Word: chapman
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High above the earth's atmosphere, 6,000 to 11,000 miles above its surface, whirls a great ring of invisible gas. This is the belief of Geophysicist Sydney Chapman, formerly of Oxford. He cannot prove conclusively that the ring is there, but strong theoretical reasons have convinced him that it exists...
According to Chapman's theory, the ring of gas (thinner than the "vacuum" in radio tubes) is formed by the action of the earth's magnetic field on streams of ionized hydrogen that blast out of the sun. As the protons and electrons from the sun approach the earth, they are deflected away from it by magnetic forces. Some of them settle into a ring above the earth's magnetic equator.* Eventually, they escape, curving down to the atmosphere to cause certain kinds of auroras. Their departure weakens the ring current, but it is soon restored...
...Chapman, who is president of the International Central Organizing Commission for the International Geophysical Year (a worldwide UNESCO enterprise) is now at the State University of Iowa, where study of the upper atmosphere is an important specialty. He hopes that the varied information about the earth that is now being gathered by 35 nations, including the U.S.S.R., will verify his theories about the earth's ring. To understand it better will help in dealing with the magnetic storms that mess up communications. When and if space flight comes, says Dr. Chapman, the ionized ring can be studied at close...
...businessmen, the very word "fringe", coined during the easy-money, cost-plus days of World War II, is a "semantic blur." To clear up the blur, Fisher and Chapman list 28 fringe payments, which they define as money costs and employment benefits outside direct wage payments for regular hours. These, ranging from such familiar items as pensions to "pamper extras" such as swimming pools (TIME, Sept. 13), now cost' American business 43? to 44? extra per productive hour. This adds up to a national total exceeding $25 billion...
Fisher and Chapman think that another 40? an hour will be added to the average wage bill in the next decade-above and beyond any general wage increases-if the fringe benefits (already up 60% since 1948) keep rising at the present rate...