"Computing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... important truth, that he had been casting about in his mind for some expedient that would answer the purpose. The one which had occurred was, that instead of proportioning the votes of the States in both branches to their respective numbers of inhabitants, computing the slaves in the ratio of five to three, they should he represented in one branch according to the number of free inhabitants only; and in the other, according to the whole number, counting the slaves us free. By this arrangement ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... us from self-trust is our consistency;[182] a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit[183] than our past acts, and we are loth to ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... made was that suggested by Wilbur. He folded his arms and stood silent, waiting, and ready to judge the time as nearly as he could until the five minutes should have elapsed. He was so busy computing the minutes that it was with a start that he noticed some time later that the weeping had ceased. She lay quiet. Her hand was dabbing furtively at her face for a purpose which Pierre could ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... is used in household accounts, in measurements, in the division of recipes, and in computing the cost of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... to be a spy. There will be a statement from the friend who dined with me at the St. Ives. There will be the declaration of the policeman who saw the German climb down the fire-escape and bolt into the room beneath." "And hang the expense!" I added inwardly, computing cable rates, but assuming a lordly indifference to them which only a multimillionaire ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... to that time, had been, compared to Soulanges, a mere village. Ville-aux-Fayes became a storage place for timber, which covered the shores of the two rivers for a distance of over thirty miles. The work of taking out of the water, computing the lost logs, and making the rafts which the Yonne carried down to the Seine, brought together a large concourse of workmen. Such a population increased consumption and encouraged trade. Thus Ville-aux-Fayes, which had but six hundred inhabitants at the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... stiffly to his feet and resumed his place upon the settle, the bad piece still in his hand. So he sat for some time, looking upon the half-crown, and now wondering to himself on the injustice and partiality of the law, now computing again and again the nature of his loss. So he was still sitting when Mr. Archer entered the kitchen. At this a light came into his face, and after some seconds of rumination he despatched Nance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... circus, while beauty and fashion repaired to the concert room or to the Opera Francais, to listen to Halevy or Donizetti. Restless Americans or Irishmen rubbed elbows with the hurrying Frenchman or Spaniard, and the dignified creole gentleman of leisure alone was wrapped in a plenitude of dignity, computing probably the interest he drew on ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... dots in fascination, mentally computing. At an average speed of fifty knots an hour, the squadron's steaming rate, they should be off the coast within three hours. The dirigible would take two, if it went ahead to scout, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... introduced gives the main axis of the lake a more northeast and southwest direction. The Hore map has met the fate that usually overtakes the early surveys of every region. It rendered good service as long as it was the best map; but the Moore expedition had first-rate appliances for computing longitudes, and as Captain Hore lacked these, it is not strange that his map has ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... pilgrims were not solicitous to save or transport the volumes of an unknown tongue: the perishable substance of paper or parchment can only be preserved by the multiplicity of copies; the literature of the Greeks had almost centred in the metropolis; and, without computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that have perished in the triple fire ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... treated with discourtesy and suspicion. It was in the army most of all that the antagonism of the two parties was felt. A medal was struck for service in Sicily, and every year spent there in inaction was reckoned as two in computing seniority. Thus the younger officers of Murat found their way blocked by a troop of idlers, and at the same time their prospects suffered from the honest attempts made by Ministers to reduce the military expenditure. Discontent existed in every rank. The generals were familiar with the idea of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... for the next four hours. If a man works more than eight hours he is not paid for overtime—he deducts his overtime from the next working day or saves it up and gets a whole day off with pay. Our eight-hour day is a day of eight hours and not a basis for computing pay. ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... expense of transportation so excessive, as to cut off all hopes of a reasonable profit; nor can there be consumers enough here to take them off his hands, for so great a length of time to come, as I shall not be at the trouble of computing. ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... the Exhibition, in a by no means unfavorable position; yet I had spent the better portion of five days there, roaming and gazing at will, before I saw this lot. There are three Diamonds exhibited which are worth, according to the standard method of computing the value of Diamonds, at least Thirty millions of Dollars, and probably could be sold in a week for Twenty Millions; I have seen but one of them as yet, and that stands so conspicuously in the center of the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... these facts and the confirmation of them I have received from both French and English brethren, computing the population much below what I have stated, I confess I feel grieved to hear of the arrival of new missionaries. Nor am I the only one who deplores their appointment to this country. Again and again have I been pained at heart to hear the question put, Where will these new ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... of numbering, or computing by numbers, my dear. The four principal rules of arithmetic are addition, ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... in which he lived it was difficult to find the latitude and longitude of places, and few people were able to calculate either correctly. Vespucci was skillful in the work of computing longitude, and he was also well versed in the history of all the voyages that had been made. He was familiar with the facts of astronomy and geography then known, and was well able to conduct the sailing of ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... and lost nothing by it, even in his own camp, where swagger might be expected to breed admiration. He was thought a level-headed fellow who didn't expect miracles; his forecast in most matters was quoted, and his defeats at the polls had been to some extent neutralized by his sagacity in computing ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... passed out, he shouted "Give him an emetic!" He tore the hitching straps from the posts, jumped into the buggy and headed for the road. Skilfully avoiding an overturn as he rounded into the highway, he gave the spirited horses their heads, and fled toward town, carefully computing the speed the horses could make and still be able to return. Mile after mile he covered, passing teams, keeping ahead of automobiles and advertising panic. Just at the town limits, he met the doctor in Sheriff Dilly's ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... Crooks unexpectedly made its appearance. A momentary joy was diffused through the camp, for they supposed succor to be at hand. It was soon dispelled. Mr. Crooks and his companions had been completely disheartened by this retrograde march through a bleak and barren country; and had found, computing from their progress and the accumulating difficulties besetting every step, that it would be impossible to reach Henry's Fort and return to the main body in the course of the winter. They had determined, therefore, to rejoin their comrades, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... and they listened—computing the stranger's rate of speed. The fullness of tone increased; ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... than one which will yield perfect rationality of every description. In general, it may be said that if a man's conception of the world lets loose any action in him that is easy, or any faculty which he is fond of exercising, he will deem it rational in so far forth, be the faculty that of computing, fighting, lecturing, classifying, framing schematic tabulations, getting the better end of a bargain, patiently waiting and enduring, preaching, joke-making, or what you like. Albeit the absolute is defined as being necessarily an embodiment of objectively ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... vegetables are of high physiological interest; but observations on sunflowers, cabbages, hops, and single branches of isolated trees, growing in artificially prepared soils and under artificial conditions, furnish no trustworthy data for computing the quantity of water received and given ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... is dead," insinuated the Greek who was already computing his bill for brokerage in this little affair, "you can raise plenty of loans, on the strength of your ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... abstinence, seeing I have not tasted any thing but a fragment of bitter orange in a state of decomposition, to which I should soon have been reduced myself but for thy timely arrival! Behold, I have been compelled to tarry here a prisoner for the space of thirty-six hours, computing by the rising of the sun and the setting thereof.—Art thou a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... up there stayed A tincture in the prudent maid: She managed her estate with care, Yet liked three footmen to her chair, But lest he should neglect his studies Like a young heir, the thrifty goddess (For fear young master should be spoiled) Would use him like a younger child; And, after long computing, found 'Twould come ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... bearing. The difference between this magnetic bearing and the compass bearing will be the required deviation, which you should compare with your Deviation Table. If there is a marked difference, and you are sure of your figures, use the new deviation in computing courses on ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... in fresh water from the mud or slime deposited there. These successive layers of limestone, sandstone, slate, marl, etc., which make up the greater part of the rocks, and are often several thousand feet thick, give us a standard for computing the relative length of ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... 1 per centum of such gross receipts for the fifth distant signal equivalent and each additional distant signal equivalent thereafter; and in computing the amounts payable under paragraph (ii) through (iv), above, any fraction of a distant signal equivalent shall be computed at its fractional value and, in the case of any cable system located partly within and partly without the local service area of a primary ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America: - contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. • Library of Congress Copyright Office
... I reached this land, found it for sale, and within my means, I bought it, and started home happy. Before I'd gone a mile, I turned to look back, and saw that it was hilly, mostly woods, and there was no computing the amount of work it would require to make it what I could see in it; so I began to think maybe she wouldn't like it, and to wish I had brought her, before I closed the deal. By the time I returned home, packed up, and travelled ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... the Princess stretched her hand to where he was and groped a moment, and caught him by the silken dress and tore in it a great rent, and by the rent he stood revealed to her. Then said she, 'O youth, thou halt done ill to follow me here, and the danger of it is past computing; surely, the motive was a deep one, nought other than the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the World.—As the Greek and Roman methods of computing time were connected with certain pagan rites and observances which the Christians held in abhorrence, the latter began at an early period to imitate the Jews in reckoning their years from the supposed period of the creation of the world. Various computations ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... a region of magnificent distances. A mile in that locality is like two miles in the New England or Middle States. The people have an easy way of computing distance by the survey lines. Thus, if it is the width of a township from one point to another, they call the distance six miles, even though the road may follow the tortuosities of a creek or of the crest of a ridge, and be ten or ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... and among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who adduces as a proof of it the quoit which is at Olympia, on which the name of Lykurgus is still preserved. Others, among them Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, by computing the reigns of the kings of Sparta,[A] prove that he must have lived many years before the first Olympiad. Timaeus conjectures that there were two men of the name of Lykurgus in Sparta at different times, and that the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... capable of giving happiness, it is not easy to restrain our ardour or forbear some precipitation in our advances, and irregularity in our pursuits. He that has cultivated the tree, watched the swelling bud and opening blossom, and pleased himself with computing how much every sun and shower add to its growth, scarcely stays till the fruit has obtained its maturity, but defeats his own cares by eagerness to reward them. When we have diligently laboured for any purpose, we are willing to believe that we have attained it, and, because we ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... same quantity for each succeeding year for the next four or five years, no error so great as one-quarter of a minute will be made in the position of the meridian as determined in the summer months. If winter observations are made, the distance in January should be used. The formula for computing the angle of elongation is easily made by any one understanding spherical trigonometry, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... Census revealed slight change in the centre of population. This now stood six miles southeast of Columbus, Ind., having moved west only fourteen miles since 1890. In computing its position neither Hawaii nor Alaska were considered. Never before had its occidental shunt been less than thirty-six miles in a decade. For three score years it had not fallen under forty per decade. What sent it southward two and ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... speculating upon our chances once we settled into the frightful Maelstrom beneath us and at the same time mentally computing the hours which must elapse before aid could reach us, the wireless operator clambered up the ladder to the bridge, and, disheveled and breathless, stood before me at salute. It needed but a glance at him to assure me ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... One large enclosure comprises exactly forty acres. At Hopetown, Ohio, are two walled figures—one a square, the other a circle—each containing precisely twenty acres. They must have possessed regular scales of measurement, and the means of determining angles and of computing the area to be enclosed by the square and the circle, so that the space enclosed by ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... decreased because of a systematic evacuation ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack the population was approximately 255,000. This figure is based on the registered population, used by the Japanese in computing ration quantities, and the estimates of additional workers and troops who were brought into the city may not be highly accurate. Hiroshima thus had approximately the same number of people as the city of Providence, R.I., ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... players developed this year. Homans, the captain, was well known about town as an amateur player of ability. But Arthurs has made him into a great field captain and a base-getter of remarkable skill. An unofficial computing gives him the batting average of .536. No captain or any other player of any big college team in the East ever approached such percentage as that. It is so high that it ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... N.N.W. course, and adhered to it up to the point I have now led the reader, a new bearing having been taken on some object still farther in advance from every sand hill we ascended. This appeared to me to be the most satisfactory way of computing our distances and position, for the latitude necessarily correcting both, the amount of error could not be very great. I now found, on this principle, that I was in latitude 27 degrees 4 minutes 40 seconds ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... and half of noon.] The poet uses the Hebrew manner of computing the day, according to which the third hour answers to our ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... and erect large foundries and caar-shops. Altogether, suh, we shall expend at this point mo' than— mo' than—one million of dollars;" and the colonel threw back his head and gazed at the ceiling, his lips computing ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the importance of the Z. P.—without a gun? Outwardly nonchalant I strolled in between the two ropes. Proprietor Shipp looked up from counting his winnings and opened his mouth to shout "ticket!" I flung back my coat, and with a nod and a half-wink of wisdom he fell back again to computing ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... in no time, dear. Where are we to dine?" She glanced at her little crystal clock as she spoke, as if she were computing casually the length of the drive before dinner. But what she said in her heart was, "At this time to-morrow it will all have been over ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... led to consider the effects of the centrifugal force in diminishing the weight of bodies at the equator. With respect to Huyghens, he appears to have formed a conjecture respecting the spheroidal figure of the earth independently of Newton; but his method for computing the ellipticity is founded upon ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... the "technology protection measures" that may be used to attempt to comply with CIPA. There are numerous filtering software products available commercially. Three network-based filtering products SurfControl's Cyber Patrol, N2H2's Bess/i2100, and Secure Computing's SmartFilter currently have the lion's share of the public library market. The parties in this case deposed representatives from these three companies. Websense, another network-based blocking product, is also currently used in the public library market, and was discussed at trial. ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... Korsakov said loudly. He was apparently getting pretty drunk. "Their computing machines would need an aspirin to handle that situation. We go out three times but we only come back once." He turned and peered intently at me, his heavy bushy eyebrows drawn severely down and wiggling. "Puzzle: ...
— Shock Absorber • E.G. von Wald
... of the breaking strength of a beam is expressed in terms of unit stress by a modulus of rupture, which is a purely hypothetical expression for points beyond the elastic limit. The formulae used in computing ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... still resolve on the present act of confession in consideration of the service which I may thereby render to the whole class of opium- eaters. But who are they? Reader, I am sorry to say a very numerous class indeed. Of this I became convinced some years ago by computing at that time the number of those in one small class of English society (the class of men distinguished for talents, or of eminent station) who were known to me, directly or indirectly, as opium-eaters; such, for instance, as the eloquent and benevolent —-, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... get up and go on to the next similar place of entertainment. So with the army. With every group or circle of tents travels the invariable tea kettle, suspended from a tripod; and it would be in vain to think of computing how many times each soldier's pannikin is filled upon a halt. It is his first idea. Frequently he carries it cold in a copper case as a solace ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... lived always on the whirling edge of passion. The least extra leap of the water caught him and drew him in. He gazed at Joan, and the computing look which cast up her charms made her suddenly hot from head to foot. The good-looking, pretentious fool whom it had been amusing to exhibit amidst the black frowns of her circle had suddenly become exquisitely desirable ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... enjoying the intellectual luxury of social life, upon a very small income, should deeply engage his attention, and be ever recollected by him as a circumstance of much importance. He amused himself, I remember, by computing how much more expence was absolutely necessary to live upon the same scale with that which his friend described, when the value of money was diminished by the progress of commerce. It maybe estimated that double the money might now ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... tedious business the calculation of large sums would be according to this cumbrous system of notation: nor is it easy to say whereabouts our commercial status, to say nothing of science, would have been to-day, had it never been superseded. The Romans themselves, in computing large numbers, always had recourse to the abacus—a counting-frame with balls on parallel wires, somewhat similar to that now ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... times (chap. 4:25). We therefore conclude that the period of three and a half times signifies three and a half years. This agrees with the reign of the leopard beast of Revelation 13, namely, "forty and two months" (verse 5), or according to the Jewish method of computing time—thirty days to the month—twelve hundred and sixty days. Notice that this also agrees both in the manner of statement and in point of duration with the flight of the woman into the wilderness, as ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... area of 81 sq. in. This set of tests, A, B and C, is therefore inconclusive except as showing the practical difficulty in the use of bands in small columns, and the necessity for disregarding all concrete outside of the bands when computing ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... would be little, if at all, mitigated by the presence of small isolated flowers, however lucky individually these may be. This is on the same principle as that by which astrologers judge a horoscope, when, after computing the aspects of the planets towards each other, the Sun and Moon, the Ascendant, Mid-heaven, and the significator of the Native, they balance the good aspects against the bad, the strong against the weak, the Benefics against the Malefics, and so strike an average. In a similar ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... long a journey. I was also not surprised, although I was disappointed, not to be able to obtain suitable officers in Brazil to go part of the journey with me, so that I might be relieved of a portion of the tedious scientific work of the expedition, especially taking and computing daily astronomical observations, to which much time has to be devoted. All the work of all kinds eventually fell upon my shoulders, and after departing I found myself filling the posts of surveyor, hydrographer, cartographer, geologist, meteorologist, anthropologist, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... biggest army beleaguered Belgium had ever seen, and one of the biggest, most perfect armies the world has ever seen. We watched the gray-clad columns pass until the mind grew numb at the prospect of computing their number. To think of trying to count them was like trying to count the leaves on a tree or the pebbles on ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... and subtraction. In solving problems in percentage his success is measured by the freedom with which he can use the four fundamental processes of addition, subtraction, Multiplication, and division. In computing bank discount, his skill is based on ability to employ his previous experience with percentage and the fundamental ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... Seward semi-officially and conveniently accepts the French impudence. Computing the time and space, the scheme corresponds with McClellan's inactivity after Antietam, and with the raising of the banner of the Copperheads. I spoke of this before, (see Diary for November and December, 1861, in Vol. I.) and repeatedly ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... methods of computing tables were altogether inapplicable to such a proceeding. M. Prony, therefore, wishing to avail himself of all the talent of his country in devising new methods, formed the first section of those who were to take part in this enterprise out of five or six of the most eminent ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... stipulated beforehand, and it is no longer the custom for a well-known contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the generosity of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor ever a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well calculated to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of selling his art at all. It is as if a painter sold his picture at so much a square inch, or a sculptor bargained away a group of statuary by the pound. But it is a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... In computing the various quantities shown in Table 1, the summary of results, the load has been assumed as concentrated at the center of the beam. While it is true that the load was spread over a length of about 12 in., due to the width of the head of the machine ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 - Tests of Creosoted Timber, Paper No. 1168 • W. B. Gregory
... are seeking to measure the products due respectively to directive ability and to labour, by computing what would happen if either of these agencies were withdrawn, the withdrawal of one of them—that is to say, of ability—can alone be taken as possible by any practical reasoner. We have before us practically ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... wanted out of it because I knew there were only two possible outcomes—I would either go to the bottom or arrive at the sea level. I've played all games at cards; but the mathematicians have spoiled that sport by computing the percentages. I've made acquaintances on trains, I've answered advertisements, I've rung strange door-bells, I've taken every chance that presented itself; but there has always been the conventional ending—the logical conclusion ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... No use wasting time here. He ran from the house, hearing the sound of the Sky Wagon as Scotty warmed it up. Joe Blake was not in sight. Rick hurried into the lab and found him watching Professor Morrison who was checking some calculations on the lab's small computing machine. ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... running lines and of measuring land, he did not comprehend or appreciate. But when the line was made by a creek, river, or mountain, he understood it, and it harmonized better with his views of fitness, in dividing up the surface of this great earth. He was utterly unschooled in the art of computing by acres and roods. But the water's edge he had traversed with his light canoe, and with every point and islet on the lakes he was familiar. He had followed the rivers to where they came bubbling up from their rocky bed amid mountain elevations, and there was not a tributary stream or run, by whose ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... assigned to each of the ten finger spaces as shown in figure 347. Wherever a whorl appears it assumes the value of the space in which it is found. Spaces in which types of patterns other than whorls are present are disregarded in computing the primary. ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... quotations, from the adversaries or contemporaries of Dryden, of a length more than sufficient to satisfy the reader of their unworthiness. But, as the painter places a human figure, to afford the means of computing the elevation of the principal object in his landscape, it seemed that the giant-height of Dryden, above the poets of his day, might be best ascertained by extracts from those who judged themselves, and were sometimes deemed by others, his equals, or ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... captain appeared to be computing. 'But this one's out of England: and it's a prince I suppose they'll call him: and princes don't count in the population for more than finishing touches, like the crossing of t's and dotting of i's, though true they're the costliest, like some flowers ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to solve a little nebular hypothesis of my own. I was computing how many million belles such as I know, and how many ages, would be required to condense them ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... been of no importance to the navigator or astronomer. It would have differed from the present system only in that the assumed Greenwich would have been invariable instead of dancing about from time to time as it has done under the present system. You understand that when the astronomer, in computing an interior longitude, supposes that of Cambridge from Greenwich to be a certain definite amount, say 4h 44m 30s, what he actually does is to count from a meridian just that far east of Cambridge. When he changes the assumed ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... accustomed words, and they will call 16 a dozen; 120, 112, or any other number, a hundred.' He disapproved, likewise, of thrusting the decimal principle upon things incompatible with it. 'Decimal arithmetic,' said he, 'is a contrivance of man for computing numbers, and not a property of time, space, or matter. It belongs essentially to the keeping of accounts, but is merely an incident to the transactions of trade. Nature has no partiality for the number 10; and the attempt ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... check it fell haply into the hands of the one person in our party who knew French and—what was an even more valuable accomplishment under the present circumstances—knew the intricate French system of computing a bill. He ran a pencil down the figures. Then he consulted the price list on the menu and examined the label on the neck of the wine bottle, and then he gave a long whistle. "What's the trouble?" ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb |
