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18-letter words containing c, r, i, m, s

  • fermat's principle — Optics. the law that the path taken by a ray of light in going from one point to another point will be the path that requires the least time.
  • first class module — (programming)   A module that is a first class data object of the programming language, e.g. a record containing functions. In a functional language, it is standard to have first class programs, so program building blocks can have the same status.
  • fixed-focus camera — a camera with an unadjustable focal length and with a relatively large depth of field.
  • forensic chemistry — the application of facts concerning chemistry to questions of civil and criminal law.
  • genetic algorithms — genetic algorithm
  • gensym corporation — (company)   A company that supplies software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimisation, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modelling and simulation. Their products include G2.
  • geometrical optics — the branch of optics dealing with light as rays, especially in the study of the effects of lenses and mirrors on light beams and of their combination in optical instruments.
  • german east africa — a former German territory in E Africa, the area now comprised of continental Tanzania and the independent republics of Rwanda and Burundi.
  • give someone curry — to assault (a person) verbally or physically
  • gravity escapement — an escapement, used especially in large outdoor clocks, in which the impulse is given to the pendulum by means of a weight falling through a certain distance.
  • hemicorporectomies — Plural form of hemicorporectomy.
  • hemorrhoidectomies — Plural form of hemorrhoidectomy.
  • higher mathematics — the advanced portions of mathematics, customarily considered as embracing all beyond ordinary arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and trigonometry.
  • histomorphological — histology.
  • homeowner's policy — a form of home insurance that provides compensation for damage, loss, or injury of property, personal belongings, or persons due to fire, theft, accidents, etc.
  • hypercholesteremia — Alternative spelling of hypercholesteraemia.
  • hypodermic syringe — a small glass piston or barrel syringe having a detachable, hollow needle for use in injecting solutions subcutaneously.
  • immunofluorescence — any of various techniques for detecting an antigen or antibody in a sample by coupling its specifically interactive antibody or antigen to a fluorescent compound, mixing with the sample, and observing the reaction under an ultraviolet-light microscope.
  • in comparison with — when compared to
  • in inverted commas — If you say in inverted commas after a word or phrase, you are indicating that it is inaccurate or unacceptable in some way, or that you are quoting someone else.
  • in terrorem clause — a clause in a will stating that a beneficiary who contests the will shall lose his or her legacy.
  • incommensurability — not commensurable; having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison.
  • indiscriminateness — The state of being indiscriminate.
  • indiscriminatingly — In an indiscriminating manner.
  • instruction manual — how-to, usage guide
  • insurance salesman — male: sells insurance
  • intermetrics, inc. — AverStar
  • involuntary muscle — muscle: contracts involuntarily
  • isometric exercise — exercise or a program of exercises to strengthen specific muscles or shape the figure by pitting one muscle or part of the body against another or against an immovable object in a strong but motionless action, as by pressing the fist of one hand against the palm of the other or against a desk.
  • isometric joystick — (hardware)   Any kind of joystick where the input depends on the force exerted rather than the position of the control, e.g. TrackPoint.
  • isothermal process — a process that takes place without change in temperature.
  • isthmus of corinth — a narrow strip of land between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf: crossed by the Corinth Canal making navigation possible between the gulfs
  • justice department — the United States federal department for enforcing federal laws
  • kitchen-sink drama — a type of drama of the 1950s depicting the sordid aspects of domestic reality
  • lambda abstraction — A term in lambda-calculus denoting a function. A lambda abstraction begins with a lower-case lambda (represented as "\" in this document), followed by a variable name (the "bound variable"), a full stop and a lambda expression (the body). The body is taken to extend as far to the right as possible so, for example an expression, \ x . \ y . x+y is read as \ x . (\ y . x+y). A nested abstraction such as this is often abbreviated to: \ x y . x + y The lambda expression (\ v . E) denotes a function which takes an argument and returns the term E with all free occurrences of v replaced by the actual argument. Application is represented by juxtaposition so (\ x . x) 42 represents the identity function applied to the constant 42. A lambda abstraction in Lisp is written as the symbol lambda, a list of zero or more variable names and a list of zero or more terms, e.g. (lambda (x y) (plus x y)) Lambda expressions in Haskell are written as a backslash, "\", one or more patterns (e.g. variable names), "->" and an expression, e.g. \ x -> x.
  • limburger (cheese) — a semisoft cheese of whole milk, with a strong odor and flavor, made originally in Limburg, Belgium
  • list comprehension — (functional programming)   An expression in a functional language denoting the results of some operation on (selected) elements of one or more lists. An example in Haskell: This returns all pairs of numbers (x,y) where x and y are elements of the list 1, 2, ..., 10, y <= x and their sum is less than 10. A list comprehension is simply "syntactic sugar" for a combination of applications of the functions, concat, map and filter. For instance the above example could be written: The term "list comprehension" appears in the references below. The earliest reference to the notation is in Rod Burstall and John Darlington's description of their language, NPL. David Turner subsequently adopted this notation in his languages SASL, KRC and Miranda, where he has called them "ZF expressions", set abstractions and list abstractions (in his 1985 FPCA paper [Miranda: A Non-Strict Functional Language with Polymorphic Types]).
  • literary criticism — study and review of literature
  • locked-in syndrome — a condition in which a person is conscious but unable to move any part of the body except the eyes: results from damage to the brainstem
  • logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
  • loschmidt's number — the number of molecules in one cubic centimeter of an ideal gas at standard temperature and pressure, equal to 2.687 × 10 19.
  • maclaurin's series — an infinite sum giving the value of a function f(x) in terms of the derivatives of the function evaluated at zero: f(x) = f(0) + (f′(0)x)/1! + (f″(0)x2)/2! + …
  • macroinvertebrates — Plural form of macroinvertebrate.
  • madagascar jasmine — a Madagascan twining, woody vine, Stephanotis floribunda, of the milkweed family, having waxy-white, fragrant flowers.
  • magic switch story — Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic".
  • magistrate's court — a court having limited jurisdiction over minor civil and criminal matters, as matters of contract not exceeding a particular amount of money.
  • magistrates' court — law: handles minor crimes
  • magnetic resonance — the response by atoms, molecules, or nuclei subjected to a magnetic field to radio waves or other forms of energy: used in medicine for scanning
  • magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
  • manchester terrier — one of a breed of slender terriers having a short, glossy, black-and-tan coat, raised originally in Manchester, England.
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