Industrial Technology & Machines AG

1) Компьютерная техника: Intelligent Tool Management

2) Американизм: Internal Technical Memos

3) Военный термин: index of technical manuals, interceptor tactical missile, interim technical memorandum, internal technical memorandum

4) Техника: illegal tape mark, in-core temperature monitor

5) Экономика: in-the-money

6) Биржевой термин: Investment Trust Management

7) Ветеринария: Institute for Traditional Medicine

8) Музыка: Irish Traditional Music

9) Сокращение: Industrial Technology & Machines AG (Switzerland), Integrated Technology Mast (UK), Internet Traffic Management

10) Вычислительная техника: Information Technology Management

11) Иммунология: Institute for Transfusion Medicine

12) НАСА: Input Test Mass

1) Компьютерная техника: Intelligent Tool Management

2) Американизм: Internal Technical Memos

3) Военный термин: index of technical manuals, interceptor tactical missile, interim technical memorandum, internal technical memorandum

4) Техника: illegal tape mark, in-core temperature monitor

5) Экономика: in-the-money

6) Биржевой термин: Investment Trust Management

7) Ветеринария: Institute for Traditional Medicine

8) Музыка: Irish Traditional Music

9) Сокращение: Industrial Technology & Machines AG (Switzerland), Integrated Technology Mast (UK), Internet Traffic Management

10) Вычислительная техника: Information Technology Management

11) Иммунология: Institute for Transfusion Medicine

12) НАСА: Input Test Mass

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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John Kay was the youngest of five sons of a yeoman farmer of Walmersley, near Bury, Lancashire, who died before his birth. John was apprenticed to a reedmaker, and just before he was 21 he married a daughter of John Hall of Bury and carried on his trade in that town until 1733. It is possible that his first patent, taken out in 1730, was connected with this business because it was for an engine that made mohair thread for tailors and twisted and dressed thread; such thread could have been used to bind up the reeds used in looms. He also improved the reeds by making them from metal instead of cane strips so they lasted much longer and could be made to be much finer. His next patent in 1733, was a double one. One part of it was for a batting machine to remove dust from wool by beating it with sticks, but the patent is better known for its description of the flying shuttle. Kay placed boxes to receive the shuttle at either end of the reed or sley. Across the open top of these boxes was a metal rod along which a picking peg could slide and drive the shuttle out across the loom. The pegs at each end were connected by strings to a stick that was held in the right hand of the weaver and which jerked the shuttle out of the box. The shuttle had wheels to make it "fly" across the warp more easily, and ran on a shuttle race to support and guide it. Not only was weaving speeded up, but the weaver could produce broader cloth without any aid from a second person. This invention was later adapted for the power loom. Kay moved to Colchester and entered into partnership with a baymaker named Solomon Smith and a year later was joined by William Carter of Ballingdon, Essex. His shuttle was received with considerable hostility in both Lancashire and Essex, but it was probably more his charge of 15 shillings a year for its use that roused the antagonism. From 1737 he was much involved with lawsuits to try and protect his patent, particularly the part that specified the method of winding the thread onto a fixed bobbin in the shuttle. In 1738 Kay patented a windmill for working pumps and an improved chain pump, but neither of these seems to have been successful. In 1745, with Joseph Stell of Keighley, he patented a narrow fabric loom that could be worked by power; this type may have been employed by Gartside in Manchester soon afterwards. It was probably through failure to protect his patent rights that Kay moved to France, where he arrived penniless in 1747. He went to the Dutch firm of Daniel Scalongne, woollen manufacturers, in Abbeville. The company helped him to apply for a French patent for his shuttle, but Kay wanted the exorbitant sum of £10,000. There was much discussion and eventually Kay set up a workshop in Paris, where he received a pension of 2,500 livres. However, he was to face the same problems as in England with weavers copying his shuttle without permission. In 1754 he produced two machines for making card clothing: one pierced holes in the leather, while the other cut and sharpened the wires. These were later improved by his son, Robert Kay. Kay returned to England briefly, but was back in France in 1758. He was involved with machines to card both cotton and wool and tried again to obtain support from the French Government. He was still involved with developing textile machines in 1779, when he was 75, but he must have died soon afterwards. As an inventor Kay was a genius of the first rank, but he was vain, obstinate and suspicious and was destitute of business qualities.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology, Steam and internal combustion engines

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A don of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Supérieure des Mines in Paris, Rateau joined the French Corps des Mines in 1887. Between 1888 and 1898 he taught applied mechanics and electro technics at the Ecole des Mines in St-Etienne. Trying to apply the results of his research to practise, he became into contact with commercial firms, before he was appointed Professor of Industrial Electricity at the Ecole Supérieure des Mines in Paris in 1902. He held this position until 1910, although he founded the Société Anonyme Rateau in Paris in 1903 which by the time of his death had subsidiaries in most of the industrial centres of Europe. By the middle of the nineteenth century, when the increasing problems of ventilation in coal mines had become evident and in many countries had led to several unsatisfactory mechanical constructions, Rateau concentrated on this problem soon after he began working in St-Etienne. The result of his research was the design of a centrifugal fan in 1887 with which he established the principles of mechanical ventilation on a general basis that led to future developments and helped, together with the ventilator invented by Capell in England, to pave the way for the use of electricity in mine ventilation.

Rateau continued the study of fluid mechanics and the applications of rotating engines, and after he had published widely on this subject he began to construct many steam turbines, centrifugal compressors and centrifugal pumps. The multicellular Rateau turbine of 1901 became the prototype for many others constructors. During the First World War, when he was very active in the French armaments industry, he developed the invention of the automatic supercharger for aircraft engines and later diesel engines.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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After Menzies conceived his idea of breaking off coal with machines in 1761, many inventors subsequently followed his proposals through into the practice of underground working. More than one century later, Garforth became one of the principal pioneers of machine-holing combined with the longwall method of working in order to reduce production costs and increase the yield of coal. Having been appointed agent to Pope \& Pearson's Collieries, West Yorkshire, in 1879, of which company he later became Managing Director and Chairman, he gathered a great deal of experience with different methods of cutting coal. The first disc machine was exhibited in London as early as 1851, and ten years later a pick machine was invented. In 1893 he introduced an improved type of deep undercutting machine, his "diamond" disc coal-cutter, driven by compressed air, which also became popular on the European continent.

Besides the considerable economic advantages it created, the use of machinery for mining coal increased the safety of working in hard and thin seams. The improvement of safety in mining technology was always his primary concern, and as a result of his inventions and his many publications he became the leading figure in the British coal mining industry at the beginning of the twentieth century; safety lamps still carry his name. In 1885 he invented a firedamp detector, and following a severe explosion in 1886 he concentrated on coal-dust experiments. From the information he obtained of the effect of stone-dust on a coal-dust explosion he proposed the stone-dust remedy to prevent explosions of coal-dust. As a result of discussions which lasted for decades and after he had been entrusted with the job of conducting the British coal-dust experiments, in 1921 an Act made it compulsory in all mines which were not naturally wet throughout to treat all roads with incombustible dust so as to ensure that the dust always consisted of a mixture containing not more than 50 per cent combustible matter. In 1901 Garforth erected a surface gallery which represented the damaged roadways of a mine and could be filled with noxious fumes to test self-contained breathing apparata. This gallery formed the model from which all the rescue-stations existing nowadays have been developed.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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At the beginning of the eighteenth century, silk weaving was one of the most prosperous trades in Britain, but it depended upon raw silk worked up on hand twisting or throwing machines. In 1702 Thomas Cotchett set up a mill for twisting silk by water-power at the northern end of an island in the river Derwent at Derby; this would probably have been to produce organzine, the hard twisted thread used for the warp when weaving silk fabrics. Such mills had been established in Italy beginning with the earliest in Bologna in 1272, but it would appear that Cotchett used Dutch silk-throwing machinery that was driven by a water wheel that was 13½ ft (4.1 m) in diameter and built by the local engineer, George Sorocold. The enterprise soon failed, but it was quickly revived and extended by Thomas and John Lombe with machinery based on that being used successfully in Italy.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Jacquard was apprenticed at the age of 12 to bookbinding, and later to type-founding and cutlery. His parents, who had some connection with weaving, left him a small property upon their death. He made some experiments with pattern weaving, but lost all his inheritance; after marrying, he returned to type-founding and cutlery. In 1790 he formed the idea for his machine, but it was forgotten amidst the excitement of the French Revolution, in which he fought for the Revolutionists at the defence of Lyons. The machine he completed in 1801 combined earlier inventions and was for weaving net. He was sent to Paris to demonstrate it at the National Exposition and received a bronze medal. In 1804 Napoleon granted him a patent, a pension of 1,500 francs and a premium on each machine sold. This enabled him to study and work at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers to perfect his mechanism for pattern weaving. A method of selecting any combination of leashes at each shoot of the weft had to be developed, and Jacquard's mechanism was the outcome of various previous inventions. By taking the cards invented by Falcon in 1728 that were punched with holes like the paper of Bouchon in 1725, to select the needles for each pick, and by placing the apparatus above the loom where Vaucanson had put his mechanism, Jacquard combined the best features of earlier inventions. He was not entirely successful because his invention failed in the way it pressed the card against the needles; later modifications by Breton in 1815 and Skola in 1819 were needed before it functioned reliably. However, the advantage of Jacquard's machine was that each pick could be selected much more quickly than on the earlier draw looms, which meant that John Kay's flying shuttle could be introduced on fine pattern looms because the weaver no longer had to wait for the drawboy to sort out the leashes for the next pick. Robert Kay's drop box could also be used with different coloured wefts. The drawboy could be dispensed with because the foot-pedal operating the Jacquard mechanism could be worked by the weaver. Patterns could be changed quickly by replacing one set of cards with another, but the scope of the pattern was more limited than with the draw loom. Some machines that were brought into use aroused bitter hostility. Jacquard suffered physical violence, barely escaping with his life, and his machines were burnt by weavers at Lyons. However, by 1812 his mechanism began to be generally accepted and had been applied to 11,000 draw-looms in France. In 1819 Jacquard received a gold medal and a Cross of Honour for his invention. His machines reached England c.1816 and still remain the basic way of weaving complicated patterns.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology

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Born on a cattle ranch, Forrester obtained a BSc in electrical engineering at the University of Nebraska in 1939 and his MSc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he remained to teach and carry out research. Becoming interested in computing, he established the Digital Computer Laboratory at MIT in 1945 and became involved in the construction of Whirlwind I, an early general-purpose computer completed in March 1951 and used for flight-simulation by the US Army Air Force. Finding the linear memories then available for storing data a major limiting factor in the speed at which computers were able to operate, he developed a three-dimensional store based on the binary switching of the state of small magnetic cores that could be addressed and switched by a matrix of wires carrying pulses of current. The machine used parallel synchronous fixed-point computing, with fifteen binary digits and a plus sign, i.e. 16 bits in all, and contained 5,000 vacuum tubes, eleven semiconductors and a 2 MHz clock for the arithmetic logic unit. It occupied a two-storey building and consumed 150kW of electricity. From his experience with the development and use of computers, he came to realize their great potential for the simulation and modelling of real situations and hence for the solution of a variety of management problems, using data communications and the technique now known as interactive graphics. His later career was therefore in this field, first at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts (1951) and subsequently (from 1956) as Professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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See also: Burks, Arthur Walter; Goldstine, Herman H.; Wilkes, Maurice Vincent; Williams, Sir Frederic Calland

SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology, Textiles

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Edmund Cartwright, the fourth son of William Cartwright, was educated at Wakefield Grammar School, and went to University College, Oxford, at the age of 14. By special act of convocation in 1764, he was elected Fellow of Magdalen College. He married Alice Whitaker in 1772 and soon after was given the ecclesiastical living of Brampton in Derbyshire. In 1779 he was presented with the living of Goadby, Marwood, Leicestershire, where he wrote poems, reviewed new works, and began agricultural experiments. A visit to Matlock in the summer of 1784 introduced him to the inventions of Richard Arkwright and he asked why weaving could not be mechanized in a similar manner to spinning. This began a remarkable career of inventions.

Cartwright returned home and built a loom which required two strong men to operate it. This was the first attempt in England to develop a power loom. It had a vertical warp, the reed fell with the weight of at least half a hundredweight and, to quote Gartwright's own words, "the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to throw a Congreive [sic] rocket" (Strickland 19.71:8—for background to the "rocket" comparison, see Congreve, Sir William). Nevertheless, it had the same three basics of weaving that still remain today in modern power looms: shedding or dividing the warp; picking or projecting the shuttle with the weft; and beating that pick of weft into place with a reed. This loom he proudly patented in 1785, and then he went to look at hand looms and was surprised to see how simply they operated. Further improvements to his own loom, covered by two more patents in 1786 and 1787, produced a machine with the more conventional horizontal layout that showed promise; however, the Manchester merchants whom he visited were not interested. He patented more improvements in 1788 as a result of the experience gained in 1786 through establishing a factory at Doncaster with power looms worked by a bull that were the ancestors of modern ones. Twenty-four looms driven by steam-power were installed in Manchester in 1791, but the mill was burned down and no one repeated the experiment. The Doncaster mill was sold in 1793, Cartwright having lost £30,000, However, in 1809 Parliament voted him £10,000 because his looms were then coming into general use.

In 1789 he began working on a wool-combing machine which he patented in 1790, with further improvements in 1792. This seems to have been the earliest instance of mechanized combing. It used a circular revolving comb from which the long fibres or "top" were. carried off into a can, and a smaller cylinder-comb for teasing out short fibres or "noils", which were taken off by hand. Its output equalled that of twenty hand combers, but it was only relatively successful. It was employed in various Leicestershire and Yorkshire mills, but infringements were frequent and costly to resist. The patent was prolonged for fourteen years after 1801, but even then Cartwright did not make any profit. His 1792 patent also included a machine to make ropes with the outstanding and basic invention of the "cordelier" which he communicated to his friends, including Robert Fulton, but again it brought little financial benefit. As a result of these problems and the lack of remuneration for his inventions, Cartwright moved to London in 1796 and for a time lived in a house built with geometrical bricks of his own design.

Other inventions followed fast, including a tread-wheel for cranes, metallic packing for pistons in steam-engines, and bread-making and brick-making machines, to mention but a few. He had already returned to agricultural improvements and he put forward suggestions in 1793 for a reaping machine. In 1801 he received a prize from the Board of Agriculture for an essay on husbandry, which was followed in 1803 by a silver medal for the invention of a three-furrow plough and in 1805 by a gold medal for his essay on manures. From 1801 to 1807 he ran an experimental farm on the Duke of Bedford's estates at Woburn.

From 1786 until his death he was a prebendary of Lincoln. In about 1810 he bought a small farm at Hollanden near Sevenoaks, Kent, where he continued his inventions, both agricultural and general. Inventing to the last, he died at Hastings and was buried in Battle church.

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1) Компьютерная техника: Tactile Interactive Monitor, terrestrial interface module

2) Американизм: Total Information Management, Tourist Information Material

3) Военный термин: Target Intelligence Material, Technical Interface Meetings, Training In Mission, Transformation Of Installation Management, tactical interdiction mission, target incendiary marker, technical information manual, technical information on microfilm, test instrumented missile, tracking instruction manual, ТВМ (thermal imaging module), тепловизионный модуль

4) Техника: telephone interface module, temperature indicator monitor, time indicator, miniature, time interval measurement, time interval meter, timing circuit, tracking instrument mount, traffic interface module, transient intermodulation distortion, transistor information microfile, trigger inverter module, Toxic Industrial Material

5) Религия: Teens In Mission, Timothy, Training In Ministry

6) Телекоммуникации: TCP/IP Inverse Multiplexing Protocol, Telecom Idea Management, несовпадение идентификатора трассировки (Time Identifier Mismatch)

7) Сокращение: Tactical Internet Model, Target Information Module, Ticket-Issue Machines Ltd (manufacturer), Transmission Interface Module, time meter, track imitation

8) Электроника: Transparent Insulation Materials

9) Вычислительная техника: Thermal Interface Material (CPU), Token Interface Module (Token Ring)

10) Транспорт: Thunder In Muncie

11) Деловая лексика: Target Industry Marketing, Technology Industry And Manufacturing

12) Образование: Technology Instructional Mentor

13) Химическое оружие: technical interchange meeting

14) Расширение файла: Technical Information Memo (Compaq)

15) Строительные материалы: HIM, heat insulating material, heat insulation material, thermal insulating material, thermal insulation material, теплоизолирующий материал, теплоизоляционный материал, термоизолирующий материал, термоизоляционный материал

16) Электротехника: time-interval meter

17) Чат: This Is Mine

1) Компьютерная техника: Tactile Interactive Monitor, terrestrial interface module

2) Американизм: Total Information Management, Tourist Information Material

3) Военный термин: Target Intelligence Material, Technical Interface Meetings, Training In Mission, Transformation Of Installation Management, tactical interdiction mission, target incendiary marker, technical information manual, technical information on microfilm, test instrumented missile, tracking instruction manual, ТВМ (thermal imaging module), тепловизионный модуль

4) Техника: telephone interface module, temperature indicator monitor, time indicator, miniature, time interval measurement, time interval meter, timing circuit, tracking instrument mount, traffic interface module, transient intermodulation distortion, transistor information microfile, trigger inverter module, Toxic Industrial Material

5) Религия: Teens In Mission, Timothy, Training In Ministry

6) Телекоммуникации: TCP/IP Inverse Multiplexing Protocol, Telecom Idea Management, несовпадение идентификатора трассировки (Time Identifier Mismatch)

7) Сокращение: Tactical Internet Model, Target Information Module, Ticket-Issue Machines Ltd (manufacturer), Transmission Interface Module, time meter, track imitation

8) Электроника: Transparent Insulation Materials

9) Вычислительная техника: Thermal Interface Material (CPU), Token Interface Module (Token Ring)

10) Транспорт: Thunder In Muncie

11) Деловая лексика: Target Industry Marketing, Technology Industry And Manufacturing

12) Образование: Technology Instructional Mentor

13) Химическое оружие: technical interchange meeting

14) Расширение файла: Technical Information Memo (Compaq)

15) Строительные материалы: HIM, heat insulating material, heat insulation material, thermal insulating material, thermal insulation material, теплоизолирующий материал, теплоизоляционный материал, термоизолирующий материал, термоизоляционный материал

16) Электротехника: time-interval meter

17) Чат: This Is Mine

1) Компьютерная техника: Tactile Interactive Monitor, terrestrial interface module

2) Американизм: Total Information Management, Tourist Information Material

3) Военный термин: Target Intelligence Material, Technical Interface Meetings, Training In Mission, Transformation Of Installation Management, tactical interdiction mission, target incendiary marker, technical information manual, technical information on microfilm, test instrumented missile, tracking instruction manual, ТВМ (thermal imaging module), тепловизионный модуль

4) Техника: telephone interface module, temperature indicator monitor, time indicator, miniature, time interval measurement, time interval meter, timing circuit, tracking instrument mount, traffic interface module, transient intermodulation distortion, transistor information microfile, trigger inverter module, Toxic Industrial Material

5) Религия: Teens In Mission, Timothy, Training In Ministry

6) Телекоммуникации: TCP/IP Inverse Multiplexing Protocol, Telecom Idea Management, несовпадение идентификатора трассировки (Time Identifier Mismatch)

7) Сокращение: Tactical Internet Model, Target Information Module, Ticket-Issue Machines Ltd (manufacturer), Transmission Interface Module, time meter, track imitation

8) Электроника: Transparent Insulation Materials

9) Вычислительная техника: Thermal Interface Material (CPU), Token Interface Module (Token Ring)

10) Транспорт: Thunder In Muncie

11) Деловая лексика: Target Industry Marketing, Technology Industry And Manufacturing

12) Образование: Technology Instructional Mentor

13) Химическое оружие: technical interchange meeting

14) Расширение файла: Technical Information Memo (Compaq)

15) Строительные материалы: HIM, heat insulating material, heat insulation material, thermal insulating material, thermal insulation material, теплоизолирующий материал, теплоизоляционный материал, термоизолирующий материал, термоизоляционный материал

16) Электротехника: time-interval meter

17) Чат: This Is Mine

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Metallurgy

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Coolidge obtained his BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1896, and his PhD (physics) from the University of Leipzig in 1899. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT in 1904, and in 1905 he joined the staff of the General Electric Company's research laboratory at Schenectady. In 1905 Schenectady was trying to make tungsten-filament lamps to counter the competition of the tantalum-filament lamps then being produced by their German rival Siemens. The first tungsten lamps made by Just and Hanaman in Vienna in 1904 had been too fragile for general use. Coolidge and his life-long collaborator, Colin G. Fink, succeeded in 1910 by hot-working directly dense sintered tungsten compacts into wire. This success was the result of a flash of insight by Coolidge, who first perceived that fully recrystallized tungsten wire was always brittle and that only partially work-hardened wire retained a measure of ductility. This grasped, a process was developed which induced ductility into the wire by hot-working at temperatures below those required for full recrystallization, so that an elongated fibrous grain structure was progressively developed. Sintered tungsten ingots were swaged to bar at temperatures around 1,500°C and at the end of the process ductile tungsten filament wire was drawn through diamond dies around 550°C. This process allowed General Electric to dominate the world lamp market. Tungsten lamps consumed only one-third the energy of carbon lamps, and for the first time the cost of electric lighting was reduced to that of gas. Between 1911 and 1914, manufacturing licences for the General Electric patents had been granted for most of the developed work. The validity of the General Electric monopoly was bitterly contested, though in all the litigation that followed, Coolidge's fibering principle was upheld. Commercial arrangements between General Electric and European producers such as Siemens led to the name "Osram" being commonly applied to any lamp with a drawn tungsten filament. In 1910 Coolidge patented the use of thoria as a particular additive that greatly improved the high-temperature strength of tungsten filaments. From this development sprang the technique of "dispersion strengthening", still being widely used in the development of high-temperature alloys in the 1990s. In 1913 Coolidge introduced the first controllable hot-cathode X-ray tube, which had a tungsten target and operated in vacuo rather than in a gaseous atmosphere. With this equipment, medical radiography could for the first time be safely practised on a routine basis. During the First World War, Coolidge developed portable X-ray units for use in field hospitals, and between the First and Second World Wars he introduced between 1 and 2 million X-ray machines for cancer treatment and for industrial radiography. He became Director of the Schenectady laboratory in 1932, and from 1940 until 1944 he was Vice-President and Director of Research. After retirement he was retained as an X-ray consultant, and in this capacity he attended the Bikini atom bomb trials in 1946. Throughout the Second World War he was a member of the National Defence Research Committee.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Samuel Crompton was the son of a tenant farmer, George, who became the caretaker of the old house Hall-i-th-Wood, near Bolton, where he died in 1759. As a boy, Samuel helped his widowed mother in various tasks at home, including weaving. He liked music and made his own violin, with which he later was to earn some money to pay for tools for building his spinning mule. He was set to work at spinning and so in 1769 became familiar with the spinning jenny designed by James Hargreaves; he soon noticed the poor quality of the yarn produced and its tendency to break. Crompton became so exasperated with the jenny that in 1772 he decided to improve it. After seven years' work, in 1779 he produced his famous spinning "mule". He built the first one entirely by himself, principally from wood. He adapted rollers similar to those already patented by Arkwright for drawing out the cotton rovings, but it seems that he did not know of Arkwright's invention. The rollers were placed at the back of the mule and paid out the fibres to the spindles, which were mounted on a moving carriage that was drawn away from the rollers as the yarn was paid out. The spindles were rotated to put in twist. At the end of the draw, or shortly before, the rollers were stopped but the spindles continued to rotate. This not only twisted the yarn further, but slightly stretched it and so helped to even out any irregularities; it was this feature that gave the mule yarn extra quality. Then, after the spindles had been turned backwards to unwind the yarn from their tips, they were rotated in the spinning direction again and the yarn was wound on as the carriage was pushed up to the rollers.

The mule was a very versatile machine, making it possible to spin almost every type of yarn. In fact, Samuel Crompton was soon producing yarn of a much finer quality than had ever been spun in Bolton, and people attempted to break into Hall-i-th-Wood to see how he produced it. Crompton did not patent his invention, perhaps because it consisted basically of the essential features of the earlier machines of Hargreaves and Arkwright, or perhaps through lack of funds. Under promise of a generous subscription, he disclosed his invention to the spinning industry, but was shabbily treated because most of the promised money was never paid. Crompton's first mule had forty-eight spindles, but it did not long remain in its original form for many people started to make improvements to it. The mule soon became more popular than Arkwright's waterframe because it could spin such fine yarn, which enabled weavers to produce the best muslin cloth, rivalling that woven in India and leading to an enormous expansion in the British cotton-textile industry. Crompton eventually saved enough capital to set up as a manufacturer himself and around 1784 he experimented with an improved carding engine, although he was not successful. In 1800, local manufacturers raised a sum of £500 for him, and eventually in 1812 he received a government grant of £5,000, but this was trifling in relation to the immense financial benefits his invention had conferred on the industry, to say nothing of his expenses. When Crompton was seeking evidence in 1811 to support his claim for financial assistance, he found that there were 4,209,570 mule spindles compared with 155,880 jenny and 310,516 waterframe spindles. He later set up as a bleacher and again as a cotton manufacturer, but only the gift of a small annuity by his friends saved him from dying in total poverty.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Laithwaite's education at Kirkham Grammar School and Regent Street Polytechnic, London, was followed by service in the Royal Air Force. After entering Manchester University in 1946 and graduating in 1949, he joined the university staff and became Secretary to the Inaugural Conference of the Ferranti Mark I computer. In 1964 he moved to Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, and became Professor of Heavy Electrical Engineering. From 1967 to 1976 he also held the post of External Professor of Applied Electricity at the Royal Institution. Research into the use of linear induction motors as shuttle drives in weaving looms was followed by investigations into their application to conveyors in industrial processes and as high-speed propulsion units for railway vehicles. With considerable involvement in a tracked hovercraft project in the 1960s and 1970s, he proposed the concept of transverse flux and the magnetic river high-speed linear induction machine. Linear motors and electromagnetic levitation have been applied to high-speed propulsion in the United States, France and Japan.

Laithwaite has written five books and over one hundred papers on the subjects of linear motors and electromagnetic levitation. Two series of Christmas lectures were presented by him at the Royal Institution.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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Poncelet studied mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris from 1807 to 1810. He joined the Army, gaining admission to the Corps of Engineers. He worked on the fortifications on the Isle of Walcheren in Holland, and in 1812 he found himself on the Russian front, engulfed in the disastrous defeat of the French at Krasnoi. Poncelet was left for dead on the field, but he was found by the Russians and taken to Saratov, where he was imprisoned for two years. He had ample opportunity there to ponder mathematical problems, a mental process from which stemmed his pioneering advances in projective geometry.

After his release he returned to this native city of Metz, where he undertook routine military engineering and teaching tasks. These left him time to pursue his mathematical studies in projective geometry. This bore fruit in a series of publications, most notably the first volume of his Traité des propriétés projectives des figures (1822, Paris), the first book to be devoted to the new discipline of projective geometry. With his election to the Académie des Sciences in 1834, Poncelet moved to Paris and devoted much of his time to developing courses in applied mechanics in the Faculty of Science, resulting in a number of books, especially the Introduction à la mécanique industrielle, physique ou expérimentale (1841, Paris: Metz). In 1848 he had attained the rank of general and was made Commandant of the Ecole Polytechnique, a post he held for two years. After his retirement in 1850 he was deeply involved in the industrial machines and tools division at both the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and the similar exhibition in Paris in 1855.

Most of Poncelet's work in applied mechanics and technology was conceived during the period 1825–40. His technological innovations were centred on hydraulic engineering, and in 1826 he invented an inward-flow turbine. At the same time he directed his attention to the vertical undershot water-wheel, with wooden blades set radially and substituted curved metal blades: he used tight-fitting masonry and floors in the wheel pits so that all the water would be swept into the spaces between the blades. In addition, he ensured that the water flowing from the blades fell clear of the wheel and did not run in tail water. This greatly improved the efficiency of the water-wheel.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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On 4 November 1766 David Thornley married Mary, daughter of Joseph Brown, roper, at St Peter's, Liverpool. In Gore's Dictionary for 1767 Thornley is described as "merchant" and his wife as "milliner" of Castle Street, Liverpool. David Thornley was distantly related to Richard Arkwright and certainly by 1768 Thornley had begun his active association with Arkwright when he joined him in Preston, an event recorded in the inquiry into the qualifications of those who had voted in the Burgoyne election. Thornley may have helped Arkwright with the technical development of his spinning machine.

On 14 May 1768, Arkwright, Smalley and Thornley became partners in the cotton-spinning venture at Nottingham for a term of fourteen years, or longer if a patent could be obtained. Each partner was to have three one-ninth shares and was to advance such money as might be necessary to apply for a patent as well as to develop the spinning machine. Profits were to be divided equally as often as convenient and the partners were to devote their whole time to the business after a period of two years. How-ever, it seems that in 1769 the partners had difficulty in raising the necessary money to finance the patent, and Thornley had to reduce his stake in the partnership to a one-ninth share. By this time Thornley must have moved to Nottingham, where Arkwright established his first mill. On 19 January 1770, additional finance was provided by two new partners, Samuel Need and Jedediah Strutt, and alterations were made to the mill buildings that the partners had leased to work the spinning machines by horse power. Arkwright and Thornley were to be responsible for the day-to-day management of the mill, receiving £25 per annum for these duties. Thornley appears to have remained at Nottingham to supervise the mill, while the other partners moved to Cromford to establish the much larger enterprise there. It was at Nottingham that David Thornley died in January 1772, and his share in the partnership was bought from his wife, Mary, by Arkwright. Mary returned to her millinery business in Liverpool.

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