Word: simplest
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...planetary motion and gravity, the basic principles of magnetism, the intricacies of the blood system-encouraged such a heady feeling. The universe, the scientists claimed, was simply smoothly functioning clockwork; each action within it had a cause. Chop the actions into small enough slivers, reduce them to their "simplest" forms, and science would identify all their causes. It was a highly mechanistic view, and it became more fully entrenched with each new breakthrough by the new science and its offspring-technology...
...leap with the exuberance of dolphins, and are duly stabilized by the squat, familiar forms of coffeepot and flask. "Our only object is wholeness," Matisse declared. "We must learn, perhaps relearn, to express ourselves by means of line. Plastic art will inspire the most direct emotion possible by the simplest of means." And once art gained that absolute concreteness of sensation, it could become the "subject" for other art, just like a bowl or a figure...
...simplest terms, the graduate student debate comes down to a demand for uniform financial aid, for students who may or may not need it, without any consideration of parental or spouse income. The debate hinges on $15 million in income from Harvard's endowment which, according to which side you are talking to, may or may not be in use currently...
Still and all, the mood of the evening is impeccably sustained and, rather surprisingly, it is not so much jolly and summery as triste and autumnal. It is as if these world-weary beings had sated their aristocratic tastes on almost every experience except the simplest of joys. Designer Boris Aaronson's nobly brooding setting of towering white birch trees seems almost like a comment on the frivolity and emptiness of the characters' lives...
Then why had the crisis burst? The simplest and most ominous explanation seems to be that currency speculation has developed a self-sustaining momentum independent of economic logic. The crude fact is that speculators who have bet against the dollar since 1971 have profited, while people and companies that could have speculated but held dollars instead have been hurt by two declines in the dollar's value. Many "speculators" are bankers and corporate treasurers who are anxious to keep their overseas holdings in safe currencies. There also is evidence that Middle East oil sheiks, who are paid...