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61 Appert, Nicolas
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. 1749 Châlons-sur-Marne, France d. 1841[br]French confectioner who invented canning as a method of food preservation.[br]As the son of an inn keeper, Nicolas Appert would have learned about pickling and brewing, but he chose to become a chef and confectioner, establishing himself in the rue des Lombards in Paris in 1780. He prospered there until about 1795, and in that year he began experimenting in ways to preserve foodstuffs, succeeding with soups, vegetables, juices, dairy products, jellies, jams and syrups. His method was to place food in glass jars, seal the jars with cork and sealing wax, then sterilize them by immersion in boiling water for a predetermined time.In 1810 the French Government offered a 12,000 franc award to anyone succeeding in preserving high-quality foodstuffs for its army and navy. Appert won the award and in 1812 used the money to open the world's first food-bottling factory, La Maison Appert, in the town of Massey, near Paris. He established agents in all the major sea ports, recognizing the marine market as his most likely customer, and supplied products to Napoleon's troops in the field. By 1820 Appert's method was in use all over the United States, in spite of the simultaneous development of other containers of tin or other metals by an English merchant, Peter Durand, and the production of canned food products by the Bermondsey firm of Donkin \& Hall, London. The latter had opened the first canning factory in England in 1811.Initially Appert used glass jars and bottles, but in 1822 he changed to tin-plated metal cans. To heat the cans he used an autoclave, which heated the water to a temperature higher than its boiling point. A hammer and chisel were needed to open cans until the invention of a can opener by an Englishman named Yates in 1855. Despite Appert's successes, he received little financial reward and died in poverty; he was buried in a common grave.[br]Bibliography1810, L'Art de conserver pendant plusieurs années toutes les sustenances animales et végétales (the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale produced a report in its annual bulletin in 1809).Further ReadingEnglish historians have tended to concentrate on Bryan Donkin, who established tin cans as the primary container for long-term food preservation.J.Potin, 1891, Biographie de Nicolas Appert.1960, Canning and Packing 2–5.AP -
62 Appleton, Sir Edward Victor
[br]b. 6 September 1892 Bradford, Englandd. 21 April 1965 Edinburgh, Scotland[br]English physicist awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the ionospheric layer, named after him, which is an efficient reflector of short radio waves, thereby making possible long-distance radio communication.[br]After early ambitions to become a professional cricketer, Appleton went to St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied under J.J.Thompson and Ernest Rutherford. His academic career interrupted by the First World War, he served as a captain in the Royal Engineers, carrying out investigations into the propagation and fading of radio signals. After the war he joined the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, as a demonstrator in 1920, and in 1924 he moved to King's College, London, as Wheatstone Professor of Physics.In the following decade he contributed to developments in valve oscillators (in particular, the "squegging" oscillator, which formed the basis of the first hard-valve time-base) and gained international recognition for research into electromagnetic-wave propagation. His most important contribution was to confirm the existence of a conducting ionospheric layer in the upper atmosphere capable of reflecting radio waves, which had been predicted almost simultaneously by Heaviside and Kennelly in 1902. This he did by persuading the BBC in 1924 to vary the frequency of their Bournemouth transmitter, and he then measured the signal received at Cambridge. By comparing the direct and reflected rays and the daily variation he was able to deduce that the Kennelly- Heaviside (the so-called E-layer) was at a height of about 60 miles (97 km) above the earth and that there was a further layer (the Appleton or F-layer) at about 150 miles (240 km), the latter being an efficient reflector of the shorter radio waves that penetrated the lower layers. During the period 1927–32 and aided by Hartree, he established a magneto-ionic theory to explain the existence of the ionosphere. He was instrumental in obtaining agreement for international co-operation for ionospheric and other measurements in the form of the Second Polar Year (1932–3) and, much later, the International Geophysical Year (1957–8). For all this work, which made it possible to forecast the optimum frequencies for long-distance short-wave communication as a function of the location of transmitter and receiver and of the time of day and year, in 1947 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.He returned to Cambridge as Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy in 1939, and with M.F. Barnett he investigated the possible use of radio waves for radio-location of aircraft. In 1939 he became Secretary of the Government Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, a post he held for ten years. During the Second World War he contributed to the development of both radar and the atomic bomb, and subsequently served on government committees concerned with the use of atomic energy (which led to the establishment of Harwell) and with scientific staff.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted (KCB 1941, GBE 1946). Nobel Prize for Physics 1947. FRS 1927. Vice- President, American Institute of Electrical Engineers 1932. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1933. Institute of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1946. Vice-Chancellor, Edinburgh University 1947. Institution of Civil Engineers Ewing Medal 1949. Royal Medallist 1950. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honour 1962. President, British Association 1953. President, Radio Industry Council 1955–7. Légion d'honneur. LLD University of St Andrews 1947.Bibliography1925, joint paper with Barnett, Nature 115:333 (reports Appleton's studies of the ionosphere).1928, "Some notes of wireless methods of investigating the electrical structure of the upper atmosphere", Proceedings of the Physical Society 41(Part III):43. 1932, Thermionic Vacuum Tubes and Their Applications (his work on valves).1947, "The investigation and forecasting of ionospheric conditions", Journal of theInstitution of Electrical Engineers 94, Part IIIA: 186 (a review of British work on the exploration of the ionosphere).with J.F.Herd \& R.A.Watson-Watt, British patent no. 235,254 (squegging oscillator).Further ReadingWho Was Who, 1961–70 1972, VI, London: A. \& C.Black (for fuller details of honours). R.Clark, 1971, Sir Edward Appleton, Pergamon (biography).J.Jewkes, D.Sawers \& R.Stillerman, 1958, The Sources of Invention.KFBiographical history of technology > Appleton, Sir Edward Victor
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63 Armstrong, Sir William George, Baron Armstrong of Cragside
[br]b. 26 November 1810 Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne, Englandd. 27 December 1900 Cragside, Northumbria, England[br]English inventor, engineer and entrepreneur in hydraulic engineering, shipbuilding and the production of artillery.[br]The only son of a corn merchant, Alderman William Armstrong, he was educated at private schools in Newcastle and at Bishop Auckland Grammar School. He then became an articled clerk in the office of Armorer Donkin, a solicitor and a friend of his father. During a fishing trip he saw a water-wheel driven by an open stream to work a marble-cutting machine. He felt that its efficiency would be improved by introducing the water to the wheel in a pipe. He developed an interest in hydraulics and in electricity, and became a popular lecturer on these subjects. From 1838 he became friendly with Henry Watson of the High Bridge Works, Newcastle, and for six years he visited the Works almost daily, studying turret clocks, telescopes, papermaking machinery, surveying instruments and other equipment being produced. There he had built his first hydraulic machine, which generated 5 hp when run off the Newcastle town water-mains. He then designed and made a working model of a hydraulic crane, but it created little interest. In 1845, after he had served this rather unconventional apprenticeship at High Bridge Works, he was appointed Secretary of the newly formed Whittle Dene Water Company. The same year he proposed to the town council of Newcastle the conversion of one of the quayside cranes to his hydraulic operation which, if successful, should also be applied to a further four cranes. This was done by the Newcastle Cranage Company at High Bridge Works. In 1847 he gave up law and formed W.G.Armstrong \& Co. to manufacture hydraulic machinery in a works at Elswick. Orders for cranes, hoists, dock gates and bridges were obtained from mines; docks and railways.Early in the Crimean War, the War Office asked him to design and make submarine mines to blow up ships that were sunk by the Russians to block the entrance to Sevastopol harbour. The mines were never used, but this set him thinking about military affairs and brought him many useful contacts at the War Office. Learning that two eighteen-pounder British guns had silenced a whole Russian battery but were too heavy to move over rough ground, he carried out a thorough investigation and proposed light field guns with rifled barrels to fire elongated lead projectiles rather than cast-iron balls. He delivered his first gun in 1855; it was built of a steel core and wound-iron wire jacket. The barrel was multi-grooved and the gun weighed a quarter of a ton and could fire a 3 lb (1.4 kg) projectile. This was considered too light and was sent back to the factory to be rebored to take a 5 lb (2.3 kg) shot. The gun was a complete success and Armstrong was then asked to design and produce an equally successful eighteen-pounder. In 1859 he was appointed Engineer of Rifled Ordnance and was knighted. However, there was considerable opposition from the notably conservative officers of the Army who resented the intrusion of this civilian engineer in their affairs. In 1862, contracts with the Elswick Ordnance Company were terminated, and the Government rejected breech-loading and went back to muzzle-loading. Armstrong resigned and concentrated on foreign sales, which were successful worldwide.The search for a suitable proving ground for a 12-ton gun led to an interest in shipbuilding at Elswick from 1868. This necessitated the replacement of an earlier stone bridge with the hydraulically operated Tyne Swing Bridge, which weighed some 1450 tons and allowed a clear passage for shipping. Hydraulic equipment on warships became more complex and increasing quantities of it were made at the Elswick works, which also flourished with the reintroduction of the breech-loader in 1878. In 1884 an open-hearth acid steelworks was added to the Elswick facilities. In 1897 the firm merged with Sir Joseph Whitworth \& Co. to become Sir W.G.Armstrong Whitworth \& Co. After Armstrong's death a further merger with Vickers Ltd formed Vickers Armstrong Ltd.In 1879 Armstrong took a great interest in Joseph Swan's invention of the incandescent electric light-bulb. He was one of those who formed the Swan Electric Light Company, opening a factory at South Benwell to make the bulbs. At Cragside, his mansion at Roth bury, he installed a water turbine and generator, making it one of the first houses in England to be lit by electricity.Armstrong was a noted philanthropist, building houses for his workforce, and endowing schools, hospitals and parks. His last act of charity was to purchase Bamburgh Castle, Northumbria, in 1894, intending to turn it into a hospital or a convalescent home, but he did not live long enough to complete the work.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1859. FRS 1846. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers; Institution of Civil Engineers; British Association for the Advancement of Science 1863. Baron Armstrong of Cragside 1887.Further ReadingE.R.Jones, 1886, Heroes of Industry', London: Low.D.J.Scott, 1962, A History of Vickers, London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson.IMcNBiographical history of technology > Armstrong, Sir William George, Baron Armstrong of Cragside
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64 Atwood, George
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 1746 Englandd. July 1807 London, England[br]English mathematician author of a theory on ship stability.[br]Atwood was educated at Westminster School and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1765 with a scholarship. He graduated with high honours (third wrangler) in 1796, and went on to become a fellow and tutor of his college. In 1776 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Eight years later, William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) appointed him a senior officer of the Customs, this being a means of reimbursing him for the arduous and continuing task of calculating the national revenue. As a lecturer he was greatly renowned and his abilities as a calculator and as a musician were of a high order.In the late 1790s Atwood presented a paper to the Royal Society that showed a means of obtaining the righting lever on a ship inclined from the vertical; this was a major step forward in the study of ship stability. Among his other inventions was a machine to exhibit the accelerative force of gravity.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1776.Further ReadingA.M.Robb, 1952, Theory of Naval Architecture, London: Charles Griffin (for a succinct description of the various factors in ship stability, and the importance of Atwood's contribution).FMW -
65 Ayre, Sir Amos Lowrey
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 23 July 1885 South Shields, Englandd. 13 January 1952 London, England[br]English shipbuilder and pioneer of the inter-war "economy" freighters; Chairman of the Shipbuilding Conference.[br]Amos Ayre grew up on the Tyne with the stimulus of shipbuilding and seafaring around him. After an apprenticeship as a ship draughtsman and distinction in his studies, he held responsible posts in the shipyards of Belfast and later Dublin. His first dramatic move came in 1909 when he accepted the post of Manager of the new Employment Exchange at Govan, then just outside Glasgow. During the First World War he was in charge of fleet coaling operations on the River Forth, and later was promoted Admiralty District Director for shipyard labour in Scotland.Before the conclusion of hostilities, with his brother Wilfrid (later Sir Wilfrid Ayre) he founded the Burntisland Shipbuilding Company in Fife. Setting up on a green field site allowed the brothers to show innovation in design, production and marketing. Such was their success that the new yard was busy throughout the Depression, building standard ships which incorporated low operating costs with simplicity of construction.Through public service culminating in the 1929 Safety of Life at Sea Conference, Amos Ayre became recognized not only as an eminent naval architect, but also as a skilled negotiator. In 1936 he was invited to become Chairman of the Shipbuilding Conference and thereby virtual leader of the industry. As war approached he planned with meticulous care the rearrangement of national shipbuilding capacity, enabling Britain to produce standard hulls ranging from the legendary TID tugs to the standard freighters built in Sunderland or Port Glasgow. In 1939 he became Director of Merchant Shipbuilding, a position he held until 1944, when with typical foresight he asked to be released to plan for shipbuilding's return to normality.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1937. KBE 1943. Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau.Bibliography1919, "The theory and design of British shipbuilding", The Syren and Shipping, London.Further ReadingWilfrid Ayre, 1968, A Shipbuilders Yesterdays, Fife (published privately). James Reid, 1964, James Lithgow, Master of Work, London.Maurice E.Denny, 1955, "The man and his work" (First Amos Ayre Lecture), Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects vol. 97.FMW -
66 Bakewell, Frederick C.
SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications[br]fl. 1850s[br]British inventor of the "copying telegraph", the basis of facsimile transmission.[br]Although little appears to be known about his life, Bakewell deserves a place in this dictionary for a single invention that was to have a significant impact upon communication. The invention of photography early in the nineteenth century soon led to a desire to transmit images over a distance. Although telegraphy was still very much in its infancy, Bakewell realized that the key to a viable system of facsimile, as it came to be known, was to dissect the image to be transmitted sequentially by scanning it in a series of parallel lines with some sort of sensor and to synchronously reconstruct it at the receiving end—a process that anticipated the way in which modern television works. To this end the line image was drawn with varnish on a sheet of tin foil, which was then wrapped around a cylinder. As the cylinder was rotated, presumably by some kind of regulated clockwork mechanism similar to that used later in the early phonographs of Edison, an electrical contact driven by a screw thread caused the image to be scanned along a spiral path, giving a series of on-off signals. At the receiving end, instead of the tin foil, a sheet of paper wetted with a suitable chemical was darkened by the current pulses as they arrived.A practicable system did not become possible until a dry form of receiving-paper that was insensitive to light became available in the 1930s; once established, however, the technique remained the basis of commercial machines into the 1980s.[br]Bibliography1853, Electric Science.1857, A Manual of Electricity.Further ReadingJ.Malster \& M.J.Bowden, 1976, "Facsimile. A Review", Radio \& Electronic Engineer 46:55.See also: Bain, AlexanderKF -
67 Baldwin, Matthias William
[br]b. 10 November 1795 Elizabethtown, New Jersey, USAd. 7 September 1866 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA[br]American builder of steam locomotives, founder of Baldwin Locomotive Works.[br]After apprenticeship as a jeweller, Baldwin set up a machinery manufacturing business, and built stationary steam engines and, in 1832, his first locomotive, Old Ironsides, for the then-new Philadelphia, Germantown \& Norristown Railroad. Old Ironsides achieved only 1 mph (1.6 km/h) on trial, but after experimentation reached 28 mph (45 km/h). Over the next ten years Baldwin built many stationary engines and ten more locomotives, and subsequently built locomotives exclusively.He steadily introduced detail improvements in locomotive design; standardized components by means of templates and gauges from 1838 onwards; introduced the cylinder cast integrally with half of the smokebox saddle in 1858; and in 1862 imported steel tyres, which had first been manufactured in Germany by Krupp of Essen in 1851, and began the practice in the USA of shrinking them on to locomotive wheels. At the time of Matthias Baldwin's death, the Baldwin Locomotive Works had built some 1,500 locomotives: it went on to become the largest locomotive building firm to develop from a single foundation, and by the time it built its last steam locomotive, in 1955, had produced about 75,000 in total.[br]Further ReadingJ.H.White Jr, 1979, A History of the American Locomotive—Its Development 1830–1880, New York: Dover Publications Inc.J.Marshall, 1978, A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.Dictionary of American Biography.PJGRBiographical history of technology > Baldwin, Matthias William
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68 Bell, Henry
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 1767 Torphichen Mill, near Linlithgow, Scotlandd. 1830 Helensburgh, Scotland[br]Scottish projector of the first steamboat service in Europe.[br]The son of Patrick Bell, a millwright, Henry had two sisters and an elder brother and was educated at the village school. When he was 9 years old Henry was sent to lodge in Falkirk with an uncle and aunt of his mother's so that he could attend the school there. At the age of 12 he left school and agreed to become a mason with a relative. In 1783, after only three years, he was bound apprentice to his Uncle Henry, a millwright at Jay Mill. He stayed there for a further three years and then, in 1786, joined the firm of Shaw \& Hart, shipbuilders of Borrowstoneness. These were to be the builders of William Symington's hull for the Charlotte Dundas. He also spent twelve months with Mr James Inglis, an engineer of Bellshill, Lanarkshire, and then went to London to gain experience, working for the famous John Rennie for some eighteen months. By 1790 he was back in Glasgow, and a year later he took a partner, James Paterson, into his new business of builder and contractor, based in the Trongate. He later referred to himself as "architect", and his partnership with Paterson lasted seven years. He is said to have invented a discharging machine for calico printing, as well as a steam dredger for clearing the River Clyde.The Baths Hotel was opened in Helensburgh in 1808, with the hotel-keeper, who was also the first provost of the town, being none other than Henry Bell. It has been suggested that Bell was also the builder of the hotel and this seems very likely. Bell installed a steam engine for pumping sea water out of the Clyde and into the baths, and at first ran a coach service to bring customers from Glasgow three days a week. The driver was his brother Tom. The coach was replaced by the Comet steamboat in 1812.While Henry was busy with his provost's duties and making arrangements for the building of his steamboat, his wife Margaret, née Young, whom he married in March 1794, occupied herself with the management of the Baths Hotel. Bell did not himself manufacture, but supervised the work of experts: John and Charles Wood of Port Glasgow, builders of the 43ft 6 in. (13.25 m)-long hull of the Comet; David Napier of Howard Street Foundry for the boiler and other castings; and John Robertson of Dempster Street, who had previously supplied a small engine for pumping water to the baths at the hotel in Helensburgh, for the 3 hp engine. The first trials of the finished ship were held on 24 July 1812, when she was launched from Wood's yard. A regular service was advertised in the Glasgow Chronicle on 5 August and was the first in Europe, preceded only by that of Robert Fulton in the USA. The Comet continued to run until 1820, when it was wrecked.Bell received little reward for his promotion of steam navigation, merely small pensions from the Clyde trustees and others. He was buried at the parish church of Rhu.[br]Further ReadingEdward Morris, 1844, Life of Henry Bell.Henry Bell, 1813, Applying Steam Engines to Vessels.IMcN -
69 Benton, Linn Boyd
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. 13 May 1844 Little Falls, New York, USAd. 15 July 1932 Plainfield, New Jersey, USA[br]American typefounder, cutter and designer, inventor of the automatic punch-cutting machine.[br]Benton spent his childhood in Milwaukee and La Crosse, where he early showed a talent for mechanical invention. His father was a lawyer with an interest in newspapers and who acquired the Milwaukee Daily News. Benton became familiar with typesetting equipment in his father's newspaper office. He learned the printer's trade at another newspaper office, at La Crosse, and later worked as bookkeeper at a type foundry in Milwaukee. When that failed in 1873, Benton acquired the plant, and when he was joined by R.V.Waldo the firm became Benton, Waldo \& Co. Benton began learning and improving type-cutting practice. He first devised unit-width or "self-spacing" type which became popular with compositors, saving, it was reckoned, 20 per cent of their time. Meanwhile, Benton worked on a punch-cutting machine to speed up the process of cutting letters in the steel punches from which matrices or moulds were formed to enable type to be cast from molten metal. His first mechanical punch-cutter worked successfully in 1884. The third machine, patented in 1885, was the model that revolutionized the typefounding operation. So far, punch-cutting had been done by hand, a rare and expensive skill that was insufficient to meet the demands of the new typesetting machines, the monotype of Lanston and the linotype of Merganthaler. These were threatened with failure until Benton saved the day with his automatic punch-cutter. Mechanizing punch-cutting and the forming of matrices made possible the typesetting revolution brought about by mono-and linotype.In 1892 Benton's firm merged with others to form the American Type Founders Company. Benton's equipment was moved to New York and he with it, to become a board member and Chief Technical Advisor. In 1894 he became Manager of the company's new plant for type manufacture in Jersey City. Benton steadily improved both machinery and processes, for which he was granted twenty patents. With his son Morris Fuller, he was also notable and prolific in the field of type design. Benton remained in active association with his company until just two weeks before his death.[br]Further ReadingObituary, 1932, Inland Printer (August): 53–4.P.Cost, 1985, "The contributions of Lyn [sic] Boyd Benton and Morris Fuller Benton to the technology of typesetting and the art of typeface design", unpublished MSc thesis, Rochester Institute of Technology (the most thorough treatment).H.L.Bullen, 1922, Inland Printer (October) (describes Benton's life and work).LRD -
70 Blith, Walter
SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology[br]b. Seventeenth century Warwickshire, Englandd. Seventeenth century England[br][br]Blith was the son of a cereal and dairy farmer from the Forest of Arden. He wrote a treatise on farming which was of contemporary value in its description of drainage and water meadows, both subjects of particular relevance in the mid-seventeenth century. The book, The English Improver, contains illustrations of agricultural equipment which have become an almost obligatory inclusion in any book on agricultural history. His understanding of the plough is apparent from the text and illustrations, and his was an important step in the understanding of the scientific principles to be applied to its later design. The introduction to the book is addressed to both Houses of Parliament, and is very much an attempt to highlight and seek solutions to the problems of the agriculture of the day. In it he advocates the passing of legislation to improve agricultural practice, whether this be for the destruction of moles or for the compulsory planting of trees to replace those felled.Blith himself became a captain in the Roundhead Army during the English Civil War, and even added a dedication to Cromwell in the introduction to his second book, The English Improver Improved, published in 1652. This book contains additional information on both practice and crops, an expansion in knowledge which presumably owes something to Blith's employment as a surveyor of Crown lands between 1649 and 1650. He himself bought and farmed such land in Northamptonshire. His advice on the choice of land for particular crops and the implements of best use for that land expressed ideas in advance of their times, and it was to be almost a century before his writings were taken up and developed.[br]Bibliography1649, The English Improver; or, A New Survey of Husbandry Discovering to the Kingdom That Some Land, Both Arable and Pasture May be Advance Double or Treble, and Some five or Tenfold.1652, The English Improver Improved.Further ReadingJ.Thirsk (ed.), 1985, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. II (deals with Blith and the agriculture of his time).AP -
71 Blumlein, Alan Dower
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Photography, film and optics, Recording, Telecommunications[br]b. 29 June 1903 Hampstead, London, Englandd. 7 June 1942[br]English electronics engineer, developer of telephone equipment, highly linear electromechanical recording and reproduction equipment, stereo techniques, video and radar technology.[br]He was a very bright scholar and received a BSc in electrical technology from City and Guilds College in 1923. He joined International Western Electric (later to become Standard Telephone and Cables) in 1924 after a period as an instructor/demonstrator at City and Guilds. He was instrumental in the design of telephone measuring equipment and in international committee work for standards for long-distance telephony.From 1929 Blumlein was employed by the Columbia Graphophone Company to develop an electric recording cutterhead that would be independent of Western Electric's patents for the system developed by Maxfield and Harrison. He attacked the problems in a most systematic fashion, and within a year he had developed a moving-coil cutterhead that was much more linear than the iron-cored systems known at the time. Eventually Blumlein designed a complete line of recording equipment, from microphone and through-power amplifiers. The design was used by Columbia; after the merger with the Gramophone Company in 1931 to form Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd (later known as EMI) it became the company standard, certainly for coarse-groove records, until c.1950.Blumlein became interested in stereophony (binaural sound), and developed and demonstrated a complete line of equipment, from correctly placed microphones via two-channel records and stereo pick-ups to correctly placed loudspeakers. The advent of silent surfaces of vinyl records made this approach commercial from the late 1950s. His approach was independent and quite different from that of A.C. Keller.His extreme facility for creating innovative solutions to electronic problems was used in EMI's development from 1934 to 1938 of the electronic television system, which became the BBC standard of 405 lines after the Second World War, when television broadcasting again became possible. Independent of official requirements, EMI developed a 60 MHz radar system and Blumlein was involved in the development of a centimetric radar and display system. It was during testing of this aircraft mounted equipment that he was killed in a crash.[br]BibliographyBlumlein was inventor or co-inventor of well over 120 patents, a complete list of which is to be found in Burns (1992; see below). The major sound-recording achievements are documented by British patent nos. 350,954, 350,998, 363,627 (highly linear cutterhead, 1930) and 394,325 (reads like a textbook on stereo technology, 1931).Further ReadingThe definitive biography of Blumlein has not yet been written; the material seems to have been collected, but is not yet available. However, R.W.Burns, 1992, "A.D.Blumlein, engineer extraordinary", Engineering Science and Education Journal (February): 19– 33 is a thorough account. Also B.J.Benzimra, 1967, "A.D. Blumlein: an electronics genius", Electronics \& Power (June): 218–24 provides an interesting summary.GB-N -
72 Bode, Hendrik Wade
[br]b. 24 December 1905 Madison, Wisconsin, USAd. 21 June 1982 Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA[br]American engineer who developed an extensive theoretical understanding of the behaviour of electronic circuits.[br]Bode received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Ohio State University in 1924 and 1926, respectively, and his PhD from Columbia University, New York, in 1935. In 1926 he joined the Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he made many theoretical contributions to the understanding of the behaviour of electronic circuits and, in particular, in conjunction with Harry Nyquist, of the conditions under which amplifier circuits become unstable.During the Second World War he worked on the design of gun control systems and afterwards was a member of a team that worked with Douglas Aircraft to develop the Nike anti-aircraft missile. A member of the Bell Laboratories Mathematical Research Group from 1929, he became its Director in 1952, and then Director of Physical Sciences. Finally he became Vice-President of the Laboratories, with responsibility for systems engineering, and a director of Bellcomm, a Bell company involved in the Moon-landing programme. When he retired from Bell in 1967, he became Professor of Systems Engineering at Harvard University.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresidential Certificate of Merit 1946. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Edison Medal 1969.Bibliography1940, "Relation between attenuation and phase in feedback amplifier design", Bell System Technical Journal 19:421.1945, Network Analysis and Feedback Amplifier Design, New York: Van Nostrand.1950, with C.E.Shannon, "A simplified derivation of linear least squares smoothing and prediction theory", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 38:417.1961, "Feedback. The history of an idea", Proceedings of the Symposium on Active Networks and Feedback Systems, Brooklyn Polytechnic.1971, Synergy: Technical Integration and Technical Innovation in the Bell System Bell Laboratories, Bell Telephone Laboratories (provides background on his activities at Bell).Further ReadingP.C.Mahon, 1975, Mission Communications, Bell Telephone Laboratories. See also Black, Harold Stephen; Shannon, Claude Elwood.KF -
73 Boeing, William Edward
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 1 October 1881 Detroit, Michigan, USAd. 28 September 1956 USA[br]American aircraft designer, creator of one of the most successful aircraft manufacturing companies in the world.[br]In 1915 William E.Boeing and his friend Commander Conrad Westervelt decided that they could improve on the aeroplanes then being produced in the United States. Boeing was a prominent Seattle businessman with interests in land and timber, while Westervelt was an officer in the US Navy. They bought a Martin Model T float-plane in order to gain some experience and then produced their own design, the B \& W, which first flew in June 1916. Westervelt was transferred to the East, leaving Boeing to continue the production of the B \& W floatplanes, for which purpose he set up the Pacific Aero Products Company. On 26 April 1917 this became the Boeing Airplane Company, which prospered following the US involvement in the First World War.In March 1919 Boeing and Edward Hubbard inaugurated the world's first international airmail service between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Boeing Company then had to face the slump in aircraft manufacturing after the war: they survived, and by 1922 they had started producing a successful series of fighters while continuing to develop their flying-boat and floatplane designs. Boeing set up the Boeing Air Transport Corporation to tender for lucrative airmail contracts and then produced aircraft which could out-perform those of his rivals. The company went from strength to strength and by the end of the 1920s a huge conglomerate had been built up: the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. They produced an advanced high-speed monoplane mailplane, the model 200 Monomail in 1930, which saw the birth of a new era of Boeing designs.The Wall Street crash of 1929 and legislation in 1934, which banned any company from both building aeroplanes and running an airline, were setbacks which the Boeing Airplane Company overcame, moving ahead to become world leaders. William E.Boeing decided that it was time he retired, but he returned to work during the Second World War.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsGuggenheim Medal 1934.Further ReadingC.Chant, 1982, Boeing: The World's Greatest Planemakers, Hadley Wood, England (describes William E.Boeing's part in the founding and building up of the Boeing Company).P.M.Bowers, 1990, Boeing Aircraft since 1916, 3rd edn, London (covers Boeing's aircraft).Boeing Company, 1977, Pedigree of Champions: Boeing since 1916, Seattle.JDS -
74 Booth, Hubert Cecil
SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Domestic appliances and interiors, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Ports and shipping[br]b. 1871 Gloucester, England d. 1955[br]English mechanical, civil and construction engineer best remembered as the inventor of the vacuum cleaner.[br]As an engineer Booth contributed to the design of engines for Royal Navy battleships, designed and supervised the erection of a number of great wheels (in Blackpool, Vienna and Paris) and later designed factories and bridges.In 1900 he attended a demonstration, at St Paneras Station in London, of a new form of railway carriage cleaner that was supposed to blow the dirt into a container. It was not a very successful experiment and Booth, having considered the problem carefully, decided that sucking might be better than blowing. He tried out his idea by placing a piece of damp cloth over an upholstered armchair. When he sucked air by mouth through his cloth the dirt upon it was tangible proof of his theory.Various attempts were being made at this time, especially in America, to find a successful cleaner of carpets and upholstery. Booth produced the first truly satisfactory machine, which he patented in 1901, and coined the term "vacuum cleaner". He formed the Vacuum Cleaner Co. (later to become Goblin BVC Ltd) and began to manufacture his machines. For some years the company provided a cleaning service to town houses, using a large and costly vacuum cleaner (the first model cost £350). Painted scarlet, it measured 54×10×42 in. (137×25×110 cm) and was powered by a petrol-driven 5 hp piston engine. It was transported through the streets on a horse-driven van and was handled by a team of operators who parked outside the house to be cleaned. With the aid of several hundred feet of flexible hose extending from the cleaner through the windows into all the rooms, the machine sucked the dirt of decades from the carpets; at the first cleaning the weight of many such carpets was reduced by 50 per cent as the dirt was sucked away.Many attempts were made in Europe and America to produce a smaller and less expensive machine. Booth himself designed the chief British model in 1906, the Trolley- Vac, which was wheeled around the house on a trolley. Still elaborate, expensive and heavy, this machine could, however, be operated inside a room and was powered from an electric light fitting. It consisted of a sophisticated electric motor and a belt-driven rotary vacuum pump. Various hoses and fitments made possible the cleaning of many different surfaces and the dust was trapped in a cloth filter within a small metal canister. It was a superb vacuum cleaner but cost 35 guineas and weighed a hundredweight (50 kg), so it was difficult to take upstairs.Various alternative machines that were cheaper and lighter were devised, but none was truly efficient until a prototype that married a small electric motor to the machine was produced in 1907 in America.[br]Further ReadingThe Story of the World's First Vacuum Cleaner, Leatherhead: BSR (Housewares) Ltd. See also Hoover, William Henry.DY -
75 Bosch, Robert August
[br]b. 23 September 1861 Albeck, near Ulm, Germanyd. 9 March 1942 Stuttgart, Germany[br]German engineer, industrialist and pioneer of internal combustion engine electrical systems.[br]Robert was the eighth of twelve children of the landlord of a hotel in the village of Albeck. He wanted to be a botanist and zoologist, but at the age of 18 he was apprenticed as a precision mechanic. He travelled widely in the south of Germany, which is unusual for an apprenticeship. In 1884, he went to the USA, where he found employment with Thomas A. Edison and his colleague, the German electrical engineer Siegmund Bergmann. During this period he became interested and involved in the rights of workers.In 1886 he set up his own workshop in Stuttgart, having spent a short time with Siemens in England. He built up a sound reputation for quality, but the firm outgrew its capital and in 1892 he had to sack nearly all his employees. Fortunately, among the few that he was able to retain were Arnold Zähringer, who later became Manager, and an apprentice, Gottlieb Harold. These two, under Bosch, were responsible for the development of the low-tension (1897) and the high-tension (1902) magneto. They also developed the Bosch sparking plug, again in 1902. The distributor for multi-cylinder engines followed in 1910. These developments, with a strong automotive bias, were stimulated by Bosch's association with Frederick Simms, an Englishman domiciled in Hamburg, who had become a director of Daimler in Canstatt and had secured the UK patent rights of the Daimler engine. Simms went on to invent, in about 1898, a means of varying ignition timing with low-tension magnetos.It must be emphasized, as pointed out above, that the invention of neither type of magneto was due to Bosch. Nikolaus Otto introduced a crude low-tension magneto in 1884, but it was not patented in Germany, while the high-tension magneto was invented by Paul Winand, a nephew of Otto's partner Eugen Langen, in 1887, this patent being allowed to lapse in 1890.Bosch's social views were advanced for his time. He introduced an eight-hour day in 1906 and advocated industrial arbitration and free trade, and in 1932 he wrote a book on the prevention of world economic crises, Die Verhütung künftiger Krisen in der Weltwirtschaft. Other industrialists called him the "Red Bosch" because of his short hours and high wages; he is reputed to have replied, "I do not pay good wages because I have a lot of money, I have a lot of money because I pay good wages." The firm exists to this day as the giant multi-national company Robert Bosch GmbH, with headquarters still in Stuttgart.[br]Further ReadingT.Heuss, 1994, Robert Bosch: His Life and Achievements (trans. S.Gillespie and J. Kapczynski), New York: Henry Holt \& Co.JB -
76 Boulsover, Thomas
[br]b. 1704d. 1788[br]English cutler, metalworker and inventor of Sheffield plate.[br]Boulsover, originally a small-scale manufacturer of cutlery, is believed to have specialized in making knife-handle components. About 1742 he found that a thin sheet of silver could be fused to copper sheet by rolling or beating to flatten it. Thus he developed the plating of silver, later called Sheffield plate.The method when perfected consisted of copper sheet overlaid by thin sheet silver being annealed by red heat. Protected by iron sheeting, the copper and silver were rolled together, becoming fused to a single plate capable of undergoing further manufacturing processes. Later developments included methods of edging the fused sheets and the placing of silver sheet on both lower and upper surfaces of copper, to produce high-quality silver plate, in much demand by the latter part of the century. Boulsover himself is said to have produced only small articles such as buttons and snuff boxes from this material, which by 1758 was being exploited more commercially by Joseph Hancock in Sheffield making candlesticks, hot-water pots and coffee pots. Matthew Boulton introduced its manufacture in very high-quality products during the 1760s to Birmingham, where the technique was widely adopted later. By the 1770s Boulsover was engaged in rolling his plated copper for industry elsewhere, also trading in iron and purchasing blister steel which he converted by the Huntsman process to crucible steel. Blister steel was converted on his behalf to shear steel by forging. He is thought to have also been responsible for improving this product further, introducing "double-shear steel", by repeating the forging and faggoting of shear steel bars. Thomas Boulsover had become a Sheffield entrepreneur, well known for his numerous skills with metals.[br]Further ReadingH.W.Dickinson, 1937, Matthew Boulton, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (describes Boulsover's innovation and further development of Sheffield plate).J.Holland, 1834, Manufactures in Metal III, 354–8.For activities in steel see: K.C.Barraclough, 1991, "Steel in the Industrial Revolution", in J.Day and R.F.Tylecote (eds), The Industrial Revolution in Metals, The Institute of Metals.JD -
77 Brearley, Harry
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 18 February 1871 Sheffield, Englandd. 14 July 1948 Torquay, Devon, England[br]English inventor of stainless steel.[br]Brearley was born in poor circumstances. He received little formal education and was nurtured rather in and around the works of Thomas Firth \& Sons, where his father worked in the crucible steel-melting shop. One of his first jobs was to help in their chemical laboratory where the chief chemist, James Taylor, encouraged him and helped him fit himself for a career as a steelworks chemist.In 1901 Brearley left Firth's to set up a laboratory at Kayser Ellison \& Co., but he returned to Firth's in 1904, when he was appointed Chief Chemist at their Riga works, and Works Manager the following year. In 1907 he returned to Sheffield to design and equip a research laboratory to serve both Firth's and John Brown \& Co. It was during his time as head of this laboratory that he made his celebrated discovery. In 1913, while seeking improved steels for rifle barrels, he used one containing 12.68 per cent chromium and 0.24 per cent carbon, in the hope that it would resist fouling and erosion. He tried to etch a specimen for microscopic examination but failed, from which he concluded that it would resist corrosion by, for example, the acids encountered in foods and cooking. The first knives made of this new steel were unsatisfactory and the 1914–18 war interrupted further research. But eventually the problems were overcome and Brearley's discovery led to a range of stainless steels with various compositions for domestic, medical and industrial uses, including the well-known "18–8" steel, with 18 per cent chromium and 8 per cent nickel.In 1915 Brearley left the laboratory to become Works Manager, then Technical Director, at Brown Bayley's steelworks until his retirement in 1925.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsIron and Steel Institute Bessemer Gold Medal 1920.BibliographyBrearley wrote several books, including: 1915 (?), with F.Ibbotson, The Analysis of Steelworks Materials, London.The Heat Treatment of Tool Steels. Ingots and Ingot Moulds.Later books include autobiographical details: 1946, Talks on Steelmaking, American Society for Metals.1941, Knotted String: Autobiography of a Steelmaker, London: Longmans, Green.Further ReadingObituary, 1948, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute: 428–9.LRD -
78 Breguet, Abraham-Louis
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]baptized 10 January 1747 Neuchâtel, Switzerlandd. 17 September 1823 Paris, France[br]Swiss clock-and watchmaker who made many important contributions to horology.[br]When Breguet was 11 years old his father died and his mother married a Swiss watchmaker who had Paris connections. His stepfather introduced him to horology and this led to an apprenticeship in Paris, during which he also attended evening classes in mathematics at the Collège Mazarin. In 1775 he married and set up a workshop in Paris, initially in collaboration with Xavier Gide. There he established a reputation among the aristocracy for elegant and innovative timepieces which included a perpétuelle, or self-winding watch, which he developed from the ideas of Perrelet. He also enjoyed the patronage of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. During the French Revolution his life was in danger and in 1793 he fled to Neuchâtel. The two years he spent there comprised what was intellectually one of his most productive periods and provided many of the ideas that he was able to exploit after he had returned to Paris in 1795. By the time of his death he had become the most prestigious watchmaker in Europe: he supplied timepieces to Napoleon and, after the fall of the Empire, to Louis XVIII, as well as to most of the crowned heads of Europe.Breguet divided his contributions to horology into three categories: improvements in appearance and functionality; improvements in durability; and improvements in timekeeping. His pendule sympathique was in the first category and consisted of a clock which during the night set a watch to time, regulated it and wound it. His parachute, a spring-loaded bearing, made a significant contribution to the durability of a watch by preventing damage to its movement if it was dropped. Among the many improvements that Breguet made to timekeeping, two important ones were the introduction of the overcoil balance spring and the tourbillon. By bending the outside end of the balance spring over the top of the coils Breguet was able to make the oscillations of the balance isochronous, thus achieving for the flat spring what Arnold had already accomplished for the cylindrical balance spring. The timekeeping of a balance is also dependent on its position, and the tourbillon was an attempt to average-out positional errors by placing the balance wheel and the escapement in a cage that rotated once every minute. This principle was revived in a simplified form in the karussel at the end of the nineteenth century.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHorloger de la marine 1815. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur 1815.BibliographyBreguet gathered information for a treatise on horology that was never published but which was later plagiarized by Louis Moinet in his Traité d'horlogerie, 1848.Further ReadingG.Daniels, 1974, The An of Breguet, London (an account of his life with a good technical assessment of his work).DV -
79 Breuer, Marcel Lajos
[br]b. 22 May 1902 Pécs, Hungaryd. 1 July 1981 New York (?), USA[br]Hungarian member of the European Bauhaus generation in the 1920s, who went on to become a leader in the modern school of architectural and furniture design in Europe and the United States.[br]Breuer began his student days following an art course in Vienna, but joined the Bauhaus at Weimar, where he later graduated, in 1920. When Gropius re-established the school in purpose-built structures at Dessau, Breuer became a member of the teaching staff in charge of the carpentry and furniture workshops. Much of his time there was spent in design and research into new materials being applied to furniture and interior decoration. The essence of his contribution was to relate the design of furniture to industrial production; in this field he developed the tubular-steel structure, especially in chair design, and experimented with aluminium as a furniture material as well as pieces of furniture made up from modular units. His furniture style was characterized by an elegance of line and a careful avoidance of superfluous detail. By 1926 he had furnished the Bauhaus with such furniture in chromium-plated steel, and two years later had developed a cantilevered chair.Breuer left the Bauhaus in 1928 and set up an architectural practice in Berlin. In the early 1930s he also spent some time in Switzerland. Notable from these years was his Harnischmacher Haus in Wiesbaden and his apartment buildings in the Dolderthal area of Zurich. His architectural work was at first influenced by constructivism, and then by that of Le Corbusier (see Charles-Edouard Jeanneret). In 1935 he moved to England, where in partnership with F.R.S. Yorke he built some houses and continued to practise furniture design. The Isokon Furniture Co. commissioned him to develop ideas that took advantage of the new bending and moulding processes in laminated wood, one result being his much-copied reclining chair.In 1937, like so many of the European architectural refugees from Nazism, he found himself under-occupied due to the reluctance of English clients to embrace the modern architectural movement. He went to the United States at Gropius's invitation to join him as a professor at Harvard. Breuer and Gropius were influential in training a new generation of American architects, and in particular they built a number of houses. This partnership ended in 1941 and Breuer set up practice in New York. His style of work from this time on was still modern, but became more varied. In housing, he adapted his style to American needs and used local materials in a functional manner. In the Whitney Museum (1966) he worked in a sculptural, granite-clad style. Often he utilized a bold reinforced-concrete form, as in his collaboration with Pier Luigi Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss in the Paris UNESCO Building (1953–8) and the US Embassy in the Hague (1954–8). He displayed his masterly handling of poured concrete used in a strikingly expressionistic, sculptural manner in his St John's Abbey (1953–61) in Collegeville, Minnesota, and in 1973 his Church of St Francis de Sale in Michigan won him the top award of the American Institute of Architects.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsAmerican Institute of Architects Medal of Honour 1964, Gold Medal 1968. Jefferson Foundation Medal 1968.Bibliography1955, Sun and Shadow, the Philosophy of an Architect, New York: Dodd Read (autobiography).Further ReadingC.Jones (ed.), 1963, Marcel Breuer: Buildings and Projects 1921–1961, New York: Praeger.T.Papachristou (ed.), 1970, Marcel Breuer: New Buildings and Projects 1960–1970, New York: Praeger.DY -
80 Burgi, Jost
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 28 February 1552 Lichtensteig, Switzerlandd. 31 January 1632 Kassel, Germany[br]Swiss clockmaker and mathematician who invented the remontoire and the cross-beat escapement, also responsible for the use of exponential notation and the calculation of tables of anti-logarithms.[br]Burgi entered the service of Duke William IV of Hesse in 1579 as Court Clockmaker, although he also assisted William with his astronomical observations. In 1584 he invented the cross-beat escapement which increased the accuracy of spring-driven clocks by two orders of magnitude. During the last years of the century he also worked on the development of geometrical and astronomical instruments for the Royal Observatory at Kassel.On the death of Duke Wilhelm in 1603, and with news of his skills having reached the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, in 1604 he went to Prague to become Imperial Watchmaker and to assist in the creation of a centre of scientific activity, subsequently becoming Assistant to the German astronomer, Johannes Kepler. No doubt this association led to an interest in mathematics and he made significant contributions to the concept of decimal fractions and the use of exponential notation, i.e. the use of a raised number to indicate powers of another number. It is likely that he was developing the idea of logarithms at the same time (or possibly even before) Napier, for in 1620 he made his greatest contribution to mathematics, science and, eventually, engineering, namely the publication of tables of anti-logarithms.At Prague he continued the series of accurate clocks and instruments for astronomical measurements that he had begun to produce at Kassel. At that period clocks were very poor timekeepers since the controller, the foliot or balance, had no natural period of oscillation and was consequently dependent on the driving force. Although the force of the driving weight was constant, irregularities occurred during the transmission of the power through the train as a result of the poor shape and quality of the gearing. Burgi attempted to overcome this directly by superb craftsmanship and indirectly by using a remontoire. This device was wound at regular intervals by the main driving force and fed the power directly to the escape wheel, which impulsed the foliot. He also introduced the crossbeat escapement (a variation on the verge), which consisted of two coupled foliots that swung in opposition to each other. According to contemporary evidence his clocks produced a remarkable improvement in timekeeping, being accurate to within a minute a day. This improvement was probably a result of the use of a remontoire and the high quality of the workmanship rather than a result of the cross-beat escapement, which did not have a natural period of oscillation.Burgi or Prague clocks, as they were known, were produced by very few other makers and were supplanted shortly afterwards by the intro-duction of the pendulum clock. Burgi also produced superb clockwork-driven celestial globes.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsEnnobled 1611.BibliographyBurgi only published one book, and that was concerned with mathematics.Further ReadingL.von Mackensen, 1979, Die erste Sternwarte Europas mit ihren Instrumenten and Uhren—400 Jahre Jost Burgi in Kassel, Munich.K.Maurice and O.Mayr (eds), 1980, The Clockwork Universe, Washington, DC, pp. 87– 102.H.A.Lloyd, 1958, Some Outstanding Clocks Over 700 Years, 1250–1950, London. E.T.Bell, 1937, Men of Mathematics, London: Victor Gollancz.See also: Briggs, HenryKF / DV
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