Word: one-fiftieth
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...penetrate only during the summer solstice (June 20-22). This meant that the sun was directly over Syene at that time. He also had a figure for the distance between Syene and Alexandria: 5,000 stadia. Only one observation was necessary. During a summer solstice, he measured the shadow cast by a vertical pillar in Alexandria. It turned out to be one-fiftieth of a full circle (about...
...scale uses are unlikely until the price comes down. The batteries are ex pensive because they are made of highly purified silicon ($280 per lb.), which must be "grown" by a tricky process into a single crystal about the size of a fat banana. The wafers are cross sections one-fiftieth of an inch thick, and they must go through a subtle chemical treatment be fore they will work as batteries...
...developed by Physicist Franklin C. Hurlbut. First, all possible air is pumped from the stainless steel tube (which takes a week of pumping). At one end of the tube is a small "source chamber" containing nitrogen gas. When this is heated by a furnace, the nitrogen molecules pick up kinetic energy and zigzag through the chamber at great speed. Those that happen to be shooting in the right direction pass through a hole one-fiftieth of an inch in diameter that leads to the evacuated tube...
...hypospray blasts a drug through the pores, using air pressure of 25 to 125 pounds per square inch. The gun opening of the instrument is one-fiftieth of the diameter of the finest hypodermic needle. Each injection is loaded in a cartridge. Doctors who have tested it think it will be just the thing for insulin, penicillin, vaccines and a variety of other injections...
Luckily, many stars are eclipsed by the moon. When this happens, the star does not vanish instantaneously. Instead, it makes the moon cast, for one-fiftieth of a second, a ribbed shadow of bright-and-dark "diffraction bands." By measuring these, the star's disc can be measured. But the bands are 30 feet apart, and they race past a telescope's lens at more than 1,000 miles per hour. No photographic plate or observer's eye is big enough or fast enough to catch them...