Word: threshold
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...decibel is an arbitrary unit such that, starting from the zero level or threshold of hearing, each increase of one decibel represents an increase of 25% in the physical intensity of the sound. The human ear has an enormous range. It is not pained by loudness until the sound is about ten trillion times as intense as a whisper at the threshold of hearing. Thus it is not very sensitive to small intensity changes. The decibel is intended to represent roughly the smallest intensity change which the ear can detect...
Paul Moscou, who pleaded guilty before the trial was so thoroughly disreputable that even Mason's attorney declared: "When Moscou walked across the threshold ... it might just as well have been the devil himself. He spread his own personal corruption upon everyone who had the misfortune to have been in his presence...
...fact in that quiet and secluded den of science, far from the madding maelstrom of university life, we passed the most hair-raising quarter hour we've yet known. For innocently accepting an invitation to witness a short operation on a cat, we had no sooner crossed the threshold of the formaldehyde-filled room when the coils of drama closed round us like an octopus and didn't let go till we left in a state of exhaustion, bloody and quite bowed...
...inspection." On the other hand, to assume that the shifts really indicate receding velocity forces one to adopt a very curious model of the universe. "The model is closed and very small-a large fraction can be observed with existing telescopes-and is packed with matter to the very threshold of perception-. The rate of expansion has been slowing down so that the past time scale is remarkably limited. In short, the necessary adjustments and compensations suggest that the model may be a forced interpretation of the data." In plainer language, this meant that Astronomer Hubble is now willing...
...gratitude we turn back through three centuries to pay homage to the faith that could see no obstacles and to ideals which are indeed eternal. But the real past which we salute is but yesterday. Harvard, together with all the other universities in this country, stands just beyond the threshold of a new understanding. It is towards the future of our common enterprise that on this occasion we must direct our guze...