Museum of Science and Industry

тж Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Mercer began work at the age of 9 as a bobbinwinder and then a hand-loom weaver. He had no formal education in chemistry but taught himself and revealed remarkable ability in both theoretical and applied aspects of the subject. He became the acknowledged "father of textile chemistry" and the Royal Society elected him Fellow in 1850. His name is remembered in connection with the lustrous "mercerized" cotton which, although not developed commercially until 1890, arose from his discovery, c. 1844, of the effect of caustic soda on cotton linters. He also discovered that cotton could be dissolved in a solution of copper oxide in ammonia, a phenomenon later exploited in the manufacture of artificial silk. As a youth, Mercer experimented at home with dyeing processes and soon acquired sufficient skill to set up as an independent dyer. Most of his working life was, however, spent with the calico-printing firm of Oakenshaw Print Works in which he eventually became a partner, and it was there that most of his experimental work was done. The association was a very appropriate one, for it was a member of this firm's staff who first recognized Mercer's potential talent and took the trouble in his spare time to teach him reading, writing and arithmetic. Mercer developed manganese-bronze colours and researched into catalysis and the ferrocyanides. Among his innovations was the chlorination of wool in order to make it print as easily as cotton. It was many years later that it was realized that this treatment also conferred valuable shrink-resisting qualities. Becoming interested in photochemistry, he devised processes for photographic printing on fabric. Queen Victoria was presented with a handkerchief printed in this way when she visited the Great Exhibition of 1851, of which Mercer was a juror. A photograph of Mercer himself on cloth is preserved in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. He presented papers to the British Association and was a member of the Chemical Society.

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1) Деловая лексика: Option Market System International

2) Музеи: Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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He was the eldest son of Wolf Christopher Polhamma, a merchant. The father died in 1669 and the son was sent by his stepfather to an uncle in Stockholm who found him a place in the Deutsche Rechenschule. After the death of his uncle, he was forced to find employment, which he did with the Biorenklou family near Uppsala where he eventually became a kind of estate bailiff. It was during this period that he started to work with a lathe, a forge and at carpentry, displaying great technical ability. He realized that without further education he had little chance of making anything of his life, and accordingly, in 1687, he registered at the University of Uppsala where he studied astronomy and mathematics, remaining there for three years. He also repaired two astronomical pendulum clocks as well as the decrepit medieval clock in the cathedral. After a year's work he had this clock running properly: this was his breakthrough. He was summoned to Stockholm where the King awarded him a salary of 500 dalers a year as an encouragement to further efforts. Around this time, one of increasing mechanization and when mining was Sweden's principal industry, Pohlem made a model of a hoist frame for mines and the Mines Authority encouraged him to develop his ideas. In 1693 Polhem completed the Blankstot hoist at the Stora Kopparberg mine, which attracted great interest on the European continent.

From 1694 to 1696 Polhem toured factories, mills and mines abroad in Germany, Holland, England and France, studying machinery of all kinds and meeting many foreign engineers. In 1698 he was appointed Director of Mining Engineering in Sweden, and in 1700 he became Master of Construction in the Falu Mine. He installed the Karl XII hoist there, powered by moving beams from a distant water-wheel. His plan of 1697 for all the machinery at the Falu mine to be driven by three large and remote water-wheels was never completed.

In 1707 he was invited by the Elector of Hanover to visit the mines in the Harz district, where he successfully explained many of his ideas which were adopted by the local engineers. In 1700, in conjunction with Gabriel Stierncrona, he founded the Stiersunds Bruk at Husby in Southern Dalarna, a factory for the mass production of metal goods in iron, steel and bronze. Simple articles such as pans, trays, bowls, knives, scissors and mirrors were made there, together with the more sophisticated Polhem lock and the Stiersunds clock. Production was based on water power. Gear cutting for the clocks, shaping hammers for plates, file cutting and many other operations were all water powered, as was a roller mill for the sheet metal used in the factory. He also designed textile machinery such as stocking looms and spinning frames and machines for the manufacture of ribbons and other things.

In many of his ideas Polhem was in advance of his time and Swedish country society was unable to absorb them. This was largely the reason for the Stiersund project being only a partial success. Polhem, too, was of a disputatious nature, self-opinionated almost to the point of conceit. He was a prolific writer, leaving over 20,000 pages of manuscript notes, drafts, essays on a wide range of subjects, which included building, brick-making, barrels, wheel-making, bell-casting, organ-building, methods of stopping a horse from bolting and a curious tap "to prevent serving maids from sneaking wine from the cask", the construction of ploughs and threshing machines. His major work, Kort Berattelse om de Fornamsta Mechaniska Inventioner (A Brief Account of the Most Famous Inventions), was printed in 1729 and is the main source of knowledge about his technological work. He is also known for his "mechanical alphabet", a collection of some eighty wooden models of mechanisms for educational purposes. It is in the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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After attending schools in Langres and Dijon, Jobard worked in Groningen and Maastricht as a cadastral officer from 1811 onwards. After the Netherlands had been constituted as a new state in 1814, he became a Dutch citizen in 1815 and settled in Brussels. In 1825, when he had learned of the invention of lithography by Alois Senefelder, he retired and established a renowned lithographic workshop in Belgium, with considerable commercial profit. After the political changes which led to the separation of Belgium from the Netherlands in 1830, he devoted his activities to the progress of science and industry in this country, in the traditional idea of enlightenment. His main aim was to promote all branches of the young economy, to which he contributed with ceaseless energy. He cultivated especially the transfer of technology in many articles he wrote on his various journeys, such as to Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, and he continued to do so when he became the Director of the Museum of Industry in Brussels in 1841, editing its Bulletin until his death. Jobard, as a member of societies for the encouragement of arts and industry in many countries, published on almost any subject and produced many inventions. Being a restless character by nature, and having, in addition, a strong attitude towards designing and constructing, he also contributed to mining technology in 1828 when he was the first European to practise successfully the Chinese method of rope drilling near Brussels.

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feminine of INFORMÁTICO.

information technology, computer science, data processing, informatics.

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► nombre femenino

1 computer science, computing

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SF computing

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femenino computer science, computing

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= computer science, computing science, computing, computing field.

Ex. The subject is an interdisciplinary one, with connections with computer science, the new media and the humanities and sciences generally.

Ex. Although still wide, this definition excluded programmes in the computing science and information technology field designed for technologists.

Ex. Developments in computing and telecommunication have brought about fundamental changes in worldwide business practices.

Ex. The author summarises the subject coverage of the computing field, sources abstracted/indexed, content of the records and indexing practice.

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* acreditación en informática = computer driving licence.

* acreditación europea en informática = European computer driving licence (ECDL).

* aficionado a la informática = computer buff.

* alfabetización en informática = computer literacy.

* amante de la informática = computer buff.

* aparato de informática del tamaño de la palma de la mano = palm computing device.

* chiflado de la informática = computer geek.

* con conocimiento de informática = computer literate [computer-literate].

* conocimiento básicos de informática = computer literacy.

* desde el punto de vista de la informática = computationally.

* en la sala de informática = lab based [lab-based].

* era de la informática, la = computer age, the.

* experto en informática = computer expert.

* formación en informática = computer literacy.

* friki de la informática = computer geek, computer whiz.

* friqui de la informática = computer geek, computer whiz.

* informática a distancia = telecomputing.

* informática aplicada a los museos = museum computing field.

* informática caótica = chaotic computing.

* informática documental = library computing, library computing field.

* informática educativa = educational computing.

* la industria de la informática = computer industry.

* microinformática = micro-informatics.

* revistas de informática = computer press, the.

* sala de informática = computer room, computer lab, computer laboratory.

* servicio de informática = computing service.

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femenino computer science, computing

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computer science, computing

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informática nf

1. [tecnología] computing, information technology;

el departamento de informática de una empresa the IT department of a company;

la empresa va a invertir más en informática the company is going to invest more in computers;

no sé nada de informática I don't know anything about computers;

se requieren conocimientos de informática candidates should be computer-literate

2. [asignatura] computer science

3. ver informático

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f information technology

I adj computer atr

II m, informática f IT specialist

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informática nf

: computer science, computing

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informática n computing / information technology

SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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He worked on his father's farm, was a clerk in a hotel and a store, and then became an express agent at a railway company in Springfield, Massachusetts, c.1845. After he had been working as a railway conductor in New Haven, Connecticut, for eight years, he resigned because of ill health. Owning some stocks in a Pennsylvania rock-oil company, which gathered oil from ground-level seepages mainly for medicinal use, he was engaged by this company and moved to Titusville, Pennsylvania, at the age of almost 40. After studying salt-well drilling by cable tool, which was still percussive, he became enthusiastic about the idea of using the same method to drill for oil, especially after researches in chemistry had revealed this new sort of fossil energy some years before.

As a manager of the Seneca Oil Company, which referred to him as "Colonel" in letters of introduction simply to impress people with such titles, Drake began drilling in 1858, almost at the same time as pole-tool drilling for oil was started in Germany. His main contribution to the technology was the use of an iron pipe driven through the quicksand and the bedrock to prevent the bore-hole from filling. After nineteen months he struck oil at a depth of 21 m (69 ft) in August 1859. This was the first time that petroleum was struck at its source and the first proof of the presence of oil reservoirs within the earth's surface. Drake inaugurated the search for and the exploitation of the deep oil resources of the world and he initiated the science of petroleum engineering which became established at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Drake failed to patent his drilling method; he was content being an oil commission merchant and Justice of the Peace in Titusville, which like other places in Pennsylvania became a boom town. Four years later he went to New York, where he lost all his money in oil speculations. He became very ill again and lived in poverty in Vermont and New Jersey until 1873, when he moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he was pensioned by the state of Pennsylvania. The city of Titusville erected a monument to him and founded the Drake Museum.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Public utilities

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Ferranti, who had taken an interest in electrical and mechanical devices from an early age, was educated at St Augustine's College in Ramsgate and for a short time attended evening classes at University College, London. Rather than pursue an academic career, Ferranti, who had intense practical interests, found employment in 1881 with the Siemens Company (see Werner von Siemens) in their experimental department. There he had the opportunity to superintend the installation of electric-lighting plants in various parts of the country. Becoming acquainted with Alfred Thomson, an engineer, Ferranti entered into a short-lived partnership with him to manufacture the Ferranti alternator. This generator, with a unique zig-zag armature, had an efficiency exceeding that of all its rivals. Finding that Sir William Thomson had invented a similar machine, Ferranti formed a company with him to combine the inventions and produce the Ferranti- Thomson machine. For this the Hammond Electric Light and Power Company obtained the sole selling rights.

In 1885 the Grosvenor Gallery Electricity Supply Corporation was having serious problems with its Gaulard and Gibbs series distribution system. Ferranti, when consulted, reviewed the design and recommended transformers connected across constant-potential mains. In the following year, at the age of 22, he was appointed Engineer to the company and introduced the pattern of electricity supply that was eventually adopted universally. Ambitious plans by Ferranti for London envisaged the location of a generating station of unprecedented size at Deptford, about eight miles (13 km) from the city, a departure from the previous practice of placing stations within the area to be supplied. For this venture the London Electricity Supply Corporation was formed. Ferranti's bold decision to bring the supply from Deptford at the hitherto unheard-of pressure of 10,000 volts required him to design suitable cables, transformers and generators. Ferranti planned generators with 10,000 hp (7,460 kW)engines, but these were abandoned at an advanced stage of construction. Financial difficulties were caused in part when a Board of Trade enquiry in 1889 reduced the area that the company was able to supply. In spite of this adverse situation the enterprise continued on a reduced scale. Leaving the London Electricity Supply Corporation in 1892, Ferranti again started his own business, manufacturing electrical plant. He conceived the use of wax-impregnated paper-insulated cables for high voltages, which formed a landmark in the history of cable development. This method of flexible-cable manufacture was used almost exclusively until synthetic materials became available. In 1892 Ferranti obtained a patent which set out the advantages to be gained by adopting sector-shaped conductors in multi-core cables. This was to be fundamental to the future design and development of such cables.

A total of 176 patents were taken out by S.Z. de Ferranti. His varied and numerous inventions included a successful mercury-motor energy meter and improvements to textile-yarn produc-tion. A transmission-line phenomenon where the open-circuit voltage at the receiving end of a long line is greater than the sending voltage was named the Ferranti Effect after him.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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His father was a mason and brickmaker but, anxious to improve himself, Cort set up in London in 1765 as a navy agent, said to have been a profitable business. He recognized that, at that time, the conversion of pig iron to malleable or wrought iron, which was needed in increasing quantities as developments in industry and mechanical engineering gathered pace, presented a bottleneck in the ironmaking process. The finery hearth was still in use, slow and inefficient and requiring the scarce charcoal as fuel. To tackle this problem, Cort gave up his business and acquired a furnace and slitting mill at Fontley, near Fareham in Hampshire. In 1784 he patented his puddling process, by which molten pig iron on the bed of a reverberatory furnace was stirred with an iron bar and, by the action of the flame and the oxygen in the air, the carbon in the pig iron was oxidized, leaving nearly pure iron, which could be forged to remove slag. In this type of furnace, the fuel and the molten iron were separated, so that the cheaper coal could be used as fuel. It was the stirring action with the iron bar that gave the name "puddling" to the process. Others had realized the problem and reached a similar solution, notably the brothers Thomas and George Cranage, but only Cort succeeded in developing a commercially viable process. The laborious hammering of the ball of iron thus produced was much reduced by an invention of the previous year, 1783. This too was patented. The iron was passed between grooved rollers to form it into bars. Cort entered into an agreement with Samuel Jellico to set up an ironworks at Gosport to exploit his inventions. Samuel's father Adam, Deputy Paymaster of the Navy, advanced capital for this venture, Cort having expended much of his own resources in the experimental work that preceded his inventions. However, it transpired that Jellico senior had, unknown to Cort, used public money to advance the capital; the Admiralty acted to recover the money and Cort lost heavily, including the benefits from his patents. Rival ironmasters were quick to pillage the patents. In 1790, and again the following year, Cort offered unsuccessfully to work for the military. Finally, in 1794, at the instigation of the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, Cort was paid a pension of £200 per year in recognition of the value of his improvements in the technology of ironmaking, although this was reduced by deductions to £160. After his death, the pension to his widow was halved, while some of his children received a pittance. Without the advances made by Cort, however, the iron trade could not have met the rapidly increasing demand for iron during the industrial revolution.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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A.V.Roe served an apprenticeship at a railway works, studied marine engineering at Kings College London, served at sea as an engineer, and then took a job in the motor-car industry. His hobby was flying: after studying bird-flight, he built several flying models and in 1907 one of these won a prize offered by the Daily Mail. With the prize money he built a full-size aeroplane loosely based on the Flyer of the Wright brothers, with whom he had corresponded. In September, Roe took his biplane to the motorracing circuit at Brooklands, in Surrey, but it made only a few hops and his activities were not welcomed. Roe then moved to Essex, where he assembled his new aeroplane under the arch of a railway bridge. This was a triplane design with the engine at the front (a "tractor"), and during 1909 it made several flights (this triplane is preserved by the Science Museum in London).

In 1910 Roe and his brother Humphrey founded A.V.Roe \& Co. in Manchester, they described it the "Aviator's Storehouse". During the next three years Roe designed and built aeroplanes in Manchester, then transported them to Brooklands to fly (the authorities now made him more welcome). One of the most significant of these was his Type D tractor biplane of 1911, which led to the Avro 504 two-seater trainer of 1913. This was one of the most successful trainers of all time, as around 10,000 were built. In November 1914 a flight of Avro 504s carried out the first-ever bombing raid when they attacked German airship sheds as Friedrichshafen. A.V.Roe produced the first aeroplanes with enclosed cabins during 1912: the Type F monoplane and Type G biplane. After the war, his Avian was used for several record-breaking flights. In 1928 he sold his interest in the company bearing his name and joined forces with Saunders Ltd of Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, to found Saunders-Roe Ltd. "Saro" produced a series of flying boats, from the four-seat Cutty Sark of 1929 to the large, and ill-fated, Princess of 1952.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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After serving an apprenticeship in the lace industry, Stringfellow left Nottingham in about 1820 and moved to Chard in Somerset, where he set up his own business. He had wide interests such as photography, politics, and the use of electricity for medical treatment. Stringfellow met William Samuel Henson, who also lived in Chard and was involved in lacemaking, and became interested in his "aerial steam carriage" of 1842–3. When support for this project foundered, Henson and Stringfellow drew up an agreement "Whereas it is intended to construct a model of an Aerial Machine". They built a large model with a wing span of 20 ft (6 m) and powered by a steam engine, which was probably the work of Stringfellow. The model was tested on a hillside near Chard, often at night to avoid publicity, but despite many attempts it never made a successful flight. At this point Henson emigrated to the United States. From 1848 Stringfellow continued to experiment with models of his own design, starting with one with a wing span of 10 ft (3m). He decided to test it in a disused lace factory, rather than in the open air. Stringfellow fitted a horizontal wire which supported the model as it gained speed prior to free flight. Unfortunately, neither this nor later models made a sustained flight, despite Stringfellow's efficient lightweight steam engine. For many years Stringfellow abandoned his aeronautical experiments, then in 1866 when the (Royal) Aeronautical Society was founded, his interest was revived. He built a steam-powered triplane, which was demonstrated "flying" along a wire at the world's first Aeronautical Exhibition, held at Crystal Palace, London, in 1868. Stringfellow also received a cash prize for one of his engines, which was the lightest practical power unit at the Exhibition. Although Stringfellow's models never achieved a really successful flight, his designs showed the way for others to follow. Several of his models are preserved in the Science Museum in London.

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