Word: formed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...very great American." A fellow Cabinet officer whose department has felt the paining pinch of Anderson's insistence on balanced budgets calls him "one of the very ablest men in public life during the past 20 years." Adds another Cabinet member: "In this Washington scramble, the most refined form of cannibalism ever devised, it's just about impossible to find anybody who has anything nasty to say about Bob Anderson." Says Economist Gabriel Hauge, White House economic adviser from 1953 until last year: "Intellect, character, dedication-these are words that it is almost embarrassing to use today. Cynics...
Graphite, the substance in lead pencils, is a form of carbon that has long been one of the most useful minerals in the scientific laboratory and in industry. It is soft enough to be a good dry lubricant; its high heat resistance makes it a good material for crucibles and as a moderator in nuclear reactors. In the new age of rocketry, scientists have eyed it for use in rocket nozzles or in nose cones, which must resist the heat of reentry. But ordinary graphite has two faults: it is permeable to gases and is structurally so weak that...
Three years ago, Raytheon Co. of Waltham, Mass, set out to see what it could do to cure these shortcomings. Its scientists started with the knowledge that when carbon-rich gases are put in a lab furnace and decomposed by high heat, they sometimes deposit carbon in the form of a peculiarly dense graphite. At first this stuff was only a laboratory curiosity, and for a long time no one made it in quantity or thoroughly tested its properties. But after considerable experimentation, Raytheon's furnaces yielded a hard, impermeable, layered material that looks like black porcelain. Called Pyrographite...
Pyrographite can be deposited in sheets up to ½ in-thick, can be shaped to form rocket nozzles and caps for nose cones. Both these parts get punishing heat concentrated on rather small areas. The beauty of Pyrographite is that it conducts heat away from these danger points as fast as copper can, but it does not permit nearly as much heat to pass through it. A Pyrographite nose cone, for instance, spreads the heat of air friction over a large area and permits it to be radiated harmlessly away, but it does not let heat strike through the cone...
Perhaps for this reason, Vag was seized with cosmic daring when he came to the last question on the preliminary questionnaire. "Are there any problems of a personal nature which you would like to discuss with a doctor? (they need not be discussed at this time)" read the form. On the inspiration of the moment, he scribbled "Severe depression. . .suicidal longings. . .homesickness. . . ruptured hangnail. . . galloping consumption. . . homicidal leanings. . ." It was a riot--or so Vag thought until he began to wonder how the examining doctor would react. Even if he was only joking, it sounded awfully peculiar. With embarrassment...