Word: basic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...their search for a unifying theory, researchers found that they could make headway using quantum theory, in which the basic forces are transmitted through quanta, tiny packets of energy. The quanta, tossed like softballs between particles of matter, such as protons or electrons, account for the interaction between the particles. Electromagnetism, for example, had long been conceived as traveling in bundles of light known as photons. (In fact, Einstein had elaborated this concept in explaining the photoelectric effect, a feat that later won him the Nobel Prize in 1921.) More recently physicists conjured up hypothetical bits, called...
...guerrillas have carefully nurtured the repopulation of northern Morazán by restoring some basic services that collapsed when the government abandoned the area to the rebels. There is still no electricity or telegraph service. Buses have not been seen for five years, and consumer goods are scarce. But the rebels, through civilian "directorates" that now run the towns, have reopened schools, many of which had not conducted classes for four years. While most of the new teachers are recruited and paid by the directorates, four in Perquín are government employees. One of them, Esperanza Varela de Guevara, 47, moved...
...Fischbach is proved right, his hypothetical force, which he calls hypercharge, would be the fifth known basic force. (Four forces are known to exist: gravity; electromagnetism; the strong force, which binds the atomic nucleus; and the weak force, which is responsible for certain types of radioactivity.) Hypercharge, Fischbach reports in Physical Review Letters, is an extremely weak repulsive force that acts between objects no more than about 600 feet apart and varies in strength from element to element. It is strongest in iron and weakest in hydrogen. Thus, the physicists contend, if an iron ball and, say, a feather were...
...Year. Choosing Deng Xiaoping primarily because of his "sweeping economic reforms" focuses only on the brighter side of China. By honoring Deng, you praise a leader who has tried to isolate Taiwan, an emerging democracy; has sheltered Pol Pot, a genocidal maniac; has continued to deny basic human rights to Tibetans; and has denounced as selfish those who question China's wavering policy on democracy for Hong Kong. When admiring the sleek, beautiful head of the mighty Chinese dragon emerging from the depths of the Pacific, keep a sharp eye for the shadowy tail that is sure to follow. Dave...
...merely changed the status of the peasant from that of a serf to that of a sharecropper. The peasants cannot buy the land they farm, and this is what matters. The essence of capitalism is not making a profit. This can be done under the barter system. The basic element is the right of the citizen to own private property. In China, all the land is owned by the Central Committee, and it is not for sale. Wallace Dace Manhattan, Kans...