Word: statics
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Another investigation he took part in had equally obvious immediate practical results. It concerned the cord "pigtails" one still sees adorning the wings of various propellor driven planes. The subject under study was "precipitation static" - an electrical charge picked up when a plane passes through certain kinds of rain or snow storms. These charges, pilots found, interfered with radio communication. Since electricity tends to concentrate itself on pointed surfaces, such as radio antennas, the investigators suggested the pigtails as a harmless discharge point for any excess charge...
Here are some of the things that Soutter pointed out to me: You jump with an emergency parachute on your chest which you deploy in case of a malfunction in the main canopy. On your first five jumps, in accordance with Parachuts Club of America regulations, you use a static line, which means that your rip cord is pulled for you as soon as you leave the plane...
...general rise of FM broadcasting across the U.S. Developed in the '30s when AM broadcasting was at its peak, slowed by World War II, FM was almost obliterated in the postwar rush to television. The quality of FM reception is clearly superior to AM, and is almost entirely static-free. As most of AM disintegrated into rock-'n'-rollery and TV began hunting for all the lowest cultural denominators, FM became an outpost of excellence whose scope has steadily grown. In 1956 there were 656 FM stations in the U.S. Now there are 1,188 stations...
...between times, Navarro turns dials on imaginary television sets (gunfire everywhere), short-wave sets (static and screams), moves in on an auto race at Indianapolis (skid, crash, silence-then the thin crackle of flame...
Nervi maintained that the basic uniformity of shape imposed on architecture by static law will run the risk of becoming "fatal monotony." "Binding as technical demands may be," he declared, there always remains a margin of freedom sufficient to show the personality if its creator and, if he be an artist, to flow his work, even in its strict technical obedience, to become a real and true work...