"Undulatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... margin. These birds are not unfrequently kept either in cages or in courtyards, with their wings cut. They soon become tame, and are very amusing from their cunning odd manners, which were described to me as being similar to those of the common magpie. Their flight is undulatory, for the weight of the head and bill appears too great for the body. In the evening the Saurophagus takes its stand on a bush, often by the roadside, and continually repeats without change a shrill and rather agreeable cry, which somewhat resembles articulate ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... aggressively forward, while, with a face unreadable as granite, his keen eyes scanned every detail in the room. Mr. Walcott, on the contrary, made the entire circuit of the room, his hands carelessly clasped behind him, his head thrown well back, his every step characterized by a graceful, undulatory motion, like the movements of the ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... aether is carried along by the earth's motion has been considered from the early days of the undulatory theory of light. In reviving that theory at the beginning of the 19th century, Thomas Young stated his conviction that material media offered an open structure to the substance called aether, which passed through them without hindrance "like the wind ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... afternoons, flitted in bareheaded loveliness from door to door, have changed with the changing times. The loveliness is perhaps more striking, less distinctive; with the flower-like heads have passed the old grace and the old dependence, and the undulatory walk has quickened into buoyant briskness. It is all modern—as modern as the red brick walls that are building where a quaint ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... louder and more broken, changing to the jingling of Blackbirds in spring, mixed with some Bluejay "jay-jays," and a Robin-like whistle; then I saw that it came from a Northern Shrike on the bushes just ahead of us. It flew off much after the manner of the Summer Shrike, with flight not truly undulatory nor yet straight, but flapping half a dozen times—then a pause and repeat. He would dive along down near the ground, then up with a fine display of wings and tail to the next perch selected, there to repeat with fresh variations and shrieks, the same strange song, and often indeed ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sinuous, undulatory and gliding. At one moment her supple form, bending humbly toward the earth, resembled the stem of a lily over-weighted with its blossom; the next, a branch of a tree flung upward by a tempest; the next, a column of autumn leaves caught up by a miniature whirlwind and sent spinning ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... ether on long flexible pinions, as if that was the one delight of his life. Some birds have wings, others have "pinions." The buzzard enjoys this latter distinctions. There is something in the sound of the word that suggests that easy, dignified, undulatory movement. He does not propel himself along by sheer force of muscle, after the plebeian fashion of the crow, for instance, but progresses by a kind of royal indirection that puzzles the eye. Even on a windy winter day he rides the vast aerial billows as placidly ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... long ere I discovered that there was another bed in this den, opposite my own; and judging by certain undulatory and saltatory movements within, it was occupied. Presently the head of a youth emerged, with closed eyes and flushed features. He indulged in a series of groans and spasmodic kicks, that subsided once more, only to recommence. A flute ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the most striking passages in modern literature is the paragraph in Mr. Spencer's First Principles, in which he describes the rhythm of motion. Motion, he says, though it seems to be continuous and steady, is in fact pulsating, undulatory, rhythmic. There is everywhere intermittent action and rest. The flag blown by the breeze floats out in undulations; then the branches oscillate; then the trees begin to sway; everywhere there is action and ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... picturesque object, as an old cottage or mill, there are introduced, by various circumstances not essential to it, but, on the whole, generally somewhat detrimental to it as cottage or mill, such elements of sublimity—complex light and shade, varied color, undulatory form, and so on—as can generally be found only in noble natural objects, woods, rocks, or mountains. This sublimity, belonging in a parasitical manner to the building, renders it, in the usual sense ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... saying he swung his great head slowly around and glared at Haw-Haw. The latter shrank away with an undulatory motion in his saddle. And when the head of Mac Strann turned away again the broad mouth began gibbering: "It's gettin' him like it done me. He's ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... foot long, to the middle of which I firmly tied the lasso. I then placed it crosswise behind the stakes. I considered that when we had let ourselves down to the spot occupied by l'Encuerado, a sharp undulatory shake given to the lasso would be sufficient to disengage the stick. When our preparations were finished, we let down the basket to the man who carried it. Then Sumichrast, who was the heaviest among us, slid down the cord to the tree which grew in so convenient a position. ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... world, that it was quite impossible to converse with a friend at a distance beyond the carrying power of a speaking trumpet. To-day, a boy who does not know that one may talk very agreeably with a friend a thousand miles away is an ignoramus; and experimenters whisper among themselves that, if the undulatory theory of light have any foundation, there is no real reason why we may not see that same friend at that same distance, as well as talk with him. Ten years ago we were quite sure that it was beyond the bounds ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... light consists of waves of some kind or other, and that these waves travel at a certain well-known velocity, seven times the circumference of the earth per second, taking eight minutes on the journey from the sun to the earth. This propagation in time of an undulatory disturbance necessarily involves a medium. If waves setting out from the sun exist in space eight minutes before striking our eyes, there must necessarily be in space some medium in which they exist ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... be regretted that one who had brought that branch of science to such perfection should have been so ungenerous as to ignore the assistance he had received from the researches of Dr. Young. When the Royal Institution was first established, Dr. Young lectured on natural philosophy. He proved the undulatory theory of light by direct experiment, but as it depended upon the hypothesis of an ethereal medium, it was not received in England, the more so as it was contrary to Newton's theory. The French savants afterwards did Young ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... us, and as it is in itself; or (which is the same thing) between the sound we immediately perceive, and that which exists without us. The former, indeed, is a particular kind of sensation, but the latter is merely a vibrative or undulatory motion the air. ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... onset, the Indians had secured almost all the enemy's waggons and horses, so that flight to many became impossible. At that particular spot the prairie was undulatory and bare, except on the left of the encampment, where a few bushes skirted the edge of a small stream; but these were too few and too small to afford a refuge to the Texans, one hundred of whom were killed and scalped. The remainder of the night was passed in giving chase to the fugitives, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Ton-Kunst, the Ton-Welt, give me now more stimulus than the written Word; for music seems to contain everything in nature, unfolded into perfect harmony. In it the all and each are manifested in most rapid transition; the spiral and undulatory movement of beautiful creation is felt throughout, and, as we listen, thought is most clearly, because most mystically, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... existence the luciferous element, which element I suppose to be diffused throughout the boundless regions of space."[349] The nature of light is however still as great a mystery as when Job demanded, "Where is the way where light dwelleth?" The undulatory theory of light, now generally accepted, assumes that light is caused by the vibrations of the ether in a plane transverse to the direction of propagation. In order to transmit motions of this kind, the parts of the luminiferous medium must resist compression ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... shades delicately enough with a horizontal touch; and it is best always when you are in a hurry, and sometimes when you are not, to use the vertical touch. When the ripples are large, the reflections become shaken, and must be drawn with bold undulatory descending lines. ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... "Sublime," Part ii. sect. 8,) and, therefore, no sea-waves nor fresh leaves make their number so evident or so impressive as these vapors. Nor is nature content with an infinity of bars or lines alone—each bar is in its turn severed into a number of small undulatory masses, more or less connected according to the violence of the wind. When this division is merely effected by undulation, the cloud exactly resembles sea-sand ribbed by the tide; but when the division amounts to real separation ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... night I heard Emerson give a lecture. I pity the reporter who attempts to give it to the world. I began to listen with a determination to remember it in order, but it was without method, or order, or system. It was like a beam of light moving in the undulatory waves, meeting with occasional meteors in its path; it was exceedingly captivating. It surprised me that there was not only no commonplace thought, but there was no commonplace expression. If he quoted, he quoted from what we had not read; if he told an anecdote, it was one that ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... handsomest of the three, was remarkable for his broad, leonine head and full whiskers, strong shoulders, and a superb feathery tail. There was something theatrical and pretentious in his air, like the posing of a popular actor. His movements were slow, undulatory, and majestic: so circumspect was he about where he set his feet down that he always seemed to be walking among glass and china. His disposition was by no means stoical, and he was much too fond of food to have been approved of by his namesake. The temperate ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers. The undulatory theory of light has thus been arrived at; and the belief in the revolution of the earth on its own axis was until lately supported by hardly any direct evidence. It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problems of the essence ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... incomplete) have been carried out to catalogue (according to their wave-length on the undulatory theory of light) all the lines of each chemical element, under all conditions of temperature and pressure. At the same time, all the lines have been catalogued in the light of the sun and the ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... belief of the learned, their fundamental principles forbid the avowal of a plenum, although the undulatory theory of light renders a plenum necessary, and is so far virtually recognized by them, and a correction for resistance is applied to the Comet of Encke. Yet there has been no attempt made to reconcile these opposing principles, other than by supposing that the celestial regions ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... Vigorous and graceful of movement, in shape he resembled a comma of three dimensions, twisted, when at rest, to a slight spiral curve; but in traveling he straightened out with quick successive jerks, each one sending him ahead a couple of lengths. Supplemented by the undulatory movement of a long continuation of his tail, it was his way of swimming, good enough to enable him to escape his enemies; this, and riding at anchor in a current by his cable-like appendage, constituting his main occupation in life. The ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... reaches the partition again, and then passes into a discharge pipe. Thus during this long course every particle of cream escapes to the center. As the holes are close to the walls of the basket, the cream has not the undulatory motion of the milk, which would injure it. The greater the number of partitions, the longer is the travel of the milk, and the more rapid the circulation. Blades have been devised similar to the above, having communicating ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... curl, crisp, twill; frizzle; crimp, crape, indent, scollop[obs3], scallop, wring, intort[obs3]; contort; wreathe &c. (cross) 219. Adj. convoluted; winding, twisted &c. v.; tortile[obs3], tortive|; wavy; undated, undulatory; circling, snaky, snake-like, serpentine; serpent, anguill[obs3], vermiform; vermicular; mazy, tortuous, sinuous, flexuous, anfractuous[obs3], reclivate[obs3], rivulose[obs3], scolecoid[obs3]; sigmoid, sigmoidal[Geom]; spiriferous[obs3], spiroid[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... labelled piece of Stevie's overcoat. She leaned forward on her folded arms over the side of the sofa. She adopted that easy attitude not in order to watch or gloat over the body of Mr Verloc, but because of the undulatory and swinging movements of the parlour, which for some time behaved as though it were at sea in a tempest. She was giddy but calm. She had become a free woman with a perfection of freedom which left her nothing to desire and absolutely nothing to do, since Stevie's urgent claim on ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... white, and in various places pink, red and light-blue screens mellowed it into an artistic effect that was very soothing to the eye. The ceiling was hung with festoons of prisms as brilliant as the purest diamonds, and in them, owing to the gently undulatory movement of the vessel, colors more beautiful than those of a rainbow played entrancingly. Rare pictures in frames of delicate gold were interspersed among the clusters of prisms, and the floor was covered with carpets that felt ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... hypothesis, therefore, subject to the production of proof that physiological species may be produced by selective breeding; just as a physical philosopher may accept the undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of the existence of the hypothetical ether; or as the chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the proof of the existence of atoms; and for exactly the same reasons, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... devoid of real knowledge on these subjects, and singularly unlucky. What is to be thought of the contemporary of Young and of Fresnel, who never misses an opportunity of casting scorn upon the hypothesis of an ether—the fundamental basis not only of the undulatory theory of light, but of so much else in modern physics—and whose contempt for the intellects of some of the strongest men of his generation was such, that he puts forward the mere existence of night as a refutation of the undulatory theory?[15] What a wonderful ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... painted from the real cannons! The whole passage is extremely interesting, and is really one out of many examples we might give of the swift and simple manner in which the common-sense method solves the great problems of art. The book concludes with a detailed exposition of the undulatory theory of light according to the most ancient scientific discoveries. Mr. Collier points out how important it is for an artist to hold sound views on the subject of ether waves, and his own thorough appreciation of Science may be estimated by the definition he gives of it as being 'neither ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... this kind is that of the corpuscular and the undulatory theories of light. Up to a certain point the phenomena of light are equally well explained by both; beyond this point, one ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... not know the nature of light. Neither the undulatory theory nor the quantum theory are adequate to explain all observed phenomena, and they seem to be mutually exclusive, since it would seem clear by definition that no one thing can be at the same time continuous and discontinuous. We know nothing of the ether—we do not even know whether ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... of his calls bear a close resemblance to those of the common goldfinch, but he is by no means a mere duplicate of that bird; he has an individuality of his own. While his flight is undulatory, the waviness is not so deeply and distinctly marked; nor does he sing a cheery cradle-song while swinging through the ether, although he often utters a series of unmusical chirps. One of the most pleasingly pensive ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... whilst collecting this plant in its native home, "I had occasion to observe that a detached leaf would make repeated efforts towards disclosing itself to the influence of the sun; these attempts consisted in an undulatory motion of the marginal ciliae, accompanied by a partial opening and succeeding collapse of the lamina, which at length terminated in a complete expansion and in the destruction of sensibility." I am indebted to Prof. Oliver for this reference; but I do not understand ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... degree of virulence and ignorance which have seldom been combined in scientific controversy. The most distinguished of his opponents were Robert Hooke and Huyghens. Both attacked his theory from the standpoint of the undulatory theory of ...
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