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Charles the First

  • 1 Charles, Jacques Alexandre César

    SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace
    [br]
    b. 12 November 1746 Beaugency, France
    d. 7 April 1823 Paris, France
    [br]
    French physicist who developed the first hydrogen balloon, in 1783.
    [br]
    In 1783, following the early experiments with small hot-air balloons by the Montgolfier brothers, there was a growing interest in the prospect of a balloon flight with people on board. The Paris Académie des Sciences encouraged one of their physicists, Charles, to carry out experiments and produce a balloon. Charles enlisted the assistance of two brothers, Anne-Jean and Marie-Noël Robert, who were practical craftsmen with experience of coating silk fabric with rubber to make it impermeable to gases. Charles decided to use the recently discovered lighter-than-air gas, hydrogen, for his experiments rather than hot air. After making several unmanned balloons, he had a manned balloon ready for testing on 1 December 1783. Despite the fact that a Montgolfier balloon had already flown with two passengers, there was enormous public interest in the flight: one estimate suggested that 400,000 people turned out to watch. Charles and Marie-Noël Robert ascended from the gardens of the Tuileries and landed after two hours, having covered 45 km (28 miles). Technically the "Charlière" was far superior to the "Montgolfière" and was therefore used by most subsequent balloonists until the introduction of the modern hot-air balloon by the American Paul E. Yost in the 1960s. Following Meusnier's proposals for a dirigible (steerable) balloon, put forward during 1783–5, Charles and the Robert brothers built an elongated balloon incorporating Meusnier's ballonnet principle. It had a rudder but the method of propulsion, by opening and closing parasols used as paddles, was totally ineffective.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Member of the Académie des Sciences 1795.
    Further Reading
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1966, The Aeronauts, London. C.Dollfus, 1961, Balloons, trans. C.Mason, London. J.B.F.Fourier, 1825, Notice.
    JDS

    Biographical history of technology > Charles, Jacques Alexandre César

  • 2 Babbage, Charles

    [br]
    b. 26 December 1791 Walworth, Surrey, England
    d. 18 October 1871 London, England
    [br]
    English mathematician who invented the forerunner of the modern computer.
    [br]
    Charles Babbage was the son of a banker, Benjamin Babbage, and was a sickly child who had a rather haphazard education at private schools near Exeter and later at Enfield. Even as a child, he was inordinately fond of algebra, which he taught himself. He was conversant with several advanced mathematical texts, so by the time he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1811, he was ahead of his tutors. In his third year he moved to Peterhouse, whence he graduated in 1814, taking his MA in 1817. He first contributed to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1815, and was elected a fellow of that body in 1816. He was one of the founders of the Astronomical Society in 1820 and served in high office in it.
    While he was still at Cambridge, in 1812, he had the first idea of calculating numerical tables by machinery. This was his first difference engine, which worked on the principle of repeatedly adding a common difference. He built a small model of an engine working on this principle between 1820 and 1822, and in July of the latter year he read an enthusiastically received note about it to the Astronomical Society. The following year he was awarded the Society's first gold medal. He submitted details of his invention to Sir Humphry Davy, President of the Royal Society; the Society reported favourably and the Government became interested, and following a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer Babbage was awarded a grant of £1,500. Work proceeded and was carried on for four years under the direction of Joseph Clement.
    In 1827 Babbage went abroad for a year on medical advice. There he studied foreign workshops and factories, and in 1832 he published his observations in On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. While abroad, he received the news that he had been appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. He held the Chair until 1839, although he neither resided in College nor gave any lectures. For this he was paid between £80 and £90 a year! Differences arose between Babbage and Clement. Manufacture was moved from Clement's works in Lambeth, London, to new, fireproof buildings specially erected by the Government near Babbage's house in Dorset Square, London. Clement made a large claim for compensation and, when it was refused, withdrew his workers as well as all the special tools he had made up for the job. No work was possible for the next fifteen months, during which Babbage conceived the idea of his "analytical engine". He approached the Government with this, but it was not until eight years later, in 1842, that he received the reply that the expense was considered too great for further backing and that the Government was abandoning the project. This was in spite of the demonstration and perfectly satisfactory operation of a small section of the analytical engine at the International Exhibition of 1862. It is said that the demands made on manufacture in the production of his engines had an appreciable influence in improving the standard of machine tools, whilst similar benefits accrued from his development of a system of notation for the movements of machine elements. His opposition to street organ-grinders was a notable eccentricity; he estimated that a quarter of his mental effort was wasted by the effect of noise on his concentration.
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    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1816. Astronomical Society Gold Medal 1823.
    Bibliography
    Babbage wrote eighty works, including: 1864, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.
    July 1822, Letter to Sir Humphry Davy, PRS, on the Application of Machinery to the purpose of calculating and printing Mathematical Tables.
    Further Reading
    1961, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines: Selected Writings by Charles Babbage and Others, eds Philip and Emily Morrison, New York: Dover Publications.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Babbage, Charles

  • 3 Macintosh, Charles

    [br]
    b. 29 December 1766 Glasgow, Scotland
    d. 25 July 1843 Dunchattan, near Glasgow, Scotland
    [br]
    Scottish inventor of rubberized waterproof clothing.
    [br]
    As the son of the well-known and inventive dyer George Macintosh, Charles had an early interest in chemistry. At the age of 19 he gave up his work as a clerk with a Glasgow merchant to manufacture sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) and developed new processes in dyeing. In 1797 he started the first Scottish alum works, finding the alum in waste shale from coal mines. His first works was at Hurlet, Renfrewshire, and was followed later by others. He then formed a partnership with Charles Tennant, the proprietor of a chemical works at St Rollox, near Glasgow, and sold "lime bleaching liquor" made with chlorine and milk of lime from their bleach works at Darnley. A year later the use of dry lime to make bleaching powder, a process worked out by Macintosh, was patented. Macintosh remained associated with Tennant's St Rollox chemical works until 1814. During this time, in 1809, he had set up a yeast factory, but it failed because of opposition from the London brewers.
    There was a steady demand for the ammonia that gas works produced, but the tar was often looked upon as an inconvenient waste product. Macintosh bought all the ammonia and tar that the Glasgow works produced, using the ammonia in his establishment to produce cudbear, a dyestuff extracted from various lichens. Cudbear could be used with appropriate mordants to make shades from pink to blue. The tar could be distilled to produce naphtha, which was used as a flare. Macintosh also became interested in ironmaking. In 1825 he took out a patent for converting malleable iron into steel by taking it to white heat in a current of gas with a carbon content, such as coal gas. However, the process was not commercially successful because of the difficulty keeping the furnace gas-tight. In 1828 he assisted J.B. Neilson in bringing hot blast into use in blast furnaces; Neilson assigned Macintosh a share in the patent, which was of dubious benefit as it involved him in the tortuous litigation that surrounded the patent until 1843.
    In June 1823, as a result of experiments into the possible uses of naphtha obtained as a by-product of the distillation of coal tar, Macintosh patented his process for waterproofing fabric. This comprised dissolving rubber in naphtha and applying the solution to two pieces of cloth which were afterwards pressed together to form an impermeable compound fabric. After an experimental period in Glasgow, Macintosh commenced manufacture in Manchester, where he formed a partnership with H.H.Birley, B.Kirk and R.W.Barton. Birley was a cotton spinner and weaver and was looking for ways to extend the output of his cloth. He was amongst the first to light his mills with gas, so he shared a common interest with Macintosh.
    New buildings were erected for the production of waterproof cloth in 1824–5, but there were considerable teething troubles with the process, particularly in the spreading of the rubber solution onto the cloth. Peter Ewart helped to install the machinery, including a steam engine supplied by Boulton \& Watt, and the naphtha was supplied from Macintosh's works in Glasgow. It seems that the process was still giving difficulties when Thomas Hancock, the foremost rubber technologist of that time, became involved in 1830 and was made a partner in 1834. By 1836 the waterproof coat was being called a "mackintosh" [sic] and was gaining such popularity that the Manchester business was expanded with additional premises. Macintosh's business was gradually enlarged to include many other kinds of indiarubber products, such as rubber shoes and cushions.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1823.
    Further Reading
    G.Macintosh, 1847, Memoir of Charles Macintosh, London (the fullest account of Charles Macintosh's life).
    H.Schurer, 1953, "The macintosh: the paternity of an invention", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 28:77–87 (an account of the invention of the mackintosh).
    RLH / LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Macintosh, Charles

  • 4 Parsons, Sir Charles Algernon

    [br]
    b. 13 June 1854 London, England
    d. 11 February 1931 on board Duchess of Richmond, Kingston, Jamaica
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    English eingineer, inventor of the steam turbine and developer of the high-speed electric generator.
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    The youngest son of the Earl of Rosse, he came from a family well known in scientific circles, the six boys growing up in an intellectual atmosphere at Birr Castle, the ancestral home in Ireland, where a forge and large workshop were available to them. Charles, like his brothers, did not go to school but was educated by private tutors of the character of Sir Robert Ball, this type of education being interspersed with overseas holiday trips to France, Holland, Belgium and Spain in the family yacht. In 1871, at the age of 17, he went to Trinity College, Dublin, and after two years he went on to St John's College, Cambridge. This was before the Engineering School had opened, and Parsons studied mechanics and mathematics.
    In 1877 he was apprenticed to W.G.Armstrong \& Co. of Elswick, where he stayed for four years, developing an epicycloidal engine that he had designed while at Cambridge. He then moved to Kitson \& Co. of Leeds, where he went half shares in a small experimental shop working on rocket propulsion for torpedoes.
    In 1887 he married Katherine Bethell, who contracted rheumatic fever from early-morning outdoor vigils with her husband to watch his torpedo experiments while on their honeymoon! He then moved to a partnership in Clarke, Chapman \& Co. at Gateshead. There he joined the electrical department, initially working on the development of a small, steam-driven marine lighting set. This involved the development of either a low-speed dynamo, for direct coupling to a reciprocating engine, or a high-speed engine, and it was this requirement that started Parsons on the track of the steam turbine. This entailed many problems such as the running of shafts at speeds of up to 40,000 rpm and the design of a DC generator for 18,000 rpm. He took out patents for both the turbine and the generator on 23 April 1884. In 1888 he dissolved his partnership with Clarke, Chapman \& Co. to set up his own firm in Newcastle, leaving his patents with the company's owners. This denied him the use of the axial-flow turbine, so Parsons then designed a radial-flow layout; he later bought back his patents from Clarke, Chapman \& Co. His original patent had included the use of the steam turbine as a means of marine propulsion, and Parsons now set about realizing this possibility. He experimented with 2 ft (61 cm) and 6 ft (183 cm) long models, towed with a fishing line or, later, driven by a twisted rubber cord, through a single-reduction set of spiral gearing.
    The first trials of the Turbinia took place in 1894 but were disappointing due to cavitation, a little-understood phenomenon at the time. He used an axial-flow turbine of 2,000 shp running at 2,000 rpm. His work resulted in a far greater understanding of the phenomenon of cavitation than had hitherto existed. Land turbines of up to 350 kW (470 hp) had meanwhile been built. Experiments with the Turbinia culminated in a demonstration which took place at the great Naval Review of 1897 at Spithead, held to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Here, the little Turbinia darted in and out of the lines of heavy warships and destroyers, attaining the unheard of speed of 34.5 knots. The following year the Admiralty placed their first order for a turbine-driven ship, and passenger vessels started operation soon after, the first in 1901. By 1906 the Admiralty had moved over to use turbines exclusively. These early turbines had almost all been direct-coupled to the ship's propeller shaft. For optimum performance of both turbine and propeller, Parsons realized that some form of reduction gearing was necessary, which would have to be extremely accurate because of the speeds involved. Parsons's Creep Mechanism of 1912 ensured that any errors in the master wheel would be distributed evenly around the wheel being cut.
    Parsons was also involved in optical work and had a controlling interest in the firm of Ross Ltd of London and, later, in Sir Howard Grubb \& Sons. He he was an enlightened employer, originating share schemes and other benefits for his employees.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted. Order of Merit 1927.
    Further Reading
    A.T.Bowden, 1966, "Charles Parsons: Purveyor of power", in E.G.Semler (ed.), The Great Masters. Engineering Heritage, Vol. II, London: Institution of Mechanical Engineers/Heinemann.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Parsons, Sir Charles Algernon

  • 5 Chevalier, Charles-Louis

    [br]
    b. 18 April 1804 France
    d. 21 November 1859 Paris, France
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    French instrument maker and optician.
    [br]
    The son of a distinguished Parisian instrument maker, Charles Chevalier supplied equipment to all the major photographic pioneers of the period. He sold a camera obscura to Niepce de St Victor as early as 1826 and was largely responsible for bringing Niepce de St Victor and Daguerre together. Chevalier was one of the first opticians to design lenses specifically for photographic use; the first photographic camera to be offered for sale to the public, the Giroux daguerreotype camera of 1839, was in fact fitted with a Chevalier achromatic lens. Chevalier also supplied lenses, equipment and examples of daguerreotypes to Talbot in England. In 1841 Chevalier was awarded first prize in a competition for the improvement of photographic lenses, sponsored by the Société d'Encouragement of Paris. Contemporary opinion, however, favoured the runner-up, the Petzval Portrait lens by Voigtländer of Vienna, and Chevalier subsequently became embroiled in an acrimonious dispute which did him little credit. It did not stop him designing lenses, and he went on to become an extremely successful supplier of quality daguerreotype equipment. He was a founder member of the Société Héliographique in 1851.
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    Further Reading
    Pavillon de Photographie du Parc Naturel Régional de Brotonne, 1974, Charles-Louis Chevalier (an authoritative account of Chevalier's life and work).
    H.Gernsheim and A.Gernsheim, 1969, The History of Photography, rev. edn, London.
    JW

    Biographical history of technology > Chevalier, Charles-Louis

  • 6 Vignoles, Charles Blacker

    [br]
    b. 31 May 1793 Woodbrook, Co. Wexford, Ireland
    d. 17 November 1875 Hythe, Hampshire, England
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    English surveyor and civil engineer, pioneer of railways.
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    Vignoles, who was of Huguenot descent, was orphaned in infancy and brought up in the family of his grandfather, Dr Charles Hutton FRS, Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. After service in the Army he travelled to America, arriving in South Carolina in 1817. He was appointed Assistant to the state's Civil Engineer and surveyed much of South Carolina and subsequently Florida. After his return to England in 1823 he established himself as a civil engineer in London, and obtained work from the brothers George and John Rennie.
    In 1825 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) lost their application for an Act of Parliament, discharged their engineer George Stephenson and appointed the Rennie brothers in his place. They in turn employed Vignoles to resurvey the railway, taking a route that would minimize objections. With Vignoles's route, the company obtained its Act in 1826 and appointed Vignoles to supervise the start of construction. After Stephenson was reappointed Chief Engineer, however, he and Vignoles proved incompatible, with the result that Vignoles left the L \& MR early in 1827.
    Nevertheless, Vignoles did not sever all connection with the L \& MR. He supported John Braithwaite and John Ericsson in the construction of the locomotive Novelty and was present when it competed in the Rainhill Trials in 1829. He attended the opening of the L \& MR in 1830 and was appointed Engineer to two railways which connected with it, the St Helens \& Runcorn Gap and the Wigan Branch (later extended to Preston as the North Union); he supervised the construction of these.
    After the death of the Engineer to the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway, Vignoles supervised construction: the railway, the first in Ireland, was opened in 1834. He was subsequently employed in surveying and constructing many railways in the British Isles and on the European continent; these included the Eastern Counties, the Midland Counties, the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyme \& Manchester (which proved for him a financial disaster from which he took many years to recover), and the Waterford \& Limerick. He probably discussed rail of flat-bottom section with R.L. Stevens during the winter of 1830–1 and brought it into use in the UK for the first time in 1836 on the London \& Croydon Railway: subsequently rail of this section became known as "Vignoles rail". He considered that a broader gauge than 4 ft 8½ in. (1.44 m) was desirable for railways, although most of those he built were to this gauge so that they might connect with others. He supported the atmospheric system of propulsion during the 1840s and was instrumental in its early installation on the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway's Dalkey extension. Between 1847 and 1853 he designed and built the noted multi-span suspension bridge at Kiev, Russia, over the River Dnieper, which is more than half a mile (800 m) wide at that point.
    Between 1857 and 1863 he surveyed and then supervised the construction of the 155- mile (250 km) Tudela \& Bilbao Railway, which crosses the Cantabrian Pyrenees at an altitude of 2,163 ft (659 m) above sea level. Vignoles outlived his most famous contemporaries to become the grand old man of his profession.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society 1829. FRS 1855. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1869–70.
    Bibliography
    1830, jointly with John Ericsson, British patent no. 5,995 (a device to increase the capability of steam locomotives on grades, in which rollers gripped a third rail).
    1823, Observations upon the Floridas, New York: Bliss \& White.
    1870, Address on His Election as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
    Further Reading
    K.H.Vignoles, 1982, Charles Blacker Vignoles: Romantic Engineer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (good modern biography by his great-grandson).
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Vignoles, Charles Blacker

  • 7 Bright, Sir Charles Tilston

    SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications
    [br]
    b. 8 June 1832 Wanstead, Essex, England
    d. 3 May 1888 Abbey Wood, London, England
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    English telegraph engineer responsible for laying the first transatlantic cable.
    [br]
    At the age of 15 years Bright left the London Merchant Taylors' School to join the two-year-old Electric Telegraph Company. By 1851 he was in charge of the Birmingham telegraph station. After a short time as Assistant Engineer with the newly formed British Telegraph Company, he joined his brother (who was Manager) as Engineer-in-Chief of the English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company in Liverpool, for which he laid thousands of miles of underground cable and developed a number of innovations in telegraphy including a resistance box for locating cable faults and a two-tone bell system for signalling. In 1853 he was responsible for the first successful underwater cable between Scotland and Ireland. Three years later, with the American financier Cyrus Field and John Brett, he founded and was Engineer-in-chief of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, which aimed at laying a cable between Ireland and Newfoundland. After several unsuccessful attempts this was finally completed on 5 August 1858, Bright was knighted a month later, but the cable then failed! In 1860 Bright resigned from the Magnetic Telegraph Company to set up an independent consultancy with another engineer, Joseph Latimer Clark, with whom he invented an improved bituminous cable insulation. Two years later he supervised construction of a telegraph cable to India, and in 1865 a further attempt to lay an Atlantic cable using Brunel's new ship, the Great Eastern. This cable broke during laying, but in 1866 a new cable was at last successfully laid and the 1865 cable recovered and repaired. The year 1878 saw extension of the Atlantic cable system to the West Indies and the invention with his brother of a system of neighbourhood fire alarms and even an automatic fire alarm.
    In 1861 Bright presented a paper to the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the need for electrical standards, leading to the creation of an organization that still exists in the 1990s. From 1865 until 1868 he was Liberal MP for Greenwich, and he later assisted with preparations for the 1881 Paris Exhibition.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1858. Légion d'honneur. First President, Société Internationale des Electriciens. President, Society of Telegraph Engineers \& Electricians (later the Institution of Electrical Engineers) 1887.
    Bibliography
    1852, British patent (resistance box).
    1855, British patent no. 2,103 (two-tone bell system). 1878, British patent no. 3,801 (area fire alarms).
    1878, British patent no. 596 (automatic fire alarm).
    "The physical \& electrical effects of pressure \& temperature on submarine cable cores", Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers XVII (describes some of his investigations of cable characteristics).
    Further Reading
    C.Bright, 1898, Submarine Cables, Their History, Construction \& Working.
    —1910, The Life Story of Sir Charles Tilston Bright, London: Constable \& Co.
    KF

    Biographical history of technology > Bright, Sir Charles Tilston

  • 8 Fox, Sir Charles

    [br]
    b. 11 March 1810 Derby, England
    d. 14 June 1874 Blackheath, London, England
    [br]
    English railway engineer, builder of Crystal Palace, London.
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    Fox was a pupil of John Ericsson, helped to build the locomotive Novelty, and drove it at the Rainhill Trials in 1829. He became a driver on the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway and then a pupil of Robert Stephenson, who appointed him an assistant engineer for construction of the southern part of the London \& Birmingham Railway, opened in 1837. He was probably responsible for the design of the early bow-string girder bridge which carried the railway over the Regent's Canal. He also invented turnouts with switch blades, i.e. "points". With Robert Stephenson he designed the light iron train sheds at Euston Station, a type of roof that was subsequently much used elsewhere. He then became a partner in Fox, Henderson \& Co., railway contractors and manufacturers of railway equipment and bridges. The firm built the Crystal Palace in London for the Great Exhibition of 1851: Fox did much of the detail design work personally and was subsequently knighted. It also built many station roofs, including that at Paddington. From 1857 Fox was in practice in London as a consulting engineer in partnership with his sons, Charles Douglas Fox and Francis Fox. Sir Charles Fox became an advocate of light and narrow-gauge railways, although he was opposed to break-of-gauge unless it was unavoidable. He was joint Engineer for the Indian Tramway Company, building the first narrow-gauge (3 ft 6 in. or 107 cm) railway in India, opened in 1865, and his firm was Consulting Engineer for the first railways in Queensland, Australia, built to the same gauge at the same period on recommendation of Government Engineer A.C.Fitzgibbon.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1851.
    Further Reading
    F.Fox, 1904, River, Road, and Rail, John Murray, Ch. 1 (personal reminiscences by his son).
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1970, Victorian Engineering, London: Allen Lane.
    PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Fox, Sir Charles

  • 9 Merz, Charles Hesterman

    [br]
    b. 5 October 1874 Gateshead, England
    d. 14 October 1940 London, England
    [br]
    English engineer who pioneered large-scale integration of electricity-supply networks, which led to the inauguration of the British grid system.
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    Merz was educated at Bootham School in York and Armstrong College in Newcastle. He served an apprenticeship with the Newcastle Electric Supply Company at their first power station, Pandon Dene, and part of his training was at Robey and Company of Lincoln, steam engine builders, and the British Thomson-Houston Company, electrical equipment manufacturers. After working at Bankside in London and at Croydon, he became Manager of the Croydon supply undertaking. In 1898 he went to Cork on behalf of BTH to build and manage a tramway and electricity company. It was there that he met William McLellan, who later joined him in establishing a firm of consulting engineers. Merz, with his vision of large-scale electricity supply, pioneered an integrated traction and electricity scheme in north-eastern England. He was involved in the reorganization of electricity schemes in many countries and established a reputation as a leading parliamentary witness. Merz was appointed Director of Experiments and Research at the Admiralty, where his main contribution was the creation of an organization of outstanding engineers and scientists during the First World War. In 1925 he was largely responsible for a report of the Weir Committee which led to the Electricity (Supply) Act of 1926, the formation of the Central Electricity Board and the construction of the National Grid. The choice of 132 kV as the original grid voltage was that of Merz and his associates, as was the origin of the term "grid". Merz and his firm produced many technical innovations, including the first power-system control room and Merz-Price and Merz-Hunter forms of cable and transformer protection.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1931.
    Bibliography
    1903–4, with W.McLennan, "Power station design", Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 33:696–742 (a classic on its subject).
    1929, "The national scheme of electricity supply in Great Britain", Proceedings of the British Association, Johannesburg.
    Further Reading
    J.Rowland, 1960, Progress in Power. The Contribution of Charles Merz and His Associates to Sixty Years of Electrical Development 1899–1959, London (the most detailed account).
    L.Hannah, 1979, Electricity Before Nationalisation, London.
    ——, 1985, Dictionary of Business Biography, ed. J.Jeremy, London, pp. 221–7 (a short account).
    GW

    Biographical history of technology > Merz, Charles Hesterman

  • 10 Wheatstone, Sir Charles

    SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications
    [br]
    b. 1802 near Gloucester, England
    d. 19 October 1875 Paris, France
    [br]
    English physicist, pioneer of electric telegraphy.
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    Wheatstone's family moved to London when he was 4 years old. He was educated at various schools in London and excelled in physics and mathematics. He qualified for a French prize but forfeited it because he was too shy to recite a speech in French at the prize-giving.
    An uncle, also called Charles Wheatstone, has a musical instrument manufacturing business where young Charles went to work. He was fascinated by the science of music, but did not enjoy business life. After the uncle's death, Charles and his brother William took over the business. Charles developed and patented the concertina, which the firm assembled from parts made by "outworkers". He devoted much of his time to studying the physics of sound and mechanism of sound transmission through solids. He sent speech and music over considerable distances through solid rods and stretched wires, and envisaged communication at a distance. He concluded, however, that electrical methods were more promising.
    In 1834 Wheatstone was appointed Professor of Experimental Philosophy—a part-time posi-tion—in the new King's College, London, which gave him some research facilities. He conducted experiments with a telegraph system using several miles of wire in the college corridors. Jointly with William Fothergill Cooke, in 1837 he obtained the first patent for a practical electric telegraph, and much of the remainder of his life was devoted to its improvement. In 1843 he gave a paper to the Royal Society surveying the state of electrical measurements and drew attention to a bridge circuit known ever since as the "Wheatstone bridge", although he clearly attributed it to S.H.Christie. Wheatstone devised the "ABC" telegraph, for use on private lines by anyone who could read, and a high-speed automatic telegraph which was adopted by the Post Office and used for many years. He also worked on the French and Belgian telegraph systems; he died when taken ill on a business visit to Paris.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    B.Bowers, 1975, Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS, London: HMSO.
    BB

    Biographical history of technology > Wheatstone, Sir Charles

  • 11 Duryea, Charles Edgar

    [br]
    b. 15 December 1861 Cawton, Ohio, USA
    d. 28 September 1938 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
    [br]
    American inventor and pioneer cur maker.
    [br]
    He began his career in the bicycle trade, in which he invented a number of devices. He launched his own business in Peoria, Illinois, and later moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1891 he had designed a motor-driven carriage and a gas engine and, with his brother, J.Frank Duryea, he built the first successful American car, which was demonstrated in Springfield in September, 1893. An improved version, largely designed by Frank Duryea, won several races both at home and abroad in 1895–6. The Duryea Motor Wagon Company made the first sale of an American-made automobile in 1896. Charles later organized the Duryea Power Company, manufacturing a three-cylinder car until 1914, the brothers parting company in 1898. Frank developed the Stevens-Duryea between 1903 and 1914.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XI (Suppl. 2), New York: Charles Scribner.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Duryea, Charles Edgar

  • 12 Siemens, Sir Charles William

    [br]
    b. 4 April 1823 Lenthe, Germany
    d. 19 November 1883 London, England
    [br]
    German/British metallurgist and inventory pioneer of the regenerative principle and open-hearth steelmaking.
    [br]
    Born Carl Wilhelm, he attended craft schools in Lübeck and Magdeburg, followed by an intensive course in natural science at Göttingen as a pupil of Weber. At the age of 19 Siemens travelled to England and sold an electroplating process developed by his brother Werner Siemens to Richard Elkington, who was already established in the plating business. From 1843 to 1844 he obtained practical experience in the Magdeburg works of Count Stolburg. He settled in England in 1844 and later assumed British nationality, but maintained close contact with his brother Werner, who in 1847 had co-founded the firm Siemens \& Halske in Berlin to manufacture telegraphic equipment. William began to develop his regenerative principle of waste-heat recovery and in 1856 his brother Frederick (1826–1904) took out a British patent for heat regeneration, by which hot waste gases were passed through a honeycomb of fire-bricks. When they became hot, the gases were switched to a second mass of fire-bricks and incoming air and fuel gas were led through the hot bricks. By alternating the two gas flows, high temperatures could be reached and considerable fuel economies achieved. By 1861 the two brothers had incorporated producer gas fuel, made by gasifying low-grade coal.
    Heat regeneration was first applied in ironmaking by Cowper in 1857 for heating the air blast in blast furnaces. The first regenerative furnace was set up in Birmingham in 1860 for glassmaking. The first such furnace for making steel was developed in France by Pierre Martin and his father, Emile, in 1863. Siemens found British steelmakers reluctant to adopt the principle so in 1866 he rented a small works in Birmingham to develop his open-hearth steelmaking furnace, which he patented the following year. The process gradually made headway; as well as achieving high temperatures and saving fuel, it was slower than Bessemer's process, permitting greater control over the content of the steel. By 1900 the tonnage of open-hearth steel exceeded that produced by the Bessemer process.
    In 1872 Siemens played a major part in founding the Society of Telegraph Engineers (from which the Institution of Electrical Engineers evolved), serving as its first President. He became President for the second time in 1878. He built a cable works at Charlton, London, where the cable could be loaded directly into the holds of ships moored on the Thames. In 1873, together with William Froude, a British shipbuilder, he designed the Faraday, the first specialized vessel for Atlantic cable laying. The successful laying of a cable from Europe to the United States was completed in 1875, and a further five transatlantic cables were laid by the Faraday over the following decade.
    The Siemens factory in Charlton also supplied equipment for some of the earliest electric-lighting installations in London, including the British Museum in 1879 and the Savoy Theatre in 1882, the first theatre in Britain to be fully illuminated by electricity. The pioneer electric-tramway system of 1883 at Portrush, Northern Ireland, was an opportunity for the Siemens company to demonstrate its equipment.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1883. FRS 1862. Institution of Civil Engineers Telford Medal 1853. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1872. President, Society of Telegraph Engineers 1872 and 1878. President, British Association 1882.
    Bibliography
    27 May 1879, British patent no. 2,110 (electricarc furnace).
    1889, The Scientific Works of C.William Siemens, ed. E.F.Bamber, 3 vols, London.
    Further Reading
    W.Poles, 1888, Life of Sir William Siemens, London; repub. 1986 (compiled from material supplied by the family).
    S.von Weiher, 1972–3, "The Siemens brothers. Pioneers of the electrical age in Europe", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 45:1–11 (a short, authoritative biography). S.von Weihr and H.Goetler, 1983, The Siemens Company. Its Historical Role in the
    Progress of Electrical Engineering 1847–1980, English edn, Berlin (a scholarly account with emphasis on technology).
    GW

    Biographical history of technology > Siemens, Sir Charles William

  • 13 Kettering, Charles Franklin

    [br]
    b. 29 August 1876 near Londonsville, Ohio, USA
    d. 25 November 1958 Dayton, Ohio, USA
    [br]
    American engineer and inventor.
    [br]
    Kettering gained degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering from Ohio State University. He was employed by the National Construction Register (NCR) of Dayton, Ohio, where he devised an electric motor for use in cash registers. He became Head of the Inventions Department of that company but left in 1909 to form, with the former Works Manager of NCR, Edward A. Deeds, the Dayton Engineering Laboratories (later called Delco), to develop improved lighting and ignition systems for automobiles. In the first two years of the new company he produced not only these but also the first self-starter, both of which were fitted to the Cadillac, America's leading luxury car. In 1914 he founded Dayton Metal Products and the Dayton Wright Airplane Company. Two years later Delco was bought by General Motors. In 1925 the independent research facilities of Delco were moved to Detroit and merged with General Motors' laboratories to form General Motors Research Corporation, of which Kettering was President and General Manager. (He had been Vice-President of General Motors since 1920.) In that position he headed investigations into methods of achieving maximum engine performance as well as into the nature of friction and combustion. Many other developments in the automobile field were made under his leadership, such as engine coolers, variable-speed transmissions, balancing machines, the two-way shock absorber, high-octane fuel, leaded petrol or gasoline, fast-drying lacquers, crank-case ventilators, chrome plating, and the high-compression automobile engine. Among his other activities were the establishment of the Charles Franklin Kettering Foundation for the Study of Chlorophyll and Photosynthesis at Antioch College, and the founding of the Sloan- Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York City. He sponsored the Fever Therapy Research Project at Miami Valley Hospital at Dayton, which developed the hypertherm, or artificial fever machine, for use in the treatment of disease. He resigned from General Motors in 1947.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Kettering, Charles Franklin

  • 14 Mitchell, Charles

    SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping
    [br]
    b. 20 May 1820 Aberdeen, Scotland
    d. 22 August 1895 Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
    [br]
    Scottish industrialist whose Tyneside shipyard was an early constituent of what became the Vickers Shipbuilding Group.
    [br]
    Mitchell's early education commenced at Ledingham's Academy, Correction Wynd, Aberdeen, and from there he became a premium apprentice at the Footdee Engineering Works of Wm Simpson \& Co. Despite being employed for around twelve hours each day, Mitchell matriculated at Marischal College (now merged with King's College to form the University of Aberdeen). He did not graduate, although in 1840 he won the chemistry prize. On the completion of his apprenticeship, like Andrew Leslie (founder of Hawthorn Leslie) and other young Aberdonians he moved to Tyneside, where most of his working life was spent. From 1842 until 1844 he worked as a draughtsman for his friend Coutts, who had a shipyard at Low Walker, before moving on to the drawing offices of Maudslay Sons and Field of London, then one of the leading shipbuilding and engineering establishments in the UK. While in London he studied languages, acquiring a skill that was to stand him in good stead in later years. In 1852 he returned to the North East and set up his own iron-ship building yard at Low Walker near Newcastle. Two years later he married Anne Swan, the sister of the two young men who were to found the company now known as Swan Hunter Ltd. The Mitchell yard grew in size and reputation and by the 1850s he was building for the Russian Navy and Merchant Marine as well as advising the Russians on their shipyards in St Petersburg. In 1867 the first informal business arrangement was concluded with Armstrongs for the supply of armaments for ships; this led to increased co-operation and ultimately in 1882 to the merger of the two shipyards as Sir W.G.Armstrong Mitchell \& Co. At the time of the merger, Mitchell had launched 450 ships in twenty-nine years. In 1886 the new company built the SS Gluckauf, the world's first bulk oil tanker. After ill health in 1865 Mitchell reduced his workload and lived for a while in Surbiton, London, but returned to Tyneside to a new house at Jesmond. In his later years he was a generous benefactor to many good causes in Tyneside and Aberdeen, to the Church and to the University of Aberdeen.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    D.F.McGuire, 1988, Charles Mitchell 1820–1895, Victorian Shipbuilder, Newcastle upon Tyne: City Libraries and Arts.
    J.D.Scott, 1962, Vickers. A History, London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson (a recommended overview of the Vickers Group).
    FMW

    Biographical history of technology > Mitchell, Charles

  • 15 Cross, Charles Frederick

    [br]
    b. 11 December 1855 Brentwood, Middlesex, England
    d. 15 April 1935 Hove, England
    [br]
    English chemist who contributed to the development of viscose rayon from cellulose.
    [br]
    Cross was educated at the universities of London, Zurich and Manchester. It was at Owens College, Manchester, that Cross first met E.J. Bevan and where these two first worked together on the nature of cellulose. After gaining some industrial experience, Cross joined Bevan to set up a partnership in London as analytical and consulting chemists, specializing in the chemistry and technology of cellulose and lignin. They were at the Jodrell laboratory, Kew Gardens, for a time and then set up their own laboratory at Station Avenue, Kew Gardens. In 1888, the first edition of their joint publication A Textbook of Paper-making, appeared. It went into several editions and became the standard reference and textbook on the subject. The long introductory chapter is a discourse on cellulose.
    In 1892, Cross, Bevan and Clayton Beadle took out their historic patent on the solution and regeneration of cellulose. The modern artificial-fibre industry stems from this patent. They made their discovery at New Court, Carey Street, London: wood-pulp (or another cheap form of cellulose) was dissolved in a mixture of carbon disulphide and aqueous alkali to produce sodium xanthate. After maturing, it was squirted through fine holes into dilute acid, which set the liquid to give spinnable fibres of "viscose". However, it was many years before the process became a commercial operation, partly because the use of a natural raw material such as wood involved variations in chemical content and each batch might react differently. At first it was thought that viscose might be suitable for incandescent lamp filaments, and C.H.Stearn, a collaborator with Cross, continued to investigate this possibility, but the sheen on the fibres suggested that viscose might be made into artificial silk. The original Viscose Spinning Syndicate was formed in 1894 and a place was rented at Erith in Kent. However, it was not until some skeins of artificial silk (a term to which Cross himself objected) were displayed in Paris that textile manufacturers began to take an interest in it. It was then that Courtaulds decided to investigate this new fibre, although it was not until 1904 that they bought the English patents and developed the first artificial silk that was later called "rayon". Cross was also concerned with the development of viscose films and of cellulose acetate, which became a rival to rayon in the form of "Celanese". He retained his interest in the paper industry and in publishing, in 1895 again collaborating with Bevan and publishing a book on Cellulose and other technical articles. He was a cultured man and a good musician. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1917.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1917.
    Bibliography
    1888, with E.J.Bevan, A Text-book of Papermaking. 1892, British patent no. 8,700 (cellulose).
    Further Reading
    Obituary Notices of the Royal Society, 1935, London. Obituary, 1935, Journal of the Chemical Society 1,337. Chambers Concise Dictionary of Scientists, 1989, Cambridge.
    Edwin J.Beer, 1962–3, "The birth of viscose rayon", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 35 (an account of the problems of developing viscose rayon; Beer worked under Cross in the Kew laboratories).
    C.Singer (ed.), 1978, A History of Technology, Vol. VI, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
    RLH

    Biographical history of technology > Cross, Charles Frederick

  • 16 Mees, Charles Edward Kenneth

    [br]
    b. 1882 Wellingborough, England
    d. 1960 USA
    [br]
    Anglo-American photographic scientist and Director of Research at the Kodak Research Laboratory.
    [br]
    The son of a Wesleyan minister, Mees was interested in chemistry from an early age and studied at St Dunstan's College in Catford, where he met Samuel E.Sheppard, with whom he went on to University College London in 1900. They worked together on a thesis for BSc degrees in 1903, developing the work begun by Hurter and Driffield on photographic sensitometry. This and other research papers were published in 1907 in the book Investigations on the Theory of the Photographic Process, which became a standard reference work. After obtaining a doctorate in 1906, Mees joined the firm of Wratten \& Wainwright (see F.C.L.Wratten), manufacturers of dry plates in Croydon; he started work on 1 April 1906, first tackling the problem of manufacturing colour-sensitive emulsions and enabling the company to market the first fully panchromatic plates from the end of that year.
    During the next few years Mees ran the commercial operation of the company as Managing Director and carried out research into new products, including filters for use with the new emulsions. In January 1912 he was visited by George Eastman, the American photographic manufacturer, who asked him to go to Rochester, New York, and set up a photographic research laboratory in the Kodak factory there. Wratten was prepared to release Mees on condition that Eastman bought the company; thus, Wratten and Wainwright became part of Kodak Ltd, and Mees left for America. He supervised the construction of a building in the heart of Kodak Park, and the building was fully equipped not only as a research laboratory, but also with facilities for coating and packing sensitized materials. It also had the most comprehensive library of photographic books in the world. Work at the laboratory started at the beginning of 1913, with a staff of twenty recruited from America and England, including Mees's collaborator of earlier years, Sheppard. Under Mees's direction there flowed from the Kodak research Laboratory a constant stream of discoveries, many of them leading to new products. Among these were the 16 mm amateur film-making system launched in 1923; the first amateur colour-movie system, Kodacolor, in 1928; and 8 mm home movies, in 1932. His support for the young experimenters Mannes and Godowsky, who were working on colour photography, led to their joining the Research Laboratory and to the introduction of the first multi-layer colour film, Kodachrome, in 1935. Eastman had agreed from the beginning that as much of the laboratory's work as possible should be published, and Mees himself wrote prolifically, publishing over 200 articles and ten books. While he made significant contributions to the understanding of the photographic process, particularly through his early research, it is his creation and organization of the Kodak Research Laboratory that is his lasting memorial. His interests were many and varied, including Egyptology, astronomy, marine biology and history. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS.
    Bibliography
    1961, From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film, New York (partly autobiographical).
    BC

    Biographical history of technology > Mees, Charles Edward Kenneth

  • 17 Stanhope, Charles, 3rd Earl

    [br]
    b. 3 August 1753 London, England
    d. 15 December 1816 Chevening, Kent, England
    [br]
    English politician, scientist and inventor.
    [br]
    Stanhope's schooling at Eton was interrupted in 1764 when the family moved to Geneva; there, he soon showed a talent for scientific pursuits. In 1771 he contributed a paper on the pendulum to the Swedish Academy, which awarded him a prize for it. After his return to London in 1774, he threw himself into politics, earning himself not only a reputation for promoting the liberty of the individual, but also unpopularity for championing the French Revolution.
    Stanhope is best known for his inventions in printing. In 1800 he introduced the first successful iron press, known by his name. Its iron frame enabled a whole forme to be printed at one pull, thus speeding up production. The press retained the traditional screw but incorporated a system of levers which increased the pressure on the platen up to the moment of contact with the type, so that fine, sharp impressions were obtained and the work of the pressman was made easier. Stanhope's process for moulding and reproducing formes, known as stereotyping, became important when curved formes were required for cylinder presses. His invention of logotypes for casting type, however, proved a failure. Throughout his political activities, Stanhope devoted time and money to scientific and mechanical matters. Of these, the development of steamships is noteworthy. He took out patents in 1790 and 1807, and in 1796 he constructed the Kent for the Admiralty, but it was unsuccessful. In 1810, however, he claimed that a vessel 110 ft (33.5 m) long and 7 ft (2.1 m) in draught "outsailed the swiftest vessels in the Navy".
    [br]
    Further Reading
    G.Stanhope, 1914, The Life of Charles, Third Earl Stanhope, London.
    H.Hart, 1966, Charles Earl Stanhope and the Oxford University Press, London: Printing Historical Society (a reprint of a paper, originally published in 1896, describing Stanhope's printing inventions; with copious quotations from Stanhope's own writings, together with an essay on the Stanhope press by James Moran).
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Stanhope, Charles, 3rd Earl

  • 18 Holtzapffel, Charles

    [br]
    b. 1806 London, England
    d. 11 April 1847 London, England
    [br]
    English mechanical engineer and author of Turning and Mechanical Manipulation.
    [br]
    Charles Holtzapffel was the son of John Holtzapffel, a native of Germany who settled in London c.1787 and set up as a manufacturer of lathes and tools for amateur mechanics. Charles Holtzapffel received a good English education and training in his father's workshop, and subsequently became a partner and ultimately succeeded to the business. He was engaged in the construction of machinery for printing banknotes, of lathes for cutting rosettes and for ornamental and plain turning. Holtzapffel is chiefly remembered for his monumental work entitled Turning and Mechanical Manipulation, intended as a work of general reference and practical instruction on the lathe. Publication began in 1843 and only the first two volumes were published in his lifetime. A third volume was edited by his widow from his notes and published shortly after his death. The fourth and fifth volumes were completed by his son, John Jacob Holtzapffel, more than thirty years later. Holtzapffel was an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers and served on its Council: he was also a member of the Society of Arts and Chairman of its Committee on Mechanics.
    RTS

    Biographical history of technology > Holtzapffel, Charles

  • 19 Belling, Charles Reginald

    [br]
    b. 11 May 1884 Bodmin, Cornwall, England
    d. 8 February 1965 while on a cruise
    [br]
    English electrical engineer best known as the pioneer of the wire-wound clay-former heating element which made possible the efficient domestic electric fire.
    [br]
    Belling was educated at Burts Grammar School in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, and at Crossley Schools in Halifax, Yorkshire. In 1903 he was apprenticed to Crompton \& Co. at Chelmsford in Essex, the firm that in 1894 offered for sale the earliest electric heaters. These electric radiant panels were intended as heating radiators or cooking hotplates, but were not very successful because, being cast-iron panels into which heating wires had been embedded in enamel, they tended to fracture due to the different rates of thermal expansion of the iron and the enamel. Other designs of electric heaters followed, notably the introduction of large, sausage-shaped carbon filament bulbs fitted into a fire frame and backed by reflectors. This was the idea of H. Dowsing, a collaborator of Crompton, in 1904.
    After qualifying in 1906, Belling left Crompton \& Co. and went to work for Ediswan at Ponders End in Hertfordshire. He left in 1912 to set up his own business, which he began in a small shed in Enfield. With a small staff and capital of £450, he took out his first patent for his wire-wound-former electric fire in the same year. The resistance wire, made from nickel-chrome alloy such as that patented in 1906 by A.L. Marsh, was coiled round a clay former. Six such bars were attached to a cast-iron frame with heating control knobs, and the device was marketed as the Standard Belling Fire. Advertised in 1912, the fire was an immediate success and was followed by many other variations. Improvements to the first model included wire safety guards, enamel finishes and a frame ornamented with copper and brass.
    Belling turned his attention to hotplates, cookers, immersion heaters, electric irons, water urns and kettles, producing the Modernette Cooker (1919), the multi-parabola fire bar (1921), the plate and dish warmer (1924), the storage heater (1926) and the famous Baby Belling cookers, the first of which appeared in 1929. By 1955 business had developed so well that Belling opened another factory at Burnley, Lancashire. He partly underwrote, for the amount of £1 million, a proposed scientific technical college for the electrical industry at Enfield.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    G.Jukes, 1963, The Story of Belling, Belling and Co. Ltd (produced by the company in its Golden Jubilee year).
    DY

    Biographical history of technology > Belling, Charles Reginald

  • 20 Clarke, Arthur Charles

    [br]
    b. 16 December 1917 Minehead, Somerset, England
    [br]
    English writer of science fiction who correctly predicted the use of geo-stationary earth satellites for worldwide communications.
    [br]
    Whilst still at Huish's Grammar School, Taunton, Clarke became interested in both space science and science fiction. Unable to afford a scientific education at the time (he later obtained a BSc at King's College, London), he pursued both interests in his spare time while working in the Government Exchequer and Audit Department between 1936 and 1941. He was a founder member of the British Interplanetary Society, subsequently serving as its Chairman in 1946–7 and 1950–3. From 1941 to 1945 he served in the Royal Air Force, becoming a technical officer in the first GCA (Ground Controlled Approach) radar unit. There he began to produce the first of many science-fiction stories. In 1949–50 he was an assistant editor of Science Abstracts at the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
    As a result of his two interests, he realized during the Second World War that an artificial earth satellite in an equatorial orbital with a radius of 35,000 km (22,000 miles) would appear to be stationary, and that three such geo-stationary, or synchronous, satellites could be used for worldwide broadcast or communications. He described these ideas in a paper published in Wireless World in 1945. Initially there was little response, but within a few years the idea was taken up by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and in 1965 the first synchronous satellite, Early Bird, was launched into orbit.
    In the 1950s he moved to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to pursue an interest in underwater exploration, but he continued to write science fiction, being known in particular for his contribution to the making of the classic Stanley Kubrick science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on his book of the same title.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Clarke received many honours for both his scientific and science-fiction writings. For his satellite communication ideas his awards include the Franklin Institute Gold Medal 1963 and Honorary Fellowship of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 1976. For his science-fiction writing he received the UNESCO Kalinga Prize (1961) and many others. In 1979 he became Chancellor of Moratuwa University in Sri Lanka and in 1980 Vikran Scrabhai Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory of the University of Ahmedabad.
    Bibliography
    1945. "Extra-terrestrial relays: can rocket stations give world wide coverage?", Wireless World L1: 305 (puts forward his ideas for geo-stationary communication satellites).
    1946. "Astronomical radar: some future possibilities", Wireless World 52:321.
    1948, "Electronics and space flight", Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 7:49. Other publications, mainly science-fiction novels, include: 1955, Earthlight, 1956, The
    Coast of Coral; 1958, Voice Across the Sea; 1961, Fall of Moondust; 1965, Voices
    from the Sky, 1977, The View from Serendip; 1979, Fountain of Paradise; 1984, Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography, and 1984, 2010: Odyssey Two (a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey that was also made into a film).
    Further Reading
    1986, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
    1991, Who's Who, London: A. \& C.Black.
    KF

    Biographical history of technology > Clarke, Arthur Charles

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