-
101 McKay, Hugh Victor
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. c. 1866 Drummartin, Victoria, Australiad. 21 May 1926 Australia[br]Australian inventor and manufacturer of harvesting and other agricultural equipment.[br]A farmer's son, at the age of 17 McKay developed modifications to the existing stripper harvester and created a machine that would not only strip the seed from standing corn, but was able to produce a threshed, winnowed and clean sample in one operation. The prototype was produced in 1884 and worked well on the two acres of wheat that had been set aside on the family farm. By arrangement with a Melbourne plough maker, five machines were made and sold for the 1885 season. In 1886 the McKay Harvester Company was formed, with offices at Ballarat, from which the machines, built by various companies, were sold. The business expanded quickly, selling sixty machines in 1888, and eventually rising to the production of nearly 2,000 harvesters in 1905. The name "Sunshine" was given to the harvester, and the "Sun" prefix was to appear on all other implements produced by the company as it diversified its production interests. In 1902 severe drought reduced machinery sales and left 2,000 harvesters unsold. McKay was forced to look to export markets to dispose of his surplus machines. By 1914 a total of 10,000 machines were being exported annually. During the First World War McKay was appointed to the Business Board of the Defence Department. Increases in the scale of production resulted in the company moving to Melbourne, where it was close to the port of entry of raw materials and was able to export the finished article more readily. In 1909 McKay produced one of the first gas-engined harvesters, but its cost prevented it from being more than an experimental prototype. By this time McKay was the largest agricultural machinery manufacturer in the Southern hemisphere, producing a wide range of implements, including binders. In 1916 McKay hired Headlie Taylor, who had developed a machine capable of harvesting fallen crops. The jointly developed machine was a major success, coming as it did in what would otherwise have been a disastrous Australian harvest. Further developments included the "Sun Auto-header" in 1923, the first of the harvesting machines to adopt the "T" configuration to be seen on modern harvesters. The Australian market was expanding fast and a keen rivalry developed between McKay and Massey Harris. Confronted by the tariff regulations with which the Australian Government had protected its indigenous machinery industry since 1906, Massey Harris sold all its Australian assets to the H.V. McKay company in 1930. Twenty-three years later Massey Ferguson acquired the old Sunshine works and was still operating from there in the 1990s.Despite a long-running history of wage disputes with his workforce, McKay established a retiring fund as well as a self-help fund for distressed cases. Before his death he created a charitable trust and requested that some funds should be made available for the "aerial experiments" which were to lead to the establishment of the Flying Doctor Service.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCBE.Further ReadingGraeme Quick and Wesley Buchele, 1978, The Grain Harvesters, American Society of Agricultural Engineers (devotes a chapter to the unique development of harvesting machinery which took place in Australia).AP -
102 Mond, Ludwig
SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology[br]b. 7 March 1839 Cassel, Germanyd. 11 December 1909 London, England[br]German (naturalized English) industrial chemist.[br]Born into a prosperous Jewish merchant family, Mond studied at the Polytechnic in Cassel and then under the distinguished chemists Hermann Kolbe at Marburg and Bunsen at Heidelberg from 1856. In 1859 he began work as an industrial chemist in various works in Germany and Holland. At this time, Mond was pursuing his method for recovering sulphur from the alkali wastes in the Leblanc soda-making process. Mond came to England in 1862 and five years later settled permanently, in partnership with John Hutchinson \& Co. at Widnes, to perfect his process, although complete success eluded him. He became a naturalized British subject in 1880.In 1872 Mond became acquainted with Ernest Solvay, the Belgian chemist who developed the ammonia-soda process which finally supplanted the Leblanc process. Mond negotiated the English patent rights and set up the first ammoniasoda plant in England at Winnington in Cheshire, in partnership with John Brunner. After overcoming many difficulties by incessant hard work, the process became a financial success and in 1881 Brunner, Mond \& Co. was formed, for a time the largest alkali works in the world. In 1926 the company merged with others to form Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd (ICI). The firm was one of the first to adopt the eight-hour day and to provide model dwellings and playing fields for its employees.From 1879 Mond took up the production of ammonia and this led to the Mond producer-gas plant, patented in 1883. The process consisted of passing air and steam over coal and coke at a carefully regulated temperature. Ammonia was generated and, at the same time, so was a cheap and useful producer gas. Mond's major discovery followed the observation in 1889 that carbon monoxide could combine with nickel in its ore at around 60°C to form a gaseous compound, nickel carbonyl. This, on heating to a higher temperature, would then decompose to give pure nickel. Mond followed up this unusual way of producing and purifying a metal and by 1892 had succeeded in setting up a pilot plant to perfect a large-scale process and went on to form the Mond Nickel Company.Apart from being a successful industrialist, Mond was prominent in scientific circles and played a leading role in the setting up of the Society of Chemical Industry in 1881. The success of his operations earned him great wealth, much of which he donated for learned and charitable purposes. He formed a notable collection of pictures which he bequeathed to the National Gallery.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1891.Bibliography1885, "On the origin of the ammonia-soda process", Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 4:527–9.1895. "The history of the process of nickel extraction", Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 14:945–6.Further ReadingJ.M.Cohen, 1956, The Life of Ludwig Mond, London: Methuen. Obituary, 1918, Journal of the Chemical Society 113:318–34.F.C.Donnan, 1939, Ludwig Mond 1839–1909, London (a valuable lecture).LRD -
103 Napier, Robert
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 18 June 1791 Dumbarton, Scotlandd. 23 June 1876 Shandon, Dunbartonshire, Scotland[br]Scottish shipbuilder one of the greatest shipbuilders of all time, known as the "father" of Clyde shipbuilding.[br]Educated at Dumbarton Grammar School, Robert Napier had been destined for the Church but persuaded his father to let him serve an apprenticeship as a blacksmith under him. For a while he worked in Edinburgh, but then in 1815 he commenced business in Glasgow, the city that he served for the rest of his life. Initially his workshop was in Camlachie, but it was moved in 1836 to a riverside factory site at Lancefield in the heart of the City and again in 1841 to the Old Shipyard in the Burgh of Govan (then independent of the City of Glasgow). The business expanded through his preparedness to build steam machinery, beginning in 1823 with the engines for the paddle steamer Leven, still to be seen a few hundred metres from Napier's grave in Dumbarton. His name assured owners of quality, and business expanded after two key orders: one in 1836 for the Honourable East India Company; and the second two years later for the Royal Navy, hitherto the preserve of the Royal Dockyards and of the shipbuilders of south-east England. Napier's shipyard and engine shops, then known as Robert Napier and Sons, were to be awarded sixty Admiralty contracts in his lifetime, with a profound influence on ship and engine procurement for the Navy and on foreign governments, which for the first time placed substantial work in the United Kingdom.Having had problems with hull subcontractors and also with the installation of machinery in wooden hulls, in 1843 Napier ventured into shipbuilding with the paddle steamer Vanguard, which was built of iron. The following year the Royal Navy took delivery of the iron-hulled Jackall, enabling Napier to secure the contract for the Black Prince, Britain's second ironclad and sister ship to HMS Warrior now preserved at Portsmouth. With so much work in iron Napier instigated studies into metallurgy, and the published work of David Kirkaldy bears witness to his open-handedness in assisting the industry. This service to industry was even more apparent in 1866 when the company laid out the Skelmorlie Measured Mile on the Firth of Clyde for ship testing, a mile still in use by ships of all nations.The greatest legacy of Robert Napier was his training of young engineers, shipbuilders and naval architects. Almost every major Scottish shipyard, and some English too, was influenced by him and many of his early foremen left to set up rival establishments along the banks of the River Clyde. His close association with Samuel Cunard led to the setting up of the company now known as the Cunard Line. Napier designed and engined the first four ships, subcontracting the hulls of this historic quartet to other shipbuilders on the river. While he contributed only 2 per cent to the equity of the shipping line, they came back to him for many more vessels, including the magnificent paddle ship Persia, of 1855.It is an old tradition on the Clyde that the smokestacks of ships are made by the enginebuilders. The Cunard Line still uses red funnels with black bands, Napier's trademark, in honour of the engineer who set them going.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnight Commander of the Dannebrog (Denmark). President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1864. Honorary Member of the Glasgow Society of Engineers 1869.Further ReadingJames Napier, 1904, The Life of Robert Napier, Edinburgh, Blackwood.J.M.Halliday, 1980–1, "Robert Napier. The father of Clyde shipbuilding", Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland 124.Fred M.Walker, 1984, Song of the Clyde. A History of Clyde Shipbuilding, Cambridge: PSL.FMW -
104 Phillips, Horatio Frederick
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 2 February 1845 London, Englandd. 15 July 1926 Hampshire, England[br]English aerodynamicist whose cambered two-surface wing sections provided the foundations for aerofoil design.[br]At the age of 19, Phillips developed an interest in flight and constructed models with lightweight engines. He spent a large amount of time and money over many years, carrying out practical research into the science of aerodynamics. In the early 1880s he built a wind tunnel with a working section of 15 in. by 10 in. (38 cm by 25 cm). Air was sucked through the working section by an adaptation of the steam injector used in boilers and invented by Henry Giffard, the airship pioneer. Phillips tested aerofoils based on the cross-section of bird's wings, with a greater curvature on the upper surface than the lower. He measured the lift and drag and showed that the major component of lift came from suction on the upper surface, rather than pressure on the lower. He took out patents for his aerofoil sections in 1884 and 1891. In addition to his wind-tunnel test, Phillips tested his wing sections on a whirling arm, as used earlier by Cayley, Wenham and Lilienthal. After a series of tests using an arm of 15 ft (4.57 m) radius, Phillips built a massive whirling arm driven by a steam engine. His test pieces were mounted on the end of the arm, which had a radius of 50 ft (15.24 m), giving them a linear speed of 70 mph (113 km/h). By 1893 Phillips was ready to put his theories to a more practical test, so he built a large model aircraft driven by a steam engine and tethered to run round a circular track. It had a wing span of 19 ft (5.79 m), but it had fifty wings, one above the other. These wings were only 10 in. (25 cm) wide and mounted in a frame, so it looked rather like a Venetian blind. At 40 mph (64 km/h) it lifted off the track. In 1904 Phillips built a full-size multi-wing aeroplane with twenty wings which just lifted off the ground but did not fly. He built another multi-wing machine in 1907, this time with four Venetian blind' frames in tandem, giving it two hundred wings! Phillips made a short flight of almost 500 ft (152 m) which could be claimed to be the first powered aeroplane flight in England by an Englishman. He retired from flying at the age of 62.[br]Bibliography1900, "Mechanical flight and matters relating thereto", Engineering (reprint).1891–3, "On the sustentation of weight by mechanical flight", Aeronautical Society of Great Britain 23rd Report.Further ReadingJ.Laurence Pritchard, 1957, "The dawn of aerodynamics", Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (March) (good descriptions of Phillips's early work and his wind tunnel).J.E.Hodgson, 1924, The History of Aeronautics in Great Britain, London.F.W.Brearey, 1891–3, "Remarks on experiments made by Horatio Phillips", Aeronautical Society of Great Britain 23rd Report.JDSBiographical history of technology > Phillips, Horatio Frederick
-
105 Porsche, Ferdinand
[br]b. 3 September 1875 Maffersdorf, Austriad. 30 January 1952 Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany[br]Austrian automobile engineer, designer of the Volkswagen car.[br]At the age of fifteen, Porsche built a complete electrical installation for his home. In 1894 he went to technical school in Vienna. Four years later he became Manager of the test department of the Bela Egger concern, which later became part of the Brown Boveri organization where he became the first Assistant in the calculating section. In 1899 he joined the long-established coachbuilders Jacob Lohner, and in 1902 a car of his design with mixed drive won the 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) class in the Exelberg races. In 1905 he joined the Austro-Daimler Company as Technical Director; his subsequent designs included an 85 hp mixed-drive racing car in 1907 and in 1912 an air-cooled aircraft engine which came to be known in later years as the "great-grandfather" of the Volkswagen engine. In 1916, he became Managing Director of Austro-Daimler.In 1921 he designed his first small car, which, appearing under the name of Sasch, won its class in the 1922 Targa Florio, a gruelling road-race in Italy. In 1923 Porsche left Austro-Daimler and joined the Daimler Company in Untertürk-heim, near Stuttgart, Germany. In 1929 he joined the firm of Steyr in Austria as a director and chief engineer, and in 1930 he set up his own independent design office in Stuttgart. In 1932 he visited Russia, and in the same year completed the design calculations for the Auto-Union racing car.In 1934, with his son Ferry (b. 1909), he prepared a plan for the construction of the German "people's car", a project initiated by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime; in June of that year he signed a contract for the design work on the Volkswagen. Racing cars of his design were also successful in 1934: the rear-engined Auto-Union won the German Grand Prix, and another Au to-Union car took the Flying Kilometre speed record at 327 km/h (203.2 mph). In 1935 Daimler-Benz started preproduction on the Volkswagen. The first trials of the cars took place in the autumn of 1936, and the following year thirty experimental cars were built by Daimler-Benz. In that year, Porsche visited the United States, where he met Henry Ford; in October an Auto-Union took the Flying Five Kilometre record at 404.3 km/h (251.2 mph). On 26 May 1938, the foundation stone of the Volkswagen factory was laid in Wolfsburg, near Braunschweig, Germany.In October 1945 Ferdinand Porsche was arrested by a unit of the United States Army and taken to Hessen; the French army removed him to Baden-Baden, then to Paris and later to Dijon. During this time he was consulted by Renault engineers regarding the design of their 4CV and designed a diesel-engined tractor. He was finally released on 5 August 1947. His last major work before his death was the approval of the design for the Cisitalia Grand Prix car.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPoetting Medal 1905. Officer's Cross of Franz Josef 1916. Honorary PhD, Vienna Technical University 1916. Honorary PhD, University of Stuttgart 1924.Further ReadingK.Ludvigsen, 1983, Porsche: Excellence Was Expected: The Complete History of the Sports and Racing Cars, London: Frederick Muller.T.Shuler and G.Borgeson, 1985, "Origin and Evolution of the VW Beetle", AutomobileQuarterly (May).M.Toogood, 1991, Porsche—Germany's Legend, London: Apple Press.IMcN -
106 Preece, Sir William Henry
[br]b. 15 February 1834 Bryn Helen, Gwynedd, Walesd. 6 November 1913 Penrhos, Gwynedd, Wales[br]Welsh electrical engineer who greatly furthered the development and use of wireless telegraphy and the telephone in Britain, dominating British Post Office engineering during the last two decades of the nineteenth century.[br]After education at King's College, London, in 1852 Preece entered the office of Edwin Clark with the intention of becoming a civil engineer, but graduate studies at the Royal Institution under Faraday fired his enthusiasm for things electrical. His earliest work, as connected with telegraphy and in particular its application for securing the safe working of railways; in 1853 he obtained an appointment with the Electric and National Telegraph Company. In 1856 he became Superintendent of that company's southern district, but four years later he moved to telegraph work with the London and South West Railway. From 1858 to 1862 he was also Engineer to the Channel Islands Telegraph Company. When the various telegraph companies in Britain were transferred to the State in 1870, Preece became a Divisional Engineer in the General Post Office (GPO). Promotion followed in 1877, when he was appointed Chief Electrician to the Post Office. One of the first specimens of Bell's telephone was brought to England by Preece and exhibited at the British Association meeting in 1877. From 1892 to 1899 he served as Engineer-in-Chief to the Post Office. During this time he made a number of important contributions to telegraphy, including the use of water as part of telegraph circuits across the Solent (1882) and the Bristol Channel (1888). He also discovered the existence of inductive effects between parallel wires, and with Fleming showed that a current (thermionic) flowed between the hot filament and a cold conductor in an incandescent lamp.Preece was distinguished by his administrative ability, some scientific insight, considerable engineering intuition and immense energy. He held erroneous views about telephone transmission and, not accepting the work of Oliver Heaviside, made many errors when planning trunk circuits. Prior to the successful use of Hertzian waves for wireless communication Preece carried out experiments, often on a large scale, in attempts at wireless communication by inductive methods. These became of historic interest only when the work of Maxwell and Hertz was developed by Guglielmo Marconi. It is to Preece that credit should be given for encouraging Marconi in 1896 and collaborating with him in his early experimental work on radio telegraphy.While still employed by the Post Office, Preece contributed to the development of numerous early public electricity schemes, acting as Consultant and often supervising their construction. At Worcester he was responsible for Britain's largest nineteenth-century public hydro-electric station. He received a knighthood on his retirement in 1899, after which he continued his consulting practice in association with his two sons and Major Philip Cardew. Preece contributed some 136 papers and printed lectures to scientific journals, ninety-nine during the period 1877 to 1894.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCB 1894. Knighted (KCB) 1899. FRS 1881. President, Society of Telegraph Engineers, 1880. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1880, 1893. President, Institution of Civil Engineers 1898–9. Chairman, Royal Society of Arts 1901–2.BibliographyPreece produced numerous papers on telegraphy and telephony that were presented as Royal Institution Lectures (see Royal Institution Library of Science, 1974) or as British Association reports.1862–3, "Railway telegraphs and the application of electricity to the signaling and working of trains", Proceedings of the ICE 22:167–93.Eleven editions of Telegraphy (with J.Sivewright), London, 1870, were published by 1895.1883, "Molecular radiation in incandescent lamps", Proceedings of the Physical Society 5: 283.1885. "Molecular shadows in incandescent lamps". Proceedings of the Physical Society 7: 178.1886. "Electric induction between wires and wires", British Association Report. 1889, with J.Maier, The Telephone.1894, "Electric signalling without wires", RSA Journal.1898, "Aetheric telegraphy", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.Further ReadingJ.J.Fahie, 1899, History of Wireless Telegraphy 1838–1899, Edinburgh: Blackwood. E.Hawkes, 1927, Pioneers of Wireless, London: Methuen.E.C.Baker, 1976, Sir William Preece, F.R.S. Victorian Engineer Extraordinary, London (a detailed biography with an appended list of his patents, principal lectures and publications).D.G.Tucker, 1981–2, "Sir William Preece (1834–1913)", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 53:119–36 (a critical review with a summary of his consultancies).GW / KFBiographical history of technology > Preece, Sir William Henry
-
107 Taylor, John
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 16 August 1703 Norwich, Englandd. 17 September 1772 Prague, Bohemia[br]English oculist and exponent of surgical treatment of squint and cataract.[br]In 1722, employed as an apothecary's assistant, he studied surgery and especially diseases of the eye under Cheselden at St Thomas's Hospital, London. He returned to Norwich to practise, but in 1727 he assumed the role of itinerant surgeon oculist, with a particular reputation for putting eyes straight; at first he covered the major part of the British Isles and then he extended his activities to Europe.He obtained MDs from Basle in 1733, and from Liège and Cologne in 1734. In 1736 he was appointed Oculist to George II. It is likely that he was responsible for Johann Sebastian Bach's blindness, and Gibbon was one of his patients. The subject of considerable obloquy on account of his self-advertisement in the crudest and most bombastic terms, it is none the less certain that he had developed a technique, probably related to couching, which was considerably in advance of that of other practitioners and at least offered a prospect of assistance where none had been available.Dr Johnson declared him "an instance of how far impudence will carry ignorance". Without justification, he styled himself "Chevalier". He is said, not improbably having regard to his age, to have become blind himself later in life. His son carried on his practice.[br]Bibliography1727, An Account of the Mechanism of the Eye, Norwich.1736, Treatise on the Chrystalline Humour of the Human Eye, London. 1739, De vera causi strabismi, Lisbon.Further Reading1761, The History of the Travels and Adventures of the Chevalier John Taylor, Ophthalmiater, London.MG -
108 Thomson, Elihu
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 29 March 1853 Manchester, Englandd. 13 March 1937 Swampscott, Massachusetts, USA[br]English (naturalized) American electrical engineer and inventor.[br]Thomson accompanied his parents to Philadelphia in 1858; he received his education at the Central High School there, and afterwards remained as a teacher of chemistry. At this time he constructed several dynamos after studying their design, and was invited by the Franklin Institute to give lectures on the subject. After observing an arc-lighting system operating commercially in Paris in 1878, he collaborated with Edwin J. Houston, a senior colleague at the Central High School, in working out the details of such a system. An automatic regulating device was designed which, by altering the position of the brushes on the dynamo commutator, maintained a constant current irrespective of the number of lamps in use. To overcome the problem of commutation at the high voltages necessary to operate up to forty arc lamps in a series circuit, Thomson contrived a centrifugal blower which suppressed sparking. The resulting system was efficient and reliable with low operating costs. Thomson's invention of the motor meter in 1882 was the first of many such instruments for the measurement of electrical energy. In 1886 he invented electric resistance welding using low-voltage alternating current derived from a transformer of his own design. Thomson's work is recorded in his technical papers and in the 700plus patents granted for his inventions.The American Electric Company, founded to exploit the Thomson patents, later became the Thomson-Houston Company, which was destined to be a leader in the electrical manufacturing industry. They entered the field of electric power in 1887, supplying railway equipment and becoming a major innovator of electric railways. Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric were consolidated to form General Electric in 1892. Thomson remained associated with this company throughout his career.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier and Officier de la Légion d'honneur 1889. American Academy of Arts and Sciences Rumford Medal 1901. American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal 1909. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1916. Institution of Electrical Engineers Kelvin Medal 1923, Faraday Medal 1927.Bibliography1934, "Some highlights of electrical history", Electrical Engineering 53:758–67 (autobiography).Further ReadingD.O.Woodbury, 1944, Beloved Scientist, New York (a full biography). H.C.Passer, 1953, The Electrical Manufacturers: 1875–1900, Cambridge, Mass, (describes Thomson's industrial contribution).K.T.Compton, 1940, Biographical Memoirs of Elihu Thomson, Washington, DCovides an abridged list of Thomson's papers and patents).GW -
109 Wells, Horace
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 1815 Connecticut, USAd. 1848 Hartford, Connecticut, USA[br]American dentist, pioneer of dental extraction under nitrous oxide gas (laughing gas) anaesthesia.[br]Practising in Hartford, Connecticut, he was in partnership with W.T.G. Morton during 1842–3. Following experiences at a party in December 1844, where laughing gas (nitrous oxide) was used, Wells experimented with it as an anaesthetic during dental extractions, using himself as the first subject. By January 1845 he had employed the technique successfully in fifteen cases and made arrangements for its use as a general anaesthetic for a major operation at Massachusetts General Hospital. The experiment was a failure and he became discouraged from further enterprise in the field. He was eventually confined in an asylum, and very shortly after committed suicide.[br]Bibliography1838, An Essay on Teeth.1847, A History of the Discovery of the Application of Nitrous Oxide Gas, Ether and Other Vapours to Surgical Operations, Hartford.Further ReadingB.M.Duncum, 1947, Development of Inhalational Anaesthesia.MG -
110 Weston, Edward
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 9 May 1850 Oswestry, Englandd. 20 August 1936 Montclair, New Jersey, USA[br]English (naturalized American) inventor noted for his contribution to the technology of electrical measurements.[br]Although he developed dynamos for electroplating and lighting, Weston's major contribution to technology was his invention of a moving-coil voltmeter and the standard cell which bears his name. After some years as a medical student, during which he gained a knowledge of chemistry, he abandoned his studies. Emigrating to New York in 1870, he was employed by a manufacturer of photographic chemicals. There followed a period with an electroplating company during which he built his first dynamo. In 1877 some business associates financed a company to build these machines and, later, arc-lighting equipment. By 1882 the Weston Company had been absorbed into the United States Electric Lighting Company, which had a counterpart in Britain, the Maxim Weston Company. By the time Weston resigned from the company, in 1886, he had been granted 186 patents. He then began the work in which he made his greatest contribution, the science of electrical measurement.The Weston meter, the first successful portable measuring instrument with a pivoted coil, was made in 1886. By careful arrangement of the magnet, coil and control springs, he achieved a design with a well-damped movement, which retained its calibration. These instruments were produced commercially on a large scale and the moving-coil principle was soon adopted by many manufacturers. In 1892 he invented manganin, an alloy with a small negative temperature coefficient, for use as resistances in his voltmeters.The Weston standard cell was invented in 1892. Using his chemical knowledge he produced a cell, based on mercury and cadmium, which replaced the Clark cell as a voltage reference source. The Weston cell became the recognized standard at the International Conference on Electrical Units and Standards held in London in 1908.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, AIEE 1888–9. Franklin Institute Elliott Cresson Medal 1910, Franklin medal 1924.Bibliography29 April 1890, British patent no. 6,569 (the Weston moving-coil instrument). 6 February 1892, British patent no. 22,482 (the Weston standard cell).Further ReadingD.O.Woodbury, 1949, A Measure of Greatness. A Short Biography of Edward Weston, New York (a detailed account).C.N.Brown, 1988, in Proceedings of the Meeting on the History of Electrical Engineering, IEE, 17–21 (describes Weston's meter).H.C.Passer, 1953, The Electrical Manufacturers: 1875–1900, Cambridge, Mass.GW -
111 Philosophy
And what I believe to be more important here is that I find in myself an infinity of ideas of certain things which cannot be assumed to be pure nothingness, even though they may have perhaps no existence outside of my thought. These things are not figments of my imagination, even though it is within my power to think of them or not to think of them; on the contrary, they have their own true and immutable natures. Thus, for example, when I imagine a triangle, even though there may perhaps be no such figure anywhere in the world outside of my thought, nor ever have been, nevertheless the figure cannot help having a certain determinate nature... or essence, which is immutable and eternal, which I have not invented and which does not in any way depend upon my mind. (Descartes, 1951, p. 61)Let us console ourselves for not knowing the possible connections between a spider and the rings of Saturn, and continue to examine what is within our reach. (Voltaire, 1961, p. 144)As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe. The catastrophe consisted in the splitting up of the world into the realms of matter and mind, and the identification of "mind" with conscious thinking. The result of this identification was the shallow rationalism of l'esprit Cartesien, and an impoverishment of psychology which it took three centuries to remedy even in part. (Koestler, 1964, p. 148)It has been made of late a reproach against natural philosophy that it has struck out on a path of its own, and has separated itself more and more widely from the other sciences which are united by common philological and historical studies. The opposition has, in fact, been long apparent, and seems to me to have grown up mainly under the influence of the Hegelian philosophy, or, at any rate, to have been brought out into more distinct relief by that philosophy.... The sole object of Kant's "Critical Philosophy" was to test the sources and the authority of our knowledge, and to fix a definite scope and standard for the researches of philosophy, as compared with other sciences.... [But Hegel's] "Philosophy of Identity" was bolder. It started with the hypothesis that not only spiritual phenomena, but even the actual world-nature, that is, and man-were the result of an act of thought on the part of a creative mind, similar, it was supposed, in kind to the human mind.... The philosophers accused the scientific men of narrowness; the scientific men retorted that the philosophers were crazy. And so it came about that men of science began to lay some stress on the banishment of all philosophic influences from their work; while some of them, including men of the greatest acuteness, went so far as to condemn philosophy altogether, not merely as useless, but as mischievous dreaming. Thus, it must be confessed, not only were the illegitimate pretensions of the Hegelian system to subordinate to itself all other studies rejected, but no regard was paid to the rightful claims of philosophy, that is, the criticism of the sources of cognition, and the definition of the functions of the intellect. (Helmholz, quoted in Dampier, 1966, pp. 291-292)Philosophy remains true to its classical tradition by renouncing it. (Habermas, 1972, p. 317)I have not attempted... to put forward any grand view of the nature of philosophy; nor do I have any such grand view to put forth if I would. It will be obvious that I do not agree with those who see philosophy as the history of "howlers" and progress in philosophy as the debunking of howlers. It will also be obvious that I do not agree with those who see philosophy as the enterprise of putting forward a priori truths about the world.... I see philosophy as a field which has certain central questions, for example, the relation between thought and reality.... It seems obvious that in dealing with these questions philosophers have formulated rival research programs, that they have put forward general hypotheses, and that philosophers within each major research program have modified their hypotheses by trial and error, even if they sometimes refuse to admit that that is what they are doing. To that extent philosophy is a "science." To argue about whether philosophy is a science in any more serious sense seems to me to be hardly a useful occupation.... It does not seem to me important to decide whether science is philosophy or philosophy is science as long as one has a conception of both that makes both essential to a responsible view of the world and of man's place in it. (Putnam, 1975, p. xvii)What can philosophy contribute to solving the problem of the relation [of] mind to body? Twenty years ago, many English-speaking philosophers would have answered: "Nothing beyond an analysis of the various mental concepts." If we seek knowledge of things, they thought, it is to science that we must turn. Philosophy can only cast light upon our concepts of those things.This retreat from things to concepts was not undertaken lightly. Ever since the seventeenth century, the great intellectual fact of our culture has been the incredible expansion of knowledge both in the natural and in the rational sciences (mathematics, logic).The success of science created a crisis in philosophy. What was there for philosophy to do? Hume had already perceived the problem in some degree, and so surely did Kant, but it was not until the twentieth century, with the Vienna Circle and with Wittgenstein, that the difficulty began to weigh heavily. Wittgenstein took the view that philosophy could do no more than strive to undo the intellectual knots it itself had tied, so achieving intellectual release, and even a certain illumination, but no knowledge. A little later, and more optimistically, Ryle saw a positive, if reduced role, for philosophy in mapping the "logical geography" of our concepts: how they stood to each other and how they were to be analyzed....Since that time, however, philosophers in the "analytic" tradition have swung back from Wittgensteinian and even Rylean pessimism to a more traditional conception of the proper role and tasks of philosophy. Many analytic philosophers now would accept the view that the central task of philosophy is to give an account, or at least play a part in giving an account, of the most general nature of things and of man. (Armstrong, 1990, pp. 37-38)8) Philosophy's Evolving Engagement with Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive ScienceIn the beginning, the nature of philosophy's engagement with artificial intelligence and cognitive science was clear enough. The new sciences of the mind were to provide the long-awaited vindication of the most potent dreams of naturalism and materialism. Mind would at last be located firmly within the natural order. We would see in detail how the most perplexing features of the mental realm could be supported by the operations of solely physical laws upon solely physical stuff. Mental causation (the power of, e.g., a belief to cause an action) would emerge as just another species of physical causation. Reasoning would be understood as a kind of automated theorem proving. And the key to both was to be the depiction of the brain as the implementation of multiple higher level programs whose task was to manipulate and transform symbols or representations: inner items with one foot in the physical (they were realized as brain states) and one in the mental (they were bearers of contents, and their physical gymnastics were cleverly designed to respect semantic relationships such as truth preservation). (A. Clark, 1996, p. 1)Socrates of Athens famously declared that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and his motto aptly explains the impulse to philosophize. Taking nothing for granted, philosophy probes and questions the fundamental presuppositions of every area of human inquiry.... [P]art of the job of the philosopher is to keep at a certain critical distance from current doctrines, whether in the sciences or the arts, and to examine instead how the various elements in our world-view clash, or fit together. Some philosophers have tried to incorporate the results of these inquiries into a grand synoptic view of the nature of reality and our human relationship to it. Others have mistrusted system-building, and seen their primary role as one of clarifications, or the removal of obstacles along the road to truth. But all have shared the Socratic vision of using the human intellect to challenge comfortable preconceptions, insisting that every aspect of human theory and practice be subjected to continuing critical scrutiny....Philosophy is, of course, part of a continuing tradition, and there is much to be gained from seeing how that tradition originated and developed. But the principal object of studying the materials in this book is not to pay homage to past genius, but to enrich one's understanding of central problems that are as pressing today as they have always been-problems about knowledge, truth and reality, the nature of the mind, the basis of right action, and the best way to live. These questions help to mark out the territory of philosophy as an academic discipline, but in a wider sense they define the human predicament itself; they will surely continue to be with us for as long as humanity endures. (Cottingham, 1996, pp. xxi-xxii)10) The Distinction between Dionysian Man and Apollonian Man, between Art and Creativity and Reason and Self- ControlIn his study of ancient Greek culture, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche drew what would become a famous distinction, between the Dionysian spirit, the untamed spirit of art and creativity, and the Apollonian, that of reason and self-control. The story of Greek civilization, and all civilizations, Nietzsche implied, was the gradual victory of Apollonian man, with his desire for control over nature and himself, over Dionysian man, who survives only in myth, poetry, music, and drama. Socrates and Plato had attacked the illusions of art as unreal, and had overturned the delicate cultural balance by valuing only man's critical, rational, and controlling consciousness while denigrating his vital life instincts as irrational and base. The result of this division is "Alexandrian man," the civilized and accomplished Greek citizen of the later ancient world, who is "equipped with the greatest forces of knowledge" but in whom the wellsprings of creativity have dried up. (Herman, 1997, pp. 95-96)Historical dictionary of quotations in cognitive science > Philosophy
Страницы
См. также в других словарях:
Major Parkinson — Origin Bergen, Norway Genres Rock Years active 2003 Labels Degaton Records Website … Wikipedia
Major League Hockey — (MLH) is the top tier Canadian Senior ice hockey league in the province of Ontario. The league plays in the Southern Ontario. As a member of the Ontario Hockey Association and Hockey Canada, the league contends for the famed Allan Cup. The league … Wikipedia
Major League Online — (abbreviated as MLO) is an online computer gaming league. The league was created by gamers for gamers and allows players to test their skills against others in team based multiplayer games. All the games MLO offers are part of the first person… … Wikipedia
Major Figgas — Origin North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Genres Hip Hop Years active 2000–2001 Labels RuffNation/Warner B … Wikipedia
Major League Baseball All-Star Game — 2009 Major League Baseball All Star Game The Major League Baseball All Star Game, also known as the Midsummer Classic , is an annual baseball game between players from the National League and the American League, currently selected by a… … Wikipedia
History of the Khitans — Infobox Former Country native name = 契丹 / 遼 conventional long name = Khitan / Liao common name = Khitan, Liao Dynasty, Kara Khitan Khanate | continent = moved from Category:Asia to East Asia region = East Asia country = China, Mongolia era1 = 1… … Wikipedia
major — ma|jor1 W2S3 [ˈmeıdʒə US ər] adj [Date: 1200 1300; : Latin; Origin: larger, greater , from magnus large, great ] 1.) [usually before noun] having very serious or worrying results ≠ ↑minor ▪ There is a major problem with parking in London. ▪ The… … Dictionary of contemporary English
major — 1 adjective 1 (usually before noun) very large or important, when compared to other things or people of a similar kind: There are two major political parties in the US. | Mahler s music was a major influence on the young composer. | one of the… … Longman dictionary of contemporary English
major — I. adjective Etymology: Middle English maiour, from Latin major, comparative of magnus great, large more at much Date: 15th century 1. greater in dignity, rank, importance, or interest < one of the major poets > 2. greater in number, quantity, or … New Collegiate Dictionary
major — ma•jor [[t]ˈmeɪ dʒər[/t]] n. 1) mil a commissioned military officer ranking below a lieutenant colonel and above a captain 2) one of superior rank, ability, or power in a specified class 3) edu a) field of study in which a student specializes b)… … From formal English to slang
major — [[t]me͟ɪʤə(r)[/t]] ♦ majors, majoring, majored 1) ADJ GRADED: ADJ n You use major when you want to describe something that is more important, serious, or significant than other things in a group or situation. The major factor in the decision to… … English dictionary
