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1 Westinghouse, George
[br]b. 6 October 1846 Central Bridge, New York, USAd. 12 March 1914 New York, New York, USA[br]American inventor and entrepreneur, pioneer of air brakes for railways and alternating-current distribution of electricity.[br]George Westinghouse's father was an ingenious manufacturer of agricultural implements; the son, after a spell in the Union Army during the Civil War, and subsequently in the Navy as an engineer, went to work for his father. He invented a rotary steam engine, which proved impracticable; a rerailing device for railway rolling stock in 1865; and a cast-steel frog for railway points, with longer life than the cast-iron frogs then used, in 1868–9. During the same period Westinghouse, like many other inventors, was considering how best to meet the evident need for a continuous brake for trains, i.e. one by which the driver could apply the brakes on all vehicles in a train simultaneously instead of relying on brakesmen on individual vehicles. By chance he encountered a magazine article about the construction of the Mont Cenis Tunnel, with a description of the pneumatic tools invented for it, and from this it occurred to him that compressed air might be used to operate the brakes along a train.The first prototype was ready in 1869 and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company was set up to manufacture it. However, despite impressive demonstration of the brake's powers when it saved the test train from otherwise certain collision with a horse-drawn dray on a level crossing, railways were at first slow to adopt it. Then in 1872 Westinghouse added to it the triple valve, which enabled the train pipe to charge reservoirs beneath each vehicle, from which the compressed air would apply the brakes when pressure in the train pipe was reduced. This meant that the brake was now automatic: if a train became divided, the brakes on both parts would be applied. From then on, more and more American railways adopted the Westinghouse brake and the Railroad Safety Appliance Act of 1893 made air brakes compulsory in the USA. Air brakes were also adopted in most other parts of the world, although only a minority of British railway companies took them up, the remainder, with insular reluctance, preferring the less effective vacuum brake.From 1880 Westinghouse was purchasing patents relating to means of interlocking railway signals and points; he combined them with his own inventions to produce a complete signalling system. The first really practical power signalling scheme, installed in the USA by Westinghouse in 1884, was operated pneumatically, but the development of railway signalling required an awareness of the powers of electricity, and it was probably this that first led Westinghouse to become interested in electrical processes and inventions. The Westinghouse Electric Company was formed in 1886: it pioneered the use of electricity distribution systems using high-voltage single-phase alternating current, which it developed from European practice. Initially this was violently opposed by established operators of direct-current distribution systems, but eventually the use of alternating current became widespread.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsLégion d'honneur. Order of the Crown of Italy. Order of Leopold.BibliographyWestinghouse took out some 400 patents over forty-eight years.Further ReadingH.G.Prout, 1922, A Life of "George Westinghouse", London (biography inclined towards technicalities).F.E.Leupp, 1918, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements, Boston (London 1919) (biography inclined towards Westinghouse and his career).J.F.Stover, 1961, American Railroads, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 152–4.PJGR -
2 Westinghouse, George
(1846-1914) Вестингауз, ДжорджИзобретатель и промышленник. В 1869 изобрел пневматический тормоз [ air brake] для железнодорожных составов. В 1885 разработал систему промышленного производства и передачи на расстояние переменного тока. В 1886 основал компанию "Вестингауз электрик" [ Westinghouse Electric Company] по производству электрооборудования на переменном токе. Получил более 400 патентов. В 1955 был избран в национальную Галерею славы [ Hall of Fame]English-Russian dictionary of regional studies > Westinghouse, George
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3 Westinghouse Electric Company
"Вестингауз электрик"Электротехническая корпорация, входит в список "Форчун-500" [ Fortune 500]. Производит электромеханическое оборудование, радио- и телевизионные станции, а также бытовые товары длительного пользования. Компания произвела электрооборудование для Ниагарской гидроэлектростанции [ Niagara Falls], для нью-йоркского метро [ New York City Transit Authority, subway] и других объектов. Около половины всех атомных электростанций мира используют технологии компании. Основана в 1886 Дж. Вестингаузом [ Westinghouse, George]. Правление в г. Питтсбурге, шт. ПенсильванияEnglish-Russian dictionary of regional studies > Westinghouse Electric Company
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4 Westinghouse
m.Westinghouse, George Westinghouse. -
5 Westinghouse
n. Westinghouse (George- Amerikaans fabrikant en uitvinder; handelsmerk van elektrische apparaten) -
6 Westinghouse
n. George Westinghouse, amerikansk uppfinnare och tillverkare); Westinghouse, varumärke -
7 Berry, George
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. Missouri, USA fl. 1880s[br]American farmer who developed the first steam-powered, self-propelled combine harvester.[br]Born in Missouri, George Berry moved to a 4,000 acre (1,600 hectare) farm at Lindsay in California, and between 1881 and 1886 built himself a steam-driven combine harvester. Berry's machine was the first self-propelled harvester and the first to use straw as a fuel. A single boiler powered two engines: a 26 hp (19 kW) Mitchell Fisher engine provided the forward drive, whilst a 6 hp (4 kW) Westinghouse engine drove the threshing mechanism. Cleaned straw was passed by conveyor back to the firebox, where it provided the main fuel. The original machine had a 22 ft cut, but a later machine extended this to 40 ft and harvested 50 acres a day, although on one occasion it achieved the distinction of being the first harvester to cut over 100 acres in one day. The traction engine used for motive power was removable and was used after harvest for ploughing. It was the first engine to be capable of forward and reverse motion.In later life Berry moved into politics, becoming a member of the California Senate for Inyo and Tulare in the 1890s.[br]Further ReadingG.Quick and W.Buchele, 1978, The Grain Harvesters, American Society of Agricultural Engineers (gives an account of combine-harvester development).AP -
8 Land transport
See also: INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA[br]Austin, HerbertHamilton, Harold LeeIssigonis, Sir Alexander Arnold ConstantineMa JunMorris, William RichardSauerbrun, Charles de -
9 Railways and locomotives
Biographical history of technology > Railways and locomotives
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10 Public utilities
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11 air brake
Железнодорожный тормоз, запатентованный первоначально в 1869 Дж. Вестингаузом [ Westinghouse, George]; одно из главных изобретений, обеспечивших безопасность железнодорожных сообщений -
12 Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia's
Выставка 1876, посвященная 100-летию образования США. На площади 236 акров (95,5 га) располагались 167 павильонов. Среди 30 тыс. экспонатов впервые демонстрировались пишущая машинка, телефонный аппарат Белла [ Bell Telephone Co.], воздушный тормоз [ air brake] Вестингауза [ Westinghouse, George], паровая машина Корлисса [ Corliss steam engine], сноповяжущая жатка и другие достижения техники. На этой выставке американцы впервые попробовали экзотический фрукт - банан, который продавался в обертке из фольги и стоил 10 центов. Выставку посетили около 10 млн. человектж International Centennial ExpositionEnglish-Russian dictionary of regional studies > Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia's
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13 Aspinall, Sir John Audley Frederick
[br]b. 25 August 1851 Liverpool, Englandd. 19 January 1937 Woking, England[br]English mechanical engineer, pioneer of the automatic vacuum brake for railway trains and of railway electrification.[br]Aspinall's father was a QC, Recorder of Liverpool, and Aspinall himself became a pupil at Crewe Works of the London \& North Western Railway, eventually under F.W. Webb. In 1875 he was appointed Manager of the works at Inchicore, Great Southern \& Western Railway, Ireland. While he was there, some of the trains were equipped, on trial, with continuous brakes of the non-automatic vacuum type. Aspinall modified these to make them automatic, i.e. if the train divided, brakes throughout both parts would be applied automatically. Aspinall vacuum brakes were subsequently adopted by the important Great Northern, Lancashire \& Yorkshire, and London \& North Western Railways.In 1883, aged only 32, Aspinall was appointed Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Southern \& Western Railway, but in 1886 he moved in the same capacity to the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway, where his first task was to fit out the new works at Horwich. The first locomotive was completed there in 1889, to his design. In 1899 he introduced a 4–4–2, the largest express locomotive in Britain at the time, some of which were fitted with smokebox superheaters to Aspinall's design.Unusually for an engineer, in 1892 Aspinall was appointed General Manager of the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway. He electrified the Liverpool-Southport line in 1904 at 600 volts DC with a third rail; this was an early example of main-line electrification, for it extended beyond the Liverpool suburban area. He also experimented with 3,500 volt DC overhead electrification of the Bury-Holcombe Brook branch in 1913, but converted this to 1,200 volts DC third rail to conform with the Manchester-Bury line when this was electrified in 1915. In 1918 he was made a director of the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1917. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1909. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1918.Further ReadingH.A.V.Bulleid, 1967, The Aspinall Era, Shepperton: Ian Allan (provides a good account of Aspinall and his life's work).C.Hamilton Ellis, 1958, Twenty Locomotive Men, Shepperton: Ian Allan, Ch. 19 (a good brief account).PJGRBiographical history of technology > Aspinall, Sir John Audley Frederick
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14 Electricity
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15 Edison, Thomas Alva
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Automotive engineering, Electricity, Electronics and information technology, Metallurgy, Photography, film and optics, Public utilities, Recording, Telecommunications[br]b. 11 February 1847 Milan, Ohio, USAd. 18 October 1931 Glenmont[br]American inventor and pioneer electrical developer.[br]He was the son of Samuel Edison, who was in the timber business. His schooling was delayed due to scarlet fever until 1855, when he was 8½ years old, but he was an avid reader. By the age of 14 he had a job as a newsboy on the railway from Port Huron to Detroit, a distance of sixty-three miles (101 km). He worked a fourteen-hour day with a stopover of five hours, which he spent in the Detroit Free Library. He also sold sweets on the train and, later, fruit and vegetables, and was soon making a profit of $20 a week. He then started two stores in Port Huron and used a spare freight car as a laboratory. He added a hand-printing press to produce 400 copies weekly of The Grand Trunk Herald, most of which he compiled and edited himself. He set himself to learn telegraphy from the station agent at Mount Clements, whose son he had saved from being run over by a freight car.At the age of 16 he became a telegraphist at Port Huron. In 1863 he became railway telegraphist at the busy Stratford Junction of the Grand Trunk Railroad, arranging a clock with a notched wheel to give the hourly signal which was to prove that he was awake and at his post! He left hurriedly after failing to hold a train which was nearly involved in a head-on collision. He usually worked the night shift, allowing himself time for experiments during the day. His first invention was an arrangement of two Morse registers so that a high-speed input could be decoded at a slower speed. Moving from place to place he held many positions as a telegraphist. In Boston he invented an automatic vote recorder for Congress and patented it, but the idea was rejected. This was the first of a total of 1180 patents that he was to take out during his lifetime. After six years he resigned from the Western Union Company to devote all his time to invention, his next idea being an improved ticker-tape machine for stockbrokers. He developed a duplex telegraphy system, but this was turned down by the Western Union Company. He then moved to New York.Edison found accommodation in the battery room of Law's Gold Reporting Company, sleeping in the cellar, and there his repair of a broken transmitter marked him as someone of special talents. His superior soon resigned, and he was promoted with a salary of $300 a month. Western Union paid him $40,000 for the sole rights on future improvements on the duplex telegraph, and he moved to Ward Street, Newark, New Jersey, where he employed a gathering of specialist engineers. Within a year, he married one of his employees, Mary Stilwell, when she was only 16: a daughter, Marion, was born in 1872, and two sons, Thomas and William, in 1876 and 1879, respectively.He continued to work on the automatic telegraph, a device to send out messages faster than they could be tapped out by hand: that is, over fifty words per minute or so. An earlier machine by Alexander Bain worked at up to 400 words per minute, but was not good over long distances. Edison agreed to work on improving this feature of Bain's machine for the Automatic Telegraph Company (ATC) for $40,000. He improved it to a working speed of 500 words per minute and ran a test between Washington and New York. Hoping to sell their equipment to the Post Office in Britain, ATC sent Edison to England in 1873 to negotiate. A 500-word message was to be sent from Liverpool to London every half-hour for six hours, followed by tests on 2,200 miles (3,540 km) of cable at Greenwich. Only confused results were obtained due to induction in the cable, which lay coiled in a water tank. Edison returned to New York, where he worked on his quadruplex telegraph system, tests of which proved a success between New York and Albany in December 1874. Unfortunately, simultaneous negotiation with Western Union and ATC resulted in a lawsuit.Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for a telephone in March 1876 while Edison was still working on the same idea. His improvements allowed the device to operate over a distance of hundreds of miles instead of only a few miles. Tests were carried out over the 106 miles (170 km) between New York and Philadelphia. Edison applied for a patent on the carbon-button transmitter in April 1877, Western Union agreeing to pay him $6,000 a year for the seventeen-year duration of the patent. In these years he was also working on the development of the electric lamp and on a duplicating machine which would make up to 3,000 copies from a stencil. In 1876–7 he moved from Newark to Menlo Park, twenty-four miles (39 km) from New York on the Pennsylvania Railway, near Elizabeth. He had bought a house there around which he built the premises that would become his "inventions factory". It was there that he began the use of his 200- page pocket notebooks, each of which lasted him about two weeks, so prolific were his ideas. When he died he left 3,400 of them filled with notes and sketches.Late in 1877 he applied for a patent for a phonograph which was granted on 19 February 1878, and by the end of the year he had formed a company to manufacture this totally new product. At the time, Edison saw the device primarily as a business aid rather than for entertainment, rather as a dictating machine. In August 1878 he was granted a British patent. In July 1878 he tried to measure the heat from the solar corona at a solar eclipse viewed from Rawlins, Wyoming, but his "tasimeter" was too sensitive.Probably his greatest achievement was "The Subdivision of the Electric Light" or the "glow bulb". He tried many materials for the filament before settling on carbon. He gave a demonstration of electric light by lighting up Menlo Park and inviting the public. Edison was, of course, faced with the problem of inventing and producing all the ancillaries which go to make up the electrical system of generation and distribution-meters, fuses, insulation, switches, cabling—even generators had to be designed and built; everything was new. He started a number of manufacturing companies to produce the various components needed.In 1881 he built the world's largest generator, which weighed 27 tons, to light 1,200 lamps at the Paris Exhibition. It was later moved to England to be used in the world's first central power station with steam engine drive at Holborn Viaduct, London. In September 1882 he started up his Pearl Street Generating Station in New York, which led to a worldwide increase in the application of electric power, particularly for lighting. At the same time as these developments, he built a 1,300yd (1,190m) electric railway at Menlo Park.On 9 August 1884 his wife died of typhoid. Using his telegraphic skills, he proposed to 19-year-old Mina Miller in Morse code while in the company of others on a train. He married her in February 1885 before buying a new house and estate at West Orange, New Jersey, building a new laboratory not far away in the Orange Valley.Edison used direct current which was limited to around 250 volts. Alternating current was largely developed by George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla, using transformers to step up the current to a higher voltage for long-distance transmission. The use of AC gradually overtook the Edison DC system.In autumn 1888 he patented a form of cinephotography, the kinetoscope, obtaining film-stock from George Eastman. In 1893 he set up the first film studio, which was pivoted so as to catch the sun, with a hinged roof which could be raised. In 1894 kinetoscope parlours with "peep shows" were starting up in cities all over America. Competition came from the Latham Brothers with a screen-projection machine, which Edison answered with his "Vitascope", shown in New York in 1896. This showed pictures with accompanying sound, but there was some difficulty with synchronization. Edison also experimented with captions at this early date.In 1880 he filed a patent for a magnetic ore separator, the first of nearly sixty. He bought up deposits of low-grade iron ore which had been developed in the north of New Jersey. The process was a commercial success until the discovery of iron-rich ore in Minnesota rendered it uneconomic and uncompetitive. In 1898 cement rock was discovered in New Village, west of West Orange. Edison bought the land and started cement manufacture, using kilns twice the normal length and using half as much fuel to heat them as the normal type of kiln. In 1893 he met Henry Ford, who was building his second car, at an Edison convention. This started him on the development of a battery for an electric car on which he made over 9,000 experiments. In 1903 he sold his patent for wireless telegraphy "for a song" to Guglielmo Marconi.In 1910 Edison designed a prefabricated concrete house. In December 1914 fire destroyed three-quarters of the West Orange plant, but it was at once rebuilt, and with the threat of war Edison started to set up his own plants for making all the chemicals that he had previously been buying from Europe, such as carbolic acid, phenol, benzol, aniline dyes, etc. He was appointed President of the Navy Consulting Board, for whom, he said, he made some forty-five inventions, "but they were pigeonholed, every one of them". Thus did Edison find that the Navy did not take kindly to civilian interference.In 1927 he started the Edison Botanic Research Company, founded with similar investment from Ford and Firestone with the object of finding a substitute for overseas-produced rubber. In the first year he tested no fewer than 3,327 possible plants, in the second year, over 1,400, eventually developing a variety of Golden Rod which grew to 14 ft (4.3 m) in height. However, all this effort and money was wasted, due to the discovery of synthetic rubber.In October 1929 he was present at Henry Ford's opening of his Dearborn Museum to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the incandescent lamp, including a replica of the Menlo Park laboratory. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and was elected to the American Academy of Sciences. He died in 1931 at his home, Glenmont; throughout the USA, lights were dimmed temporarily on the day of his funeral.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember of the American Academy of Sciences. Congressional Gold Medal.Further ReadingM.Josephson, 1951, Edison, Eyre \& Spottiswode.R.W.Clark, 1977, Edison, the Man who Made the Future, Macdonald \& Jane.IMcN -
16 World's Columbian Exposition
Вторая всемирная выставка [ world's fair] в США (после Филадельфийской выставки Столетия [ Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia's]). Проходила в г. Чикаго 1 мая-30 октября 1893 в честь 400-летия открытия Америки Х. Колумбом (с опозданием на один год). Сенсацией было включение электрического освещения на выставке в момент ее открытия с помощью кнопки, нажатой в Белом доме [ White House] президентом Г. Кливлендом [ Cleveland, (Stephen) Grover]. На выставке фирма "Вестингауз" [ Westinghouse Electric Company] впервые продемонстрировала электромотор, динамомашину и генератор переменного тока; американцы увидели аттракцион "колесо обозрения" [ Ferris wheel], сконструированное инженером Дж. Феррисом [Ferris, George W. G.]. Выставочный комплекс "Белый город" [White City] на берегу озера Мичиган [ Michigan, Lake] (около 150 построек) был создан при участии ведущих архитектурных фирм и архитекторов того времени, в том числе фирмы "Макким, Мид энд Уайт" [ McKim, Mead, and White]. Архитектура зданий выставочного комплекса (преимущественно неоклассицизм) и их размещение оказали значительное влияние на планирование застройки в крупных городах и стиль административных зданий в течение последующих двух десятилетий. Выставку посетили около 28 млн. человекEnglish-Russian dictionary of regional studies > World's Columbian Exposition
См. также в других словарях:
Westinghouse, George — born Oct. 6, 1846, Central Bridge, N.Y., U.S. died March 12, 1914, New York, N.Y. U.S. inventor and industrialist. He served in the American Civil War. His first major invention was an air brake (patented 1869), which was eventually made… … Universalium
Westinghouse, George — ► (1841 1914) Inventor e industrial estadounidense. Inicialmente se interesó por los ferrocarriles; creó el freno automático de aire, y fundó en 1869 la Westinghouse Air Brake Company. Su sistema de frenos perfeccionado fue aceptado rápidamente… … Enciclopedia Universal
Westinghouse,George — West·ing·house (wĕsʹtĭng hous ), George. 1846 1914. American engineer and manufacturer who received more than 400 patents for his many inventions, including the air brake (1869), an automatic railroad signaling device (1882), and a practical… … Universalium
Westinghouse — Westinghouse, George … Enciclopedia Universal
George Westinghouse — (* 6. Oktober 1846 in Central Bridge, New York; † 12. März 1914 in New York) war ein US amerikanischer Erfinder, Ingenieur und Großindustrieller. Durch seine Erfindung der Druckluftbremse wurde … Deutsch Wikipedia
George Westinghouse — George Westinghouse, né le 6 octobre 1846 à Central Bridge dans l État de New York et mort le 12 mars 1914 à New York, était un ingénieur et entrepreneur américain, princ … Wikipédia en Français
Westinghouse — Unternehmensform Unternehmenssitz Monroeville, Pennsylvania Branche … Deutsch Wikipedia
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Westinghouse — may refer to:In current companies: *Westinghouse Electric Corporation (1998), and its licensees: **Westinghouse Digital Electronics, selling LCD televisions and related products **Salton, Inc., selling vacuum cleaners under the name Westinghouse… … Wikipedia
