Word: thin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Instead of the old unwieldy magnesium powder pan, the new flashlamp looks like an ordinary incandescent bulb. Filled with oxygen, the bulb contains a specially coated filament and crumpled sheets of thin aluminum foil. When the circuit is closed the filament lights, ignites the aluminum foil. Each bulb is used only once. The lamp can be plugged in on an ordinary 115-volt alternating current circuit, or can be used with batteries. The flash lasts only 1/100 sec. Being completely self-contained, offering no fire hazard, the flashlamp can be used where flashlight photographs have never been taken before...
...Works at Jena. The lenses must be curved on their inner (concave) side almost but not exactly to match the curve of the eyeballs. Nor may their optical curve be exactly that of ordinary eyeglasses. Contact lenses are held against the eyeballs by the capillary suction of tear water. Thin though the layer of tears is, it has an optical effect which the ophthalmologist must allow for in writing his prescription...
Replying for Mr. Snowden, who sat imperturbable with a pale smile on his thin lips, Laborite Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence exulted...
...greatest runner in the world. One day he began to run around his farm. Round the fence he went, twice a day for as long as he could keep it up, in the morning and at night. The Kaffirs who had been allowed too near stared at the thin, sweating man running clumsily in his farm clothes under the glaring sun. He sent to Durban for shoes and shorts. In two years his fame had gone beyond the district and his running had improved. Nobody laughed when he asked for timekeepers in an attempt to break a world's record...
Next problem for metallurgists is to develop a beryllium alloy which is not brittle. While most aluminum-beryllium alloys will stand tensile (pulling) stresses of around 70,000 Ib. per square inch, they will support only slight bending stresses. Thin sheets of a 70-30 beryllium-alu-minum alloy will break like stiff cardboard...