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1 move *****
[muːv]1. n1) (movement) movimento, mossato be on the move — (travelling) spostarsi, (active, busy) essere indaffarato (-a), (fig: developments) essere in continuo progresso
to get a move on fam — affrettarsi, sbrigarsi
get a move on (with that)! fam — sbrigati (con quello)!, datti una mossa (con quello)!
to make a move — (start to leave, go) andarsene, (begin to take action) muoversi
a good/bad move — una mossa buona/sbagliata
3) (change of house) trasloco, (to different job) trasferimento2. vt1) (change place of) spostare, (limbs, chesspiece) muovere, (transport) trasportare, (transfer: employee, troops) trasferireto move house — traslocare, cambiar casa
we asked a (removal) firm to move us — abbiamo chiesto a una ditta (di traslochi) di farci il trasloco
2)(
fig: sway) to move somebody from an opinion — smuovere qn da un'ideato move sb to do sth — indurre or spingere qn a fare qc
3) (cause emotion in) commuovereto move sb to anger/pity — far arrabbiare/impietosire qn
4)(
frm: propose) to move a resolution — avanzare una propostato move that... — proporre che... + sub
3. vimove! — muoviti!, spostati!
to move freely — (piece of machinery) aver gioco, (person) circolare liberamente, (traffic) scorrere
2) (move house) cambiar casa, traslocare3) (in games) muovere4) (take steps) intervenire•- move in- move off- move on- move out- move up -
2 Hopkinson, John
[br]b. 27 July 1849 Manchester, Englandd. 27 August 1898 Petite Dent de Veisivi, Switzerland[br]English mathematician and electrical engineer who laid the foundations of electrical machine design.[br]After attending Owens College, Manchester, Hopkinson was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1867 to read for the Mathematical Tripos. An appointment in 1872 with the lighthouse department of the Chance Optical Works in Birmingham directed his attention to electrical engineering. His most noteworthy contribution to lighthouse engineering was an optical system to produce flashing lights that distinguished between individual beacons. His extensive researches on the dielectric properties of glass were recognized when he was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society at the age of 29. Moving to London in 1877 he became established as a consulting engineer at a time when electricity supply was about to begin on a commercial scale. During the remainder of his life, Hopkinson's researches resulted in fundamental contributions to electrical engineering practice, dynamo design and alternating current machine theory. In making a critical study of the Edison dynamo he developed the principle of the magnetic circuit, a concept also arrived at by Gisbert Kapp around the same time. Hopkinson's improvement of the Edison dynamo by reducing the length of the field magnets almost doubled its output. In 1890, in addition to-his consulting practice, Hopkinson accepted a post as the first Professor of Electrical Engineering and Head of the Siemens laboratory recently established at King's College, London. Although he was not involved in lecturing, the position gave him the necessary facilities and staff and student assistance to continue his researches. Hopkinson was consulted on many proposals for electric traction and electricity supply, including schemes in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. He also advised Mather and Platt when they were acting as contractors for the locomotives and generating plant for the City and South London tube railway. As early as 1882 he considered that an ideal method of charging for the supply of electricity should be based on a two-part tariff, with a charge related to maximum demand together with a charge for energy supplied. Hopkinson was one the foremost expert witnesses of his day in patent actions and was himself the patentee of over forty inventions, of which the three-wire system of distribution and the series-parallel connection of traction motors were his most successful. Jointly with his brother Edward, John Hopkinson communicated the outcome of his investigations to the Royal Society in a paper entitled "Dynamo Electric Machinery" in 1886. In this he also described the later widely used "back to back" test for determining the characteristics of two identical machines. His interest in electrical machines led him to more fundamental research on magnetic materials, including the phenomenon of recalescence and the disappearance of magnetism at a well-defined temperature. For his work on the magnetic properties of iron, in 1890 he was awarded the Royal Society Royal Medal. He was a member of the Alpine Club and a pioneer of rock climbing in Britain; he died, together with three of his children, in a climbing accident.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1878. Royal Society Royal Medal 1890. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1890 and 1896.Bibliography7 July 1881, British patent no. 2,989 (series-parallel control of traction motors). 27 July 1882, British patent no. 3,576 (three-wire distribution).1901, Original Papers by the Late J.Hopkinson, with a Memoir, ed. B.Hopkinson, 2 vols, Cambridge.Further ReadingJ.Greig, 1970, John Hopkinson Electrical Engineer, London: Science Museum and HMSO (an authoritative account).—1950, "John Hopkinson 1849–1898", Engineering 169:34–7, 62–4.GW -
3 Paul, Robert William
[br]b. 3 October 1869 Highbury, London, Englandd. 28 March 1943 London, England[br]English scientific instrument maker, inventor of the Unipivot electrical measuring instrument, and pioneer of cinematography.[br]Paul was educated at the City of London School and Finsbury Technical College. He worked first for a short time in the Bell Telephone Works in Antwerp, Belgium, and then in the electrical instrument shop of Elliott Brothers in the Strand until 1891, when he opened an instrument-making business at 44 Hatton Garden, London. He specialized in the design and manufacture of electrical instruments, including the Ayrton Mather galvanometer. In 1902, with a purpose-built factory, he began large batch production of his instruments. He also opened a factory in New York, where uncalibrated instruments from England were calibrated for American customers. In 1903 Paul introduced the Unipivot galvanometer, in which the coil was supported at the centre of gravity of the moving system on a single pivot. The pivotal friction was less than in a conventional instrument and could be used without accurate levelling, the sensitivity being far beyond that of any pivoted galvanometer then in existence.In 1894 Paul was asked by two entrepreneurs to make copies of Edison's kinetoscope, the pioneering peep-show moving-picture viewer, which had just arrived in London. Discovering that Edison had omitted to patent the machine in England, and observing that there was considerable demand for the machine from show-people, he began production, making six before the end of the year. Altogether, he made about sixty-six units, some of which were exported. Although Edison's machine was not patented, his films were certainly copyrighted, so Paul now needed a cinematographic camera to make new subjects for his customers. Early in 1895 he came into contact with Birt Acres, who was also working on the design of a movie camera. Acres's design was somewhat impractical, but Paul constructed a working model with which Acres filmed the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race on 30 March, and the Derby at Epsom on 29 May. Paul was unhappy with the inefficient design, and developed a new intermittent mechanism based on the principle of the Maltese cross. Despite having signed a ten-year agreement with Paul, Acres split with him on 12 July 1895, after having unilaterally patented their original camera design on 27 May. By the early weeks of 1896, Paul had developed a projector mechanism that also used the Maltese cross and which he demonstrated at the Finsbury Technical College on 20 February 1896. His Theatrograph was intended for sale, and was shown in a number of venues in London during March, notably at the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square. There the renamed Animatographe was used to show, among other subjects, the Derby of 1896, which was won by the Prince of Wales's horse "Persimmon" and the film of which was shown the next day to enthusiastic crowds. The production of films turned out to be quite profitable: in the first year of the business, from March 1896, Paul made a net profit of £12,838 on a capital outlay of about £1,000. By the end of the year there were at least five shows running in London that were using Paul's projectors and screening films made by him or his staff.Paul played a major part in establishing the film business in England through his readiness to sell apparatus at a time when most of his rivals reserved their equipment for sole exploitation. He went on to become a leading producer of films, specializing in trick effects, many of which he pioneered. He was affectionately known in the trade as "Daddy Paul", truly considered to be the "father" of the British film industry. He continued to appreciate fully the possibilities of cinematography for scientific work, and in collaboration with Professor Silvanus P.Thompson films were made to illustrate various phenomena to students.Paul ended his involvement with film making in 1910 to concentrate on his instrument business; on his retirement in 1920, this was amalgamated with the Cambridge Instrument Company. In his will he left shares valued at over £100,000 to form the R.W.Paul Instrument Fund, to be administered by the Institution of Electrical Engineers, of which he had been a member since 1887. The fund was to provide instruments of an unusual nature to assist physical research.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFellow of the Physical Society 1920. Institution of Electrical Engineers Duddell Medal 1938.Bibliography17 March 1903, British patent no. 6,113 (the Unipivot instrument).1931, "Some electrical instruments at the Faraday Centenary Exhibition 1931", Journal of Scientific Instruments 8:337–48.Further ReadingObituary, 1943, Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 90(1):540–1. P.Dunsheath, 1962, A History of Electrical Engineering, London: Faber \& Faber, pp.308–9 (for a brief account of the Unipivot instrument).John Barnes, 1976, The Beginnings of Cinema in Britain, London. Brian Coe, 1981, The History of Movie Photography, London.BC / GW -
4 Demenÿ, Georges
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 1850 Douai, France d. 1917[br]French chronophotographer.[br]As a young man Georges Demenÿ was a pioneer of physical education in France, and this led him to contact the physiologist Professor Marey in 1880. Marey had made a special study of animal movement, and Demenÿ hoped to work with him on research into physiological problems related to gymnastics. He joined Marey the following year, and when in 1882 the Physiological Station was set up near Paris to develop sequence photography for the study of movement. Demenÿ was made Head of the laboratory. He worked with the multiple-image fixed-plate cameras, and was chiefly responsible for the analysis of the records, having considerable mathematical and graphical ability. He also appeared as the subject in a number of the sequences. When in 1888 Marey began the development of a film camera, Demenÿ was involved in its design and operation. He became interested in the possibility of using animated sequence photographs as an aid to teaching of the deaf. He made close-up records of himself speaking short phrases, "Je vous aime" and "Vive la France" for example, which were published in such journals as Paris Photographe and La Nature in 1891 and 1892. To present these in motion, he devised the Phonoscope, which he patented on 3 March 1892. The series of photographs were mounted around the circumference of a disc and viewed through a counter-rotating slotted disc. The moving images could be viewed directly, or projected onto a screen. La Nature reported tests he had made in which deaf lip readers could interpret accurately what was being said. On 20 December 1892 Demenÿ formed a company, Société Générale du Phonoscope, to exploit his invention, hoping that "speaking portraits" might replace family-album pictures. This commercial activity led to a rift between Marey and Demenÿ in July 1893. Deprived of access to the film cameras, Demenÿ developed designs of his own, patenting new camera models in France on 10 October 1893 and 27 July 1894. The design covered by the latter had been included in English and German patents filed in December 1893, and was to be of some significance in the early development of cinematography. It was for an intermittent movement of the film, which used an eccentrically mounted blade or roller that, as it rotated, bore on the film, pulling down the length of one frame. As the blade moved away, the film loop so formed was taken up by the rotation of the take-up reel. This "beater" movement was employed extensively in the early years of cinematography, being effective yet inexpensive. It was first employed in the Chronophotographe apparatus marketed by Gaumont, to whom Demenÿ had licensed the patent rights, from the autumn of 1896. Demenÿ's work provided a link between the scientific purposes of sequence photography— chronophotography—and the introduction of commercial cinematography.[br]Further ReadingJ.Deslandes, 1966, Histoire comparée du cinéma, Vol. I, Paris. B.Coe, 1992, Muybridge and the Chronophotographers, London.BC -
5 Singer, Isaac Merritt
[br]b. 27 October 1811 Pittstown, New York, USAd. 23 July 1875 Torquay, Devonshire, England[br]American inventor of a sewing machine, and pioneer of mass production.[br]The son of a millwright, Singer was employed as an unskilled labourer at the age of 12, but later gained wide experience as a travelling machinist. He also found employment as an actor. On 16 May 1839, while living at Lockport, Illinois, he obtained his first patent for a rock-drilling machine, but he soon squandered the money he made. Then in 1849, while at Pittsburgh, he secured a patent for a wood-and metal-carving machine that he had begun five years previously; however, a boiler explosion in the factory destroyed his machine and left him penniless.Near the end of 1850 Singer was engaged to redesign the Lerow \& Blodgett sewing machine at the Boston shop of Orson C.Phelps, where the machine was being repaired. He built an improved version in eleven days that was sufficiently different for him to patent on 12 August 1851. He formed a partnership with Phelps and G.B. Zieber and they began to market the invention. Singer soon purchased Phelps's interest, although Phelps continued to manufacture the machines. Then Edward Clark acquired a one-third interest and with Singer bought out Zieber. These two, with dark's flair for promotion and marketing, began to create a company which eventually would become the largest manufacturer of sewing machines exported worldwide, with subsidiary factories in England.However, first Singer had to defend his patent, which was challenged by an earlier Boston inventor, Elias Howe. Although after a long lawsuit Singer had to pay royalties, it was the Singer machine which eventually captured the market because it could do continuous stitching. In 1856 the Great Sewing Machine Combination, the first important pooling arrangement in American history, was formed to share the various patents so that machines could be built without infringements and manufacture could be expanded without fear of litigation. Singer contributed his monopoly on the needle-bar cam with his 1851 patent. He secured twenty additional patents, so that his original straight-needle vertical design for lock-stitching eventually included such refinements as a continuous wheel-feed, yielding presser-foot, and improved cam for moving the needle-bar. A new model, introduced in 1856, was the first to be intended solely for use in the home.Initially Phelps made all the machines for Singer. Then a works was established in New York where the parts were assembled by skilled workers through filing and fitting. Each machine was therefore a "one-off" but Singer machines were always advertised as the best on the market and sold at correspondingly high prices. Gradually, more specialized machine tools were acquired, but it was not until long after Singer had retired to Europe in 1863 that Clark made the change to mass production. Sales of machines numbered 810 in 1853 and 21,000 ten years later.[br]Bibliography12 August 1851, US patent no. 8,294 (sewing machine)Further ReadingBiographies and obituaries have appeared in Appleton's Cyclopedia of America, Vol. V; Dictionary of American Biography, Vol XVII; New York Times 25 July 1875; Scientific American (1875) 33; and National Cyclopaedia of American Biography.D.A.Hounshell, 1984, From the American System to Mass Production 1800–1932. TheDevelopment of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, Baltimore (provides a thorough account of the development of the Singer sewing machine, the competition it faced from other manufacturers and production methods).RLH -
6 on
on
1. preposition1) (touching, fixed to, covering etc the upper or outer side of: The book was lying on the table; He was standing on the floor; She wore a hat on her head.) sobre, encima de, en2) (in or into (a vehicle, train etc): We were sitting on the bus; I got on the wrong bus.) en3) (at or during a certain day, time etc: on Monday; On his arrival, he went straight to bed.) a; el, los4) (about: a book on the theatre.) sobre5) (in the state or process of: He's on holiday.) en, de6) (supported by: She was standing on one leg.) sobre, en7) (receiving, taking: on drugs; on a diet.) con, a8) (taking part in: He is on the committee; Which detective is working on this case?) en9) (towards: They marched on the town.) a, hacia10) (near or beside: a shop on the main road.) en11) (by means of: He played a tune on the violin; I spoke to him on the telephone.) por12) (being carried by: The thief had the stolen jewels on him.) con13) (when (something is, or has been, done): On investigation, there proved to be no need to panic.) en14) (followed by: disaster on disaster.) tras
2. adverb1) ((especially of something being worn) so as to be touching, fixed to, covering etc the upper or outer side of: She put her hat on.) en2) (used to show a continuing state etc, onwards: She kept on asking questions; They moved on.) continuamente, sin parar3) ((also adjective) (of electric light, machines etc) working: The television is on; Turn/Switch the light on.) en marcha, en funcionamiento4) ((also adjective) (of films etc) able to be seen: There's a good film on at the cinema this week.) en exhibición, en cartelera5) ((also adjective) in or into a vehicle, train etc: The bus stopped and we got on.) a bordo
3. adjective1) (in progress: The game was on.) en curso2) (not cancelled: Is the party on tonight?) en pie•- oncoming- ongoing
- onwards
- onward
- be on to someone
- be on to
- on and on
- on time
- on to / onto
on1 adv1. encendido / puesto2. abierto3. puesto4.what time is the programme on? ¿a qué hora dan el programa?5. adelante / sin pararthe policeman told him to stop, but he drove on el policía le dijo que parara, pero siguió adelanteshe saw me, but she just walked on me vio, pero siguió su caminoon2 prep1. en / sobre2. en3.4. enwhat's on at the cinema? ¿qué echan en el cine?5. sobreon the left / on the right a la izquierda / a la derechaon seguido de un gerundio se traduce al español por al más el infinitivoon arriving, she phoned her mother al llegar, llamó a su madreontr[ɒn]1 (covering or touching) sobre, encima de, en2 (supported by, hanging from) en3 (to, towards) a, hacia■ on the right/left a la derecha/izquierda4 (at the edge of) en5 (concerning) sobre■ we went on a journey nos fuimos de viaje, hicimos un viaje7 (days, dates, times) no se traduce8 (at the time of, just after) al10 (as means of transport) a, en■ on foot, on horseback, on a bicycle a pie, a caballo, en bicicleta■ on the train, on the bus, on the underground en el tren, en el autobús, en el metro11 (regarding, about) sobre, de12 (by means of) por■ on the radio, on the TV por la radio, por la tele13 (using) con■ how do you get by on your pension? ¿cómo te las arreglas con tu pensión?14 (state, process) diferentes traducciones15 (working for, belonging to) diferentes traducciones■ whose side are you on? ¿de parte de quién estás?16 (in possession of) con■ have you got any money on you? ¿llevas dinero?17 (paid for by) pagado por■ the drinks are on me! ¡invito yo!18 (by comparison with) respecto a1 (not stopping) sin parar■ on with the show! the show must go on! ¡que siga el espectáculo!3 (clothes - being worn) puesto,-a■ who left the TV on? ¿quién dejó la TV encendida?■ don't leave the tap on! ¡no dejes el grifo abierto!■ could you put a record on? ¿podrías poner un disco?■ is there anything good on TV? ¿dan algo bueno por la tele?■ what time is the film on? ¿a qué hora ponen la película?■ have we got anything on this weekend? ¿tenemos plan para este fin de semana?■ is the heating on? ¿está puesta la calefacción?■ is the party still on? ¿se hace la fiesta?■ the match is on after all después de todo, el partido se celebra■ you're on next! ¡sales tú el próximo!\SMALLIDIOMATIC EXPRESSION/SMALLand so on y así sucesivamentefrom that day on a partir de aquel díait's not on no hay derecho, eso no valeon line SMALLCOMPUTING/SMALL conectado,-ato be on about hablar de■ what on earth is he on about? ¿de qué diablos está hablando?to be on at somebody dar la lata a alguiento be on for something apuntarse a algoto go on and on about something seguir dale que dale con algoto have something on somebody tener algo contra alguienyou're on! ¡trato hecho!on ['ɑn, 'ɔn] advput the top on: pon la tapahe has a hat on: lleva un sombrero puestofrom that moment on: a partir de ese momentofarther on: más adelanteturn the light on: prende la luzon adjthe radio is on: el radio está prendidothe game is on: el juego ha comenzado3)to be on to : estar enterado deon prepon the table: en (sobre, encima de) la mesashadows on the wall: sombras en la paredon horseback: a caballo2) at, to: aon the right: a la derecha3) aboard, in: en, aon the plane: en el aviónhe got on the train: subió al trenshe worked on Saturdays: trabajaba los sábadosevery hour on the hour: a la hora en puntohe cut himself on a tin can: se cortó con una latato talk on the telephone: hablar por teléfonoon fire: en llamason the increase: en aumentoon a committee: en una comisiónon vacation: de vacacioneson a diet: a dieta9) about, concerning: sobrea book on insects: un libro sobre insectosreflect on that: reflexiona sobre esoonadj.• conectado, -a adj.• en marcha adj.• encendido, -a adj.adv.• encima adv.prep.• acerca de prep.• conectado (Electricidad) prep.• de prep.• en prep.• encendido (Electricidad) prep.• encima de prep.• sobre prep.
I ɑːn, ɒn1)a) ( indicating position) enput it on the table — ponlo en or sobre la mesa
I live on Acacia Avenue — (esp AmE) vivo en Acacia Avenue
on the right/left — a la derecha/izquierda
b) ( belonging to) dec) ( against)2)a) ( of clothing)b) ( about one's person)on a bicycle/horse — en bicicleta/a caballo
4)a) ( playing instrument) aGeorge Smith on drums — George Smith a la or en la batería
b) (Rad, TV)c) ( recorded on) en5)a) ( using equipment)who's on the computer? — ¿quién está usando la computadora?
you've been on the phone an hour! — hace una hora que estás hablando por teléfono!, hace una hora que estás colgado del teléfono! (fam)
b) ( on duty at) ento be on the door — estar* en la puerta
c) ( contactable via)6) ( a member of)she's on the committee — está en la comisión, es miembro de la comisión
on a team — (AmE) en un equipo
7) ( indicating time)on -ing — al + inf
8) (about, concerning) sobrewhile we're on the subject — a propósito, ya que estamos hablando de esto
9)a) (indicating activity, undertaking)on vacation/safari — de vacaciones/safari
we went on a trip to London — hicimos un viaje a Londres, nos fuimos de viaje a Londres
he's on a diet — está a dieta, está a or de régimen
b) (working on, studying)10) (taking, consuming)11) (talking about income, available funds)she's on £30,000 — (BrE) gana 30.000 libras al año
12) ( according to)13) ( at the expense of)this round's on me — a esta ronda invito yo, esta ronda la pago yo
it's on the house — invita la casa, atención de la casa
14)a) ( in comparison with)b) (in) (AmE)
II
1)a) ( worn)she had a blue dress on — llevaba (puesto) or tenía puesto un vestido azul
with no clothes on — sin ropa, desnudo
let's see what it looks like on — a ver cómo queda puesto; see also have on, put on
b) ( in place)to sew a button on — coser or pegar* un botón
3) ( indicating progression)a) ( in space)further on — un poco más allá or más adelante
go on up; I'll follow in a minute — tú ve subiendo que yo ya voy
b) (in time, activity)c)on and off, off and on: we still see each other on and off todavía nos vemos de vez en cuando; it rained on and off o off and on all week — estuvo lloviendo y parando toda la semana
d)on and on: the film went on and on la película se hizo interminable or (fam) pesadísima; you don't have to go on and on about it! — no hace falta que sigas dale y dale con lo mismo (fam)
4) ( in phrases)a)on about — (BrE colloq)
what's she on about? — ¿de qué está hablando?, pero ¿qué dice?
b)on at — (BrE colloq)
III
1) (pred)a) ( functioning)to be on — \<\<light/TV/radio\>\> estar* encendido, estar* prendido (AmL); \<\<faucet\>\> estar* abierto
the electricity/water isn't on yet — la electricidad/el agua todavía no está conectada
b) ( on duty)we work four hours on, four hours off — trabajamos cuatro horas y tenemos otras cuatro de descanso
which of the doctors is on today? — ¿qué médico está de guardia hoy?
2) (pred)a) ( taking place)there's a lecture on in there — hay or están dando una conferencia allí
while the conference is on — mientras dure el congreso, hasta que termine el congreso
b) ( due to take place)the party's definitely on for Friday — la fiesta es or se hace el viernes seguro
is the wedding still on? — ¿no se ha suspendido la boda?
c) ( being presented)what's on at the Renoir? — (Cin, Rad, Theat, TV) ¿qué dan or (Esp tb) ponen or echan en el Renoir?
is that play still on? — ¿sigue en cartelera la obra?
d) (performing, playing)you're on! — ( Theat) a escena!
he has been on for most of the game — ha estado jugando casi todo el partido; see also bring, come, go on
3)a) (indicating agreement, acceptance) (colloq)you teach me Spanish and I'll teach you French - you're on! — tú me enseñas español y yo te enseño francés - trato hecho! or te tomo la palabra!
b)not on — (esp BrE colloq)
[ɒn] When on is the second element in a phrasal verb, eg have on, get on, go on, look up the verb. When it is part of a set combination, such as broadside on, further on, look up the other word.the idea of finishing by April was never really on — la idea de terminar para abril nunca fue viable
1. PREP1) (indicating place, position) en, sobre•
on page two — en la página dos•
on all sides — por todas partes, por todos lados•
on a day like this — (en) un día como este•
on the evening of July 2nd — el 2 de julio por la tarde3) (=at the time of)on my arrival — al llegar, a mi llegada
4) (=about, concerning) sobre, acerca dea book on physics — un libro de or sobre física
have you read Purnell on Churchill? — ¿has leído los comentarios de Purnell sobre Churchill?
have you heard the boss on the new tax? — ¿has oído lo que dice el jefe acerca de la nueva contribución?
5) (=towards, against)6) (=earning, receiving)he's on £6,000 a year — gana seis mil libras al año
•
many live on less than that — muchos viven con menos7) (=taking, consuming)live on 1.•
I'm on three pills a day — tomo tres píldoras al día8) (=engaged in)10) (=playing)11) (TV, Rad)12) (=about one's person)13) (=after, according to)14) (=compared to)15) (=at the expense of)this round's on me — esta ronda la pago yo, invito yo
the tour was on the Council — la gira la pagó el Consejo, corrió el Consejo con los gastos de la gira
16) liter17) (phrases)•
on account of — a causa de•
on a charge of murder — acusado de homicidio•
on pain of — so pena debase I, 2., 2)•
on time — a la hora, a tiempo2. ADV1) (=in place) [lid etc] puestoscrew onwhat's she got on? — ¿qué lleva puesto?, ¿cómo va vestida?
from that day on — a partir de aquel día, de aquel día en adelante
•
on and off — de vez en cuando, a intervalos•
it was well on in the evening — estaba ya muy entrada la tardefurther 1., 1), later 1., 2)well on in years — entrado en años, que va para viejo
to go/walk on — seguir adelante
•
he rambled on and on — estuvo dale que dale *, estuvo dale y dale (esp LAm)•
and so on — (=and the rest) y demás; (=etc) etcétera•
on with the show! — ¡que empiece or continúe el espectáculo!on with the dancing girls! — ¡que salgan las bailarinas!
5) (in phrases)•
what are you on about? * — ¿de qué (me) hablas?go on•
he's always on at me about it * — me está majando continuamente con eso *3. ADJ1) (=functioning, in operation)to be on — [engine] estar encendido, estar en marcha; [switch] estar encendido or conectado; [machine] estar encendido or funcionando; [light] estar encendido, estar prendido (LAm); [TV set etc] estar encendido, estar puesto, estar prendido (LAm); [tap] estar abierto; [brake etc] estar puesto, estar echado
in the on position — [tap] abierto, en posición de abierto; (Elec) encendido, puesto, prendido (LAm)
2) (=being performed, shown)what's on at the cinema? — ¿qué ponen en el cine?
what's on at the theatre? — ¿qué dan en el teatro?
"what's on in London" — "cartelera de los espectáculos londinenses"
3) (=taking place)is the meeting still on tonight? — ¿sigue en pie la reunión de esta noche?, ¿se lleva a cabo siempre la reunión de esta noche? (LAm)
4) (=arranged)have you got anything on this evening? — ¿tienes compromiso para esta noche?
sorry, I've got something on tonight — lo siento, esta noche tengo un compromiso
5) (=performing, working)to be on — [actor] estar en escena
are you on next? — ¿te toca a ti la próxima vez?
are you on tomorrow? — (=on duty) ¿trabajas mañana?, ¿estás de turno mañana?
6) * (indicating agreement, acceptance)you're on! — ¡te tomo la palabra!
are you still on for dinner tomorrow night? — ¿sigo contando contigo para cenar mañana?
that's not on — (Brit) eso no se hace, no hay derecho
4.EXCL ¡adelante!* * *
I [ɑːn, ɒn]1)a) ( indicating position) enput it on the table — ponlo en or sobre la mesa
I live on Acacia Avenue — (esp AmE) vivo en Acacia Avenue
on the right/left — a la derecha/izquierda
b) ( belonging to) dec) ( against)2)a) ( of clothing)b) ( about one's person)on a bicycle/horse — en bicicleta/a caballo
4)a) ( playing instrument) aGeorge Smith on drums — George Smith a la or en la batería
b) (Rad, TV)c) ( recorded on) en5)a) ( using equipment)who's on the computer? — ¿quién está usando la computadora?
you've been on the phone an hour! — hace una hora que estás hablando por teléfono!, hace una hora que estás colgado del teléfono! (fam)
b) ( on duty at) ento be on the door — estar* en la puerta
c) ( contactable via)6) ( a member of)she's on the committee — está en la comisión, es miembro de la comisión
on a team — (AmE) en un equipo
7) ( indicating time)on -ing — al + inf
8) (about, concerning) sobrewhile we're on the subject — a propósito, ya que estamos hablando de esto
9)a) (indicating activity, undertaking)on vacation/safari — de vacaciones/safari
we went on a trip to London — hicimos un viaje a Londres, nos fuimos de viaje a Londres
he's on a diet — está a dieta, está a or de régimen
b) (working on, studying)10) (taking, consuming)11) (talking about income, available funds)she's on £30,000 — (BrE) gana 30.000 libras al año
12) ( according to)13) ( at the expense of)this round's on me — a esta ronda invito yo, esta ronda la pago yo
it's on the house — invita la casa, atención de la casa
14)a) ( in comparison with)b) (in) (AmE)
II
1)a) ( worn)she had a blue dress on — llevaba (puesto) or tenía puesto un vestido azul
with no clothes on — sin ropa, desnudo
let's see what it looks like on — a ver cómo queda puesto; see also have on, put on
b) ( in place)to sew a button on — coser or pegar* un botón
3) ( indicating progression)a) ( in space)further on — un poco más allá or más adelante
go on up; I'll follow in a minute — tú ve subiendo que yo ya voy
b) (in time, activity)c)on and off, off and on: we still see each other on and off todavía nos vemos de vez en cuando; it rained on and off o off and on all week — estuvo lloviendo y parando toda la semana
d)on and on: the film went on and on la película se hizo interminable or (fam) pesadísima; you don't have to go on and on about it! — no hace falta que sigas dale y dale con lo mismo (fam)
4) ( in phrases)a)on about — (BrE colloq)
what's she on about? — ¿de qué está hablando?, pero ¿qué dice?
b)on at — (BrE colloq)
III
1) (pred)a) ( functioning)to be on — \<\<light/TV/radio\>\> estar* encendido, estar* prendido (AmL); \<\<faucet\>\> estar* abierto
the electricity/water isn't on yet — la electricidad/el agua todavía no está conectada
b) ( on duty)we work four hours on, four hours off — trabajamos cuatro horas y tenemos otras cuatro de descanso
which of the doctors is on today? — ¿qué médico está de guardia hoy?
2) (pred)a) ( taking place)there's a lecture on in there — hay or están dando una conferencia allí
while the conference is on — mientras dure el congreso, hasta que termine el congreso
b) ( due to take place)the party's definitely on for Friday — la fiesta es or se hace el viernes seguro
is the wedding still on? — ¿no se ha suspendido la boda?
c) ( being presented)what's on at the Renoir? — (Cin, Rad, Theat, TV) ¿qué dan or (Esp tb) ponen or echan en el Renoir?
is that play still on? — ¿sigue en cartelera la obra?
d) (performing, playing)you're on! — ( Theat) a escena!
he has been on for most of the game — ha estado jugando casi todo el partido; see also bring, come, go on
3)a) (indicating agreement, acceptance) (colloq)you teach me Spanish and I'll teach you French - you're on! — tú me enseñas español y yo te enseño francés - trato hecho! or te tomo la palabra!
b)not on — (esp BrE colloq)
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7 Edison, Thomas Alva
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Automotive engineering, Electricity, Electronics and information technology, Metallurgy, Photography, film and optics, Public utilities, Recording, Telecommunications[br]b. 11 February 1847 Milan, Ohio, USAd. 18 October 1931 Glenmont[br]American inventor and pioneer electrical developer.[br]He was the son of Samuel Edison, who was in the timber business. His schooling was delayed due to scarlet fever until 1855, when he was 8½ years old, but he was an avid reader. By the age of 14 he had a job as a newsboy on the railway from Port Huron to Detroit, a distance of sixty-three miles (101 km). He worked a fourteen-hour day with a stopover of five hours, which he spent in the Detroit Free Library. He also sold sweets on the train and, later, fruit and vegetables, and was soon making a profit of $20 a week. He then started two stores in Port Huron and used a spare freight car as a laboratory. He added a hand-printing press to produce 400 copies weekly of The Grand Trunk Herald, most of which he compiled and edited himself. He set himself to learn telegraphy from the station agent at Mount Clements, whose son he had saved from being run over by a freight car.At the age of 16 he became a telegraphist at Port Huron. In 1863 he became railway telegraphist at the busy Stratford Junction of the Grand Trunk Railroad, arranging a clock with a notched wheel to give the hourly signal which was to prove that he was awake and at his post! He left hurriedly after failing to hold a train which was nearly involved in a head-on collision. He usually worked the night shift, allowing himself time for experiments during the day. His first invention was an arrangement of two Morse registers so that a high-speed input could be decoded at a slower speed. Moving from place to place he held many positions as a telegraphist. In Boston he invented an automatic vote recorder for Congress and patented it, but the idea was rejected. This was the first of a total of 1180 patents that he was to take out during his lifetime. After six years he resigned from the Western Union Company to devote all his time to invention, his next idea being an improved ticker-tape machine for stockbrokers. He developed a duplex telegraphy system, but this was turned down by the Western Union Company. He then moved to New York.Edison found accommodation in the battery room of Law's Gold Reporting Company, sleeping in the cellar, and there his repair of a broken transmitter marked him as someone of special talents. His superior soon resigned, and he was promoted with a salary of $300 a month. Western Union paid him $40,000 for the sole rights on future improvements on the duplex telegraph, and he moved to Ward Street, Newark, New Jersey, where he employed a gathering of specialist engineers. Within a year, he married one of his employees, Mary Stilwell, when she was only 16: a daughter, Marion, was born in 1872, and two sons, Thomas and William, in 1876 and 1879, respectively.He continued to work on the automatic telegraph, a device to send out messages faster than they could be tapped out by hand: that is, over fifty words per minute or so. An earlier machine by Alexander Bain worked at up to 400 words per minute, but was not good over long distances. Edison agreed to work on improving this feature of Bain's machine for the Automatic Telegraph Company (ATC) for $40,000. He improved it to a working speed of 500 words per minute and ran a test between Washington and New York. Hoping to sell their equipment to the Post Office in Britain, ATC sent Edison to England in 1873 to negotiate. A 500-word message was to be sent from Liverpool to London every half-hour for six hours, followed by tests on 2,200 miles (3,540 km) of cable at Greenwich. Only confused results were obtained due to induction in the cable, which lay coiled in a water tank. Edison returned to New York, where he worked on his quadruplex telegraph system, tests of which proved a success between New York and Albany in December 1874. Unfortunately, simultaneous negotiation with Western Union and ATC resulted in a lawsuit.Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for a telephone in March 1876 while Edison was still working on the same idea. His improvements allowed the device to operate over a distance of hundreds of miles instead of only a few miles. Tests were carried out over the 106 miles (170 km) between New York and Philadelphia. Edison applied for a patent on the carbon-button transmitter in April 1877, Western Union agreeing to pay him $6,000 a year for the seventeen-year duration of the patent. In these years he was also working on the development of the electric lamp and on a duplicating machine which would make up to 3,000 copies from a stencil. In 1876–7 he moved from Newark to Menlo Park, twenty-four miles (39 km) from New York on the Pennsylvania Railway, near Elizabeth. He had bought a house there around which he built the premises that would become his "inventions factory". It was there that he began the use of his 200- page pocket notebooks, each of which lasted him about two weeks, so prolific were his ideas. When he died he left 3,400 of them filled with notes and sketches.Late in 1877 he applied for a patent for a phonograph which was granted on 19 February 1878, and by the end of the year he had formed a company to manufacture this totally new product. At the time, Edison saw the device primarily as a business aid rather than for entertainment, rather as a dictating machine. In August 1878 he was granted a British patent. In July 1878 he tried to measure the heat from the solar corona at a solar eclipse viewed from Rawlins, Wyoming, but his "tasimeter" was too sensitive.Probably his greatest achievement was "The Subdivision of the Electric Light" or the "glow bulb". He tried many materials for the filament before settling on carbon. He gave a demonstration of electric light by lighting up Menlo Park and inviting the public. Edison was, of course, faced with the problem of inventing and producing all the ancillaries which go to make up the electrical system of generation and distribution-meters, fuses, insulation, switches, cabling—even generators had to be designed and built; everything was new. He started a number of manufacturing companies to produce the various components needed.In 1881 he built the world's largest generator, which weighed 27 tons, to light 1,200 lamps at the Paris Exhibition. It was later moved to England to be used in the world's first central power station with steam engine drive at Holborn Viaduct, London. In September 1882 he started up his Pearl Street Generating Station in New York, which led to a worldwide increase in the application of electric power, particularly for lighting. At the same time as these developments, he built a 1,300yd (1,190m) electric railway at Menlo Park.On 9 August 1884 his wife died of typhoid. Using his telegraphic skills, he proposed to 19-year-old Mina Miller in Morse code while in the company of others on a train. He married her in February 1885 before buying a new house and estate at West Orange, New Jersey, building a new laboratory not far away in the Orange Valley.Edison used direct current which was limited to around 250 volts. Alternating current was largely developed by George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla, using transformers to step up the current to a higher voltage for long-distance transmission. The use of AC gradually overtook the Edison DC system.In autumn 1888 he patented a form of cinephotography, the kinetoscope, obtaining film-stock from George Eastman. In 1893 he set up the first film studio, which was pivoted so as to catch the sun, with a hinged roof which could be raised. In 1894 kinetoscope parlours with "peep shows" were starting up in cities all over America. Competition came from the Latham Brothers with a screen-projection machine, which Edison answered with his "Vitascope", shown in New York in 1896. This showed pictures with accompanying sound, but there was some difficulty with synchronization. Edison also experimented with captions at this early date.In 1880 he filed a patent for a magnetic ore separator, the first of nearly sixty. He bought up deposits of low-grade iron ore which had been developed in the north of New Jersey. The process was a commercial success until the discovery of iron-rich ore in Minnesota rendered it uneconomic and uncompetitive. In 1898 cement rock was discovered in New Village, west of West Orange. Edison bought the land and started cement manufacture, using kilns twice the normal length and using half as much fuel to heat them as the normal type of kiln. In 1893 he met Henry Ford, who was building his second car, at an Edison convention. This started him on the development of a battery for an electric car on which he made over 9,000 experiments. In 1903 he sold his patent for wireless telegraphy "for a song" to Guglielmo Marconi.In 1910 Edison designed a prefabricated concrete house. In December 1914 fire destroyed three-quarters of the West Orange plant, but it was at once rebuilt, and with the threat of war Edison started to set up his own plants for making all the chemicals that he had previously been buying from Europe, such as carbolic acid, phenol, benzol, aniline dyes, etc. He was appointed President of the Navy Consulting Board, for whom, he said, he made some forty-five inventions, "but they were pigeonholed, every one of them". Thus did Edison find that the Navy did not take kindly to civilian interference.In 1927 he started the Edison Botanic Research Company, founded with similar investment from Ford and Firestone with the object of finding a substitute for overseas-produced rubber. In the first year he tested no fewer than 3,327 possible plants, in the second year, over 1,400, eventually developing a variety of Golden Rod which grew to 14 ft (4.3 m) in height. However, all this effort and money was wasted, due to the discovery of synthetic rubber.In October 1929 he was present at Henry Ford's opening of his Dearborn Museum to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the incandescent lamp, including a replica of the Menlo Park laboratory. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and was elected to the American Academy of Sciences. He died in 1931 at his home, Glenmont; throughout the USA, lights were dimmed temporarily on the day of his funeral.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember of the American Academy of Sciences. Congressional Gold Medal.Further ReadingM.Josephson, 1951, Edison, Eyre \& Spottiswode.R.W.Clark, 1977, Edison, the Man who Made the Future, Macdonald \& Jane.IMcN -
8 Ford, Henry
[br]b. 30 July 1863 Dearborn, Michigan, USAd. 7 April 1947 Dearborn, Michigan, USA[br]American pioneer motor-car maker and developer of mass-production methods.[br]He was the son of an Irish immigrant farmer, William Ford, and the oldest son to survive of Mary Litogot; his mother died in 1876 with the birth of her sixth child. He went to the village school, and at the age of 16 he was apprenticed to Flower brothers' machine shop and then at the Drydock \& Engineering Works in Detroit. In 1882 he left to return to the family farm and spent some time working with a 1 1/2 hp steam engine doing odd jobs for the farming community at $3 per day. He was then employed as a demonstrator for Westinghouse steam engines. He met Clara Jane Bryant at New Year 1885 and they were married on 11 April 1888. Their only child, Edsel Bryant Ford, was born on 6 November 1893.At that time Henry worked on steam engine repairs for the Edison Illuminating Company, where he became Chief Engineer. He became one of a group working to develop a "horseless carriage" in 1896 and in June completed his first vehicle, a "quadri cycle" with a two-cylinder engine. It was built in a brick shed, which had to be partially demolished to get the carriage out.Ford became involved in motor racing, at which he was more successful than he was in starting a car-manufacturing company. Several early ventures failed, until the Ford Motor Company of 1903. By October 1908 they had started with production of the Model T. The first, of which over 15 million were built up to the end of its production in May 1927, came out with bought-out steel stampings and a planetary gearbox, and had a one-piece four-cylinder block with a bolt-on head. This was one of the most successful models built by Ford or any other motor manufacturer in the life of the motor car.Interchangeability of components was an important element in Ford's philosophy. Ford was a pioneer in the use of vanadium steel for engine components. He adopted the principles of Frederick Taylor, the pioneer of time-and-motion study, and installed the world's first moving assembly line for the production of magnetos, started in 1913. He installed blast furnaces at the factory to make his own steel, and he also promoted research and the cultivation of the soya bean, from which a plastic was derived.In October 1913 he introduced the "Five Dollar Day", almost doubling the normal rate of pay. This was a profit-sharing scheme for his employees and contained an element of a reward for good behaviour. About this time he initiated work on an agricultural tractor, the "Fordson" made by a separate company, the directors of which were Henry and his son Edsel.In 1915 he chartered the Oscar II, a "peace ship", and with fifty-five delegates sailed for Europe a week before Christmas, docking at Oslo. Their objective was to appeal to all European Heads of State to stop the war. He had hoped to persuade manufacturers to replace armaments with tractors in their production programmes. In the event, Ford took to his bed in the hotel with a chill, stayed there for five days and then sailed for New York and home. He did, however, continue to finance the peace activists who remained in Europe. Back in America, he stood for election to the US Senate but was defeated. He was probably the father of John Dahlinger, illegitimate son of Evangeline Dahlinger, a stenographer employed by the firm and on whom he lavished gifts of cars, clothes and properties. He became the owner of a weekly newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, which became the medium for the expression of many of his more unorthodox ideas. He was involved in a lawsuit with the Chicago Tribune in 1919, during which he was cross-examined on his knowledge of American history: he is reputed to have said "History is bunk". What he actually said was, "History is bunk as it is taught in schools", a very different comment. The lawyers who thus made a fool of him would have been surprised if they could have foreseen the force and energy that their actions were to release. For years Ford employed a team of specialists to scour America and Europe for furniture, artefacts and relics of all kinds, illustrating various aspects of history. Starting with the Wayside Inn from South Sudbury, Massachusetts, buildings were bought, dismantled and moved, to be reconstructed in Greenfield Village, near Dearborn. The courthouse where Abraham Lincoln had practised law and the Ohio bicycle shop where the Wright brothers built their first primitive aeroplane were added to the farmhouse where the proprietor, Henry Ford, had been born. Replicas were made of Independence Hall, Congress Hall and the old City Hall in Philadelphia, and even a reconstruction of Edison's Menlo Park laboratory was installed. The Henry Ford museum was officially opened on 21 October 1929, on the fiftieth anniversary of Edison's invention of the incandescent bulb, but it continued to be a primary preoccupation of the great American car maker until his death.Henry Ford was also responsible for a number of aeronautical developments at the Ford Airport at Dearborn. He introduced the first use of radio to guide a commercial aircraft, the first regular airmail service in the United States. He also manufactured the country's first all-metal multi-engined plane, the Ford Tri-Motor.Edsel became President of the Ford Motor Company on his father's resignation from that position on 30 December 1918. Following the end of production in May 1927 of the Model T, the replacement Model A was not in production for another six months. During this period Henry Ford, though officially retired from the presidency of the company, repeatedly interfered and countermanded the orders of his son, ostensibly the man in charge. Edsel, who died of stomach cancer at his home at Grosse Point, Detroit, on 26 May 1943, was the father of Henry Ford II. Henry Ford died at his home, "Fair Lane", four years after his son's death.[br]Bibliography1922, with S.Crowther, My Life and Work, London: Heinemann.Further ReadingR.Lacey, 1986, Ford, the Men and the Machine, London: Heinemann. W.C.Richards, 1948, The Last Billionaire, Henry Ford, New York: Charles Scribner.IMcN -
9 Kennedy, John
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 4 July 1769 Knocknalling, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotlandd. 30 October 1855 Ardwick Hall, Manchester, England[br]Scottish cotton spinner and textile machine maker.[br]Kennedy was the third son of his father, Robert, and went to the village school in Dalry. On his father's death, he was sent at the age of 14 to Chowbent, Lancashire, where he was apprenticed to William Cannan, a maker of textile machines such as carding frames, Hargreaves's jennies and Arkwright's waterframes. On completion of his apprenticeship in 1791, he moved to Manchester and entered into partnership with Benjamin and William Sandford and James M'Connel, textile machine makers and mule spinners. In 1795 this partnership was terminated and one was made with James M'Connel to form the firm M'Connel \& Kennedy, cotton spinners.Kennedy introduced improvements for spinning fine yarns and the firm of M'Connel \& Kennedy became famous for the quality of these products, which were in great demand. He made the spindles turn faster during the second part of the mule carriage's outward draw, and from 1793 onwards he experimented with driving mules by steam engines. Like William Kelly at New Lanark, he succeeded in making the spinning sequences power-operated by 1800, although the spinner had to take over the winding on. This made the mule into a factory machine, but it still required skilled operators. He was also involved with Henry Houldsworth, Junior, in the improvement of the roving frame. In 1803 Kennedy joined the Manchester Literary \& Philosophical Society, to which he presented several papers, including one in 1830 on "A memoir of Samuel Crompton". He retired from the spinning business in 1826, but continued his technical and mechanical pursuits. He was consulted about whether the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway should have moving or stationary steam engines and was an umpire at the Rainhill Trials in 1829.[br]Further ReadingDictionary of National Biography.W.Fairbairn, obituary, Manchester Memoirs, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.C.H.Lee, 1972, A Cotton Enterprise 1795–1840. A History of M'Connel \& Kennedy, FineCotton Spinners, Manchester (an account of Kennedy's spinning business). R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (provides details of Kennedy's inventions on the mule).RLH -
10 Lioret, Henri Jules
[br]b. 26 July 1848 Moret-sur-Loing, Seine-et-Marne, France d. 1938[br]French clockmaker, developer of sound recording and reproducing equipment, and inventor of a celluloid cylinder.[br]His first connection with the phonograph principle was in the development of a miniature talking doll with a spring motor and interchangeable and indestructible celluloid cylinders in 1893 for the firm Emile Jumeau. He went on to develop commercial recording and reproducing equipment for celluloid cylinders, perfecting the process of embossing a piece of heated celluloid tube and supporting it by shrinking it onto a piece of metal tube. His training as a clockmaker enabled him to construct a functional clockwork phonograph at a time when other companies struggled with the conversion from manual or electrical to clockwork. He was unable to compete with cheap mass production and left the phonograph field in 1911. However, he continued in other acoustic fields, including moving pictures with sound and underwater sound ranging.[br]Bibliography18 May 1893, French patent no. 230,177.Further ReadingO.Read and W.L.Welch, 1959, From Tin Foil to Stereo, Indianapolis: Howard W.Sams, pp. 94–5.GB-N -
11 Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens
[br]b. 5 February 1840 Brockway's Mills, Maine, USAd. 24 November 1916 Streatham, London, England[br]American (naturalized British) inventor; designer of the first fully automatic machine gun and of an experimental steam-powered aircraft.[br]Maxim was born the son of a pioneer farmer who later became a wood turner. Young Maxim was first apprenticed to a carriage maker and then embarked on a succession of jobs before joining his uncle in his engineering firm in Massachusetts in 1864. As a young man he gained a reputation as a boxer, but it was his uncle who first identified and encouraged Hiram's latent talent for invention.It was not, however, until 1878, when Maxim joined the first electric-light company to be established in the USA, as its Chief Engineer, that he began to make a name for himself. He developed an improved light filament and his electric pressure regulator not only won a prize at the first International Electrical Exhibition, held in Paris in 1881, but also resulted in his being made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. While in Europe he was advised that weapons development was a more lucrative field than electricity; consequently, he moved to England and established a small laboratory at Hatton Garden, London. He began by investigating improvements to the Gatling gun in order to produce a weapon with a faster rate of fire and which was more accurate. In 1883, by adapting a Winchester carbine, he successfully produced a semi-automatic weapon, which used the recoil to cock the gun automatically after firing. The following year he took this concept a stage further and produced a fully automatic belt-fed weapon. The recoil drove barrel and breechblock to the vent. The barrel then halted, while the breechblock, now unlocked from the former, continued rearwards, extracting the spent case and recocking the firing mechanism. The return spring, which it had been compressing, then drove the breechblock forward again, chambering the next round, which had been fed from the belt, as it did so. Keeping the trigger pressed enabled the gun to continue firing until the belt was expended. The Maxim gun, as it became known, was adopted by almost every army within the decade, and was to remain in service for nearly fifty years. Maxim himself joined forces with the large British armaments firm of Vickers, and the Vickers machine gun, which served the British Army during two world wars, was merely a refined version of the Maxim gun.Maxim's interests continued to occupy several fields of technology, including flight. In 1891 he took out a patent for a steam-powered aeroplane fitted with a pendulous gyroscopic stabilizer which would maintain the pitch of the aeroplane at any desired inclination (basically, a simple autopilot). Maxim decided to test the relationship between power, thrust and lift before moving on to stability and control. He designed a lightweight steam-engine which developed 180 hp (135 kW) and drove a propeller measuring 17 ft 10 in. (5.44 m) in diameter. He fitted two of these engines into his huge flying machine testrig, which needed a wing span of 104 ft (31.7 m) to generate enough lift to overcome a total weight of 4 tons. The machine was not designed for free flight, but ran on one set of rails with a second set to prevent it rising more than about 2 ft (61 cm). At Baldwyn's Park in Kent on 31 July 1894 the huge machine, carrying Maxim and his crew, reached a speed of 42 mph (67.6 km/h) and lifted off its rails. Unfortunately, one of the restraining axles broke and the machine was extensively damaged. Although it was subsequently repaired and further trials carried out, these experiments were very expensive. Maxim eventually abandoned the flying machine and did not develop his idea for a stabilizer, turning instead to other projects. At the age of almost 70 he returned to the problems of flight and designed a biplane with a petrol engine: it was built in 1910 but never left the ground.In all, Maxim registered 122 US and 149 British patents on objects ranging from mousetraps to automatic spindles. Included among them was a 1901 patent for a foot-operated suction cleaner. In 1900 he became a British subject and he was knighted the following year. He remained a larger-than-life figure, both physically and in character, until the end of his life.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier de la Légion d'Honneur 1881. Knighted 1901.Bibliography1908, Natural and Artificial Flight, London. 1915, My Life, London: Methuen (autobiography).Further ReadingObituary, 1916, Engineer (1 December).Obituary, 1916, Engineering (1 December).P.F.Mottelay, 1920, The Life and Work of Sir Hiram Maxim, London and New York: John Lane.Dictionary of National Biography, 1912–1921, 1927, Oxford: Oxford University Press.See also: Pilcher, Percy SinclairCM / JDSBiographical history of technology > Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens
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12 Smith, Willoughby
[br]b. 16 April 1828 Great Yarmouth, Englandd. 17 July 1891 Eastbourne, England[br]English engineer of submarine telegraph cables who observed that light reduced the resistance of selenium.[br]Smith joined the Gutta Percha Company, London, in 1848 and successfully experimented with the use of gutta-percha, a natural form of latex, for the insulation of conducting wires. As a result, he was made responsible for the laying of the first cross-Channel cable between Dover and Calais in 1850. Four years later he laid the first Mediterranean cable between Spezia, Italy, and Corsica and Sardinia, later extending it to Algeria. On its completion he became Manager of the Gutta Percha works, which in 1864 became the Telegraph and Construction Company. In 1865 he assisted on board the Great Eastern with the laying of the transatlantic cable by Bright.Clearly his management responsibilities did not stop him from experimenting practically. In 1866 he discovered that the resistance of a selenium rod was reduced by the action of incident light, an early discovery of the photoelectric effect more explicitly observed by Hertz and subsequently explained by Einstein. In 1883 he read a paper to the Society of Telegraph Engineers (later the Institution of Electrical Engineers), suggesting the possibility of wireless communication with moving trains, an idea that was later successfully taken up by others, and in 1888 he demonstrated the use of water as a practical means of communication with a lighthouse. Four years later, after his death, the system was tried between Alum Bay and the Needles in the Isle of Wight, and it was used subsequently for the Fastnet Rock lighthouse some 10 miles (16 km) off the south-west coast of Ireland.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFounder and Council Member of the Society of Telegraph Engineers 1871; President 1873.BibliographyThe effect of light on the resistance of selenium was reported in a letter to the Vice- Chairman of the Society of Telegraph Engineers on 4 February 1873.7 June 1897, British patent no. 8,159 (the use of water, instead of cable, as a conductor).November 1888, article in Electrician (describes his idea of using water as a conductor, rather than cable).Further ReadingE.Hawkes, 1927, Pioneers of Wireless, London: Methuen.C.T.Bright, 1898, Submarine Cables, Their History, Construction and Working.See also: Field, Cyrus WestKF
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