Mechanics Magazine

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Cayley was born into a well-to-do Yorkshire family living at Brompton Hall. He was encouraged to study mathematics, navigation and mechanics, particularly by his mother. In 1792 he succeeded to the baronetcy and took over the daunting task of revitalizing the run-down family estate.

The first aeronautical device made by Cayley was a copy of the toy helicopter invented by the Frenchmen Launoy and Bienvenu in 1784. Cayley's version, made in 1796, convinced him that a machine could "rise in the air by mechanical means", as he later wrote. He studied the aerodynamics of flight and broke away from the unsuccessful ornithopters of his predecessors. In 1799 he scratched two sketches on a silver disc: one side of the disc showed the aerodynamic force on a wing resolved into lift and drag, and on the other side he illustrated his idea for a fixed-wing aeroplane; this disc is preserved in the Science Museum in London. In 1804 he tested a small wing on the end of a whirling arm to measure its lifting power. This led to the world's first model glider, which consisted of a simple kite (the wing) mounted on a pole with an adjustable cruciform tail. A full-size glider followed in 1809 and this flew successfully unmanned. By 1809 Cayley had also investigated the lifting properties of cambered wings and produced a low-drag aerofoil section. His aim was to produce a powered aeroplane, but no suitable engines were available. Steam-engines were too heavy, but he experimented with a gunpowder motor and invented the hot-air engine in 1807. He published details of some of his aeronautical researches in 1809–10 and in 1816 he wrote a paper on airships. Then for a period of some twenty-five years he was so busy with other activities that he largely neglected his aeronautical researches. It was not until 1843, at the age of 70, that he really had time to pursue his quest for flight. The Mechanics' Magazine of 8 April 1843 published drawings of "Sir George Cayley's Aerial Carriage", which consisted of a helicopter design with four circular lifting rotors—which could be adjusted to become wings—and two pusher propellers. In 1849 he built a full-size triplane glider which lifted a boy off the ground for a brief hop. Then in 1852 he proposed a monoplane glider which could be launched from a balloon. Late in 1853 Cayley built his "new flyer", another monoplane glider, which carried his coachman as a reluctant passenger across a dale at Brompton, Cayley became involved in public affairs and was MP for Scarborough in 1832. He also took a leading part in local scientific activities and was co-founder of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831 and of the Regent Street Polytechnic Institution in 1838.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Davidson, son of an Aberdeen merchant, attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, between 1819 and 1822: his studies included mathematics, mechanics and chemistry. He subsequently joined his father's grocery business, which from time to time received enquiries for yeast: to meet these, Davidson began to manufacture yeast for sale and from that start built up a successful chemical manufacturing business with the emphasis on yeast and dyes. About 1837 he started to experiment first with electric batteries and then with motors. He invented a form of electromagnetic engine in which soft iron bars arranged on the periphery of a wooden cylinder, parallel to its axis, around which the cylinder could rotate, were attracted by fixed electromagnets. These were energized in turn by current controlled by a simple commutaring device. Electric current was produced by his batteries. His activities were brought to the attention of Michael Faraday and to the scientific world in general by a letter from Professor Forbes of King's College, Aberdeen. Davidson declined to patent his inventions, believing that all should be able freely to draw advantage from them, and in order to afford an opportunity for all interested parties to inspect them an exhibition was held at 36 Union Street, Aberdeen, in October 1840 to demonstrate his "apparatus actuated by electro-magnetic power". It included: a model locomotive carriage, large enough to carry two people, that ran on a railway; a turning lathe with tools for visitors to use; and a small printing machine. In the spring of 1842 he put on a similar exhibition in Edinburgh, this time including a sawmill. Davidson sought support from railway companies for further experiments and the construction of an electromagnetic locomotive; the Edinburgh exhibition successfully attracted the attention of the proprietors of the Edinburgh 585\& Glasgow Railway (E \& GR), whose line had been opened in February 1842. Davidson built a full-size locomotive incorporating his principle, apparently at the expense of the railway company. The locomotive weighed 7 tons: each of its two axles carried a cylinder upon which were fastened three iron bars, and four electromagnets were arranged in pairs on each side of the cylinders. The motors he used were reluctance motors, the power source being zinc-iron batteries. It was named Galvani and was demonstrated on the E \& GR that autumn, when it achieved a speed of 4 mph (6.4 km/h) while hauling a load of 6 tons over a distance of 1 1/2 miles (2.4 km); it was the first electric locomotive. Nevertheless, further support from the railway company was not forthcoming, although to some railway workers the locomotive seems to have appeared promising enough: they destroyed it in Luddite reaction. Davidson staged a further exhibition in London in 1843 without result and then, the cost of battery chemicals being high, ceased further experiments of this type. He survived long enough to see the electric railway become truly practicable in the 1880s.

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PJGR / GW

SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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The son of a minor official in a magistrate's court, Daguerre showed an early aptitude for drawing. He was first apprenticed to an architect, but in 1804 he moved to Paris to learn the art of stage design. He was particularly interested in perspective and lighting, and later showed great ingenuity in lighting stage sets. Fascinated by a popular form of entertainment of the period, the panorama, he went on to create a variant of it called the diorama. It is assumed that he used a camera obscura for perspective drawings and, by purchasing it from the optician Chevalier, he made contact with Joseph Nicéphore Niepce. In 1829 Niepce and Daguerre entered into a formal partnership to perfect Niepce's heliographic process, but the partnership was dissolved when Niepce died in 1833, when only limited progress had been made. Daguerre continued experimenting alone, however, using iodine and silver plates; by 1837 he had discovered that images formed in the camera obscura could be developed by mercury vapour and fixed with a hot salt solution. After unsuccessfully attempting to sell his process, Daguerre approached F.J.D. Arago, of the Académie des Sciences, who announced the discovery in 1839. Details of Daguerre's work were not published until August of that year when the process was presented free to the world, except England. With considerable business acumen, Daguerre had quietly patented the process through an agent, Miles Berry, in London a few days earlier. He also granted a monopoly to make and sell his camera to a Monsieur Giroux, a stationer by trade who happened to be a relation of Daguerre's wife. The daguerreotype process caused a sensation when announced. Daguerre was granted a pension by a grateful government and honours were showered upon him all over the world. It was a direct positive process on silvered copper plates and, in fact, proved to be a technological dead end. The future was to lie with negative-positive photography devised by Daguerre's British contemporary, W.H.F. Talbot, although Daguerre's was the first practicable photographic process to be announced. It captured the public's imagination and in an improved form was to dominate professional photographic practice for more than a decade.

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SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour

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Born in Roseneath manse, son of the minister, he was educated after his father's death by an aunt, a Mrs Turner, to whom he later paid back the cost, and was later an officer in the corps that was raised to resist the rebellion of 1745. He studied at Glasgow, where in 1756 he became Professor of Oriental Languages and, in 1760, Professor of Natural Philosophy; he is notable for allowing artisans to attend his lectures in their working clothes. He planned the fortifications set up to defend Greenock in 1759, and was sympathetic with the French Revolution. He invented a cannon in which the recoil was counteracted by the condensation of air in the carriage. After unsuccessfully trying to interest the Government in this gun, he went to Paris in 1791 and offered it to the National Convention. While there he invented a means of smuggling French newspapers into Germany by the use of small balloons. He lost in a lawsuit with the other professors. In 1786 he published Institutes of Physics, which ran to five editions in ten years, and in 1800 he wrote on Roman antiquities. Upon his death he left all his library and apparatus to an educational institute, which was named after him but has now become the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

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SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines

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Between the years 1823 and 1833, Brown achieved a number of a firsts as a pioneer of internal-combustion engines. In 1824 he built a full-scale working model of a pumping engine; in 1826, a vehicle fitted with a gas vacuum engine ascended Shooters Hill in Kent; and in 1827 he conducted trials of a motor-driven boat on the Thames that were witnessed by Lords of the Admiralty. The principle of Brown's engine had been demonstrated by Cecil in 1820. A burning gas flame was extinguished within a closed cylinder, creating a partial vacuum; atmospheric pressure was then utilized to produce the working stroke. By 1832 a number of Brown's engines in use for pumping water were reported, the most notable being at Croydon Canal. However, high fuel consumption and running costs prevented a wide acceptance of Brown's engines, and a company formed in 1825 was dissolved only two years later. Brown continued alone with his work until his death.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

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Cyrus McCormick's father, a farmer, began to experiment unsuccessfully with a harvesting machine between 1809 and 1816. His son took up the challenge and gave his first public demonstration of his machine in 1831. It cut a 4 ft swathe, but, wanting to perfect the machine, he waited until 1834 before patenting it, by which time he felt that his invention was threatened by others of similar design. In the same year he entered an article in the Mechanics Magazine, warning competitors off his design. His main rival was Obed Hussey who contested McCormick's claim to the originality of the idea, having patented his own machine six months before McCormick.

A competition between the two machines was held in 1843, the judges favouring McCormick's, even after additional trials were conducted after objections of unfairness from Hussey. The rivalry continued over a number of years, being avidly reported in the agricultural press. The publicity did no harm to reaper sales, and McCormick sold twenty-nine machines in 1843 and fifty the following year.

As the westward settlement movement progressed, so the demand for McCormick's machine grew. In order to be more central to his markets, McCormick established himself in Chicago. In partnership with C.M.Gray he established a factory to produce 500 harvesters for the 1848 season. By means of advertising and offers of credit terms, as well as production-line assembly, McCormick was able to establish himself as sole owner and also control all production, under the one roof. By the end of the decade he dominated reaper production but other developments were to threaten this position; however, foreign markets were appearing at the same time, not least the opportunities of European sales stimulated by the Great Exhibition in 1851. In the trials arranged by the Royal Agricultural Society of England the McCormick machine significantly outperformed that of Hussey's, and as a result McCormick arranged for 500 to be made under licence in England.

In 1874 McCormick bought a half interest in the patent for a wire binder from Charles Withington, a watchmaker from Janesville, Wisconsin, and by 1885 a total of 50,000 wire binders had been built in Chicago. By 1881 McCormick was producing twine binders using Appleby's twine knotter under a licence agreement, and by 1885 the company was producing only twine binders. The McCormick Company was one of the co-founders of the International Harvester Company in 1901.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Metallurgy

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The son of a Birmingham chemist, Woolrich was educated at King Edward's Grammar School, Birmingham, and later became a lecturer in chemistry. As an alternative to primary cells for the supply of current for electroplating, he devised a magneto generator.

His original machine had a single compound permanent magnet; the distance between the revolving armature and the magnet could be varied to adjust the rate of deposition of metal. A more ambitious machine designed by Woolrich was constructed by Thomas Prime \& Sons in 1844 and for many years was used at their Birmingham electroplating works. Faraday, on a visit to see the machine at work, is said to have expressed delight at his discovery of electromagnetic induction being put to practical use so soon. Similar machines were in use by Elkington's, Fern and others in Birmingham and Sheffield. One of Woolrich's machines is preserved in the Birmingham Science Museum.

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1) (newspaper) Zeitung, die; (periodical) Zeitschrift, die

2) (daily record of events) Tagebuch, das

* * *

1) (a magazine or other regularly published paper (eg of a society): the British Medical Journal.) das Journal

2) (a diary giving an account of each day's activities.) das Tagebuch

•

- academic.ru/40109/journalism">journalism

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[ˈʤɜ:n^əl, AM ˈʤɜ:r-]

1. (periodical) Zeitschrift f, SCHWEIZ a. Heftli nt fam; (newspaper) Zeitung f

medical \journal medizinische Fachzeitschrift, Ärzteblatt nt

quarterly \journal Vierteljahresschrift f

2. (diary) Tagebuch nt; NAUT Logbuch nt, Schiffstagebuch nt; ECON Journal nt, Geschäftstagebuch nt

to keep a \journal Tagebuch führen

3. COMPUT Protokoll nt

* * *

1) (= magazine) Zeitschrift f; (= newspaper) Zeitung f

2) (= diary) Tagebuch nt

3) (NAUT) Logbuch nt, Bordbuch nt; (COMM) Journal nt; (= daybook) Tagebuch nt; (JUR) Gerichtsakten pl

4) (of fax machine) Sendebericht m; (MECH) Achszapfen m, Achsschenkel m

* * *

J. abk

1. ELEK joule

2. Journal

3. Judge

4. Justice

* * *

1) (newspaper) Zeitung, die; (periodical) Zeitschrift, die

2) (daily record of events) Tagebuch, das

* * *

Lagerzapfen m. (press) n.

Revue -n f. n.

Journal -e n.

Protokoll n.

Tagebuch -¨er n.

Zeitschrift f.

1) (newspaper) Zeitung, die; (periodical) Zeitschrift, die

2) (daily record of events) Tagebuch, das

* * *

1) (a magazine or other regularly published paper (eg of a society): the British Medical Journal.) das Journal

2) (a diary giving an account of each day's activities.) das Tagebuch

•

- academic.ru/40109/journalism">journalism

* * *

[ˈʤɜ:n^əl, AM ˈʤɜ:r-]

1. (periodical) Zeitschrift f, SCHWEIZ a. Heftli nt fam; (newspaper) Zeitung f

medical \journal medizinische Fachzeitschrift, Ärzteblatt nt

quarterly \journal Vierteljahresschrift f

2. (diary) Tagebuch nt; NAUT Logbuch nt, Schiffstagebuch nt; ECON Journal nt, Geschäftstagebuch nt

to keep a \journal Tagebuch führen

3. COMPUT Protokoll nt

* * *

1) (= magazine) Zeitschrift f; (= newspaper) Zeitung f

2) (= diary) Tagebuch nt

3) (NAUT) Logbuch nt, Bordbuch nt; (COMM) Journal nt; (= daybook) Tagebuch nt; (JUR) Gerichtsakten pl

4) (of fax machine) Sendebericht m; (MECH) Achszapfen m, Achsschenkel m

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journal [ˈdʒɜːnl; US ˈdʒɜrnl] s

1. Tagebuch n

2. Buchhaltung: Journal n, Grundbuch n

3. PARL Protokoll n:

the Journals pl Br das Protokollbuch

4. a) Journal n, Zeitschrift f

b) Zeitung f

5. a) SCHIFF Journal n, Logbuch n

b) Sendebericht m (eines Faxgeräts)

6. TECH (Lager-, Wellen) Zapfen m, Achsschenkel m:

journal bearing Achs-, Zapfenlager n;

journal box Lagerbüchse f

jour. abk

1. journal

2. journalist

3. journeyman

* * *

1) (newspaper) Zeitung, die; (periodical) Zeitschrift, die

2) (daily record of events) Tagebuch, das

* * *

Lagerzapfen m. (press) n.

Revue -n f. n.

Journal -e n.

Protokoll n.

Tagebuch -¨er n.

Zeitschrift f.

1) Телекоммуникации: Service Quality Management, Signal Quality Manager

2) Физика: Super Quantum Mechanics

3) Экология: Stream Quality Monitoring

4) СМИ: Software Quality Management Magazine

5) Деловая лексика: Service Quality Measurement, Service Quality Measurement Group, Supplier Quality Management, Sustainable Quality Management

6) Океанография: Surface Quality Monitor

7) Карачаганак: Service Quality Meeting (Карачаганак), Совещание по качеству обслуживания скважин (Карачаганак, Rigless Operations)

8) Чат: SQuirM

9) НАСА: Satellite Quality Monitor, Software Quality Management

10) Единицы измерений: SQuare Meter

COMP&DP matriz f

CONST civil engineering matriz f, pasta f

GEOL, MATH, METALL, PROD, TV matriz f

SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors

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Frank Hornby left school at the age of 16 and worked as a clerk, at first for his father, a provision merchant, and later for D.H.Elliott, an importer of meat and livestock, for whom he became Managing Clerk. As a youth he was interested in engineering and in his own small workshop he became a skilled amateur mechanic. He made toys for his children and c.1900 he devised a constructional toy kit consisting of perforated metal strips which could be connected by bolts and nuts. He filed a patent application in January 1901 and, having failed to interest established toy manufacturers, he set up a small business in partnership with his employer, D.H. Elliott, who provided financial support. The kits were sold at first under the name of Mechanics Made Easy, but by 1907 the name Meccano had been registered as a trade mark. The business expanded rapidly and in 1908 Elliott withdrew from the partnership and Hornby continued on his own account, the company being incorporated as Meccano Ltd. Although parts for Meccano were produced at first by various manufacturers, Hornby soon acquired premises to produce all the components under his own control, and between 1910 and 1913 he established his own factory on a 5-acre (2-hectare) site at Binn's Road, Liverpool. The Meccano Magazine, a monthly publication with articles of general engineering interest, developed from a newsletter giving advice on the use of Meccano, and from the first issue in 1916 until 1924 was edited by Frank Hornby. In 1920 he introduced the clockwork Hornby trains, followed by the electric version five years later. These were gauge "0" (1 1/4 in./32 mm); the smaller gauge "00", or Hornby Dublo, was a later development. Another product of Meccano Ltd was the series of model vehicles known as Dinky toys, introduced in 1934.

Frank Hornby served as a Member of Parliament for the Everton Division of Liverpool from 1931 to 1935.

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