Word: pong
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...similar process, Skinner has taught pigeons to dance with each other, and even to play Ping Pong. During World War II, he conceived the idea of using pigeons in guided-missile control; three birds were conditioned to peck continuously for four or five minutes at the image of a target on a screen. Then they were placed in harness in the nose of a missile, facing a screen on which the target would appear when the missile was in flight. By pecking at the image moving on the screen, the pigeons would send corrective signals that moved the missile...
...revolution. It was after a visit to his daughter's fourth-grade arithmetic class that he invented the first device for programmed instruction in 1954. Having seen "minds being destroyed," he concluded that youngsters should learn math, spelling and other subjects in the same way that pigeons learn Ping Pong. Accordingly, machines now in use in scores of cities across the country present pupils with a succession of easy learning steps. At each one, a correct answer to a question brings instant reinforcement, not with the grain of corn that rewarded the pigeon, but with a printed statement?supposedly just...
...anticapitalists continue to make capital out of Ping Pong. Preceding the arrival of the Chinese team in the U.S. will be a whole line of Chinese table tennis equipment with the beguiling brand name Double Happiness. The equipment will be marketed by two Los Angeles firms and will boast the endorsement of the Chinese team, with the blessing of Chairman Mao himself...
Even as the Chinese Ping Pong team is anticipating its trip to the U.S., a number of Christian missionary groups are mulling a return to China. The World Evangelism Foundation of Abilene, Texas, has suggested mobilizing 1,000 three-man missionary squads for the eventual evangelization of the mainland. Their credo: "Let us be ready to be first." Another evangelical group has blithely declared that the Chinese government will topple when Mao dies and that would-be saints who go marching in will be greeted by millions of Chinese eager for conversion...
...York Times is something of a presence, even in Peking. Last week, recovered from his appendectomy and acupuncture (TIME, Aug. 9), Scotty Reston came up with the longest and so far the only one-to-one interview with Premier Chou En-lai since the start of Ping Pong diplomacy last April. The formal question-and-answer session lasted three hours, followed by a two-hour dinner in the Fukien Room of the Great Hall of the People. Reston's tone was hardly that of the ordinary newsman. By turns statesmanlike and philosophical, he adopted a semipresidential stance in seeking...