18-letter words containing s, i, m, c, a
- investment account — a bank account in which money is saved long-term to accrue interest
- 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.
- investment company — a company that invests its funds in other companies and issues its own securities against these investments.
- involuntary muscle — muscle: contracts involuntarily
- isoamyl salicylate — a colorless, sometimes slightly yellow, synthetic oil, C 12 H 16 O 3 , having an orchidlike odor: used in perfumery.
- isothermal process — a process that takes place without change in temperature.
- 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.
- law of mass action — the statement that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the concentrations of the reacting substances.
- 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.
- literary criticism — study and review of literature
- local examinations — (in the UK) any of various examinations, such as the GCE, set by university boards and conducted in local centres, schools, etc
- logarithmic spiral — log r = aθ
- 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.
- luminous emittance — luminous flux emitted per unit area.
- 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
- 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 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.
- magnetogasdynamics — magnetohydrodynamics.
- malicious mischief — willful destruction of personal property motivated by ill will or resentment toward its owner or possessor.
- malicious wounding — the intentional violent wounding or injuring of someone
- manchester terrier — one of a breed of slender terriers having a short, glossy, black-and-tan coat, raised originally in Manchester, England.
- manhattan district — (during World War II) the code name for a unit of US army engineers established in 1942 to construct secret sites for the development of the atomic bomb
- manufacturing base — the manufacturing industries of an area or a country considered as a unit and a constituent part of the economy
- maritime provinces — region in Canada
- marketing research — the study of influences upon customer and consumer behaviour and the analysis of market characteristics and trends
- matthias schleiden — Matthias Jakob [mah-tee-ahs yah-kawp] /mɑˈti ɑs ˈyɑ kɔp/ (Show IPA), 1804–81, German botanist.
- mechanical testing — Mechanical testing is the testing of a material to find out its mechanical properties, for example its yield strength or hardness.
- medical profession — the body of people who work as doctors of medicine
- menthol cigarettes — cigarettes that are flavoured with menthol
- metabolic syndrome — Pathology. a group of medical conditions present simultaneously in a patient, as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol levels, and an excess of abdominal fat, that increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Also called insulin resistance syndrome.
- metamorphic facies — Geology. a group of metamorphic rock units characterized by particular mineralogic associations.
- methacrylate resin — an acrylic resin formed by polymerizing the esters or amides of methacrylic acid.
- microcrystallinity — The condition of being microcrystalline.
- microencapsulation — the process of enclosing chemical substances in microcapsules.
- microinvertebrates — Plural form of microinvertebrate.
- 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.
- microwave spectrum — a spectrum of electromagnetic radiations whose wavelengths fall in the microwave range.
- mineralocorticoids — Plural form of mineralocorticoid.
- miniature pinscher — one of a German breed of toy dogs resembling a smaller version of the Doberman pinscher, having a flat skull, a smooth coat, erect ears, and a docked tail, bred originally as a watchdog.
- misplaced modifier — Grammar. a word, phrase, or clause that seems to refer to or modify an unintended word because of its placement in a sentence, as when young in When young, circuses appeal to all of us.
- mission specialist — the crew member of a space shuttle who is assigned primary responsibility for carrying out operations related to the payload of the shuttle.
- mix communications — (MIX) Providers of Internet access and presentation services for businesses and individuals in the Milwaukee, WI, USA metropolitan area. MIX started providing Internet access services to the Milwaukee area in 1990. It was the first business in Milwaukee to provide Internet access services to the public. MIX Communications is owned and operated by Dean Roth. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Telephone: +1 (414) 351 1868 (Office), +1 (414) 351 1139 (BBS). Address: MIX Communications, P.O. Box 17166, Milwaukee, WI 53217, USA.