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  • 21 me

    2) Компьютерная техника: Microarray Expression, Multimedia Engineering
    4) Спорт: Mental Error
    7) Сельское хозяйство: mature equivalent, metabolizable energy, МКЭ (напр., в названиях препаративных форм пестицидов: Кинмикс, МКЭ), микрокапсулированная эмульсия
    10) Религия: Methodist Episcopal
    12) Железнодорожный термин: Morristown and Erie Railway Incorporated
    13) Юридический термин: Mostly Enraging
    14) Страхование: Mobile Equipment (Вид страхования, включаемый в классификацию страхования технических рисков), Страхование передвижного оборудования
    15) Биржевой термин: Montreal Exchange
    16) Ветеринария: Metabolic Energy
    17) Телекоммуникации: Mobile Equipment
    18) Сокращение: Maine (US state), Maintenance Error, Manoeuvre Enhancement mode, Marine Engineering, Mass Effectiveness, Master of Education, Middle East, Most Excellent, marine engineer, marriage encounter, measuring equipment, mechanical efficiency, mechanical/electrical, medical examiner, mining engineer, miter end, molecular electronics
    21) Литература: Master Evaluator
    22) Нефть: горный инженер (mining engineer), оборудование для технического обслуживания (maintenance equipment)
    24) Воздухоплавание: Magnetic Estimation
    25) Фирменный знак: Memory Express (Company)
    27) Деловая лексика: Minimum Effort, My Effectiveness
    28) Бурение: Ближний Восток (Middle East), Средний Восток (Middle East)
    29) Глоссарий компании Сахалин Энерджи: MEDT of Russia, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation
    30) Образование: Management Evaluation, Marketing Education
    31) Инвестиции: Montreal Stock Exchange
    32) Сетевые технологии: media engine
    33) Полимеры: maintenance equipment
    34) Программирование: Method Entry, More Errors
    35) Автоматика: manufacturing engineer, mechanical engineering
    36) Контроль качества: maintenance of equipment
    37) Сахалин Р: Ministry of Economy
    38) Макаров: matastable evaporation
    39) Молочное производство: Mercaptoethanol
    40) Безопасность: Malicious Environment, Message Encryption
    41) Расширение файла: Formatted manual page with me macros, MultiEdit Configuration, MultiEdit configuration (MultiEdit), Ascii text (READ.ME), Text file READ.ME
    42) Нефть и газ: expected monetary value
    43) Электротехника: magnetoelectric
    44) Должность: Master Of Engineering
    45) НАСА: Mission Engineer
    46) Программное обеспечение: Microsoft Explorer, Millenium Edition, Millennium Edition
    47) Федеральное бюро расследований: Memphis Field Office

    Универсальный англо-русский словарь > me

  • 22 Williams, Sir Frederic Calland

    [br]
    b. 26 June 1911 Stockport, Cheshire, England
    d. 11 August 1977 Prestbury, Cheshire, England
    [br]
    English electrical engineer who invented the Williams storage cathode ray tube, which was extensively used worldwide as a data memory in the first digital computers.
    [br]
    Following education at Stockport Grammar School, Williams entered Manchester University in 1929, gaining his BSc in 1932 and MSc in 1933. After a short time as a college apprentice with Metropolitan Vickers, he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, to study for a DPhil, which he was awarded in 1936. He returned to Manchester University that year as an assistant lecturer, gaining his DSc in 1939. Following the outbreak of the Second World War he worked for the Scientific Civil Service, initially at the Bawdsey Research Station and then at the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Malvern, Worcestershire. There he was involved in research on non-incandescent amplifiers and diode rectifiers and the development of the first practical radar system capable of identifying friendly aircraft. Later in the war, he devised an automatic radar system suitable for use by fighter aircraft.
    After the war he resumed his academic career at Manchester, becoming Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the University Electrotechnical Laboratory in 1946. In the same year he succeeded in developing a data-memory device based on the cathode ray tube, in which the information was stored and read by electron-beam scanning of a charge-retaining target. The Williams storage tube, as it became known, not only found obvious later use as a means of storing single-frame, still television images but proved to be a vital component of the pioneering Manchester University MkI digital computer. Because it enabled both data and program instructions to be stored in the computer, it was soon used worldwide in the development of the early stored-program computers.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1976. OBE 1945. CBE 1961. FRS 1950. Hon. DSc Durham 1964, Sussex 1971, Wales 1971. First Royal Society of Arts Benjamin Franklin Medal 1957. City of Philadelphia John Scott Award 1960. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1963. Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1972. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Pioneer Award 1973.
    Bibliography
    Williams contributed papers to many scientific journals, including Proceedings of the Royal Society, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Wireless Engineer, Post Office Electrical Engineers' Journal. Note especially: 1948, with J.Kilburn, "Electronic digital computers", Nature 162:487; 1949, with J.Kilburn, "A storage system for use with binary digital computing machines", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 96:81; 1975, "Early computers at Manchester University", Radio \& Electronic Engineer 45:327. Williams also collaborated in the writing of vols 19 and 20 of the MIT Radiation
    Laboratory Series.
    Further Reading
    B.Randell, 1973, The Origins of Digital Computers, Berlin: Springer-Verlag. M.R.Williams, 1985, A History of Computing Technology, London: Prentice-Hall. See also: Stibitz, George R.; Strachey, Christopher.
    KF

    Biographical history of technology > Williams, Sir Frederic Calland

  • 23 Baumann, Karl

    [br]
    b. 18 April 1884 Switzerland
    d. 14 July 1971 Ilkley, Yorkshire
    [br]
    Swiss/British mechanical engineer, designer and developer of steam and gas turbine plant.
    [br]
    After leaving school in 1902, he went to the Ecole Polytechnique, Zurich, leaving in 1906 with an engineering diploma. He then spent a year with Professor A.Stodola, working on steam engines, turbines and internal combustion engines. He also conducted research in the strength of materials. After this, he spent two years as Research and Design Engineer at the Nuremberg works of Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg. He came to England in 1909 to join the British Westinghouse Co. Ltd in Manchester, and by 1912 was Chief Engineer of the Engine Department of that firm. The firm later became the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. Ltd (MV), and Baumann rose from Chief Mechanical Engineer through to, by 1929, Special Director and Member of the Executive Management Board; he remained a director until his retirement in 1949.
    For much of his career, Baumann was in the forefront of power station steam-cycle development, pioneering increased turbine entry pressures and temperatures, in 1916 introducing multi-stage regenerative feed-water heating and the Baumann turbine multi-exhaust. His 105 MW set for Battersea "A" station (1933) was for many years the largest single-axis unit in Europe. From 1938 on, he and his team were responsible for the first axial-flow aircraft propulsion gas turbines to fly in England, and jet engines in the 1990s owe much to the "Beryl" and "Sapphire" engines produced by MV. In particular, the design of the compressor for the Sapphire engine later became the basis for Rolls-Royce units, after an exchange of information between that company and Armstrong-Siddeley, who had previously taken over the aircraft engine work of MV.Further, the Beryl engine formed the basis of "Gatric", the first marine gas turbine propulsion engine.
    Baumann was elected to full membership for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1929 and a year later was awarded the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal by that body, followed by their James Clayton Prize in 1948: in the same year he became the thirty-fifth Thomas Hawksley lecturer. Many of his ideas and introductions have stood the test of time, being based on his deep and wide understanding of fundamentals.
    JB

    Biographical history of technology > Baumann, Karl

  • 24 Guest, James John

    [br]
    b. 24 July 1866 Handsworth, Birmingham, England
    d. 11 June 1956 Virginia Water, Surrey, England
    [br]
    English mechanical engineer, engineering teacher and researcher.
    [br]
    James John Guest was educated at Marlborough in 1880–4 and at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating as fifth wrangler in 1888. He received practical training in several workshops and spent two years in postgraduate work at the Engineering Department of Cambridge University. After working as a draughtsman in the machine-tool, hydraulic and crane departments of Tangyes Ltd at Birmingham, he was appointed in 1896 Assistant Professor of Engineering at McGill University in Canada. After a short time he moved to the Polytechnic Institute at Worcester, Massachusetts, where he was for three years Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Head of the Engineering Department. In 1899 he returned to Britain and set up as a consulting engineer in Birmingham, being a partner in James J.Guest \& Co. For the next fifteen years he combined this work with research on grinding phenomena. He also developed a theory of grinding which he first published in a paper at the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1914 and elaborated in a paper to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and in his book Grinding Machinery (1915). During the First World War, in 1916–17, he was in charge of inspection in the Staffordshire and Shropshire Area, Ministry of Munitions. In 1917 he returned to teaching as Reader in Graphics and Structural Engineering at University College London. His final appointment was about 1923 as Professor of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Artillery College, Woolwich, which later became the Military College of Science.
    He carried out research on the strength of materials and contributed many articles on the subject to the technical press. He originated Guest's Law for a criterion of failure of materials under combined stresses, first published in 1900. He was a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1900–6 and from 1919 and contributed to their proceedings in many discussions and two major papers.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    Of many publications by Guest, the most important are: 1900, "Ductile materials under combined stress", Proceedings of the Physical Society 17:202.
    1915, Grinding Machinery, London.
    1915, "Theory of grinding, with reference to the selection of speeds in plain and internal work", Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 89:543.
    1917. "Torsional hysteresis of mild steel", Proceedings of the Royal Society A93:313.
    1918. with F.C.Lea, "Curved beams", Proceedings of the Royal Society A95:1. 1930, "Effects of rapidly acting stress", Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical
    Engineers 119:1,273.
    RTS

    Biographical history of technology > Guest, James John

  • 25 Smith, Oberlin

    [br]
    b. 22 March 1840 Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
    d. 18 July 1926
    [br]
    American mechanical engineer, pioneer in experiments with magnetic recording.
    [br]
    Of English descent, Smith embarked on an education in mechanical engineering, graduating from West Jersey Academy, Bridgeton, New Jersey, in 1859. In 1863 he established a machine shop in Bridgeton, New Jersey, that became the Ferracute Machine Company in 1877, eventually specializing in the manufacture of presses for metalworking. He seems to have subscribed to design principles considered modern even in the 1990s, "always giving attention to the development of artistic form in combination with simplicity, and with massive strength where required" (bibliographic reference below). He was successful in his business, and developed and patented a large number of mechanical constructions.
    Inspired by the advent of the phonograph of Edison, in 1878 Smith obtained the tin-foil mechanical phonograph, analysed its shortcomings and performed some experiments in magnetic recording. He filed a caveat in the US Patent Office in order to be protected while he "reduced the invention to practice". However, he did not follow this trail. When there was renewed interest in practical sound recording and reproduction in 1888 (the constructions of Berliner and Bell \& Tainter), Smith published an account of his experiments in the journal Electrical World. In a corrective letter three weeks later it is clear that he was aware of the physical requirements for the interaction between magnetic coil and magnetic medium, but his publications also indicate that he did not as such obtain reproduction of recorded sound.
    Smith did not try to develop magnetic recording, but he felt it imperative that he be given credit for conceiving the idea of it. When accounts of Valdemar Poulsen's work were published in 1900, Smith attempted to prove some rights in the invention in the US Patent Office, but to no avail.
    He was a highly respected member of both his community and engineering societies, and in later life became interested in the anti-slavery cause that had also been close to the heart of his parents, as well as in the YMCA movement and in women's suffrage.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    Apart from numerous technical papers, he wrote the book Press Working of Metals, 1896. His accounts on the magnetic recording experiments were "Some possible forms of phonograph", Electrical World (8 September 1888): 161 ff, and "Letter to the Editor", Electrical World (29 September 1888): 179.
    Further Reading
    F.K.Engel, 1990, Documents on the Invention of Magnetic Recording in 1878, New York: Audio Engineering Society, Reprint no. 2,914 (G2) (a good overview of the material collected by the Oberlin Smith Society, Bridgeton, New Jersey, in particular as regards the recording experiments; it is here that it is doubted that Valdemar Poulsen developed his ideas independently).
    GB-N

    Biographical history of technology > Smith, Oberlin

  • 26 Taylor, William

    [br]
    b. 11 June 1865 London, England
    d. 28 February 1937 Laughton, Leicestershire, England
    [br]
    English mechanical engineer and metrologist, originator of standard screw threads for lens mountings and inventor of "Dimple" golf balls.
    [br]
    William Taylor served an apprenticeship from 1880 to 1885 in London with Paterson and Cooper, electrical engineers and instrument makers. He studied at the Finsbury Technical College under Professors W.E.Ayrton (1847–1908) and John Perry (1850–1920). He remained with Paterson and Cooper until 1887, when he joined his elder brother, who had set up in Leicester as a manufacturer of optical instruments. The firm was then styled T.S. \& W.Taylor and a few months later, when H.W.Hobson joined them as a partner, it became Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, as it was known for many years.
    William Taylor was mainly responsible for technical developments in the firm and he designed the special machine tools required for making lenses and their mountings. However, his most notable work was in originating methods of measuring and gauging screw threads. He proposed a standard screw-thread for lens mountings that was adopted by the Royal Photographic Society, and he served on screw thread committees of the British Standards Institution and the British Association. His interest in golf led him to study the flight of the golf ball, and he designed and patented the "Dimple" golf ball and a mechanical driving machine for testing golf balls.
    He was an active member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, being elected Associate Member in 1894, Member in 1901 and Honorary Life Member in 1936. He served on the Council from 1918 and was President in 1932. He took a keen interest in engineering education and advocated the scientific study of materials, processes and machine tools, and of management. His death occurred suddenly while he was helping to rescue his son's car from a snowdrift.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    OBE 1918. FRS 1934. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1932.
    Further Reading
    K.J.Hume, 1980, A History of Engineering Metrology, London, 110–21 (a short account of William Taylor and of Taylor, Taylor and Hobson).
    RTS

    Biographical history of technology > Taylor, William

  • 27 Williamson, David Theodore Nelson

    [br]
    b. 15 February 1923 Edinburgh, Scotland
    d. 1992 Italy
    [br]
    Scottish engineer, inventor of the Williamson Amplifier and computer-controlled machine tools.
    [br]
    D.T.N.Williamson was educated at George Heriot's School, Edinburgh, and studied mechanical engineering at the University of Edinburgh and electrical engineering at Heriot-Watt College (now Heriot-Watt University), Edinburgh. He joined the MO Valve Company in London in 1943 and worked in his spare time on improving the sound reproduction for gramophones, and in 1946 invented the "Williamson Amplifier".
    That same year Williamson returned to Edinburgh as a development engineer with Ferranti Ltd, where he was employed in developing computer-controlled machining systems. In 1961 he was appointed Director of Research and Development at Molins Ltd, where he continued work on computer-controlled machine tools. He invented the Molins System 24, which employed a number of machine tools, all under computer control, and is generally acknowledged as a significant step in the development of manufacturing systems. In 1974 he joined Rank Xerox and became Director of Research before taking early retirement to live in Italy. Between 1954 and 1979 he served on numerous committees relating to computer-aided design, manufacturing technology and mechanical engineering in general.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1968.
    Bibliography
    Williamson was author of several papers and articles, and contributed to the Electronic
    Engineers' Reference Book (1959), Progress in Automation (1960) and the Numerical Control Handbook (1968).
    RTS

    Biographical history of technology > Williamson, David Theodore Nelson

  • 28 Ohm, Georg Simon

    SUBJECT AREA: Electricity
    [br]
    b. 16 March 1789 Erlangen, near Nuremberg, Germany
    d. 6 July 1854 Munich, Germany
    [br]
    German physicist who laid the foundations of electrical science with his discovery of Ohm's Law.
    [br]
    Given the same first name as his father, Johann, at his baptism, Ohm was generally known by the name of Georg to avoid confusion. While still a child he became interested in science and learned many of his basic skills from his father, a mechanical engineer. After basic education he attended the Gymnasium at Erlangen for a year, then in 1805 he entered the University of Erlangen. Probably for financial reasons, he left after three terms in 1806 and obtained a post as a mathematics tutor at a school in Gottstadt, Switzerland, where he may well have begun to experiment with electrical circuits. In 1811 he returned to Erlangen. He appears to have obtained his doctorate in the same year. After studying physics for a year, he became a tutor at the Studienanstalt (girls' secondary school) at Bamberg in Bavaria. There, in 1817, he wrote a book on the teaching of geometry in schools, as a result of which King Freidrich Wilhelm III of Prussia had him appointed Oberlehrer (Senior Master) in Mathematics and Physics at the Royal Consistory in Cologne. He continued his electrical experiments and in 1826 was given a year's leave of absence to concentrate on this work, which culminated the following year in publication of his "Die galvanische Kette", in which he demonstrated his now-famous Law, that the current in a resistor is proportional to the applied voltage and inversely proportional to the resistance. Because he published only a theoretical treatment of his Law, without including the supporting experimental evidence, his conclusions were widely ignored and ridiculed by the eminent German scientists of his day; bitterly disappointed, he was forced to resign his post at the Consistory. Reduced to comparative poverty he took a position as a mathematics teacher at the Berlin Military School. Fortunately, news of his discovery became more widely known, and in 1833 he was appointed Professor at the Nuremberg Polytechnic School. Two years later he was given the Chair of Higher Mathematics at the University of Erlangen and the position of State Inspector of Scientific Education. Honoured by the Royal Society of London in 1841 and 1842, in 1849 he became Professor of Physics at Munich University, apost he held until his death.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Royal Society Copley Medal 1841. FRS 1842.
    Bibliography
    1817, "Grundlinien zu einer zweckmàssigen Behandlung der Geometric als hohern Bildungsmittels an vorbereitenden Lehranstalt".
    1827, "Die galvanische Kette, mathematische bearbeit".
    Further Reading
    F.E.Terman, 1943, Radio Engineers' Handbook, New York: McGraw-Hill, Section 3 (for circuit theory based on Ohm's Law).
    KF

    Biographical history of technology > Ohm, Georg Simon

  • 29 De Forest, Lee

    [br]
    b. 26 August 1873 Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA
    d. 30 June 1961 Hollywood, California, USA
    [br]
    American electrical engineer and inventor principally known for his invention of the Audion, or triode, vacuum tube; also a pioneer of sound in the cinema.
    [br]
    De Forest was born into the family of a Congregational minister that moved to Alabama in 1879 when the father became President of a college for African-Americans; this was a position that led to the family's social ostracism by the white community. By the time he was 13 years old, De Forest was already a keen mechanical inventor, and in 1893, rejecting his father's plan for him to become a clergyman, he entered the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. Following his first degree, he went on to study the propagation of electromagnetic waves, gaining a PhD in physics in 1899 for his thesis on the "Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires", probably the first US thesis in the field of radio.
    He then joined the Western Electric Company in Chicago where he helped develop the infant technology of wireless, working his way up from a modest post in the production area to a position in the experimental laboratory. There, working alone after normal working hours, he developed a detector of electromagnetic waves based on an electrolytic device similar to that already invented by Fleming in England. Recognizing his talents, a number of financial backers enabled him to set up his own business in 1902 under the name of De Forest Wireless Telegraphy Company; he was soon demonstrating wireless telegraphy to interested parties and entering into competition with the American Marconi Company.
    Despite the failure of this company because of fraud by his partners, he continued his experiments; in 1907, by adding a third electrode, a wire mesh, between the anode and cathode of the thermionic diode invented by Fleming in 1904, he was able to produce the amplifying device now known as the triode valve and achieve a sensitivity of radio-signal reception much greater than possible with the passive carborundum and electrolytic detectors hitherto available. Patented under the name Audion, this new vacuum device was soon successfully used for experimental broadcasts of music and speech in New York and Paris. The invention of the Audion has been described as the beginning of the electronic era. Although much development work was required before its full potential was realized, the Audion opened the way to progress in all areas of sound transmission, recording and reproduction. The patent was challenged by Fleming and it was not until 1943 that De Forest's claim was finally recognized.
    Overcoming the near failure of his new company, the De Forest Radio Telephone Company, as well as unsuccessful charges of fraudulent promotion of the Audion, he continued to exploit the potential of his invention. By 1912 he had used transformer-coupling of several Audion stages to achieve high gain at radio frequencies, making long-distance communication a practical proposition, and had applied positive feedback from the Audion output anode to its input grid to realize a stable transmitter oscillator and modulator. These successes led to prolonged patent litigation with Edwin Armstrong and others, and he eventually sold the manufacturing rights, in retrospect often for a pittance.
    During the early 1920s De Forest began a fruitful association with T.W.Case, who for around ten years had been working to perfect a moving-picture sound system. De Forest claimed to have had an interest in sound films as early as 1900, and Case now began to supply him with photoelectric cells and primitive sound cameras. He eventually devised a variable-density sound-on-film system utilizing a glow-discharge modulator, the Photion. By 1926 De Forest's Phonofilm had been successfully demonstrated in over fifty theatres and this system became the basis of Movietone. Though his ideas were on the right lines, the technology was insufficiently developed and it was left to others to produce a system acceptable to the film industry. However, De Forest had played a key role in transforming the nature of the film industry; within a space of five years the production of silent films had all but ceased.
    In the following decade De Forest applied the Audion to the development of medical diathermy. Finally, after spending most of his working life as an independent inventor and entrepreneur, he worked for a time during the Second World War at the Bell Telephone Laboratories on military applications of electronics.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Institute of Electronic and Radio Engineers Medal of Honour 1922. President, Institute of Electronic and Radio Engineers 1930. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Edison Medal 1946.
    Bibliography
    1904, "Electrolytic detectors", Electrician 54:94 (describes the electrolytic detector). 1907, US patent no. 841,387 (the Audion).
    1950, Father of Radio, Chicago: WIlcox \& Follett (autobiography).
    De Forest gave his own account of the development of his sound-on-film system in a series of articles: 1923. "The Phonofilm", Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 16 (May): 61–75; 1924. "Phonofilm progress", Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 20:17–19; 1927, "Recent developments in the Phonofilm", Transactions of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 27:64–76; 1941, "Pioneering in talking pictures", Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 36 (January): 41–9.
    Further Reading
    G.Carneal, 1930, A Conqueror of Space (biography).
    I.Levine, 1964, Electronics Pioneer, Lee De Forest (biography).
    E.I.Sponable, 1947, "Historical development of sound films", Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 48 (April): 275–303 (an authoritative account of De Forest's sound-film work, by Case's assistant).
    W.R.McLaurin, 1949, Invention and Innovation in the Radio Industry.
    C.F.Booth, 1955, "Fleming and De Forest. An appreciation", in Thermionic Valves 1904– 1954, IEE.
    V.J.Phillips, 1980, Early Radio Detectors, London: Peter Peregrinus.
    KF / JW

    Biographical history of technology > De Forest, Lee

  • 30 Bacon, Francis Thomas

    SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace
    [br]
    b. 21 December 1904 Billericay, England
    d. 24 May 1992 Little Shelford, Cambridge, England
    [br]
    English mechanical engineer, a pioneer in the modern phase of fuel-cell development.
    [br]
    After receiving his education at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, Bacon served with C.A. Parsons at Newcastle upon Tyne from 1925 to 1940. From 1946 to 1956 he carried out research on Hydrox fuel cells at Cambridge University and was a consultant on fuel-cell design to a number of organizations throughout the rest of his life.
    Sir William Grove was the first to observe that when oxygen and hydrogen were supplied to platinum electrodes immersed in sulphuric acid a current was produced in an external circuit, but he did not envisage this as a practical source of electrical energy. In the 1930s Bacon started work to develop a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell that operated at moderate temperatures and pressures using an alkaline electrolyte. In 1940 he was appointed to a post at King's College, London, and there, with the support of the Admiralty, he started full-time experimental work on fuel cells. His brief was to produce a power source for the propulsion of submarines. The following year he was posted as a temporary experimental officer to the Anti-Submarine Experimental Establishment at Fairlie, Ayrshire, and he remained there until the end of the Second World War.
    In 1946 he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Cambridge, receiving a small amount of money from the Electrical Research Association. Backing came six years later from the National Research and Development Corporation (NRDC), the development of the fuel cell being transferred to Marshalls of Cambridge, where Bacon was appointed Consultant.
    By 1959, after almost twenty years of individual effort, he was able to demonstrate a 6 kW (8 hp) power unit capable of driving a small truck. Bacon appreciated that when substantial power was required over long periods the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell associated with high-pressure gas storage would be more compact than conventional secondary batteries.
    The development of the fuel-cell system pioneered by Bacon was stimulated by a particular need for a compact, lightweight source of power in the United States space programme. Electro-chemical generators using hydrogen-oxygen cells were chosen to provide the main supplies on the Apollo spacecraft for landing on the surface of the moon in 1969. An added advantage of the cells was that they simultaneously provided water. NRDC was largely responsible for the forma-tion of Energy Conversion Ltd, a company that was set up to exploit Bacon's patents and to manufacture fuel cells, and which was supported by British Ropes Ltd, British Petroleum and Guest, Keen \& Nettlefold Ltd at Basingstoke. Bacon was their full-time consultant. In 1971 Energy Conversion's operation was moved to the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, as Fuel Cells Ltd. Bacon remained with them until he retired in 1973.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    OBE 1967. FRS 1972. Royal Society S.G. Brown Medal 1965. Royal Aeronautical Society British Silver Medal 1969.
    Bibliography
    27 February 1952, British patent no. 667,298 (hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell). 1963, contribution in W.Mitchell (ed.), Fuel Cells, New York, pp. 130–92.
    1965, contribution in B.S.Baker (ed.), Hydrocarbon Fuel Cell Technology, New York, pp. 1–7.
    Further Reading
    Obituary, 1992, Daily Telegraph (8 June).
    A.McDougal, 1976, Fuel Cells, London (makes an acknowledgement of Bacon's contribution to the design and application of fuel cells).
    D.P.Gregory, 1972, Fuel Cells, London (a concise introduction to fuel-cell technology).
    GW

    Biographical history of technology > Bacon, Francis Thomas

  • 31 Bain, Alexander

    [br]
    b. October 1810 Watten, Scotland
    d. 2 January 1877 Kirkintilloch, Scotland
    [br]
    Scottish inventor and entrepreneur who laid the foundations of electrical horology and designed an electromagnetic means of transmitting images (facsimile).
    [br]
    Alexander Bain was born into a crofting family in a remote part of Scotland. He was apprenticed to a watchmaker in Wick and during that time he was strongly influenced by a lecture on "Heat, sound and electricity" that he heard in nearby Thurso. This lecture induced him to take up a position in Clerkenwell in London, working as a journeyman clockmaker, where he was able to further his knowledge of electricity by attending lectures at the Adelaide Gallery and the Polytechnic Institution. His thoughts naturally turned to the application of electricity to clockmaking, and despite a bitter dispute with Charles Wheatstone over priority he was granted the first British patent for an electric clock. This patent, taken out on 11 January 1841, described a mechanism for an electric clock, in which an oscillating component of the clock operated a mechanical switch that initiated an electromagnetic pulse to maintain the regular, periodic motion. This principle was used in his master clock, produced in 1845. On 12 December of the same year, he patented a means of using electricity to control the operation of steam railway engines via a steam-valve. His earliest patent was particularly far-sighted and anticipated most of the developments in electrical horology that occurred during the nineteenth century. He proposed the use of electricity not only to drive clocks but also to distribute time over a distance by correcting the hands of mechanical clocks, synchronizing pendulums and using slave dials (here he was anticipated by Steinheil). However, he was less successful in putting these ideas into practice, and his electric clocks proved to be unreliable. Early electric clocks had two weaknesses: the battery; and the switching mechanism that fed the current to the electromagnets. Bain's earth battery, patented in 1843, overcame the first defect by providing a reasonably constant current to drive his clocks, but unlike Hipp he failed to produce a reliable switch.
    The application of Bain's numerous patents for electric telegraphy was more successful, and he derived most of his income from these. They included a patent of 12 December 1843 for a form of fax machine, a chemical telegraph that could be used for the transmission of text and of images (facsimile). At the receiver, signals were passed through a moving band of paper impregnated with a solution of ammonium nitrate and potassium ferrocyanide. For text, Morse code signals were used, and because the system could respond to signals faster than those generated by hand, perforated paper tape was used to transmit the messages; in a trial between Paris and Lille, 282 words were transmitted in less than one minute. In 1865 the Abbé Caselli, a French engineer, introduced a commercial fax service between Paris and Lyons, based on Bain's device. Bain also used the idea of perforated tape to operate musical wind instruments automatically. Bain squandered a great deal of money on litigation, initially with Wheatstone and then with Morse in the USA. Although his inventions were acknowledged, Bain appears to have received no honours, but when towards the end of his life he fell upon hard times, influential persons in 1873 secured for him a Civil List Pension of £80 per annum and the Royal Society gave him £150.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1841, British patent no. 8,783; 1843, British patent no. 9,745; 1845, British patent no.
    10,838; 1847, British patent no. 11,584; 1852, British patent no. 14,146 (all for electric clocks).
    1852, A Short History of the Electric Clocks with Explanation of Their Principles and
    Mechanism and Instruction for Their Management and Regulation, London; reprinted 1973, introd. W.Hackmann, London: Turner \& Devereux (as the title implies, this pamphlet was probably intended for the purchasers of his clocks).
    Further Reading
    The best account of Bain's life and work is in papers by C.A.Aked in Antiquarian Horology: "Electricity, magnetism and clocks" (1971) 7: 398–415; "Alexander Bain, the father of electrical horology" (1974) 9:51–63; "An early electric turret clock" (1975) 7:428–42. These papers were reprinted together (1976) in A Conspectus of Electrical Timekeeping, Monograph No. 12, Antiquarian Horological Society: Tilehurst.
    J.Finlaison, 1834, An Account of Some Remarkable Applications of the Electric Fluid to the Useful Arts by Alexander Bain, London (a contemporary account between Wheatstone and Bain over the invention of the electric clock).
    J.Munro, 1891, Heroes of the Telegraph, Religious Tract Society.
    J.Malster \& M.J.Bowden, 1976, "Facsimile. A Review", Radio \&Electronic Engineer 46:55.
    D.J.Weaver, 1982, Electrical Clocks and Watches, Newnes.
    T.Hunkin, 1993, "Just give me the fax", New Scientist (13 February):33–7 (provides details of Bain's and later fax devices).
    DV / KF

    Biographical history of technology > Bain, Alexander

  • 32 Hetzel, Max

    [br]
    b. 5 March 1921 Basle, Switzerland
    [br]
    Swiss electrical engineer who invented the tuning-fork watch.
    [br]
    Hetzel trained as an electrical engineer at the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich and worked for several years in the field of telecommunications before joining the Bulova Watch Company in 1950. At that time several companies were developing watches with electromagnetically maintained balances, but they represented very little advance on the mechanical watch and the mechanical switching mechanism was unreliable. In 1952 Hetzel started work on a much more radical design which was influenced by a transistorized tuning-fork oscillator that he had developed when he was working on telecommunications. Tuning forks, whose vibrations were maintained electromagnetically, had been used by scientists during the nineteenth century to measure small intervals of time, but Niaudet- Breguet appears to have been the first to use a tuning fork to control a clock. In 1866 he described a mechanically operated tuning-fork clock manufactured by the firm of Breguet, but it was not successful, possibly because the fork did not compensate for changes in temperature. The tuning fork only became a precision instrument during the 1920s, when elinvar forks were maintained in vibration by thermionic valve circuits. Their primary purpose was to act as frequency standards, but they might have been developed into precision clocks had not the quartz clock made its appearance very shortly afterwards. Hetzel's design was effectively a miniaturized version of these precision devices, with a transistor replacing the thermionic valve. The fork vibrated at a frequency of 360 cycles per second, and the hands were driven mechanically from the end of one of the tines. A prototype was working by 1954, and the watch went into production in 1960. It was sold under the tradename Accutron, with a guaranteed accuracy of one minute per month: this was a considerable improvement on the performance of the mechanical watch. However, the events of the 1920s were to repeat themselves, and by the end of the decade the Accutron was eclipsed by the introduction of quartz-crystal watches.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Neuchâtel Observatory Centenary Prize 1958. Swiss Society for Chronometry Gold Medal 1988.
    Bibliography
    "The history of the “Accutron” tuning fork watch", 1969, Swiss Watch \& Jewellery Journal 94:413–5.
    Further Reading
    R.Good, 1960, "The Accutron", Horological Journal 103:346–53 (for a detailed technical description).
    J.D.Weaver, 1982, Electrical \& Electronic Clocks \& Watches, London (provides a technical description of the tuning-fork watch in its historical context).
    DV

    Biographical history of technology > Hetzel, Max

  • 33 Kapp, Gisbert Johann Eduard Karl

    SUBJECT AREA: Electricity
    [br]
    b. 2 September 1852 Mauer, Vienna, Austria
    d. 10 August 1922 Birmingham, England
    [br]
    Austrian (naturalized British in 1881) engineer and a pioneer of dynamo design, being particularly associated with the concept of the magnetic circuit.
    [br]
    Kapp entered the Polytechnic School in Zurich in 1869 and gained a mechanical engineering diploma. He became a member of the engineering staff at the Vienna International Exhibition of 1873, and then spent some time in the Austrian navy before entering the service of Gwynne \& Co. of London, where he designed centrifugal pumps and gas exhausters. Kapp resolved to become an electrical engineer after a visit to the Paris Electrical Exhibition of 1881 and in the following year was appointed Manager of the Crompton Co. works at Chelmsford. There he developed and patented the dynamo with compound field winding. Also at that time, with Crompton, he patented electrical measuring instruments with over-saturated electromagnets. He became a naturalized British subject in 1881.
    In 1886 Kapp's most influential paper was published. This described his concept of the magnetic circuit, providing for the first time a sound theoretical basis for dynamo design. The theory was also developed independently by J. Hopkinson. After commencing practice as a consulting engineer in 1884 he carried out design work on dynamos and also electricity-supply and -traction schemes in Germany, Italy, Norway, Russia and Switzerland. From 1891 to 1894 much of his time was spent designing a new generating station in Bristol, officially as Assistant to W.H. Preece. There followed an appointment in Germany as General Secretary of the Verband Deutscher Electrotechniker. For some years he edited the Electrotechnische Zeitschrift and was also a part-time lecturer at the Charlottenberg Technical High School in Berlin. In 1904 Kapp was invited to accept the new Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, which he occupied until 1919. He was the author of several books on electrical machine and transformer design.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Institution of Civil Engineers Telford Medal 1886 and 1888. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1909.
    Bibliography
    10 October 1882, with R.E.B.Crompton, British patent no. 4,810; (the compound wound dynamo).
    1886, "Modern continuous current dynamo electric machines and their engines", Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 83: 123–54.
    Further Reading
    D.G.Tucker, 1989, "A new archive of Gisbert Kapp papers", Proceedings of the Meeting on History of Electrical Engineering, IEE 4/1–4/11 (a transcript of an autobiography for his family).
    D.G.Tucker, 1973, Gisbert Kapp 1852–1922, Birmingham: Birmingham University (includes a bibliography of his most important publications).
    GW

    Biographical history of technology > Kapp, Gisbert Johann Eduard Karl

  • 34 Sperry, Elmer Ambrose

    [br]
    b. 21 October 1860 Cincinnatus, Cortland County, New York, USA
    d. 16 June 1930 Brooklyn, New York, USA
    [br]
    American entrepreneur who invented the gyrocompass.
    [br]
    Sperry was born into a farming community in Cortland County. He received a rudimentary education at the local school, but an interest in mechanical devices was aroused by the agricultural machinery he saw around him. His attendance at the Normal School in Cortland provided a useful theoretical background to his practical knowledge. He emerged in 1880 with an urge to pursue invention in electrical engineering, then a new and growing branch of technology. Within two years he was able to patent and demonstrate his arc lighting system, complete with its own generator, incorporating new methods of regulating its output. The Sperry Electric Light, Motor and Car Brake Company was set up to make and market the system, but it was difficult to keep pace with electric-lighting developments such as the incandescent lamp and alternating current, and the company ceased in 1887 and was replaced by the Sperry Electric Company, which itself was taken over by the General Electric Company.
    In the 1890s Sperry made useful inventions in electric mining machinery and then in electric street-or tramcars, with his patent electric brake and control system. The patents for the brake were important enough to be bought by General Electric. From 1894 to 1900 he was manufacturing electric motor cars of his own design, and in 1900 he set up a laboratory in Washington, where he pursued various electrochemical processes.
    In 1896 he began to work on the practical application of the principle of the gyroscope, where Sperry achieved his most notable inventions, the first of which was the gyrostabilizer for ships. The relatively narrow-hulled steamship rolled badly in heavy seas and in 1904 Ernst Otto Schuck, a German naval engineer, and Louis Brennan in England began experiments to correct this; their work stimulated Sperry to develop his own device. In 1908 he patented the active gyrostabilizer, which acted to correct a ship's roll as soon as it started. Three years later the US Navy agreed to try it on a destroyer, the USS Worden. The successful trials of the following year led to widespread adoption. Meanwhile, in 1910, Sperry set up the Sperry Gyroscope Company to extend the application to commercial shipping.
    At the same time, Sperry was working to apply the gyroscope principle to the ship's compass. The magnetic compass had worked well in wooden ships, but iron hulls and electrical machinery confused it. The great powers' race to build up their navies instigated an urgent search for a solution. In Germany, Anschütz-Kämpfe (1872–1931) in 1903 tested a form of gyrocompass and was encouraged by the authorities to demonstrate the device on the German flagship, the Deutschland. Its success led Sperry to develop his own version: fortunately for him, the US Navy preferred a home-grown product to a German one and gave Sperry all the backing he needed. A successful trial on a destroyer led to widespread acceptance in the US Navy, and Sperry was soon receiving orders from the British Admiralty and the Russian Navy.
    In the rapidly developing field of aeronautics, automatic stabilization was becoming an urgent need. In 1912 Sperry began work on a gyrostabilizer for aircraft. Two years later he was able to stage a spectacular demonstration of such a device at an air show near Paris.
    Sperry continued research, development and promotion in military and aviation technology almost to the last. In 1926 he sold the Sperry Gyroscope Company to enable him to devote more time to invention.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    John Fritz Medal 1927. President, American Society of Mechanical Engineers 1928.
    Bibliography
    Sperry filed over 400 patents, of which two can be singled out: 1908. US patent no. 434,048 (ship gyroscope); 1909. US patent no. 519,533 (ship gyrocompass set).
    Further Reading
    T.P.Hughes, 1971, Elmer Sperry, Inventor and Engineer, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (a full and well-documented biography, with lists of his patents and published writings).
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Sperry, Elmer Ambrose

  • 35 Kennedy, Sir Alexander Blackie William

    SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping
    [br]
    b. 17 March 1847 Stepney, London, England d. 1928
    [br]
    English marine engineer and educator.
    [br]
    Sir Alexander Kennedy was trained as a marine engineer. The son of a Congregational minister, he was educated at the City of London School and the School of Mines, Jermyn Street. He was then apprenticed to J. \& W.Dudgeon of Millwall, marine engineers, and went on to become a draughtsman to Sir Charles Marsh Palmer of Jarrow (with whom he took part in the development of the compound steam-engine for marine use) and T.M.Tennant \& Co. of Leith. In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Engineering at University College, London. He built up an influential School of Engineering, being the first in England to integrate laboratory work as a regular feature of instruction. The engineering laboratory that he established in 1878 has been described as "the first of its kind in England" (Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers). He and his students conducted important experiments on the strength and elasticity of materials, boiler testing and related subjects. He followed the teaching of Franz Reuleaux, whose Kinematics of Machinery he translated from the German.
    While thus breaking new educational ground at University College, Kennedy concurrently established a very thriving private practice as a consulting engineer in partnership with Bernard Maxwell Jenkin (the son of Fleeming Jenkin), to pursue which he relinquished his academic posts in 1889. He planned and installed the whole electricity system for the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation, and other electricity companies. He was also heavily involved in the development of electrically powered transport systems. During the First World War he served on a panel of the Munitions Invention Department, and after the war he undertook to record photographically the scenes of desolation in his book From Ypres to Verdun (1921). Towards the end of his life, he pursued his interest in archaeology with the exploration of Petra, recorded in a monograph: Petra. Its History and Monuments (1925). He also joined the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1879, becoming the President of that body in 1894, and he joined the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1890. Kennedy was thus something of an engineering polymath, as well as being an outstanding engineering educationalist.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1887. Knighted 1905. Member, Institution of Civil Engineers 1879; President, 1906. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1894.
    Bibliography
    1921, From Ypresto Verdum.
    1925, Petra. Its History and Monuments.
    Further Reading
    DNB supplement.
    AB

    Biographical history of technology > Kennedy, Sir Alexander Blackie William

  • 36 Shoenberg, Isaac

    [br]
    b. 1 March 1880 Kiev, Ukraine
    d. 25 January 1963 Willesden, London, England
    [br]
    Russian engineer and friend of Vladimir Zworykin; Director of Research at EMI, responsible for creating the team that successfully developed the world's first all-electronic television system.
    [br]
    After his initial engineering education at Kiev Polytechnic, Shoenberg went to London to undertake further studies at the Royal College of Science. In 1905 he returned to Russia and rose to become Chief Engineer of the Russian Wireless Telegraphy Company. He then returned to England, where he was a consultant in charge of the Patent Department and then joint General Manager of the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company (see Marconi). In 1929 he joined the Columbia Graphophone Company, but two years later this amalgamated with the Gramophone Company, by then known as His Master's voice (HMV), to form EMI (Electric and Musical Industries), a company in which the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had a significant shareholding. Appointed Director of the new company's Research Laboratories in 1931, Shoenberg gathered together a team of highly skilled engineers, including Blumlein, Browne, Willans, McGee, Lubszynski, Broadway and White, with the objective of producing an all-electronic television system suitable for public broadcasting. A 150-line system had already been demonstrated using film as the source material; a photoemissive camera tube similar to Zworykin's iconoscope soon followed. With alternate demonstrations of the EMI system and the mechanical system of Baird arranged with the object of selecting a broadcast system for the UK, Shoenberg took the bold decision to aim for a 405-line "high-definition" standard, using interlaced scanning based on an RCA patent and further developed by Blumlein. This was so successful that it was formally adopted as the British standard in 1935 and regular broadcasts, the first in the world, began in 1937. It is a tribute to Shoenberg's vision and the skills of his team that this standard was to remain in use, apart from the war years, until finally superseded in 1985.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Knighted 1954. Institution of Electrical Engineers Faraday Medal 1954.
    Further Reading
    A.D.Blumlein et al., 1938, "The Marconi-EMI television system", Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 83:729 (provides a description of the development of the 405-line system).
    For more background information, see Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of Television. From Early Days to the Present, November 1986, Institution of Electrical Engineers Publication No. 271.
    KF

    Biographical history of technology > Shoenberg, Isaac

  • 37 Herbert, Edward Geisler

    [br]
    b. 23 March 1869 Dedham, near Colchester, Essex, England
    d. 9 February 1938 West Didsbury, Manchester, England
    [br]
    English engineer, inventor of the Rapidor saw and the Pendulum Hardness Tester, and pioneer of cutting tool research.
    [br]
    Edward Geisler Herbert was educated at Nottingham High School in 1876–87, and at University College, London, in 1887–90, graduating with a BSc in Physics in 1889 and remaining for a further year to take an engineering course. He began his career as a premium apprentice at the Nottingham works of Messrs James Hill \& Co, manufacturers of lace machinery. In 1892 he became a partner with Charles Richardson in the firm of Richardson \& Herbert, electrical engineers in Manchester, and when this partnership was dissolved in 1895 he carried on the business in his own name and began to produce machine tools. He remained as Managing Director of this firm, reconstituted in 1902 as a limited liability company styled Edward G.Herbert Ltd, until his retirement in 1928. He was joined by Charles Fletcher (1868–1930), who as joint Managing Director contributed greatly to the commercial success of the firm, which specialized in the manufacture of small machine tools and testing machinery.
    Around 1900 Herbert had discovered that hacksaw machines cut very much quicker when only a few teeth are in operation, and in 1902 he patented a machine which utilized this concept by automatically changing the angle of incidence of the blade as cutting proceeded. These saws were commercially successful, but by 1912, when his original patents were approaching expiry, Herbert and Fletcher began to develop improved methods of applying the rapid-saw concept. From this work the well-known Rapidor and Manchester saws emerged soon after the First World War. A file-testing machine invented by Herbert before the war made an autographic record of the life and performance of the file and brought him into close contact with the file and tool steel manufacturers of Sheffield. A tool-steel testing machine, working like a lathe, was introduced when high-speed steel had just come into general use, and Herbert became a prominent member of the Cutting Tools Research Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1919, carrying out many investigations for that body and compiling four of its Reports published between 1927 and 1933. He was the first to conceive the idea of the "tool-work" thermocouple which allowed cutting tool temperatures to be accurately measured. For this advance he was awarded the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal of the Institution in 1926.
    His best-known invention was the Pendulum Hardness Tester, introduced in 1923. This used a spherical indentor, which was rolled over, rather than being pushed into, the surface being examined, by a small, heavy, inverted pendulum. The period of oscillation of this pendulum provided a sensitive measurement of the specimen's hardness. Following this work Herbert introduced his "Cloudburst" surface hardening process, in which hardened steel engineering components were bombarded by steel balls moving at random in all directions at very high velocities like gaseous molecules. This treatment superhardened the surface of the components, improved their resistance to abrasion, and revealed any surface defects. After bombardment the hardness of the superficially hardened layers increased slowly and spontaneously by a room-temperature ageing process. After his retirement in 1928 Herbert devoted himself to a detailed study of the influence of intense magnetic fields on the hardening of steels.
    Herbert was a member of several learned societies, including the Manchester Association of Engineers, the Institute of Metals, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He retained a seat on the Board of his company from his retirement until the end of his life.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Manchester Association of Engineers Butterworth Gold Medal 1923. Institution of Mechanical Engineers Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal 1926.
    Bibliography
    E.G.Herbert obtained several British and American patents and was the author of many papers, which are listed in T.M.Herbert (ed.), 1939, "The inventions of Edward Geisler Herbert: an autobiographical note", Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 141: 59–67.
    ASD / RTS

    Biographical history of technology > Herbert, Edward Geisler

  • 38 Izod, Edwin Gilbert

    SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy
    [br]
    b. 17 July 1876 Portsmouth, England
    d. 2 October 1946 England
    [br]
    English engineer who devised the notched-bar impact test named after him.
    [br]
    After a general education at Vickery's School at Southsea, Izod (who pronounced his name Izzod, not Izod) started his career as a premium apprentice at the works of Maudslay, Sons and Field at Lambeth in January 1893. When in 1995 he was engaged in the installation of machinery in HMS Renown at Pembroke, he gained some notoriety for his temerity in ordering Rear Admiral J.A.Fisher, who had no pass, out of the main engine room. He subsequently worked at Portsmouth Dockyard where the battleships Caesar and Gladiator were being engined by Maudslay's. From 1898 to 1900 Izod worked as a Demonstrator in the laboratories of University College London, and he was then engaged by Captain H. Riall Sankey as his Personal Assistant at the Rugby works of Willans and Robinson. Soon after going to Rugby, Izod was asked by Sankey to examine a failed gun barrel and try to ascertain why it burst in testing. Conventional mechanical testing did not reveal any significant differences in the properties of good and bad material. Izod found, however, that, when specimens from the burst barrel were notched, gripped in a vice, and then struck with a hammer they broke in a brittle manner, whereas sounder material merely bent plastically. From these findings his well-known notched-bar impact test emerged. His address to the British Association in September 1903 described the test and his testing machine, and was subsequently published in Engineering. Izod never claimed any priority for this method of test, and generously acknowledged his predecessors in this field, Swedenborg, Fremont, Arnold and Bent Russell. The Izod Test was rapidly adopted by the English-speaking world, although Izod himself, being a busy man, did little to publicize his work, which was introduced to the engineering world largely through the efforts of Captain Sankey. Izod became Assistant Managing Director at Willans, and in 1910 was appointed Chief Consulting Mechanical and Electrical Engineer to the Central Mining Corporation at Johannesburg. He became Managing Director of the Rand Mines in 1918, and returned to the UK in 1927 to become the Managing Director of Weymann Motor Bodies Ltd of Addlestone. As Chairman of this company he extended its activitiesconsiderably.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    MBE. Member of the Iron and Steel Institute.
    Further Reading
    1903, "Testing brittleness of steel", Engineering (25 September): 431–2.
    ASD

    Biographical history of technology > Izod, Edwin Gilbert

  • 39 Poniatoff, Alexander Mathew

    [br]
    b. 25 March 1892 Kazan District, Russia
    d. 24 October 1980
    [br]
    Russian (naturalized American in 1932) electrical engineer responsible for the development of the professional tape recorder and the first commercially-successful video tape recorder (VTR).
    [br]
    Poniatoff was educated at the University of Kazan, the Imperial College in Moscow, and the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, gaining degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering. He was in Germany when the First World War broke out, but he managed to escape back to Russia, where he served as an Air Force pilot with the Imperial Russian Navy. During the Russian Revolution he was a pilot with the White Russian Forces, and escaped into China in 1920; there he found work as an assistant engineer in the Shanghai Power Company. In 1927 he immigrated to the USA, becoming a US citizen in 1932. He obtained a post in the research and development department of the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York, and later at Dalmo Victor, San Carlos, California. During the Second World War he was involved in the development of airborne radar for the US Navy.
    In 1944, taking his initials to form the title, Poniatoff founded the AMPEX Corporation to manufacture components for the airborne radar developed at General Electric, but in 1946 he turned to the production of audio tape recorders developed from the German wartime Telefunken Magnetophon machine (the first tape recorder in the truest sense). In this he was supported by the entertainer Bing Crosby, who needed high-quality replay facilities for broadcasting purposes, and in 1947 he was able to offer a professional-quality product and the business prospered.
    With the rapid post-war boom in television broadcasting in the USA, a need soon arose for a video recorder to provide "time-shifting" of live TV programmes between the different US time zones. Many companies therefore endeavoured to produce a video tape recorder (VTR) using the same single-track, fixed-head, longitudinal-scan system used for audio, but the very much higher bandwidth required involved an unacceptably high tape-speed. AMPEX attempted to solve the problem by using twelve parallel tracks and a machine was demonstrated in 1952, but it proved unsatisfactory.
    The development team, which included Charles Ginsburg and Ray Dolby, then devised a four-head transverse-scan system in which a quadruplex head rotating at 14,400 rpm was made to scan across the width of a 2 in. (5 cm) tape with a tape-to-head speed of the order of 160 ft/sec (about 110 mph; 49 m/sec or 176 km/h) but with a longitudinal tape speed of only 15 in./sec (0.38 m/sec). In this way, acceptable picture quality was obtained with an acceptable tape consumption. Following a public demonstration on 14 April 1956, commercial produc-tion of studio-quality machines began to revolutionize the production and distribution of TV programmes, and the perfecting of time-base correctors which could stabilize the signal timing to a few nanoseconds made colour VTRs a practical proposition. However, AMPEX did not rest on its laurels and in the face of emerging competition from helical scan machines, where the tracks are laid diagonally on the tape, the company was able to demonstrate its own helical machine in 1957. Another development was the Videofile system, in which 250,000 pages of facsimile could be recorded on a single tape, offering a new means of archiving information. By 1986, quadruplex VTRs were obsolete, but Poniatoff's role in making television recording possible deserves a place in history.
    Poniatoff was President of AMPEX Corporation until 1955 and then became Chairman of the Board, a position he held until 1970.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    A.Abrahamson, 1953, "A short history of television recording", Part I, JSMPTE 64:73; 1973, Part II, Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 82:188 (provides a fuller background).
    Audio Biographies, 1961, ed. G.A.Briggs, Wharfedale Wireless Works, pp. 255–61 (contains a few personal details about Poniatoff's escape from Germany to join the Russian Navy).
    E.Larsen, 1971, A History of Invention.
    Charles Ginsburg, 1981, "The horse or the cowboy. Getting television on tape", Journal of the Royal Television Society 18:11 (a brief account of the AMPEX VTR story).
    KF / GB-N

    Biographical history of technology > Poniatoff, Alexander Mathew

  • 40 Perry, John

    [br]
    b. 14 February 1850 Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, Ireland (now Northern Ireland)
    d. 4 August 1920 London, England
    [br]
    Irish engineer, mathematician and technical-education pioneer.
    [br]
    Educated at Queens College, Belfast, Perry became Physics Master at Clifton College in 1870 until 1874. This was followed by a brief period of study under Sir William Thomson in Glasgow. He was then appointed Professor of Engineering at the Imperial College of Japan in Tokyo, where he formed a remarkable research partnership with W.E. Ayrton. On his return to England he became Professor of Engineering and Mathematics at City and Guilds College, Finsbury. Perry was the co-inventor with Ayrton of many electrical measuring instruments between 1880 and 1890, including an energy meter incorporating pendulum clocks and the first practicable portable ammeter and voltmeter, the latter being extensively used until superseded by instruments of greater accuracy. An optical indicator for high-speed steam engines was among Perry's many patents. Having made a notable contribution to education, particularly in the teaching of mathematics, he turned his attention in the latter period of his life to the improvement of the gyrostatic compass.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    FRS 1885. President, Institution of Electrical Engineers 1900. Whitworth Scholar 1870.
    Bibliography
    28 April 1883, jointly with Ayrton, British patent no. 2,156 (portable ammeter and voltmeter).
    1900, England's Neglect of Science, London (for Perry's collected papers on technical education).
    Further Reading
    D.W.Jordan, 1985, "The cry for useless knowledge: education for a new Victorian technology", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 132 (Part A): 587– 601.
    GW

    Biographical history of technology > Perry, John

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  • Engineer's degree — An engineer s degree is a graduate academic degree intermediate in rank between a master s degree and a doctoral degree in the United States. In Europe, it can be an approximately five year degree roughly equivalent to a master s degree. The… …   Wikipedia

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