Word: cosmically
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...nearly 4 miles per second, 10 times as fast as a speeding bullet. In order to catch dust particles without disintegrating them, Jet Propulsion Lab engineer Peter Tsou first thought of making a trap out of Styrofoam; he figured dust would bury itself harmlessly inside. Unfortunately, says Tsou, "cosmic dust particles are so small that on Styrofoam, I wouldn't be able to see them...
There may be some computer problems as the year 2000 dawns, but the notion that there will be cosmic events in the supernatural realm is absolutely ludicrous. Here we are approaching the 21st century, and our folk culture is still stuck in a medieval mind-set, with all its superstitions. Jan. 1, 2000, will be just one more day in the life of Planet Earth. JOSEPH W. ADAMS Johnson City, Tenn...
...column punch cards, COBOL programmers used just six digits to render the day's date: two for the day, two for the month, two for the year. It was the middle of the century, and nobody cared much about what would happen at the next click of the cosmic odometer. But today the world runs on computers, and older machines run on jury-rigged versions of COBOL that may well crash or go senile when they hit a double-zero date. So the finger of blame for the approaching crisis should point at Hopper and her COBOL cohorts, right...
...third suggestion, the Overpowering Assumption, I think is best. But not for the reasons he suggests--that the assumption is so cosmic that it might be accepted. It is rarely "accepted"; we aren't here to accept or reject--we're here to be amused. The more dazzling, personal, unorthodox, paradoxic your assumptions (paradoxes are not equivocations), the more interesting an essay is likely to be. (If you have a chance to confer with the assistant in advance, of course--and we all like to be called "assistants" not "graders"--you may be able to ferret...
There is a third method of dealing with examination questions--that is by the use of the over-powering assumption, an assumption so cosmic that it is sometimes accepted. For example, we wrote that it was pretty obvious that the vague generality was the key device in any discussion, of examination writing. Why is it obvious? As a matter of fact it wasn't obvious at all, but just an arbitrary point from which to start. That is an example of an unwarranted assumption...