18-letter words containing m, a, g, i, c
- dynamic psychology — any system of psychology that emphasizes the interaction between different motives, emotions, and drives
- economic geography — a branch of geography that deals with the relation of physical and economic conditions to the production and utilization of raw materials and their manufacture into finished products.
- electrocardiograms — Plural form of electrocardiogram.
- electrocorticogram — a record of brain waves obtained by placing electrodes directly on the surface of the exposed cerebral cortex
- electroretinograms — Plural form of electroretinogram.
- environment agency — an official agency providing information on environmental issues, esp rivers, flooding and pollution
- ethnomusicological — Relating to or pertaining to ethnomusicology.
- euclid's algorithm — (algorithm) (Or "Euclidean Algorithm") An algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two numbers. It relies on the identity gcd(a, b) = gcd(a-b, b) To find the GCD of two numbers by this algorithm, repeatedly replace the larger by subtracting the smaller from it until the two numbers are equal. E.g. 132, 168 -> 132, 36 -> 96, 36 -> 60, 36 -> 24, 36 -> 24, 12 -> 12, 12 so the GCD of 132 and 168 is 12. This algorithm requires only subtraction and comparison operations but can take a number of steps proportional to the difference between the initial numbers (e.g. gcd(1, 1001) will take 1000 steps).
- exercise programme — a programme detailing a range of physical exercises and the amount of time each exercise should be performed, used especially in gymnasiums, where they are typically tailored to individuals' needs
- feeping creaturism — /fee'ping kree"ch*r-izm/ A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn"t really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.
- fuming nitric acid — a colorless, yellowish, or brownish fuming corrosive liquid, usually prepared from nitric acid by the addition of excess nitrogen dioxide: used in organic synthesis for nitration, and as an oxidizer in liquid propellants for rockets.
- functional program — (language) A program employing the functional programming approach or written in a functional language.
- gene amplification — an increase in the frequency of replication of a DNA segment.
- 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.
- giant peacock moth — the largest European moth, an emperor, Saturnia pyri, reaching 15 cm (6 in.) in wingspan. It is mottled brown with a prominent ocellus on each wing and being night-flying can be mistaken for a bat
- glycosaminoglycans — Plural form of glycosaminoglycan.
- grammatical gender — gender based on arbitrary assignment, without regard to the referent of a noun, as in French le livre (masculine), “the book,” and German das Mädchen (neuter), “the girl.”.
- 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.
- gyromagnetic ratio — the ratio of the magnetic moment of a rotating charged particle to its angular momentum.
- haemorrhagic fever — any of a group of fevers, such as Ebola virus disease and yellow fever, characterized by internal bleeding or bleeding into the skin
- heart-lung machine — a device through which blood is shunted temporarily for oxygenation during surgery, while the heart or a lung is being repaired.
- higher mathematics — the advanced portions of mathematics, customarily considered as embracing all beyond ordinary arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and trigonometry.
- higher-order macro — A means of expressing certain higher-order functions in a first order language. Proposed by Phil Wadler. Higher-order macros cannot be recursive at the top level but they may contain recursive definitions. E.g. See partial evaluation.
- histomorphological — histology.
- immunohistological — the microscopic study of tissues with the aid of antibodies that bind to tissue components and reveal their presence.
- immunopharmacology — the branch of pharmacology concerned with the immune system
- impedance matching — the technique of choosing or adjusting electric circuits and components so that the impedance of the load is equal to the internal impedance of the power source, thereby optimizing the power transfer from source to load.
- impingement attack — a form of corrosion of metals caused by erosion of the oxide layer by a moving fluid in which there are suspended particles or air bubbles
- incidental damages — law: incurred by contract breach
- indiscriminatingly — In an indiscriminating manner.
- investment casting — a casting process in which an expendable pattern is surrounded by an investment compound and then baked so that the investment is hardened to form a mold and the pattern material may be melted and run off.
- iomega corporation — (company, storage) A storage device manufacturer whose major products are the Zip and Jaz removable disk drives and Ditto tape drives. They became popular with an early product called the Bernoulli Box. These products fall in line with their focus set in 1994 "to help people manage their stuff". The company's stated aim is to create portable, fast, large and cheap storage solutions. Iomega's major competitor in the growing market for removable disks is SyQuest, who seem to always be a few weeks behind them. In general, Iomega target the Small Office/Home Office. They are also investigating the growing digital photography market which also needs large removable storage devices. Iomega's president and CEO is Kim Edwards. They have nearly 2000 employees in offices world-wide. Revenue for the quarter ending Dec 1996 was $371 million and net income was $20 million. Headquarters: Roy, Utah, USA.
- lactogenic hormone — prolactin.
- launching ceremony — a ceremony that celebrates the launch of a ship for the first time into the water
- lean manufacturing — efficiency in the production of goods
- light displacement — the weight of a ship with all its permanent equipment, excluding the weight of cargo, persons, ballast, dunnage, and fuel, but usually including the weight of permanent ballast and water used to operate steam machinery.
- lighting cameraman — the person who designs and supervises the lighting of scenes to be filmed
- limiting adjective — (in English and some other languages) one of a small group of adjectives that modify the nouns to which they are applied by restricting rather than describing or qualifying. This, some, and certain are limiting adjectives.
- logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
- logical complement — (logic) In Boolean algebra, the logical complement or negation of a Boolean value is the opposite value, given by the following truth table: A | -A --+--- T | F F | T -A is also written as A with a bar over it or with a small vertical line hanging from the right-hand end of the "-" (LaTeX \neg) or as A'. In the C programming language, it is !A and in digital circuit design, /A.
- logical positivism — a philosophical movement that stresses the function of philosophy as a method of criticizing and analyzing science and that rejects all transcendental metaphysics, statements of fact being held to be meaningful only if they have verifiable consequences in experience and in statements of logic, mathematics, or philosophy itself, and with such statements of fact deriving their validity from the rules of language.
- 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
- magnesium silicate — a white powder, 3MgSiO 3 ⋅5H 2 O, with variable hydration, insoluble in water or alcohol, used as a rubber filler, a bleaching agent, an odor absorbent, and in the manufacture of paints and resins.
- magnetic amplifier — an amplifier that applies the input signal to a primary winding and feeds an alternating current to a secondary winding where this current is modulated by the variations in the primary winding.