Word: plastic
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...coed slides into a plastic chair in a soft green three-sided cubicle, consults a mimeographed list, flips a switch, sees a red light blink, dials 1-2-2, pulls on earphones. Into the headset flows the voice of her political science professor, then Adlai Stevenson on the meaning of democracy, finally a discussion of freedom by New York University's Sidney Hook-and thus ends Lecture 1, Second Semester, Political Science...
Ordinarily, a steering column is rigidly clamped at two points by collar-shaped steel brackets. In the G.M. design, the brackets are lined with plastic, which gives way on impact. Thus freed, the steering column collapses: one section of the column, made of steel mesh, crumples, while the gearshift tube and steering rod are telescoped, thereby shortening the column's length a total of 81 in. Presumably the auto companies will pass the added cost of the new safety features-about $15 for the column and $5 for the brakes-directly on to the customers...
...mostly aluminum and weighs only 31,000 Ibs. The UET can be used as a bulldozer, grader, scraper, armored personnel carrier or general-purpose transport, has an over-the-road speed of better than 30 m.p.h. Some new items already in the engineers' toolbox: aluminum landing mats, plastic road surfaces (called "membranes"), and moisture-proof plastic maps that can be wadded up and tucked into a shirt pocket and still retain their original shape...
...modern architecture today, as Mies sees it, there are two vying ten dencies: "One has a structural basis, and you may call it the more objective. The other [Le Corbusier's] has a plastic basis, which you could call emotional. You cannot mix them. Architecture is not a martini. Architecture is a language having the discipline of a grammar. Language can be used for day-to-day purposes as prose. And if you are very good, you may speak a wonderful prose. And if you are really good, you can be a poet. But it is the same language...
...Plastic is the material of the present, of the future," says Vivier. He swears his plastic shoes won't cut or heat up the foot (there are tiny airholes along the arch). In fact, he sees the new plastique as an engineering feat: "Nothing is more flattering. These shoes lengthen the foot, make it look narrower, and even seem to make big feet look smaller...