Mannheim, Karl

соц. Мангейм, Карл (1887-1947; британский социолог венгерского происхождения, один из основоположников социологии знания)

SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport

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The son of a railway mechanic, it is said that as a child one of his hobbies was the repair of Black Forest clocks. He trained as a mechanical engineer at the Karlsruhe Lyzeum and Polytechnikum under Ferdinand Redtenbacher (d. 1863), who pointed out to him the need for a more portable power source than the steam engine. He went to Maschinenbau Gesellschaft Karlsruhe for workshop experience and then joined Schweizer \& Cie, Mannheim, for two years. In 1868 he went to the Benkiser Brothers at Pforzheim. In 1871 he set up a small machine-tool works at Mannheim, but in 1877, in financial difficulties, he turned to the idea of an entirely new product based on the internal-combustion engine. At this time, N.A. Otto held the patent for the four-stroke internal-combustion engine, so Benz had to put his hopes on a two-stroke design. He avoided the trouble with Dugald Clerk's engine and designed one in which the fuel would not ignite in the pump and in which the cylinder was swept with fresh air between each two firing strokes. His first car had a sparking plug and coil ignition. By 1879 he had developed the engine to a stage where it would run satisfactorily with little attention. On 31 December 1879, with his wife Bertha working the treadle of her sewing machine to charge the batteries, he demonstrated his engine in street trials in Mannheim. In the summer of 1888, unknown to her husband, Bertha drove one of his cars the 80 km (50 miles) to Pforzheim and back with her two sons, aged 13 and 15. She and the elder boy pushed the car up hills while the younger one steered. They bought petrol from an apothecary in Wiesloch and had a brake block repaired in Bauschlott by the village cobbler. Karl Benz's comments on her return from this venture are not recorded! Financial problems prevented immediate commercial production of the automobile, but in 1882 Benz set up the Gasmotorenfabrik Mannheim. After trouble with some of his partners, he left in 1883 and formed a new company, Benz \& Cie, Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik. Otto's patent was revoked in 1886 and in that year Benz patented a motor car with a gas engine drive. He manufactured a 0.8hp car, the engine running at 250 rpm with a horizontal flywheel, exhibited at the Paris Fair in 1889. He was not successful in finding anyone in France who would undertake manufacture. This first car was a three-wheeler, and soon after he produced a four-wheeled car, but he quarrelled with his co-directors, and although he left the board in 1902 he rejoined it soon after.

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соц. социология знания (теоретическое направление в современной социологии, которое рассматривает знание как уверенность людей в том, что окружающие его предметы и явления реальны, а также способы формирования и поддержания знания)

соц. "Идеология и утопия" (работа К. Мангейма, написанная 1929 г.; в ней обосновывается социология знания Мангейма)

SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Photography, film and optics, Public utilities

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While he was attending the Military School at Mannheim, Reichenbach drew attention to himself due to the mathematical instruments that he had designed. On the recommendation of Count Rumford in Munich, the Bavarian government financed a two-year stay in Britain so that Reichenbach could become acquainted with modern mechanical engineering. He returned to Mannheim in 1793, and during the Napoleonic Wars he was involved in the manufacture of arms. In Munich, where he was in the service of the Bavarian state from 1796, he started producing precision instruments in his own time. His basic invention was the design of a dividing machine for circles, produced at the end of the eighteenth century. The astronomic and geodetic instruments he produced excelled all the others for their precision. His telescopes in particular, being perfect in use and of solid construction, soon brought him an international reputation. They were manufactured at the MathematicMechanical Institute, which he had jointly founded with Joseph Utzschneider and Joseph Liebherr in 1804 and which became a renowned training establishment. The glasses and lenses were produced by Joseph Fraunhofer who joined the company in 1807.

In the same year he was put in charge of the technical reorganization of the salt-works at Reichenhall. After he had finished the brine-transport line from Reichenhall to Traunstein in 1810, he started on the one from Berchtesgaden to Reichenhall which was an extremely difficult task because of the mountainous area that had to be crossed. As water was the only source of energy available he decided to use water-column engines for pumping the brine in the pipes of both lines. Such devices had been in use for pumping purposes in different mining areas since the middle of the eighteenth century. Reichenbach knew about the one constructed by Joseph Karl Hell in Slovakia, which in principle had just been a simple piston-pump driven by water which did not work satisfactorily. Instead he constructed a really effective double-action water-column engine; this was a short time after Richard Trevithick had constructed a similar machine in England. For the second line he improved the system and built a single-action pump. All the parts of it were made of metal, which made them easy to produce, and the pumps proved to be extremely reliable, working for over 100 years.

At the official opening of the line in 1817 the Bavarian king rewarded him generously. He remained in the state's service, becoming head of the department for roads and waterways in 1820, and he contributed to the development of Bavarian industry as well as the public infrastructure in many ways as a result of his mechanical skill and his innovative engineering mind.

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