"Parabolic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... state of things generally was neither alarming nor consoling. But at 8:02 A.M. Pacific time, the situation changed. At that time Alaska reported an unscheduled celestial object of considerable size, high out of atmosphere and moving with surprising slowness for a body in space. Its course was parabolic and it would probably land somewhere in South Dakota. It might be a bolide—a large, slow-moving meteorite. It wasn't likely, but the entire report ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to bear her son, either in the Idaean or the Dictaean cave, where he was nourished with honey and goat's milk by the nymph Amaltheia until the time was ripe for his vengeance upon his father. (It has been suggested that in this somewhat grotesque legend we have a parabolic representation of one of the great religious facts of that ancient world—the supersession by the new anthropomorphic faith of the older cult, whose objects of adoration, made without hands, and devoid of human likeness, were sacred stones or trees. Kronos, ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... Gondran snatched their prey from them in the Chateau; whereupon they hurried to the Stables, and took horse there. But the generous Diomedes' steeds, according to Weber, disdained such scoundrel-burden; and, flinging up their royal heels, did soon project most of it, in parabolic curves, to a distance, amid peals of laughter: and were caught. Mounted National Guards secured ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... plant, and railroads that portends an eventual change in location. The Observatory has grown rapidly since its establishment by Dr. Tappan in 1852. The building was last remodeled and enlarged in 1911 when a reflecting telescope, with a 37-5/8 inch parabolic mirror, largely made in the shops of the University, was installed. In light gathering power this instrument is in a class with the Lick and Yerkes refractors, and it is at least as effective in astronomical photography, the purpose for which it was designed. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... henceforth, and forevermore!—clung tightly to me. The sounds seemed to be approaching us, and were accompanied by a lively rattling noise, that seemed to be made by something wooden. Suddenly, as we approached a bend of the road, I saw my youngest nephew appear from some unknown space, describe a parabolic curve in the air, ricochet slightly from an earthy protuberance in the road, and make a final stop in the gutter. At the same time there appeared, from behind the bend, the goat, then the carriage dragging on one side, and lastly, the boy Budge, grasping tightly ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... terms in the matter of the revolver nor to find out from the strangers who they were, and how their predicament had come about. He flung his glowing cigar away into the night. But Samburan was no longer a solitude wherein he could indulge in all his moods. The fiery parabolic path the cast-out stump traced in the air was seen from another veranda at a distant of some twenty yards. It was noted as a symptom of importance by an observer with his faculties greedy for signs, and in a state of alertness tense enough almost ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... "Hundred-meter parabolic mirrors," he said. "Easy to make; you spray a thin metallic coat on a plastic backing. They're in orbit around us, each with a small geegee unit to control drift and keep it aimed directly at the sun. The focused radiation charges heavy-duty accumulators, ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... pair of legs to the knees again. We lay still, breathless. A watch chain dangled down in a parabolic loop. Then followed a round face, beef-red with stooping. It looked under ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... rises, catches the light, transmits its motion, and sinks back into sea. So a plant ascends from clay, unfolds its leaves to light and air, flowers, seeds, and becomes clay again. Only, the wave has no knowledge; the plant has no perceptions. Each human life seems no more than a parabolic curve of motion out of earth and back to earth; but in that brief interval of change it perceives the universe. The awfulness of the phenomenon is that nobody knows anything about it No mortal can explain this ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... under the window. Several dark forms rose so suddenly that they appeared to spring out of the ground. Then came the peculiar twang of Indian bows. There were showers of sparks and little streaks of fire with long tails like comets winged their parabolic flight toward the cabin. Falling short they hissed and sputtered in the grass. Jonathan's rifle spoke and one of the fleeing forms tumbled to the earth. A series of long yells from all around the Fort greeted this last shot, but not an Indian ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... be an orbit that will bring it back again, [Page 127] or one that will carry it off into infinite space, never to return. One rate of speed on the curve indicates an elliptical orbit that returns; a greater rate of speed indicates that it will take a parabolic orbit, which never returns. The exact rate of speed is exceedingly difficult to determine; hence it cannot be confidently asserted that any comet ever visible will not return. They may all belong to the solar system; ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... reproduce this miracle of nature. When a comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that it is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. It is in reality falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. But, while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display—stretching out for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the side away from the sun—an immense luminous train called its tail. This train extends back into ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... carriage which is travelling uniformly, and drop a stone on the embankment, without throwing it. Then, disregarding the influence of the air resistance, I see the stone descend in a straight line. A pedestrian who observes the misdeed from the footpath notices that the stone falls to earth in a parabolic curve. I now ask: Do the "positions" traversed by the stone lie "in reality" on a straight line or on a parabola? Moreover, what is meant here by motion "in space" ? From the considerations of the previous section the answer is ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... this parabolic, and commendable, obscureness, for which she thanked him in her soul, struck the very point she had not named and did not wish to hear named, but wished him to strike; he was anything but obtuse. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the same metaphor) of several chains united at the extremity, as thus: a a mark of d, b of e, c of f, d e f of n, therefore a b c a mark of n. Suppose, for example, the following combination of circumstances: 1st, rays of light impinging on a reflecting surface; 2d, that surface parabolic; 3d, those rays parallel to each other and to the axis of the surface. It is to be proved that the concourse of these three circumstances is a mark that the reflected rays will pass through the focus of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... by which he showed that the line that regards the right angle in a triangle is equivalent to the two lines that contain that angle, or the problem about the area of the parabolic section of a cone. And Archimedes's servants were forced to hale him away from his draughts, to be anointed in the bath; but he notwithstanding drew the lines upon his belly with his strigil. And when, as he was washing (as the story goes of him), he thought of a manner of computing ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... but, in the first place, that parable does not offer a case in point; in the second place, were it in point, it might be fairly and strongly urged against the practice of invoking the spirit of any departed mortal, even the father of the faithful himself. For what are the circumstances of the parabolic representation? A lost spirit in the regions of torment prays to Abraham in the regions of the blessed, and the spirit of the departed patriarch professes himself to have no power to grant the request of the departed and condemned spirit. [Luke xvi. 19.] The practice indeed ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... where the top remains perfect at Gizeh, the side ends in a parabolic curve which turns over into the top surface without any cornice or moulding; the tops of walls in the ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... same thing, and are of a parabolic nature. The one adduces the metaphor of a race: 'Footmen have beaten you, have they? Then how will you run with cavalry?' The other is more clear in the Revised Version rendering: 'Though in a land of peace you are secure, what will you do in Jordan when it swells?' The 'swelling of Jordan' is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the silly Globule and look an unpremeditated Swipe. The Stroke rang sweet and vibrant. The ball rose in parabolic Splendor above the highest ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... this monster city interests me, and I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive. People here seem always to express distances by parables. To a stranger it is just a little confusing to be so parabolic—so to speak. I collar a citizen, and I think I am going to get some valuable information out of him. I ask him how far it is to Birmingham, and he says it is twenty-one shillings and sixpence. Now we know that doesn't help a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for example, from a cannon, moved in a straight horizontal line until the propulsive force was exhausted, and then fell to the ground in a perpendicular line. Galileo taught that the projectile begins to fall at once on leaving the mouth of the cannon and traverses a parabolic course. According to his idea, which is now familiar to every one, a cannon-ball dropped from the level of the cannon's muzzle will strike the ground simultaneously with a ball fired horizontally from the cannon. As to the paraboloid course pursued by the projectile, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... remarks on the passage of a shot in vacuo, which remarks were interrupted yesterday by general quarters. After quoting that admirable passage in 'Spearman's British Gunner,' I then laid it down, you remember, that the path of a shot in vacuo describes a parabolic curve. I now add that, agreeably to the method pursued by the illustrious Newton in treating the subject of curvilinear motion, I consider the trajectory or curve described by a moving body in space as consisting of a series of right lines, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... scheme for reflecting light in order that a distant observer might make a reading upon the point where the apparatus was being operated by another person. He was led by his experiments to suggest the application of mirrors to lighthouses. His device was essentially a parabolic mirror similar to the reflectors now widely used in automobile head-lamps, search-lights, etc. He employed the lime-light as a source of light and was enthusiastic over the results obtained. His discussion published in 1826 indicates that little ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... of pastime merely; and especially while that insuperable obstacle to any adequate examination of them, which the received history of the works themselves created, was still operating on the criticism. The truths which these Parabolic and Allusive Poems wrap up and conceal, have been safely concealed hitherto, because they are not those common-place truths which we usually look for as the point and moral of a tale which is supposed to have a moral or politic intention,—truths ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... over this production, Polton proceeded with his work. The "Thumbograph" having been fixed in position, the light from a powerful incandescent gas lamp, fitted with a parabolic reflector, was concentrated on it, and the camera racked out ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... try to guess it, for you never will. I turn the flange inward on a Wilkinson lathe and give it a parabolic section so that the axes are always parallel to each other and ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... 6 to 5 1/2 feet gave two results—first, less carrying capacity; and, second, less head-on resistance, owing to the fact that the extent of the parabolic curve in the carrying surfaces was shortened. The "head-on" resistance is the retardance the aeroplane meets in passing through the air, and is counted in square feet. In the 1908 model the curve being one in twelve and 6 feet deep, gave 6 inches of head-on resistance. The plane ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... admitted into a rifle club, to equal, without previous practice, its second-rate shots. He only falls short of its first-rate ones, because, uninitiated by the experience of his profession in the mystery of the parabolic curve, he fails, in taking aim, to make the proper allowance for it. The mason is almost always a silent man: the strain on his respiration is too great, when he is actively employed, to leave the necessary freedom ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... and four thousand feet in height. But the glory of this southern wall comes at the termination of our view opposite the North Dome. Here the precipice rises to the height of nearly one sheer mile with a parabolic sky-line, and its posterior surface is as elegantly rounded as an acorn-cup. From this contour results a naked semi-cone of polished granite, whose face would cover one of our smaller Eastern counties, though its exquisite proportions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... would not have seemed to him satisfactory, for though inclined to rebellion and positivism he was still the pupil of that mythical philosophy which attributed the value of things to their origin rather than to their uses, because it had first, in its parabolic way, erected the highest good into a First Cause. Still breathing, in spite of himself, this atmosphere of materialised Platonism, Hume could not discover the true origin of anything without imagining that he had destroyed its value. A natural child ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... directly in the line of the Prophet's vision; and that is—a Christian Church should neither depend on, nor be cribbed and cramped by, men-made defences of any kind. Luther tells us somewhere, in his parabolic way, of people that wept because there were no visible pillars to hold up the heavens, and were afraid that the sky would fall upon their heads. No, no, there is no fear of that happening, for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... fragments from the interior parts of globes like our own. They do not come from our own volcanoes, for the velocities with which they entered our atmosphere prove their cosmical origin. Had our atmosphere not entangled them, many, circuiting the sun in a parabolic or hyperbolic curve, would have escaped for ever from our system. The swift motions, which they had on entering our atmosphere, are considerably greater on the average than those of comets, and probably their true home is not in our solar ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... magnificent. Cairo sparkled like a million jewels, and in places they could see the silver ribbon of the Nile. Rick turned and looked at the radio telescope at Sahara Wells, its great parabolic reflector gleaming ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day, He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way, His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders, But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... the human mind, as well as the numerous prejudices that darken our understandings in the present state, some obscurities will always attend even the clearest revelations of Heaven. "Touched with a feeling of our infirmities," our blessed Saviour often adopted a parabolic method of instruction, which was calculated to awaken attention and to stimulate inquiry, as well as to simplify the great principles he was perpetually inculcating; and he has caused those frequent conversations into which he entered with different ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... marine increased greater skill was invoked, and lamps reinforced by parabolic reflectors poured their light upon the sea. Several of these lamps were sometimes grouped together so as to intensify the light, which at a little distance appeared as if it emanated from a single source. This 'catoptric' form of apparatus is still to some extent employed ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... amid a litter of metal chips and scraps of color-coded wire, was the Bunch's second ionic, full-size this time, and almost finished. On crossed arms it mounted four parabolic mirrors; its ion guide was on a universal joint. Out There, in orbit or beyond, and in full, spatial sunlight, its jetting ions would deliver ten pounds of ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... is made of the best grade of Brass highly Nickeled and Polished. With all parts riveted, and easily cleaned. With its polished Ground Lense and Parabolic Reflector it throws a better light farther in advance of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... days' coy inspection of our planet from different points of view, they fly to other remote parts of the universe, and do not condescend to show themselves again for a hundred years or so. Such is the erratic conduct of a heavenly body whose course is regulated by a parabolic curve. ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... The parabolic form of housing is elegant in appearance, but theoretically right only when of uniform cross section. In some of the counterfeit sort the designers seem to have seen the original Sellers, remembering the form just well enough to have got the curve wrong end up, and knowing nothing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... a source of light, and of course, of heat, which is placed at the focus of a parabolic reflector so that all of the rays emanating from the source travel in parallel lines. A searchlight, of course, gives off heat. If we place a lens of the same size as the searchlight aperture in the path of the beam ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various |
