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18-letter words containing g, r, a, m, o

  • lagrange's theorem — the theorem that the order of each subgroup of a finite group is a factor of the order of the group.
  • launching ceremony — a ceremony that celebrates the launch of a ship for the first time into the water
  • linear programming — any of several methods for finding where a given linear function of several nonnegative variables assumes an extreme value and for determining the extreme value, the variable usually being subjected to constraints in the form of linear equalities or inequalities.
  • logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
  • logarithmus dualis — (mathematics)   (ld) Latin for logarithm base two. More commonly written as "log" with a subscript "2". Roughly the number of bits required to represent an integer.
  • low-start mortgage — a mortgage in which interest only is repaid for a fixed period at the outset, to make it more affordable
  • 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
  • magnesium peroxide — a white, tasteless, water-insoluble powder, MgO 2 , used as an antiseptic and as an oxidizing and bleaching agent.
  • magnetic recording — the process of recording sound or other data on magnetic tape, wire, etc.
  • 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
  • magnetic variation — variation (def 8).
  • magnetocrystalline — (physics) Describing the interaction between the magnetization and the crystal structure of a material.
  • magnetoelectricity — electricity developed by the action of magnets.
  • magnetorheological — (physics) describing a substance whose rheological properties are modified by a magnetic field.
  • man-to-man marking — the tactic of assigning a particular player to stay close to a specific member of the opposing team to hamper his or her play
  • manufactured goods — products made by machine
  • margaret of valois — ("Queen Margot") 1533–1615, 1st wife of Henry IV of France: queen of Navarre; patron of science and literature (daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici).
  • marine archaeology — the branch of archaeology that deals with the recovery of ancient objects found beneath the sea, as shipwrecks or remains from submerged islands, and with the techniques of underwater exploration, excavation, and retrieval.
  • marriage encounter — a meeting with a person or thing, especially a casual, unexpected, or brief meeting: Our running into each other was merely a chance encounter.
  • marriage of figaro — Italian Le nozze di Figaro. an opera (1786) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
  • mato grosso do sul — a state of W central Brazil: formed in 1979 from part of Mato Grosso state. Capital: Campo Grande. Pop: 2 140 624 (2002). Area: 350 548 sq km (135 318 sq miles)
  • medicine bow range — a range of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming and Colorado. Highest peak, Medicine Bow Peak, 12,014 feet (3662 meters).
  • menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
  • mergui archipelago — a group of over 200 islands in the Andaman Sea, off the Tenasserim coast of S Myanmar: mountainous and forested
  • microgravitational — Of or pertaining to microgravitation.
  • microminiaturizing — Present participle of microminiaturize.
  • micropalaeontology — the branch of palaeontology concerned with the study of microscopic fossils
  • microsoft exchange — (messaging)   Microsoft's messaging and enterprise collaboration server. Exchange's primary role is as an electronic mail message store but it can also store calendars, task lists, contact details, and other data.
  • minority programme — a programme that appeals to a minority of the available audience
  • moccasin telegraph — the transmission of rumour or secret information; the grapevine
  • molecular genetics — a subdivision of genetics concerned with the structure and function of genes at the molecular level.
  • monetary aggregate — a measure of the money in circulation.
  • monographic series — a series of monographs issued in uniform style or format and related by subject or by issuing agency.
  • montgomery village — a city in central Maryland.
  • morning-after pill — a contraceptive pill containing only an estrogen and used by women within a few hours after sexual intercourse.
  • mortgage insurance — policy to compensate for property loan payments
  • moving bed reactor — A moving bed reactor is a reactor in which a layer of catalyst in the form of granules is moved between a reaction area and a regeneration area.
  • national agreement — written formal agreements covering rates of pay and other terms and conditions of employment that are the result of collective bargaining at national level between one or more trade unions and employers in a sector of the economy
  • national guardsman — guardsman (def 2).
  • neo-pythagoreanism — a philosophical system, established in Alexandria and Rome in the second century b.c., consisting mainly of revived Pythagorean doctrines with elements of Platonism and Stoicism.
  • net book agreement — a former agreement between UK publishers and booksellers that until 1995 prohibited booksellers from undercutting the price of books sold in bookshops
  • network management — (networking)   The process of controlling a network so as to maximise its efficiency and productivity. ISO's model divides network management into five categories: fault management, accounting management, configuration management, security management and performance management. Fault management is the process of identifying and locating faults in the network. This could include discovering the existence of the problem, identifying the source, and possibly repairing (or at least isolating the rest of the network from) the problem. Configuration management is the process of identifying, tracking and modifying the setup of devices on the network. This category is extremely important for devices that come with numerous custom settings (e.g. routers and file servers). Security management is the process of controlling (granting, limiting, restricting or denying) access to the network and resources thereon. This could include setting up and managing access lists in routers (creating "firewalls" to keep intruders out), creating and maintaining password access to critical network resources, identifying the points of entry used by intruders and closing them. Performance Management is the process of measuring the performance of various network components. This also includes taking measures to optimise the network for maximum system performance (periodically measuring of the use of network resources).
  • neuroophthalmology — the branch of ophthalmology that deals with the optic nerve and other nervous system structures involved in vision.
  • new storage system — (storage)   (NSS) A major Multics implementation project during the 1970s. The initial Multics file system design had evolved from the one-huge-disk world of CTSS. When multiple disk units were used they were just assigned increasing ranges of disk addresses, so a segment could have pages scattered over all disks on the system. This provided good I/O parallelism but made crash recovery expensive. NSS redesigned the lower levels of the file system, introducing the concepts of logical volume and physical volume and a mapping from a Multics directory branch to a VTOC entry for each file. The new system had much better recovery performance in exchange for a small space and performance cost.
  • nightmare scenario — If you describe a situation or event as a nightmare scenario, you mean that it is the worst possible thing that could happen.
  • no laughing matter — sth serious
  • nonpharmacological — Not pharmacological.
  • of your own making — If you say that something such as a problem you have is of your own making, you mean you have caused or created it yourself.
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