Word: backward
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Professor Kirsten's cycloidal propeller, as used for boats, has four to eight parallel blades projecting vertically downward, like fingers from a revolving hand. Driven by a vertical shaft the blades on one side move backward while those on the other move forward. Propulsion is obtained by a rhythmical automatic shift in the pitch of the blades so that those moving backward push flatwise against the water, while those moving forward are "feathered" to slip sidewise through it with little resistance. One advantage of this arrangement is that quick stops and reverses can be accomplished without altering the speed...
Fortnight ago, a quintet of children filed into the studios of Chicago's WMAQ, proceeded to make the wizards of Information Please look like a bunch of backward spratlings. Ranging in age from seven to 14, the five little thinkers played the title roles in a new NBC show called the Quiz Kids, sponsored by Alka-Seltzer. Standing up under a fierce grilling on mythology, ornithology, spelling, music, breeds of dogs, the Chicago prodigies left listeners awed with the scope of their learning, a trifle doubtful that the program was entirely unrehearsed. Snorted Variety: "If Alka-Seltzer...
What prevented liberal Englishmen and Americans from thinking Chesterton was right was, for one thing, a disagreement over what constitutes civilization. To Chesterton, Poland was an outpost of civilization because it was a Catholic nation. To the liberal Western mind, Poland seemed a backward and feudal country, greatly inferior in efficient industrial plant and social services-two modern criteria of civilization-even to Nazi Germany. To those who like to dispose of other people's affairs by logic alone, the logical conclusion should have been that it did Poland good last autumn to be taken over and "organized...
...enough airplanes to fight the kind of war Hitler had loosed on the world, did not have enough trained men to build the plants that could create them. In a fury of frustration they jumped on each other, developed morbid fears of invisible enemies, chased ghosts and phantoms, looked backward to bemoan old mistakes and ancient blunders. Greater sign of weakness was that-though no longer was a crisis doubted-no great national program came into being that could give each man his place in a giant effort, give a creative release to pent-up emotions...
...field, he explained his controls. For forward flight, he pushes the ship's nose down, lets gravity pull it toward the ground while the rotor pulls it into the air. The component of the forces of lift and gravity is the line of flight-which can be backward, forward or side-wise-much as a man can move forward by inclining his body and just barely prevent himself from falling by putting his feet in front of him in time...