Word: abstractness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With the help of his friend Marcel Grossmann, Einstein studied the theory of curved spaces and surfaces that had been developed by Bernhard Riemann as a piece of abstract mathematics, without any thought that it would be relevant to the real world. In 1913, Einstein and Grossmann wrote a paper in which they put forward the idea that what we think of as gravitational forces are just an expression of the fact that space-time is curved. However, because of a mistake by Einstein (who was quite human and fallible), they weren't able to find the equations that related...
...plot, no set, no Look-Ma-I'm-a-swan costumes--just a stageful of virtuoso dancers who hurtle through angular steps and abstract poses that evoke a limitless universe of emotions. RUNNERS-UP Esplanade by Paul Taylor; Jardin aux Lilas by Antony Tudor...
Flea-market aficionados insist that eBay is doing a more abstract kind of damage: it's destroying the pleasures of the offline collectibles world. Al Hoff, author of Thrift Score and collector of "everything but Levolor blinds," says eBay has changed the atmosphere in flea markets and thrift stores. She now comes across entrepreneurs who are trolling the aisles looking for items they can resell for a higher price online. "The code of ethics used to be that you bought things for yourself," she notes. And she objects that eBay's efficiency is making it harder for bargain hunters like...
...exquisite little head of Philip IV's daughter, the Infanta Maria Teresa, is even more summary. Velazquez paints shapes that look so obsolete that they're almost abstract--the massive cornrowing of the brown wig, for instance, and the mysterious, icily translucent lace butterflies that adorn it. He paints paint, or, more exactly, cosmetics: that pale mask flushed with matte pink, a plain little girl--she was a teenager then--propelled onto the international market by Papa's political schemes. Such portraits were made to be sent abroad to the relevant ambassadors, in the hope of arranging a suitable marriage...
...fervor around HIV and AIDS is much higher," says David S. Rosenthal '59, director of University Health Services. "HPV is less understood by students and the College. I think it's one of those abstract things that people don't think about...