Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"COSMIC RAYS" is a plural of: cosmic ray. |
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | Cosmic rays n. Notionally, the cause of bit rot. However, this is a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a humorous way to handwave away any minor randomness that doesn't seem worth the bother of investigating. "Hey, Eric -- I just got a burst of garbage on my tube, where did that come from?" "Cosmic rays, I guess." Compare sunspots, phase of the moon. The British seem to prefer the usage `cosmic showers'; `alpha particles' is also heard, because stray alpha particles passing through a memory chip can cause single-bit errors (this becomes increasingly more likely as memory sizes and densities increase). Factual note: Alpha particles cause bit rot, cosmic rays do not (except occasionally in spaceborne computers). Intel could not explain random bit drops in their early chips, and one hypothesis was cosmic rays. So they created the World's Largest Lead Safe, using 25 tons of the stuff, and used two identical boards for testing. One was placed in the safe, one outside. The hypothesis was that if cosmic rays were causing the bit drops, they should see a statistically significant difference between the error rates on the two boards. They did not observe such a difference. Further investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due to alpha particle emissions from thorium (and to a much lesser degree uranium) in the encapsulation material. Since it is impossible to eliminate these radioactives (they are uniformly distributed through the earth's crust, with the statistically insignificant exception of uranium lodes) it became obvious that one has to design memories to withstand these hits. Source: Jargon File. |
Aerospace | The aggregate of extremely high energy subatomic particles which travel the solar system and bombard the earth from all directions. Cosmic-ray primaries seem to be mostly protons, hydrogen nuclei, but also contain heavier nuclei. On colliding with atmospheric particles they produce many different kinds of lower energy secondary cosmic radiation (see cascade shower). Also called cosmic radiation. Cosmic rays thought to originate outside the solar system are called galactic cosmic rays. Those thought to originate in the sun are called solar cosmic rays.In the earth's atmosphere, the maximum flux of cosmic rays, both primary and secondary, is at an altitude of 20 km, and below this the absorption of the atmosphere reduces the flux, though the rays are still readily detectable at sea level. Intensity of cosmic-ray showers has also been observed to vary with latitude, being more intense at the poles. See cosmic-ray knee, corpuscular cosmic rays. (references) |
Space | A steady drizzle of high energy ions arriving at the solar system from the distant universe. Their energies are enormous, ranging from 1-2 billion electron volts to perhaps 100,000,000 that much, though the higher energies are rare. Their total energy flow is comparable to that starlight. The origin of their huge energies is uncertain, but may come from expanding shock fronts created by supernova explosions. (references) |
| Nuclear and subatomic particles moving through space at speeds close to the speed of light. They are thought to come from stars in the Milky Way galaxy. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Crosswords: COSMIC RAYS |
| English words defined with "COSMIC RAYS": Van Allen belt. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "COSMIC RAYS": background count, bit rot ♦ cascade shower, charge spectrum, coincidence counter, corpuscular cosmic rays, cosmic radiation, cosmic-ray burst, cosmic-ray knee ♦ Energetic particles ♦ heavy cosmic-ray primaries ♦ ion pair ♦ line noise ♦ nuclear emulsion ♦ particles and fields, primary cosmic ray ♦ secondary cosmic rays, solar cosmic rays, sunspots. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Ten-million cubic foot "Winzen" research balloon on the carrier's flight deck just prior to launching, during Operation "Skyhook", Refly "B", 30 January 1960. The balloon carried scientific devices to measure and record primary cosmic rays at 18-to-22 miles altitude. Credit: NAVY. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
Expressions using "COSMIC RAYS": hard component of cosmic rays ♦ penetrating component of cosmic rays. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| Language | Translations for "COSMIC RAYS"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||
Danish | haard komponent af kosmisk straaling (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays), galaktisk kosmisk stråling (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays, galactic radiation). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Dutch | harde component van de kosmische stralen (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays), galactische cosmische straling (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays, galactic radiation). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Finnish | galaktinen kosminen säteily (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays, galactic radiation). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
French | composante pénétrante des rayons cosmiques (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays), composante dure des rayons cosmiques (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays), rayons cosmiques galactiques (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays), rayons cosmiques d'origine galactique (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays), rayonnement cosmique galactique (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays), radiation cosmique galactique (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
German | harte Komponente der kosmischen Strahlung (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays), galaktische kosmische Strahlung (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays, galactic radiation), durchdringende Komponente der kosmischen Strahlung (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Greek | κοσμικέσ ακτίνεσ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Italian | componente dura dei raggi cosmici (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | osmiccay aysray radiación cósmica galáctica (galactic cosmic radiation, galactic cosmic rays, galactic radiation). (various references) hård kosmisk strålning (hard component of cosmic rays, penetrating component of cosmic rays). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-c-i-m-o-r-s-s-y" | |
-2 letters: cramoisy, isocracy. | |
-3 letters: corsacs, morassy, mosaics, mycosis, myricas, racisms. | |
-4 letters: across, caroms, ciscos, comics, corsac, cosmic, crasis, crissa, cymars, macros, mayors, micros, missay, morass, morays, mosaic, myasis, myosis, myrica, osmics, racism, scoria, scrams, scrims, simars. | |
-5 letters: acmic, amirs, amiss, arsis, carom, circa, cisco, cissy, cocas, coirs, comas, comic, coria, corms, crams, crass, croci, crocs. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-c-i-m-o-r-s-s-y" | |
+2 letters: macrocytosis. | |
+3 letters: microcrystals. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Expressions 7. Translations: Modern 8. Anagrams | 9. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
