, are so lengthy and enthusiastic that they sometimes seduce him from more important work...