cable telegraph company

1 cable, lead ( Elec & computing).

se le cruzaron los cables (informal figurative) he got mixed up (se confundió)

se le cruzaron los cables y la pegó in a moment of madness, he hit her

echar un cable (informal figurative) to help out, to lend a hand

2 cable.

3 cable.

televisión por cable cable television

cable de fibra óptica fiber-optic cable

4 cablegram, cable.

* * *

► nombre masculino

1 (cablegrama) cablegram, cable

► nombre masculino

1 (maroma) cable

\

echarle un cable a alguien familiar to give somebody a hand

* * *

1) cable

2) wire

* * *

1) (Elec) (=hilo) wire; [con cubierta aislante] cable

- se le cruzaron los cables

- se le pelaron los cables

2) (Mec) [de acero] cable

- echar un cable a algn

3) (Telec) cable, wire

4) (=cablegrama) cable

* * *

1)

a) (Elec, Telec) cable

b) (para levantar, tirar) cable

2) (ant) ( telegrama) cable, wire

* * *

= cable, cord, wire, flex.

Ex. The OCLC Europe network is connected to the OCLC computer system in the US by a dedicated link via an undersea cable.

Ex. The cord which trips its shutter may reach down a man's sleeve within easy reach of his fingers.

Ex. The second title may be indexed under: wire, rope, lubrication, corrosion, protection.

Ex. This type of flex should never be repaired or joined by using insulating tape.

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* arrancar con cables = jump-start [jump start].

* arranque con cables = jump-starting [jumpstarting].

* cable coaxial = coaxial cabling, coaxial cable.

* cable con corriente = live wire.

* cable de acero = wire rope.

* cable de detonación = tripwire.

* cable de fibra óptica = optical fibre cable, fibre optic cable.

* cable de pelos = stranded wire.

* cable de telecomunicaciones = telecommunications cable.

* cable de teléfono = phone cord.

* cable de tracción = tripwire.

* cable eléctrico = power cable, power line.

* cable híbrido de fibra de vidrio y coaxial = hybrid fiber-coax (HFC).

* cable metálico = wire rope.

* cable óptico = optical cable.

* cable plano = flat wire.

* cables = cabling.

* cable submarino = undersea cable.

* compañía de televisión por cable = cable company.

* con cable = corded.

* conectado por cable = wired-up, hardwired [hard wired], wired, wireline.

* conexión de cables = wiring.

* noticia por cable = newswire.

* noticias por cable = cable news.

* por cable = wireline, corded.

* red por cable = cable network.

* sin cables = wireless.

* sistema de cables eléctricos = electrical wiring.

* televisión por cable = cable television (CATV), CATV (cable television), cable TV.

* * *

1)

a) (Elec, Telec) cable

b) (para levantar, tirar) cable

2) (ant) ( telegrama) cable, wire

* * *

* * *

1 ( Elec, Telec) cable

andar con or tener los cables pelados (CS fam); to be around the bend ( colloq)

cruzársele or ( Méx) cuatrapeársele los cables a algn ( fam): se me cruzaron los cables I got mixed up

2 (para levantar, tirar) cable

el cable del ancla the anchor chain

echarle un cable a algn ( fam); to help sb out, give sb a hand

feeder cable

shielded cable

coaxial cable

( Elec) supply line

B ( ant) (telegrama) cable, wire

* * *

* * *

cable nm

1. [de puente, ascensor, teleférico, ancla] cable;

echar o [m5] lanzar o [m5] tender un cable to help out, to lend a hand

cable submarino submarine o undersea cable

2. [conductor eléctrico] [para conectar] cable, lead;

se le cruzaron los cables [se confundió] he got mixed up;

se le cruzaron los cables y le pegó in a moment of madness, he hit her;

andar o [m5] estar con los cables pelados to have got out of the wrong side of bed, to be like a bear with a sore head;

cable de serie serial cable

3. [de fibra óptica] cable;

una red de cable a cable network;

un operador de cable a cable company;

televisión por cable cable television

cable óptico optical cable

4. [telegrama] Br telegram, US cable;

poner o [m5] enviar a alguien un cable to send sb a Br telegram o US cable, to cable sb

5. Náut [medida] cable

* * *

1 EL cable;

se le cruzaron los cables fam he got mixed up

2 MAR line, rope;

echar un cable a alguien give s.o. a hand

* * *

cable nm

: cable

* * *

cable n cable / lead

echar un cable to lend a hand [pt. & pp. lent]

SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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At the age of 15 years Bright left the London Merchant Taylors' School to join the two-year-old Electric Telegraph Company. By 1851 he was in charge of the Birmingham telegraph station. After a short time as Assistant Engineer with the newly formed British Telegraph Company, he joined his brother (who was Manager) as Engineer-in-Chief of the English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company in Liverpool, for which he laid thousands of miles of underground cable and developed a number of innovations in telegraphy including a resistance box for locating cable faults and a two-tone bell system for signalling. In 1853 he was responsible for the first successful underwater cable between Scotland and Ireland. Three years later, with the American financier Cyrus Field and John Brett, he founded and was Engineer-in-chief of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, which aimed at laying a cable between Ireland and Newfoundland. After several unsuccessful attempts this was finally completed on 5 August 1858, Bright was knighted a month later, but the cable then failed! In 1860 Bright resigned from the Magnetic Telegraph Company to set up an independent consultancy with another engineer, Joseph Latimer Clark, with whom he invented an improved bituminous cable insulation. Two years later he supervised construction of a telegraph cable to India, and in 1865 a further attempt to lay an Atlantic cable using Brunel's new ship, the Great Eastern. This cable broke during laying, but in 1866 a new cable was at last successfully laid and the 1865 cable recovered and repaired. The year 1878 saw extension of the Atlantic cable system to the West Indies and the invention with his brother of a system of neighbourhood fire alarms and even an automatic fire alarm.

In 1861 Bright presented a paper to the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the need for electrical standards, leading to the creation of an organization that still exists in the 1990s. From 1865 until 1868 he was Liberal MP for Greenwich, and he later assisted with preparations for the 1881 Paris Exhibition.

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SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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At the age of 15 Field left home to seek his fortune in New York, starting work on Broadway as an errand boy for $1 per week. Returning to Massachusetts, in 1838 he became an assistant to his brother Matthew, a paper-maker, leaving to set up his own business two years later. By the age of 21 he was also a partner in a New York firm of paper wholesalers, but this firm collapsed because of large debts. Out of the wreckage he set up Cyrus W.Field \& Co., and by 1852 he had paid off all the debts. With $250,000 in the bank he therefore retired and travelled in South America. Returning to the USA, he then became involved with the construction of a telegraph line in Newfoundland by an English engineer, F.N. Osborne. Although the company collapsed, he had been fired by the dream of a transatlantic cable and in 1854 was one of the founders of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company. He began to promote surveys and hold discussions with British telegraph pioneers and with Isambard Brunel, who was then building the Great Eastern steamship. In 1856 he helped to set up the Atlantic Telegraph Company in Britain and, as a result of his efforts and those of the British physicist and inventor Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), work began in 1857 on the laying of the first transatlantic cable from Newfoundland to Ireland. After many tribulations the cable was completed on 5 August 1857, but it failed after barely a month. Following several unsuccessful attempts to repair and replace it, the cable was finally completed on 27 July 1866. Building upon his success, Field expanded his business interests. In 1877 he bought a controlling interest in and was President of the New York Elevated Railroad Company. He also helped develop the Wabash Railroad and became owner of the New York Mail and Express newspaper; however, he subsequently suffered large financial losses.

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SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Automotive engineering, Electricity, Electronics and information technology, Metallurgy, Photography, film and optics, Public utilities, Recording, Telecommunications

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He was the son of Samuel Edison, who was in the timber business. His schooling was delayed due to scarlet fever until 1855, when he was 8½ years old, but he was an avid reader. By the age of 14 he had a job as a newsboy on the railway from Port Huron to Detroit, a distance of sixty-three miles (101 km). He worked a fourteen-hour day with a stopover of five hours, which he spent in the Detroit Free Library. He also sold sweets on the train and, later, fruit and vegetables, and was soon making a profit of $20 a week. He then started two stores in Port Huron and used a spare freight car as a laboratory. He added a hand-printing press to produce 400 copies weekly of The Grand Trunk Herald, most of which he compiled and edited himself. He set himself to learn telegraphy from the station agent at Mount Clements, whose son he had saved from being run over by a freight car.

At the age of 16 he became a telegraphist at Port Huron. In 1863 he became railway telegraphist at the busy Stratford Junction of the Grand Trunk Railroad, arranging a clock with a notched wheel to give the hourly signal which was to prove that he was awake and at his post! He left hurriedly after failing to hold a train which was nearly involved in a head-on collision. He usually worked the night shift, allowing himself time for experiments during the day. His first invention was an arrangement of two Morse registers so that a high-speed input could be decoded at a slower speed. Moving from place to place he held many positions as a telegraphist. In Boston he invented an automatic vote recorder for Congress and patented it, but the idea was rejected. This was the first of a total of 1180 patents that he was to take out during his lifetime. After six years he resigned from the Western Union Company to devote all his time to invention, his next idea being an improved ticker-tape machine for stockbrokers. He developed a duplex telegraphy system, but this was turned down by the Western Union Company. He then moved to New York.

Edison found accommodation in the battery room of Law's Gold Reporting Company, sleeping in the cellar, and there his repair of a broken transmitter marked him as someone of special talents. His superior soon resigned, and he was promoted with a salary of $300 a month. Western Union paid him $40,000 for the sole rights on future improvements on the duplex telegraph, and he moved to Ward Street, Newark, New Jersey, where he employed a gathering of specialist engineers. Within a year, he married one of his employees, Mary Stilwell, when she was only 16: a daughter, Marion, was born in 1872, and two sons, Thomas and William, in 1876 and 1879, respectively.

He continued to work on the automatic telegraph, a device to send out messages faster than they could be tapped out by hand: that is, over fifty words per minute or so. An earlier machine by Alexander Bain worked at up to 400 words per minute, but was not good over long distances. Edison agreed to work on improving this feature of Bain's machine for the Automatic Telegraph Company (ATC) for $40,000. He improved it to a working speed of 500 words per minute and ran a test between Washington and New York. Hoping to sell their equipment to the Post Office in Britain, ATC sent Edison to England in 1873 to negotiate. A 500-word message was to be sent from Liverpool to London every half-hour for six hours, followed by tests on 2,200 miles (3,540 km) of cable at Greenwich. Only confused results were obtained due to induction in the cable, which lay coiled in a water tank. Edison returned to New York, where he worked on his quadruplex telegraph system, tests of which proved a success between New York and Albany in December 1874. Unfortunately, simultaneous negotiation with Western Union and ATC resulted in a lawsuit.

Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for a telephone in March 1876 while Edison was still working on the same idea. His improvements allowed the device to operate over a distance of hundreds of miles instead of only a few miles. Tests were carried out over the 106 miles (170 km) between New York and Philadelphia. Edison applied for a patent on the carbon-button transmitter in April 1877, Western Union agreeing to pay him $6,000 a year for the seventeen-year duration of the patent. In these years he was also working on the development of the electric lamp and on a duplicating machine which would make up to 3,000 copies from a stencil. In 1876–7 he moved from Newark to Menlo Park, twenty-four miles (39 km) from New York on the Pennsylvania Railway, near Elizabeth. He had bought a house there around which he built the premises that would become his "inventions factory". It was there that he began the use of his 200- page pocket notebooks, each of which lasted him about two weeks, so prolific were his ideas. When he died he left 3,400 of them filled with notes and sketches.

Late in 1877 he applied for a patent for a phonograph which was granted on 19 February 1878, and by the end of the year he had formed a company to manufacture this totally new product. At the time, Edison saw the device primarily as a business aid rather than for entertainment, rather as a dictating machine. In August 1878 he was granted a British patent. In July 1878 he tried to measure the heat from the solar corona at a solar eclipse viewed from Rawlins, Wyoming, but his "tasimeter" was too sensitive.

Probably his greatest achievement was "The Subdivision of the Electric Light" or the "glow bulb". He tried many materials for the filament before settling on carbon. He gave a demonstration of electric light by lighting up Menlo Park and inviting the public. Edison was, of course, faced with the problem of inventing and producing all the ancillaries which go to make up the electrical system of generation and distribution-meters, fuses, insulation, switches, cabling—even generators had to be designed and built; everything was new. He started a number of manufacturing companies to produce the various components needed.

In 1881 he built the world's largest generator, which weighed 27 tons, to light 1,200 lamps at the Paris Exhibition. It was later moved to England to be used in the world's first central power station with steam engine drive at Holborn Viaduct, London. In September 1882 he started up his Pearl Street Generating Station in New York, which led to a worldwide increase in the application of electric power, particularly for lighting. At the same time as these developments, he built a 1,300yd (1,190m) electric railway at Menlo Park.

On 9 August 1884 his wife died of typhoid. Using his telegraphic skills, he proposed to 19-year-old Mina Miller in Morse code while in the company of others on a train. He married her in February 1885 before buying a new house and estate at West Orange, New Jersey, building a new laboratory not far away in the Orange Valley.

Edison used direct current which was limited to around 250 volts. Alternating current was largely developed by George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla, using transformers to step up the current to a higher voltage for long-distance transmission. The use of AC gradually overtook the Edison DC system.

In autumn 1888 he patented a form of cinephotography, the kinetoscope, obtaining film-stock from George Eastman. In 1893 he set up the first film studio, which was pivoted so as to catch the sun, with a hinged roof which could be raised. In 1894 kinetoscope parlours with "peep shows" were starting up in cities all over America. Competition came from the Latham Brothers with a screen-projection machine, which Edison answered with his "Vitascope", shown in New York in 1896. This showed pictures with accompanying sound, but there was some difficulty with synchronization. Edison also experimented with captions at this early date.

In 1880 he filed a patent for a magnetic ore separator, the first of nearly sixty. He bought up deposits of low-grade iron ore which had been developed in the north of New Jersey. The process was a commercial success until the discovery of iron-rich ore in Minnesota rendered it uneconomic and uncompetitive. In 1898 cement rock was discovered in New Village, west of West Orange. Edison bought the land and started cement manufacture, using kilns twice the normal length and using half as much fuel to heat them as the normal type of kiln. In 1893 he met Henry Ford, who was building his second car, at an Edison convention. This started him on the development of a battery for an electric car on which he made over 9,000 experiments. In 1903 he sold his patent for wireless telegraphy "for a song" to Guglielmo Marconi.

In 1910 Edison designed a prefabricated concrete house. In December 1914 fire destroyed three-quarters of the West Orange plant, but it was at once rebuilt, and with the threat of war Edison started to set up his own plants for making all the chemicals that he had previously been buying from Europe, such as carbolic acid, phenol, benzol, aniline dyes, etc. He was appointed President of the Navy Consulting Board, for whom, he said, he made some forty-five inventions, "but they were pigeonholed, every one of them". Thus did Edison find that the Navy did not take kindly to civilian interference.

In 1927 he started the Edison Botanic Research Company, founded with similar investment from Ford and Firestone with the object of finding a substitute for overseas-produced rubber. In the first year he tested no fewer than 3,327 possible plants, in the second year, over 1,400, eventually developing a variety of Golden Rod which grew to 14 ft (4.3 m) in height. However, all this effort and money was wasted, due to the discovery of synthetic rubber.

In October 1929 he was present at Henry Ford's opening of his Dearborn Museum to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the incandescent lamp, including a replica of the Menlo Park laboratory. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and was elected to the American Academy of Sciences. He died in 1931 at his home, Glenmont; throughout the USA, lights were dimmed temporarily on the day of his funeral.

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SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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Following early education at Phillips Academy, Andover, at the age of 14 years Morse went to Yale College, where he developed interests in painting and electricity. Upon graduating in 1810 he became a clerk to a Washington publisher and a pupil of Washington Allston, a well-known American painter. The following year he travelled to Europe and entered the London studio of another American artist, Benjamin West, successfully exhibiting at the Royal Academy as well as winning a prize and medal for his sculpture. Returning to Boston and finding little success as a "historical-style" painter, he built up a thriving portrait business, moving in 1818 to Charleston, South Carolina, where three years later he established the (now defunct) South Carolina Academy of Fine Arts. In 1825 he was back in New York, but following the death of his wife and both of his parents that year, he embarked on an extended tour of European art galleries. In 1832, on the boat back to America, he met Charles T.Jackson, who told him of the discovery of the electromagnet and fired his interest in telegraphy to the extent that Morse immediately began to make suggestions for electrical communications and, apparently, devised a form of printing telegraph. Although he returned to his painting and in 1835 was appointed the first Professor of the Literature of Art and Design at the University of New York City, he began to spend more and more time experimenting in telegraphy. In 1836 he invented a relay as a means of extending the cable distance over which telegraph signals could be sent. At this time he became acquainted with Alfred Vail, and the following year, when the US government published the requirements for a national telegraph service, they set out to produce a workable system, with finance provided by Vail's father (who, usefully, owned an ironworks). A patent was filed on 6 October 1837 and a successful demonstration using the so-called Morse code was given on 6 January 1838; the work was, in fact, almost certainly largely that of Vail. As a result of the demonstration a Bill was put forward to Congress for $30,000 for an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore. This was eventually passed and the line was completed, and on 24 May 1844 the first message, "What hath God wrought", was sent between the two cities. In the meantime Morse also worked on the insulation of submarine cables by means of pitch tar and indiarubber.

With success achieved, Morse offered his invention to the Government for $100,000, but this was declined, so the invention remained in private hands. To exploit it, Morse founded the Magnetic Telephone Company in 1845, amalgamating the following year with the telegraph company of a Henry O'Reilly to form Western Union. Having failed to obtain patents in Europe, he now found himself in litigation with others in the USA, but eventually, in 1854, the US Supreme Court decided in his favour and he soon became very wealthy. In 1857 a proposal was made for a telegraph service across the whole of the USA; this was completed in just over four months in 1861. Four years later work began on a link to Europe via Canada, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Russia, but it was abandoned with the completion of the transatlantic cable, a venture in which he also had some involvement. Showered with honours, Morse became a generous philanthropist in his later years. By 1883 the company he had created was worth $80 million and had a virtual monopoly in the USA.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Telecommunications

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After education at Glasgow University and Peterhouse, Cambridge, a period of study in France gave Thomson an interest in experimental work and instrumentation. He became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow in 1846 and retained the position for the rest of his career, establishing the first teaching laboratory in Britain.

Among his many contributions to science and engineering was his concept, introduced in 1848, of an "absolute" zero of temperature. Following on from the work of Joule, his investigations into the nature of heat led to the first successful liquefaction of gases such as hydrogen and helium, and later to the science of low-temperature physics.

Cable telegraphy gave an impetus to the scientific measurement of electrical quantities, and for many years Thomson was a member of the British Association Committee formed in 1861 to consider electrical standards and to develop units; these are still in use. Thomson first became Scientific Adviser to the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1857, sailing on the Agamemnon and Great Eastern during the cable-laying expeditions. He invented a mirror galvanometer and more importantly the siphon recorder, which, used as a very sensitive telegraph receiver, provided a permanent record of signals. He also laid down the design parameters of long submarine cables and discovered that the conductivity of copper was greatly affected by its purity. A major part of the success of the Atlantic cable in 1866 was due to Thomson, who received a knighthood for his contribution.

Other instruments he designed included a quadrant electrostatic voltmeter to measure high voltages, and his "multi-cellular" instrument for low voltages. They could be used on alternating or direct current and were free from temperature errors. His balances for precision current measurement were widely used in standardizing laboratories.

Thomson was a prolific writer of scientific papers on subjects across the whole spectrum of physics; between 1855 and 1866 he published some 110 papers, with a total during his life of over 600. In 1892 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Kelvin of Largs. By the time of his death he was looked upon as the "father" of British physics, but despite his outstanding achievements his later years were spent resisting change and progress.

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SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

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As a Jewish boy in Russia, Sarnoff spent several years preparing to be a Talmudic Scholar, but in 1900 the family emigrated to the USA and settled in Albany, New York. While at public school and at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, he helped the family finances by running errands, selling newspapers and singing the liturgy in the synagogue. After a short period as a messenger boy with the Commercial Cable Company, in 1906 he became an office boy with the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (see G. Marconi). Having bought a telegraph instrument with his first earnings, he taught himself Morse code and was made a junior telegraph operator in 1907. The following year he became a wireless operator at Nantucket Island, then in 1909 he became Manager of the Marconi station at Sea Gate, New York. After two years at sea he returned to a shore job as wireless operator at the world's most powerful station at Wanamaker's store in Manhattan. There, on 14 April 1912, he picked up the distress signals from the sinking iner Titanic, remaining at his post for three days.

Rewarded by rapid promotion (Chief Radio Inspector 1913, Contract Manager 1914, Assistant Traffic Manager 1915, Commercial Manager 1917) he proposed the introduction of commercial radio broadcasting, but this received little response. Consequently, in 1919 he took the job of Commercial Manager of the newly formed Radio Corporation of America (RCA), becoming General Manager in 1921, Vice- President in 1922, Executive Vice-President in 1929 and President in 1930. In 1921 he was responsible for the broadcasting of the Dempsey-Carpentier title-fight, as a result of which RCA sold $80 million worth of radio receivers in the following three years. In 1926 he formed the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Rightly anticipating the development of television, in 1928 he inaugurated an experimental NBC television station and in 1939 demonstrated television at the New York World Fair. Because of his involvement with the provision of radio equipment for the armed services, he was made a lieutenant-colonel in the US Signal Corps Reserves in 1924, a full colonel in 1931 and, while serving as a communications consultant to General Eisenhower during the Second World War, Brigadier General in 1944.

With the end of the war, RCA became a major manufacturer of television receivers and then invested greatly in the ultimately successful development of shadowmask tubes and receivers for colour television. Chairman and Chief Executive from 1934, Sarnoff held the former post until his retirement in 1970.

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See also: Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Werner von Siemens was the eldest of a large family and after the early death of his parents took his place at its head. He served in the Prussian artillery, being commissioned in 1839, after which he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and physics. In 1847 Siemens and J.G. Halske formed a company, Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens und Halske, to manufacture a dial telegraph which they had developed from an earlier instrument produced by Charles Wheatstone. In 1848 Siemens obtained his discharge from the army and he and Halske constructed the first long-distance telegraph line on the European continent, between Berlin and Frankfurt am Main.

Werner von Siemens's younger brother, William Siemens, had settled in Britain in 1844 and was appointed agent for the Siemens \& Halske company in 1851. Later, an English subsidiary company was formed, known from 1865 as Siemens Brothers. It specialized in manufacturing and laying submarine telegraph cables: the specialist cable-laying ship Faraday, launched for the purpose in 1874, was the prototype of later cable ships and in 1874–5 laid the first cable to run direct from the British Isles to the USA. In charge of Siemens Brothers was another brother, Carl, who had earlier established a telegraph network in Russia.

In 1866 Werner von Siemens demonstrated the principle of the dynamo in Germany, but it took until 1878 to develop dynamos and electric motors to the point at which they could be produced commercially. The following year, 1879, Werner von Siemens built the first electric railway, and operated it at the Berlin Trades Exhibition. It comprised an oval line, 300 m (985 it) long, with a track gauge of 1 m (3 ft 3 1/2 in.); upon this a small locomotive hauled three small passenger coaches. The locomotive drew current at 150 volts from a third rail between the running rails, through which it was returned. In four months, more than 80,000 passengers were carried. The railway was subsequently demonstrated in Brussels, and in London, in 1881. That same year Siemens built a permanent electric tramway, 1 1/2 miles (2 1/2 km) long, on the outskirts of Berlin. In 1882 in Berlin he tried out a railless electric vehicle which drew electricity from a two-wire overhead line: this was the ancestor of the trolleybus.

In the British Isles, an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1880 for the Giant's Causeway Railway in Ireland with powers to work it by "animal, mechanical or electrical power"; although Siemens Brothers were electrical engineers to the company, of which William Siemens was a director, delays in construction were to mean that the first railway in the British Isles to operate regular services by electricity was that of Magnus Volk.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Telecommunications

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Smith joined the Gutta Percha Company, London, in 1848 and successfully experimented with the use of gutta-percha, a natural form of latex, for the insulation of conducting wires. As a result, he was made responsible for the laying of the first cross-Channel cable between Dover and Calais in 1850. Four years later he laid the first Mediterranean cable between Spezia, Italy, and Corsica and Sardinia, later extending it to Algeria. On its completion he became Manager of the Gutta Percha works, which in 1864 became the Telegraph and Construction Company. In 1865 he assisted on board the Great Eastern with the laying of the transatlantic cable by Bright.

Clearly his management responsibilities did not stop him from experimenting practically. In 1866 he discovered that the resistance of a selenium rod was reduced by the action of incident light, an early discovery of the photoelectric effect more explicitly observed by Hertz and subsequently explained by Einstein. In 1883 he read a paper to the Society of Telegraph Engineers (later the Institution of Electrical Engineers), suggesting the possibility of wireless communication with moving trains, an idea that was later successfully taken up by others, and in 1888 he demonstrated the use of water as a practical means of communication with a lighthouse. Four years later, after his death, the system was tried between Alum Bay and the Needles in the Isle of Wight, and it was used subsequently for the Fastnet Rock lighthouse some 10 miles (16 km) off the south-west coast of Ireland.

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See also: Field, Cyrus West

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Metallurgy, Public utilities, Telecommunications

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Born Carl Wilhelm, he attended craft schools in Lübeck and Magdeburg, followed by an intensive course in natural science at Göttingen as a pupil of Weber. At the age of 19 Siemens travelled to England and sold an electroplating process developed by his brother Werner Siemens to Richard Elkington, who was already established in the plating business. From 1843 to 1844 he obtained practical experience in the Magdeburg works of Count Stolburg. He settled in England in 1844 and later assumed British nationality, but maintained close contact with his brother Werner, who in 1847 had co-founded the firm Siemens \& Halske in Berlin to manufacture telegraphic equipment. William began to develop his regenerative principle of waste-heat recovery and in 1856 his brother Frederick (1826–1904) took out a British patent for heat regeneration, by which hot waste gases were passed through a honeycomb of fire-bricks. When they became hot, the gases were switched to a second mass of fire-bricks and incoming air and fuel gas were led through the hot bricks. By alternating the two gas flows, high temperatures could be reached and considerable fuel economies achieved. By 1861 the two brothers had incorporated producer gas fuel, made by gasifying low-grade coal.

Heat regeneration was first applied in ironmaking by Cowper in 1857 for heating the air blast in blast furnaces. The first regenerative furnace was set up in Birmingham in 1860 for glassmaking. The first such furnace for making steel was developed in France by Pierre Martin and his father, Emile, in 1863. Siemens found British steelmakers reluctant to adopt the principle so in 1866 he rented a small works in Birmingham to develop his open-hearth steelmaking furnace, which he patented the following year. The process gradually made headway; as well as achieving high temperatures and saving fuel, it was slower than Bessemer's process, permitting greater control over the content of the steel. By 1900 the tonnage of open-hearth steel exceeded that produced by the Bessemer process.

In 1872 Siemens played a major part in founding the Society of Telegraph Engineers (from which the Institution of Electrical Engineers evolved), serving as its first President. He became President for the second time in 1878. He built a cable works at Charlton, London, where the cable could be loaded directly into the holds of ships moored on the Thames. In 1873, together with William Froude, a British shipbuilder, he designed the Faraday, the first specialized vessel for Atlantic cable laying. The successful laying of a cable from Europe to the United States was completed in 1875, and a further five transatlantic cables were laid by the Faraday over the following decade.

The Siemens factory in Charlton also supplied equipment for some of the earliest electric-lighting installations in London, including the British Museum in 1879 and the Savoy Theatre in 1882, the first theatre in Britain to be fully illuminated by electricity. The pioneer electric-tramway system of 1883 at Portrush, Northern Ireland, was an opportunity for the Siemens company to demonstrate its equipment.

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1 thread (fibra, hebra).

al hilo in a row (seguidos) (Am)

colgar o pender de un hilo to be hanging by a thread

mover los hilos to pull some strings

hilo dental dental floss

2 linen (tejido).

3 wire.

sin hilos wireless

4 trickle.

entraba un hilo de luz por la ventana a thin shaft of light came in through the window

apenas le salía un hilo de voz he was barely able to speak

5 train.

perder el hilo to lose the thread

seguir el hilo to follow (the thread)

tomar o retomar el hilo (de la conversación) to pick up the thread (of the conversation)

esto viene al hilo de lo que dijimos ayer this relates to what we were saying yesterday

hilo argumental line of argument

6 line of thought, drift.

1^st person singular (yo) present indicative of spanish verb: hilar.

* * *

► nombre masculino

1 thread (grueso) yarn

2 (lino) linen

3 (alambre, cable) wire

4 figurado (de luz) thread, thin beam; (de líquido) trickle, thin stream

5 figurado (de historia, discurso) thread; (de pensamiento) train

6 figurado (de la vida) course

\

al hilo on the grain

■ cortar al hilo to cut on the grain

coger el hilo figurado to catch the drift, get the drift

con un hilo de voz in a tiny voice, in a faint voice

estar colgando de un hilo figurado to be hanging by a thread

estar pendiente de un hilo figurado to be hanging by a thread

mover los hilos figurado to pull the strings

perder el hilo figurado to lose the thread

seguir el hilo figurado to follow

hilo musical piped music, Musak

* * *

1) thread

2) wire

3) linen

* * *

1) (Cos) thread, yarn

- a hilo

- al hilo

- contar algo del hilo al ovillo

- dar mucho hilo que torcer

- escapar con el hilo en una pata

- estar al hilo

- estar hecho un hilo

- mover los hilos

- pender de un hilo

2) (=cable) [de metal] thin wire; [de electricidad] wire, flex; [de teléfono] line

3) (=chorro) [de líquido] thin stream, trickle; [de gente] thin line

- decir algo con un hilo de voz

- irse tras el hilo de la gente

4) (Bot) fibre, fiber (EEUU), filament

5) (=lino) linen

6) (=curso) [de conversación] thread; [de vida] course; [de pensamientos] train

* * *

1)

a) ( en costura) thread

b) ( lino) linen

c) ( de araña) thread

d) (fam) ( de las judías) string

- hilo dental

2) (Elec) wire

- hilo musical

3) (de relato, conversación) thread

4) (de sangre, agua) trickle

* * *

= thread, strand, thread, linen, yarn.

Ex. Wronski remained silent for a moment, looking at the thin gray threads of smoke that were rising from his cigarette.

Ex. Vegetable fibres in their raw state contain the necessary strands of cellulose which can be converted into paper.

Ex. The thread linking these giants is the acknowledgement that libraries exist to serve their users.

Ex. The raw material of white paper was undyed linen -- or in very early days hempen -- rags, which the paper-maker bought in bulk, sorted and washed, and then put by in a damp heap for four or five days to rot.

Ex. This is the perfect yarn for knitting when the luxury and durability of pure new wool is desired.

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* encaje de hilo = tatting.

* grapadora de hilo de alambre = wire stapler, wire binder.

* hebra de hilo = strand of thread.

* hilo conductor = common thread.

* hilo de agua = trickle.

* hilo de bramante = twine.

* hilo dental = dental floss.

* hilo magnético = magnetic wire.

* hilo telegráfico = telegraph wire.

* limpiarse los dientes con hilo dental = floss + teeth.

* perder el hilo = lose + the plot, lose + the thread.

* retomar el hilo = pick up + the thread, take up + the thread.

* seguir el hilo = follow + the thread.

* tanga de hilo = G-string, gee-string.

* tanga de hilo dental = G-string, gee-string.

* vida + pender + de un hilo = live on + the line.

* vivir pendiendo de un hilo = live on + the line.

* * *

1)

a) ( en costura) thread

b) ( lino) linen

c) ( de araña) thread

d) (fam) ( de las judías) string

- hilo dental

2) (Elec) wire

- hilo musical

3) (de relato, conversación) thread

4) (de sangre, agua) trickle

* * *

* * *

1 (en costura) thread

un carrete de hilo a reel of thread

¿tienes aguja e hilo? do you have a needle and thread?

al hilo ‹cortar/coser› on the straight, with the weave; (uno tras otro) ( AmL fam) on the trot ( colloq)

ganó tres partidos al hilo he won three games on the trot o in a row

se vio cuatro películas al hilo she saw four movies in a row o one after the other

mover los hilos: intereses económicos mueven los hilos de su política economic interests control their policy

todos conocen a quienes mueven los hilos everybody knows who's pulling the strings o calling the shots

pender or colgar de un hilo to hang by a thread

su vida pendía de un hilo his life was hanging by a thread

el futuro de la empresa pende de un hilo the company's future hangs by a thread

por el hilo se saca el ovillo it's just a question of putting two and two together

2 (lino) linen

una camisa de hilo a linen shirt

3 (de araña, gusano de seda) thread

4 ( fam) (de las judías, del plátano) string

dental floss

B ( Elec) wire

( Elec) conductor wire; (de una novela) thread

( Esp) piped music

C ( Inf) thread

D (de un relato, una conversación) thread

perdió el hilo de la conversación she lost the thread of the conversation

interrumpió el hilo de sus pensamientos it interrupted his train of thought

E (de sangre, agua) trickle

un hilo de luz a thread of light ( liter)

con un hilo de voz in a tiny voice, in a thin little voice

* * *

1ª persona singular (yo) presente indicativo

3ª persona singular (él/ella/usted) pretérito indicativo

◊ hilo fino to split hairs

a) ‹algodón/lana› to spin;

b) ‹ideas/hechos› to string together

a) ( en costura) thread;

◊ hilo dental dental floss

b) ( lino) linen

c) ( de araña) thread

d) (fam) ( de las judías) string

◊ hilo musical (Esp) piped music

* * *

hilo nm

1. [fibra, hebra] thread;

al hilo in a row;

me leí cinco libros al hilo I read five books one after the other o in a row;

colgar o [m5] pender de un hilo to be hanging by a thread;

mover los hilos to pull some strings;

es él quien mueve los hilos de la empresa he's the person who really runs the firm

hilo dental [para la boca] dental floss;

2. [tejido] linen;

un mantel de hilo a linen tablecloth

3. [cable] wire;

sin hilos wireless;

tener hilo directo con alguien to have direct access to sb

4. [de agua, sangre] trickle;

entraba un hilo de luz por la ventana a thin shaft of light came in through the window;

apenas le salía un hilo de voz he was barely able to speak

5. Mús hilo musical piped music

6. [de pensamiento] train;

perder el hilo to lose the thread;

seguir el hilo to follow (the thread);

tomar o [m5] retomar el hilo (de la conversación) to pick up the thread (of the conversation);

el hilo conductor del argumento de la película the central strand of the film's plot;

al hilo de [a propósito de] following on from;

esto viene al hilo de lo que dijimos ayer this relates to what we were saying yesterday

* * *

1 para coser thread;

colgar o

pender de un hilo fig hang by a thread;

mover los hilos fig pull strings;

perder el hilo fig lose the thread

sin hilos TELEC cordless

con un hilo de voz fig in a barely audible voice

* * *

hilo nm

1) : thread

colgar de un hilo: to hang by a thread

hilo dental: dental floss

2) lino: linen

3) : (electric) wire

4) : theme, thread (of a discourse)

5) : trickle (of water, etc.)

* * *

hilo n

1. (hebra) thread

2. (alambre, cable) wire

perder el hilo to lose the thread [pt. & pp. lost]

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Telecommunications

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After private education and an engineering apprenticeship, Crampton worked under Marc Brunel, Daniel Gooch and the Rennie brothers before setting up as a civil engineer in 1848. His developing ideas on locomotive design were expressed through a series of five patents taken out between 1842 and 1849, each making a multiplicity of claims. The most typical feature of the Crampton locomotive, however, was a single pair of driving wheels set to the rear of the firebox. This meant they could be of large diameter, while the centre of gravity of the locomotive remained low, for the boiler barrel, though large, had only small carrying-wheels beneath it. The cylinders were approximately midway along the boiler and were outside the frames, as was the valve gear. The result was a steady-riding locomotive which neither pitched about a central driving axle nor hunted from side to side, as did other contemporary locomotives, and its working parts were unusually accessible for maintenance. However, adhesive weight was limited and the long wheelbase tended to damage track. Locomotives of this type were soon superseded on British railways, although they lasted much longer in Germany and France. Locomotives built to the later patents incorporated a long, coupled wheelbase with drive through an intermediate crankshaft, but they mostly had only short lives. In 1851 Crampton, with associates, laid the first successful submarine electric telegraph cable. The previous year the brothers Jacob and John Brett had laid a cable, comprising a copper wire insulated with gutta-percha, beneath the English Channel from Dover to Cap Gris Nez: signals were passed but within a few hours the cable failed. Crampton joined the Bretts' company, put up half the capital needed for another attempt, and designed a much stronger cable. Four gutta-percha-insulated copper wires were twisted together, surrounded by tarred hemp and armoured by galvanized iron wires; this cable was successful.

Crampton was also active in railway civil engineering and in water and gas engineering, and c. 1882 he invented a hydraulic tunnel-boring machine intended for a Channel tunnel.

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SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Telecommunications

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Gooch gained experience as a pupil with several successive engineering firms, including Vulcan Foundry and Robert Stephenson \& Co. In 1837 he was engaged by I.K. Brunel, who was then building the Great Western Railway (GWR) to the broad gauge of 7 ft 1/4 in. (2.14 m), to take charge of the railway's locomotive department. He was just 21 years old. The initial locomotive stock comprised several locomotives built to such extreme specifications laid down by Brunel that they were virtually unworkable, and two 2–2–2 locomotives, North Star and Morning Star, which had been built by Robert Stephenson \& Co. but left on the builder's hands. These latter were reliable and were perpetuated. An enlarged version, the "Fire Fly" class, was designed by Gooch and built in quantity: Gooch was an early proponent of standardization. His highly successful 4–2–2 Iron Duke of 1847 became the prototype of GWR express locomotives for the next forty-five years, until the railway's last broad-gauge sections were narrowed. Meanwhile Gooch had been largely responsible for establishing Swindon Works, opened in 1843. In 1862 he designed 2–4–0 condensing tank locomotives to work the first urban underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway in London. Gooch retired in 1864 but was then instrumental in arranging for Brunel's immense steamship Great Eastern to be used to lay the first transatlantic electric telegraph cable: he was on board when the cable was successfully laid in 1866. He had been elected Member of Parliament for Cricklade (which constituency included Swindon) in 1865, and the same year he had accepted an invitation to become Chairman of the Great Western Railway Company, which was in financial difficulties; he rescued it from near bankruptcy and remained Chairman until shortly before his death. The greatest engineering work undertaken during his chairmanship was the boring of the Severn Tunnel.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Telecommunications

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Halske moved to Berlin when he was a young man, and in 1844 was working for the university, at first independently and then jointly with F. Bötticher, developing and building electric medical appliances. In 1845 he met Werner von Siemens and together they became founder members of the Berlin Physics Society. It was in Halske's workshop that Siemens, assisted by the skill of the former, was able to work out his inventions in telegraphy. In 1847 the two men entered into partnership to manufacture telegraph equipment, laying the foundations of the successful firm of Siemens \& Halske. At the outset, before Werner von Siemens gave up his army career, Halske acted as the sole manager of the firm and was also involved in testing the products. Inventions they developed included electric measuring instruments and railway signalling equipment, and they installed many telegraph lines, notably those for the Russian Government. When gutta-percha became available on the market, the two men soon developed an extrusion process for applying this new material to copper conductors. To the disappointment of Halske, who was opposed to mass production, the firm introduced series production and piece wages in 1857. The expansion of the business, particularly into submarine cable laying, caused some anxiety to Halske, who left the firm on amicable terms in 1867. He then worked for a few years developing the Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin and became a town councillor.

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SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Telecommunications

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Brought up in poor, almost Dickensian, circumstances, at the age of 13 years Heaviside, a nephew by marriage of Sir Charles Wheatstone, went to Camden House Grammar School. There he won a medal for science, but he was forced to leave because his parents could not afford the fees. After a year of private study, he began his working life in Newcastle in 1870 as a telegraph operator for an Anglo-Dutch cable company, but he had to give up after only four years because of increasing deafness. He therefore proceeded to spend his time studying theoretical aspects of electrical transmission and communication, and moved to Devon with his parents in 1889. Because the operation of many electrical circuits involves transient phenomena, he found it necessary to develop what he called operational calculus (which was essentially a form of the Laplace transform calculus) in order to determine the response to sudden voltage and current changes. In 1893 he suggested that the distortion that occurred on long-distance telephone lines could be reduced by adding loading coils at regular intervals, thus creating a matched-transmission line. Between 1893 and 1912 he produced a series of writings on electromagnetic theory, in one of which, anticipating a conclusion of Einstein's special theory of relativity, he put forward the idea that the mass of an electric charge increases with its velocity. When it was found that despite the curvature of the earth it was possible to communicate over very great distances using radio signals in the so-called "short" wavebands, Heaviside suggested the presence of a conducting layer in the ionosphere that reflected the waves back to earth. Since a similar suggestion had been made almost at the same time by Arthur Kennelly of Harvard, this layer became known as the Kennelly-Heaviside layer.

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See also: Appleton, Sir Edward Victor