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81 creativity
Gen Mgtthe generation of new ideas by approaching problems or existing practices in innovative or imaginative ways. Psychologists have disagreed on the nature of creativity. Until about 1980, research concentrated on identifying the personality traits of creative people, but more recently psychologists have focused on the mental processes involved. Creativity involves reexamining assumptions and reinterpreting facts, ideas, and past experience. A growing interest in creativity as a source of competitive advantage has developed in recent years, and creativity is considered important, not just for the development of new products and services, but also for its role in organizational decision making and problem solving. Many organizations actively seek a corporate culture that encourages creativity. There are a number of techniques used to foster creative thinking, including brainstorming and lateral thinking. Creativity is linked to innovation, the process of taking a new idea and turning it into a market offering. -
82 Keidanren
Finthe Japanese abbreviation for the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations. Established in 1946, it strives to work toward a resolution of the major problems facing the Japanese and international business communities and to contribute to the sound development of their economies. Its members include over 1,000 of Japan’s leading corporations (including over 50 foreign companies) and over 100 industry-wide groups representing such major sectors as manufacturing, trade, distribution, finance, and energy. -
83 prototype
Gen Mgtan initial version or working model of a new product or invention. A prototype is constructed and tested in order to evaluate the feasibility of a design and to identify problems that need to be corrected. Building a prototype is a key stage in new product development. -
84 psychometric test
HRa series of questions, problems, or practical tasks that provide a measurement of aspects of somebody’s personality, knowledge, ability, or experience. There are three main categories of psychometric test: ability or aptitude tests, achievement tests, and personality tests. A test should be both valid—it should measure what it says it measures—and reliable—it should give consistent scores. However, no test can ever be 100% accurate, and should be viewed more as a useful indicator than a definitive verdict on a person’s skills or potential. Tests are used in recruitment, to ascertain whether or not a candidate is likely to be a good fit for a job, and in employee development, and their administration and interpretation must be carried out by qualified people. Tests are increasingly taken, scored, and interpreted with the aid of computer-based systems. A test may also be referred to as an instrument, and tests can be grouped into a test battery. -
85 Armstrong, Edwin Howard
[br]b. 18 December 1890 New York City, New York, USAd. 31 January 1954 New York City, New York, USA[br]American engineer who invented the regenerative and superheterodyne amplifiers and frequency modulation, all major contributions to radio communication and broadcasting.[br]Interested from childhood in anything mechanical, as a teenager Armstrong constructed a variety of wireless equipment in the attic of his parents' home, including spark-gap transmitters and receivers with iron-filing "coherer" detectors capable of producing weak Morse-code signals. In 1912, while still a student of engineering at Columbia University, he applied positive, i.e. regenerative, feedback to a Lee De Forest triode amplifier to just below the point of oscillation and obtained a gain of some 1,000 times, giving a receiver sensitivity very much greater than hitherto possible. Furthermore, by allowing the circuit to go into full oscillation he found he could generate stable continuous-waves, making possible the first reliable CW radio transmitter. Sadly, his claim to priority with this invention, for which he filed US patents in 1913, the year he graduated from Columbia, led to many years of litigation with De Forest, to whom the US Supreme Court finally, but unjustly, awarded the patent in 1934. The engineering world clearly did not agree with this decision, for the Institution of Radio Engineers did not revoke its previous award of a gold medal and he subsequently received the highest US scientific award, the Franklin Medal, for this discovery.During the First World War, after some time as an instructor at Columbia University, he joined the US Signal Corps laboratories in Paris, where in 1918 he invented the superheterodyne, a major contribution to radio-receiver design and for which he filed a patent in 1920. The principle of this circuit, which underlies virtually all modern radio, TV and radar reception, is that by using a local oscillator to convert, or "heterodyne", a wanted signal to a lower, fixed, "intermediate" frequency it is possible to obtain high amplification and selectivity without the need to "track" the tuning of numerous variable circuits.Returning to Columbia after the war and eventually becoming Professor of Electrical Engineering, he made a fortune from the sale of his patent rights and used part of his wealth to fund his own research into further problems in radio communication, particularly that of receiver noise. In 1933 he filed four patents covering the use of wide-band frequency modulation (FM) to achieve low-noise, high-fidelity sound broadcasting, but unable to interest RCA he eventually built a complete broadcast transmitter at his own expense in 1939 to prove the advantages of his system. Unfortunately, there followed another long battle to protect and exploit his patents, and exhausted and virtually ruined he took his own life in 1954, just as the use of FM became an established technique.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitution of Radio Engineers Medal of Honour 1917. Franklin Medal 1937. IERE Edison Medal 1942. American Medal for Merit 1947.Bibliography1922, "Some recent developments in regenerative circuits", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 10:244.1924, "The superheterodyne. Its origin, developments and some recent improvements", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 12:549.1936, "A method of reducing disturbances in radio signalling by a system of frequency modulation", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 24:689.Further ReadingL.Lessing, 1956, Man of High-Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong, pbk 1969 (the only definitive biography).W.R.Maclaurin and R.J.Harman, 1949, Invention \& Innovation in the Radio Industry.J.R.Whitehead, 1950, Super-regenerative Receivers.A.N.Goldsmith, 1948, Frequency Modulation (for the background to the development of frequency modulation, in the form of a large collection of papers and an extensive bibliog raphy).KFBiographical history of technology > Armstrong, Edwin Howard
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86 Boole, George
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 2 November 1815 Lincoln, Englandd. 8 December 1864 Ballintemple, Coounty Cork, Ireland[br]English mathematician whose development of symbolic logic laid the foundations for the operating principles of modern computers.[br]Boole was the son of a tradesman, from whom he learned the principles of mathematics and optical-component manufacturing. From the early age of 16 he taught in a number of schools in West Yorkshire, and when only 20 he opened his own school in Lincoln. There, at the Mechanical Institute, he avidly read mathematical journals and the works of great mathematicians such as Lagrange, Laplace and Newton and began to tackle a variety of algebraic problems. This led to the publication of a constant stream of original papers in the newly launched Cambridge Mathematical Journal on topics in the fields of algebra and calculus, for which in 1844 he received the Royal Society Medal.In 1847 he wrote The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, which applied algebraic symbolism to logical forms, whereby the presence or absence of properties could be represented by binary states and combined, just like normal algebraic equations, to derive logical statements about a series of operations. This laid the foundations for the binary logic used in modern computers, which, being based on binary on-off devices, greatly depend on the use of such operations as "and", "nand" ("not and"), "or" and "nor" ("not or"), etc. Although he lacked any formal degree, this revolutionary work led to his appointment in 1849 to the Chair of Mathematics at Queen's College, Cork, where he continued his work on logic and also produce treatises on differential equations and the calculus of finite differences.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsRoyal Society Medal 1844. FRS 1857.BibliographyBoole's major contributions to logic available in republished form include George Boole: Investigation of the Laws of Thought, Dover Publications; George Boole: Laws of Thought, Open Court, and George Boole: Studies in Logic \& Probability, Open Court.1872, A Treatise on Differential Equations.Further ReadingW.Kneale, 1948, "Boole and the revival of logic", Mind 57:149.G.C.Smith (ed.), 1982, George Boole \& Augustus de Morgan. Correspondence 1842– 1864, Oxford University Press.—, 1985, George Boole: His Life and Work, McHale.E.T.Bell, 1937, Men of Mathematics, London: Victor Gollancz.KF -
87 Brayton, George Bailey
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 1839 Rhode Island, USAd. 1892 Leeds, England[br]American engineer, inventor of gas and oil engines.[br]During the thirty years prior to his death, Brayton devoted considerable effort to the development of internal-combustion engines. He designed the first commercial gas engine of American origin in 1872. An oil-burning engine was produced in 1875. An aptitude for mechanical innovation became apparent whilst he was employed at the Exeter Machine Works, New Hampshire, where he developed a successful steam generator for use in domestic and industrial heating systems. Brayton engines were distinguished by the method of combustion. A pressurized air-fuel mixture from a reservoir was ignited as it entered the working cylinder—a precursor of the constant-pressure cycle. A further feature of these early engines was a rocking beam. There exist accounts of Brayton engines fitted into river craft, and of one in a carriage which operated for a few months in 1872–3. However, the appearance of the four-stroke Otto engine in 1876, together with technical problems associated with backfiring into the fuel reservoir, prevented large-scale acceptance of the Brayton engine. Although Thompson Sterne \& Co. of Glasgow became licensees, the engine failed to gain usage in Britain. A working model of Brayton's gas engine is exhibited in the Museum of History and Technology in Washington, DC.[br]Bibliography1872, US patent no. 125,166 (Brayton gas engine).July 1890, British patent no. 11,062 (oil engine; under patent agent W.R.Lake).Further ReadingD.Clerk, 1895, The Gas and Oil Engine, 6th edn, London, pp. 152–62 (includes a description and report of tests carried out on a Brayton engine).KAB -
88 Carrel, Alexis
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 28 June 1873 Lyon, Franced. 5 November 1944 Paris, France[br]French surgeon and experimental biologist, pioneer of blood-vessel repair techniques and "in vitro" tissue culture.[br]He entered the university of Lyon as a medical student in 1890, but although attached to the Chasseurs Alpins as a surgeon, and to the department of anatomy, he did not qualify as a doctor until 1900. Soon after, he developed an interest in the repair of blood vessels and reported his first successes in 1902.In consequence of local political difficulties he left for Paris, and after a further year, in 1904, he became Assistant in Physiology at the University of Chicago. His further development of vascular surgical advances led to organ transplants in animals. By 1908 he had moved to in vitro cultivation of heart tissue from a chick embryo (a culture of which, in the care of an assistant, outlived him).He returned to service in the French Army in 1914 and was associated with Dakin in developing the irrigation treatment of infected wounds. In 1930 he initiated a programme aimed at the cultivation of whole organs, and with the assistance of a pump developed by Charles Lindbergh he succeeded in maintaining thyroid gland and kidney tissue for some weeks. Something of a mystic, Carrel returned to France in 1939 to head his Institute for the Study of Human Problems.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsNobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology 1912.Bibliography1911, "The surgery of blood vessels", Johns Hopkins Bulletin.1911, "Rejuvenation of cultures of tissues", Journal of the American Medical Association.1938, The Culture of Organs, New York. 1938, Man the Unknown, New York.Further ReadingR.Soupault, 1952, Alexis Carrel. 1873–1944, Paris (contains full bibliography of papers).MG -
89 Davis, Robert Henry
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]b. 6 June 1870 London, Englandd. 29 March 1965 Epsom, Surrey, England[br]English inventor of breathing, diving and escape apparatus.[br]Davis was the son of a detective with the City of London police. At the age of 11 he entered the employment of Siebe, Gorman \& Co., manufacturers of diving and other safety equipment since 1819, at their Lambeth works. By good fortune, his neat handwriting attracted the notice of Mr Gorman and he was transferred to work in the office. He studied hard after working hours and rose steadily in the firm. In his twenties he was promoted to Assistant Manager, then General Manager, Managing Director and finally Governing Director. He retired in 1960, having been made Life President the previous year, and continued to attend the office regularly until May 1964.Davis's entire career was devoted to research and development in the firm's special field. In 1906 he perfected the first practicable oxygen-breathing apparatus for use in mine rescue; it was widely adopted and with modifications was still in use in the 1990s. With Professor Leonard Hill he designed a deep-sea diving-bell incorporating a decompression chamber. He also invented an oxygen-breathing apparatus and heated apparel for airmen flying at high altitudes.Immediately after the first German gas attacks on the Western Front in April 1915, Davis devised a respirator, known as the stocking skene or veil mask. He quickly organized the mass manufacture of this device, roping in members of his family and placing the work in the homes of Lambeth: within 48 hours the first consignment was being sent off to France.He was a member of the Admiralty Deep Sea Diving Committee, which in 1933 completed tables for the safe ascent of divers with oxygen from a depth of 300 ft (91 m). They were compiled by Davis in conjunction with Professors J.B.S.Haldane and Leonard Hill and Captain G.C.Damant, the Royal Navy's leading diving expert. With revisions these tables have been used by the Navy ever since. Davis's best-known invention was first used in 1929: the Davis Submarine Escape Apparatus. It became standard equipment on submarines until it was replaced by the Built-in Breathing System, which the firm began manufacturing in 1951.The firm's works were bombed during the Second World War and were re-established at Chessington, Surrey. The extensive research facilities there were placed at the disposal of the Royal Navy and the Admiralty Experimental Diving Unit. Davis worked with Haldane and Hill on problems of the underwater physiology of working divers. A number of inventions issued from Chessington, such as the human torpedo, midget submarine and human minesweeper. In the early 1950s the firm helped to pioneer the use of underwater television to investigate the sinking of the submarine Affray and the crashed Comet jet airliners.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1932.BibliographyDavis was the author of several manuals on diving including Deep Sea Diving and Submarine Operations and Breathing in Irrespirable Atmospheres. He also wrote Resuscitation: A Brief Personal History of Siebe, Gorman \& Co. 1819–1957.Further ReadingObituary, 1965, The Times, 31 March, p. 16.LRD -
90 Hartley, Ralph V.L.
[br]b. 1889 USAd. 1 May 1970 Summit, New Jersey, USA[br]American engineer who made contributions to radio communications.[br]Hartley obtained his BA in 1909 from the University of Utah, then gained a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, England. After obtaining a further BA and a BSc in 1912 and 1913, respectively, he returned to the USA and took a job with the Western Electric Laboratories of the Bell Telephone Company, where he was in charge of radio-receiver development. In 1915 he invented the Hartley oscillator, analogous to that invented by Colpitts. Subsequently he worked on carrier telephony at Western Electric and then at Bell Laboratories. There he concen-trated on information theory, building on the pioneering work of Nyquist, in 1926 publishing his law that related information capacity, frequency bandwidth and time. Forced to give up work in 1929 due to ill health, he returned to Bell in 1939 as a consultant on transmission problems. During the Second World War he worked on various projects, including the use of servo-mechanisms for radar and fire control, and finally retired in 1950.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitution of Electrical and Electronics Enginners Medal of Honour 1946.Bibliography29 May 1918, US patent no. 1,592,934 (plate modulator).29 September 1919, US patent no. 1,419,562 (balanced modulator or detector). 1922, with T.C.Fry, "Binaural location of complex sounds", Bell Systems TechnicalJournal (November).1923, "Relation of carrier and sidebands in radio transmission", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 11:34.1924, "The transmission unit", Electrical Communications 3:34.1926, "Transmission limits of telephone lines", Bell Laboratories Record 1:225. 1928, "Transmission of information", Bell Systems Technical Journal (July).1928, "“TU” becomes Decibel", Bell Laboratories Record 7:137.1936, "Oscillations in systems with non-linear reactance", Bell System Technology Journal 15: 424.Further ReadingM.D.Fagen (ed.), 1975, A History of Engineering \& Science in the Bell System, Vol. 1: Bell Laboratories.KF -
91 Ilgner, Karl
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 27 July 1862 Neisse, Upper Silesia (now Nysa, Poland)d. 18 January 1921 Berthelsdorf, Silesia[br]German electrical engineer, inventor of a transformer for electromotors.[br]Ilgner graduated from the Gewerbeakademie (the forerunner of the Technical University) in Berlin. As the representative of an electric manufacturing company in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) from 1897, he was confronted with the fact that there were no appropriate drives for hoisting-engines or rolling-plants in steelworks. Two problems prevented the use of high-capacity electric motors in the mining as well as in the iron and steel industry: the reactions of the motors on the circuit at the peak point of stress concentration; and the complicated handling of the control system which raised the risks regarding safety. Having previously been head of the department of electrical power transmission in Hannover, he was concerned with the development of low-speed direct-current motors powered by gas engines.It was Harry Ward Leonard's switchgear for direct-current motors (USA, 1891) that permitted sudden and exact changes in the speed and direction of rotation without causing power loss, as demonstrated in the driving of a rolling sidewalk at the Paris World Fair of 1900. Ilgner connected this switchgear to a large and heavy flywheel which accumulated the kinetic energy from the circuit in order to compensate shock loads. With this combination, electric motors did not need special circuits, which were still weak, because they were working continuously and were regulated individually, so that they could be used for driving hoisting-engines in mines, rolling-plants in steelworks or machinery for producing tools and paper. Ilgner thus made a notable advance in the general progress of electrification.His transformer for hoisting-engines was patented in 1901 and was commercially used inter alia by Siemens \& Halske of Berlin. Their first electrical hoisting-engine for the Zollern II/IV mine in Dortmund gained international reputation at the Düsseldorf exhibition of 1902, and is still preserved in situ in the original machine hall of the mine, which is now a national monument in Germany. Ilgner thereafter worked with several companies to pursue his conception, became a consulting engineer in Vienna and Breslau and had a government post after the First World War in Brussels and Berlin until he retired for health reasons in 1919.[br]Bibliography1901, DRP no. 138, 387 1903, "Der elektrische Antrieb von Reversier-Walzenstraßen", Stahl und Eisen 23:769– 71.Further ReadingW.Kroker, "Karl Ilgner", Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. X, pp. 134–5. W.Philippi, 1924, Elektrizität im Bergbau, Leipzig (a general account).K.Warmbold, 1925, "Der Ilgner-Umformer in Förderanlagen", Kohle und Erz 22:1031–36 (a detailed description).WK -
92 Jervis, John Bloomfield
[br]b. 14 December 1795 Huntingdon, New York, USAd. 12 January 1885 Rome, New York, USA[br]American pioneer of civil engineering and locomotive design.[br]Jervis assisted in the survey and construction of the Erie Canal, and by 1827 was Chief Engineer of the Delaware \& Hudson Canal and, linked with it, the Carbondale Railroad. He instructed Horatio Allen to go to England to purchase locomotives in 1828, and the locomotive Stourbridge Lion, built by J.U. Rastrick, was placed on the railway in 1829. It was the first full-size locomotive to run in America, but the track proved too weak for it to be used regularly. In 1830 Jervis became Chief Engineer to the Mohawk \& Hudson Rail Road, which was the first railway in New York State and was opened the following year. In 1832 the 4–2–0 locomotive Experiment was built to his plans by West Point Foundry: it was the first locomotive to have a leading bogie or truck. Jervis was subsequently associated with many other extensive canals and railways and pioneered economic analysis of engineering problems to enable, for example, the best choice to be made between two possible routes for a railroad.[br]Bibliography1861, Railway Property, New York.Further ReadingJ.H.White Jr, 1979, A History of the American Locomotive-Its Development: 1830–1880, New York: Dover Publications Inc.J.K.Finch, 1931, "John Bloomfield Jervis, civil engineer", Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 11.PJGRBiographical history of technology > Jervis, John Bloomfield
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93 Kao, Charles Kuen
[br]b. 4 November 1933 Shanghai, China[br]Chinese electrical engineer whose work on optical fibres did much to make optical communications a practical reality.[br]After the Second World War, Kao moved with his family to Hong Kong, where he went to St Joseph's College. To further his education he then moved to England, taking his "A" Levels at Woolwich Polytechnic. In 1957 he gained a BSc in electrical engineering and then joined Standard Telephones and Cables Laboratory (STL) at Harlow. Following the discovery by others in 1960 of the semiconductor laser, from 1963 Kao worked on the problems of optical communications, in particular that of achieving attenuation in optical cables low enough to make this potentially very high channel capacity form of communication a practical proposition; this problem was solved by suitable cladding of the fibres. In the process he obtained his PhD from University College, London, in 1965. From 1970 until 1974, whilst on leave from STL, he was Professor of Electronics and Department Chairman at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, then in 1982–7 he was Chief Scientist and Director of Engineering with the parent company ITT in the USA. Since 1988 he has been Vice-Chancellor of Hong Kong University.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFranklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal 1977. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Morris N.Liebmann Memorial Prize 1978; L.M.Ericsson Prize 1979. Institution of Electrical Engineers A.G.Bell Medal 1985; Faraday Medal 1989. American Physical Society International Prize for New Materials 1989.Bibliography1966, with G.A.Hockham, "Dielectric fibre surface waveguides for optical frequencies", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 113:1,151 (describes the major step in optical-fibre development).1982, Optical Fibre Systems. Technology, Design \& Application, New York: McGraw- Hill.1988, Optical Fibre, London: Peter Peregrinus.Further ReadingW.B.Jones, 1988, Introduction to Optical Fibre Communications: R\&W Holt.KF -
94 Lister, Joseph, Baron Lister
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 5 April 1827 Upton, Essex, Englandd. 10 February 1912 Walmer, Kent, England[br]English surgeon, founder of the antiseptic and aseptic principles of surgical practice.[br]Of Quaker stock, his father also being a Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied medicine at University College, London. He qualified, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1852. Wishing to pursue a surgical career, he moved to Edinburgh to study surgery under William Syme, whose daughter he married in 1852, the same year he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.Until his appointment as Regius Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University and Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1861, he was engaged in a wide variety of investigations into the nature of inflammation and the effects of irritants on wounds. Following his move to Glasgow, he became particularly involved in the major problems arising out of the vast increase in the number of surgical procedures brought about by the recent introduction of general anaesthesia. By 1865 his continuing study of wound inflammation and the microbial studies of Pasteur had led him to institute in the operating theatre a regime of surgical antisepsis involving the use of a carbolic acid spray coupled with the sterilization of instruments, the site of operation and the hands of the operator. Increasingly it was appreciated that the air was the least important origin of infection, and by 1887 the antiseptic approach had been superseded by the aseptic.In 1869 he succeeded Syme in the Chair at Edinburgh and his methods were widely accepted abroad. In 1877 he moved to the Chair of Surgery at King's College Hospital, London, in the hope of encouraging acceptance of his work in the metropolis. As well as developing a variety of new surgical procedures, he was engaged for many years in the development of surgical ligatures, which had always been a potent stimulant of infection. His choice of catgut as a sterilizable, absorbable material paved the way for major developments in this field. The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine was named in his honour in 1903.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCreated Baronet 1883. Baron 1897. Order of Merit 1902. President, Royal Society 1895– 1900.Bibliography1870, "On the effects of the antiseptic system of treatment upon the salubrity of a surgical hospital", Lancet.1859, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.1863, Croonian Lecture.1881, 1900, Transactions of the International Medical Congress.Further ReadingR.J.Godlee, 1924, Lord Lister.1927, Lister Centenary Handbook, London: Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. H.C.Cameron, 1948, Joseph Lister, the Friend of Man.MGBiographical history of technology > Lister, Joseph, Baron Lister
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95 Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens
[br]b. 5 February 1840 Brockway's Mills, Maine, USAd. 24 November 1916 Streatham, London, England[br]American (naturalized British) inventor; designer of the first fully automatic machine gun and of an experimental steam-powered aircraft.[br]Maxim was born the son of a pioneer farmer who later became a wood turner. Young Maxim was first apprenticed to a carriage maker and then embarked on a succession of jobs before joining his uncle in his engineering firm in Massachusetts in 1864. As a young man he gained a reputation as a boxer, but it was his uncle who first identified and encouraged Hiram's latent talent for invention.It was not, however, until 1878, when Maxim joined the first electric-light company to be established in the USA, as its Chief Engineer, that he began to make a name for himself. He developed an improved light filament and his electric pressure regulator not only won a prize at the first International Electrical Exhibition, held in Paris in 1881, but also resulted in his being made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. While in Europe he was advised that weapons development was a more lucrative field than electricity; consequently, he moved to England and established a small laboratory at Hatton Garden, London. He began by investigating improvements to the Gatling gun in order to produce a weapon with a faster rate of fire and which was more accurate. In 1883, by adapting a Winchester carbine, he successfully produced a semi-automatic weapon, which used the recoil to cock the gun automatically after firing. The following year he took this concept a stage further and produced a fully automatic belt-fed weapon. The recoil drove barrel and breechblock to the vent. The barrel then halted, while the breechblock, now unlocked from the former, continued rearwards, extracting the spent case and recocking the firing mechanism. The return spring, which it had been compressing, then drove the breechblock forward again, chambering the next round, which had been fed from the belt, as it did so. Keeping the trigger pressed enabled the gun to continue firing until the belt was expended. The Maxim gun, as it became known, was adopted by almost every army within the decade, and was to remain in service for nearly fifty years. Maxim himself joined forces with the large British armaments firm of Vickers, and the Vickers machine gun, which served the British Army during two world wars, was merely a refined version of the Maxim gun.Maxim's interests continued to occupy several fields of technology, including flight. In 1891 he took out a patent for a steam-powered aeroplane fitted with a pendulous gyroscopic stabilizer which would maintain the pitch of the aeroplane at any desired inclination (basically, a simple autopilot). Maxim decided to test the relationship between power, thrust and lift before moving on to stability and control. He designed a lightweight steam-engine which developed 180 hp (135 kW) and drove a propeller measuring 17 ft 10 in. (5.44 m) in diameter. He fitted two of these engines into his huge flying machine testrig, which needed a wing span of 104 ft (31.7 m) to generate enough lift to overcome a total weight of 4 tons. The machine was not designed for free flight, but ran on one set of rails with a second set to prevent it rising more than about 2 ft (61 cm). At Baldwyn's Park in Kent on 31 July 1894 the huge machine, carrying Maxim and his crew, reached a speed of 42 mph (67.6 km/h) and lifted off its rails. Unfortunately, one of the restraining axles broke and the machine was extensively damaged. Although it was subsequently repaired and further trials carried out, these experiments were very expensive. Maxim eventually abandoned the flying machine and did not develop his idea for a stabilizer, turning instead to other projects. At the age of almost 70 he returned to the problems of flight and designed a biplane with a petrol engine: it was built in 1910 but never left the ground.In all, Maxim registered 122 US and 149 British patents on objects ranging from mousetraps to automatic spindles. Included among them was a 1901 patent for a foot-operated suction cleaner. In 1900 he became a British subject and he was knighted the following year. He remained a larger-than-life figure, both physically and in character, until the end of his life.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier de la Légion d'Honneur 1881. Knighted 1901.Bibliography1908, Natural and Artificial Flight, London. 1915, My Life, London: Methuen (autobiography).Further ReadingObituary, 1916, Engineer (1 December).Obituary, 1916, Engineering (1 December).P.F.Mottelay, 1920, The Life and Work of Sir Hiram Maxim, London and New York: John Lane.Dictionary of National Biography, 1912–1921, 1927, Oxford: Oxford University Press.See also: Pilcher, Percy SinclairCM / JDSBiographical history of technology > Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens
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96 Pupin, Michael Idvorsky
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 4 October 1858 Idvor, Banat, Serbiad. 12 March 1935 New York, USA[br]Serbian/American applied physicist involved in the development of fluoroscopy and radiological diagnosis.[br]Pupin's early education was in Prague and then he emigrated alone to America in 1874. After five years of farm and factory jobs accompanied by night study, he gained admission to Columbia University, New York, in 1879. He graduated in 1883 and after a period at Cambridge University, England, worked under Helmholtz in Berlin. He received his doctorate in 1889.He returned to Columbia and, apart from his involvement in X-ray diagnosis in 1896, was engaged in practical work in connection with problems in telegraphy and telephony, radio transmitters and electrical network theory. In 1901 he was appointed Professor of Electromechanics, a post that he held for thirty years. He acted as an adviser on behalf of Yugoslavia at the 1919 Peace Conference.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember of the National Academy of Sciences. Pulitzer Prize.Bibliography1896, "A few remarks on experiments with roentgen rays", Electricity, New York. 1924, From Immigrant to Inventor (autobiography).1938, Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.MGBiographical history of technology > Pupin, Michael Idvorsky
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97 Stibitz, George R.
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 20 April 1904 York, Pennsylvania, USA[br]American mathematician responsible for the conception of the Bell Laboratories "Complex " computer.[br]Stibitz spent his early years in Dayton, Ohio, and obtained his first degree at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, his MS from Union College, Schenectady, New York, in 1927 and his PhD in mathematical physics from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in 1930. After working for a time for General Electric, he joined Bell Laboratories to work on various communications problems. In 1937 he started to experiment at home with telephone relays as the basis of a calculator for addition, multiplication and division. Initially this was based on binary arithmetic, but later he used binary-coded decimal (BCD) and was able to cope with complex numbers. In November 1938 the ideas were officially taken up by Bell Laboratories and, with S.B.Williams as Project Manager, Stibitz built a complex-number computer known as "Complex", or Relay I, which became operational on 8 January 1940.With the outbreak of the Second World War, he was co-opted to the National Defence Research Council to work on anti-aircraft (AA) gun control, and this led to Bell Laboratories Relay II computer, which was completed in 1943 and which had 500 relays, bi-quinary code and selfchecking of errors. A further computer, Relay III, was used for ballistic simulation of actual AA shell explosions and was followed by more machines before and after Stibitz left Bell after the end of the war. Stibitz then became a computer consultant, involved in particular with the development of the UNIVAC computer by John Mauchly and J.Presper Eckert.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Emanuel R.Priore Award 1977.Bibliography1957, with J.A.Larrivee, Mathematics and Computers, New York: McGraw-Hill. 1967, "The Relay computer at the Bell Laboratories", Datamation 35.Further ReadingE.Loveday, 1977, "George Stibitz and the Bell Labs Relay computer", Datamation 80. M.R.Williams, 1985, A History of Computing Technology, London: Prentice-Hall.KF -
98 Thévénin, Léon Charles
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 30 March 1857 Paris, Franced. 21 September 1926 Paris, France[br]French telegraph engineer who extended Ohm's Law to the analysis of complex electrical circuits.[br]Following a basic education, Thévénin entered the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, graduating in 1876. In 1878 he joined the Corps of Telegraph Engineers (which subsequently became the French PTT). There he initially worked on the development of long-distance underground telegraph lines, but he later switched to working on power lines. Appointed a teaching inspector at the Ecole Supérieure in 1882, he became increasingly interested in the problems of measurement in electrical circuits. As a result of studying Kirchoff's Laws, which were essentially derived from Ohm's Law, he developed his now-famous theorem which made it possible to calculate the currents in more complex electrical circuits.As well as becoming Head of the Bureau des Lignes, up until his death he also found time for teaching other subjects outside the Ecole, including a course in mechanics at the Institut National Agronomique. In 1896 he was appointed Director of the Telegraph Engineering School, then, in 1901, Engineer-in-Chief of the telegraph workshops. He retired in 1914.[br]Bibliography1883, "Extension of Ohm's Law to complex electrical circuits", Comptes rendus 97:159 (describes Thévénin's Theorem).Further ReadingF.E.Terman, 1943, Radio Engineers'Handbook, New York: McGraw-Hill, Section 3 (summarizes the relevant circuit theory).KF -
99 Thomson, James
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]b. 16 February 1822 Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland)d. 8 May 1892 Glasgow, Scotland[br]Irish civil engineer noted for his work in hydraulics and for his design of the "Vortex" turbine.[br]James Thomson was a pupil in several civil-engineering offices, but the nature of the work was beyond his physical capacity and from 1843 onwards he devoted himself to theoretical studies. Hhe first concentrated on the problems associated with the expansion of liquids when they reach their freezing point: water is one such example. He continued this work with his younger brother, Lord Kelvin (see Thomson, Sir William).After experimentation with a "feathered" paddle wheel as a young man, he turned his attention to water power. In 1850 he made his first patent application, "Hydraulic machinery and steam engines": this patent became his "Vortex" turbine design. He settled in Belfast, the home of the MacAdam-Fourneyron turbine, in 1851, and as a civil engineer became the Resident Engineer to the Belfast Water Commissioners in 1853. In 1857 he was appointed Professor of Civil Engineering and Surveying at Queen's College, Belfast.Whilst it is understood that he made his first turbine models in Belfast, he came to an arrangement with the Williamson Brothers of Kendal to make his turbine. In 1856 Williamsons produced their first turbine to Thomson's design and drawings. This was the Vortex Williamson Number 1, which produced 5 hp (3.7 kW) under a fall of 31 ft (9.4 m) on a 9 in. (23 cm) diameter supply. The rotor of this turbine ran in a horizontal plane. For several years the Williamson catalogue described their Vortex turbine as "designed by Professor James Thomson".Thomson continued with his study of hydraulics and water flow both at Queen's College, Belfast, and, later, at Glasgow University, where he became Professor in 1873, succeeding Macquorn Rankine, another famous engineer. At Glasgow, James Thomson studied the flow in rivers and the effects of erosion on river beds. He was also an authority on geological formations such as the development of the basalt structure of the Giant's Causeway, north of Belfast.James Thomson was an extremely active engineer and a very profound teacher of civil engineering. His form of water turbine had a long life before being displaced by the turbines designed in the twentieth century.[br]Bibliography1850, British patent no. 13,156 "Hydraulic machinery and steam engines".Further ReadingGilkes, 1956, One Hundred Years of Water Power, Kendal.KM -
100 Torricelli, Evangelista
SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics[br]b. 15 October 1608 Faenza, Italyd. 25 October 1647 Florence, Italy[br]Italian physicist, inventor of the mercury barometer and discoverer of atmospheric pressure.[br]Torricelli was the eldest child of a textile artisan. Between 1625 and 1626 he attended the Jesuit school at Faenza, where he showed such outstanding aptitude in mathematics and philosophy that his uncle was persuaded to send him to Rome to a school run by Benedetto Castelli, a mathematician and engineer and a former pupil of Galileo Galilei. Between 1630 and 1641, Torricelli was possibly Secretary to Giovanni Ciampoli, Galileo's friend and protector. In 1641 Torricelli wrote a treatise, De motugravium, amplifying Galileo's doctrine on the motion of projectiles, and Galileo accepted him as a pupil. On Galileo's death in 1642, he was appointed as mathematician and philosopher to the court of Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany. He remained in Florence until his early death in 1647, possibly from typhoid fever. He wrote a great number of mathematical papers on conic sections, the cycloid, the logarithmic curve and other subjects, which made him well known.By 1642 Torricelli was producing good lenses for telescopes; he subsequently improved them, and attained near optical perfection. He also constructed a simple microscope with a small glass sphere as a lens. Galileo had looked at problems of raising water with suction pumps, and also with a siphon in 1630. Torricelli brought up the subject again in 1640 and later produced his most important invention, the barometer. He used mercury to fill a glass tube that was sealed at one end and inverted it. He found that the height of mercury in the tube adjusted itself to a well-defined level of about 76 cm (30 in.), higher than the free surface outside. He realized that this must be due to the pressure of the air on the outside surface and predicted that it would fall with increasing altitude. He thus demonstrated the pressure of the atmosphere and the existence of a vacuum on top of the mercury, publishing his findings in 1644. He later noticed that changes in the height of the mercury were related to changes in the weather.[br]Bibliography1641, De motu gravium.Further ReadingT.I.Williams (ed.), 1969, A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, London: A. \& C.Black.Chambers Concise Dictionary of Scientists, 1989, Cambridge.A Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 1976, Vol. XIII, New York: C.Scribner's Sons.A.Stowers, 1961–2, "Thomas Newcomen's first steam engine 250 years ago and the initial development of steam power", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 34 (provides an account of his mercury barometer).W.E.Knowles Middleton, 1964, The History of the Barometer, Baltimore.RLHBiographical history of technology > Torricelli, Evangelista
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