experiments made by him

- experimental

eksperiment

subst. \/ɪkˈsperɪmənt\/, \/ekˈsperɪmənt\/

forsøk, eksperiment

• experiments made by him

as an experiment forsøksvis, som et forsøk

by experiment ved forsøk, eksperimentelt

by way of experiment forsøksvis, ved forsøk

carry out an experiment utføre et forsøk

conduct an experiment utføre et forsøk

verb \/ɪkˈsperɪment\/, \/ekˈsperɪment\/

eksperimentere, gjøre forsøk

experiment on gjøre forsøk på, drive forsøk med

• don't experiment on me!

experiment with gjøre forsøk med, eksperimentere med

1) make in some manner this toy makes easily эту игрушку легко сделать: hay ought to make well [in this drying breeze] [на таком сухом ветерке] сено должно хорошо просушиться /сохнуть/

2) make somewhere make upstream (downstream) идти /плыть/ вверх (вниз) по течению

3) make in some manner the tide is making fast вода быстро прибывает; winter is making earnestly наступает настоящая зима

4) make in some manner make well (poorly, etc.) хорошо и т. д. зарабатывать; he always makes pretty handsomely он всегда недурно зарабатывает

1) make smth. make machines (tools, paper, chairs, hats, etc.) делать /производить/ машины и т. д., make bricks делать /обжигать/ кирпичи; make a boat (a bridge, a house, a road, etc.) (подстроить лодку и т. д.: make a dress (a coat, a blouse, etc.) делать /шить/ платье и т. д.; make a film снимать фильм: make lunch (jelly, a good supper, etc.) делать /готовить/ завтрак и т. д., make coffee варить кофе; make tea заварить чай; make bread (ис-)печь хлеб; make a garden (a park, flower-beds, etc.) разбивать сад и т. д.; make hay косить траву: make a path делать /прокладывать/ дорожку: where will they make a camp? где они раскинут /разобьют/ лагерь?; make beds стелить /заправлять/ постели; make a fire разжигать камин или раскладывать костер; make nests вить гнезда; beavers make their holes бобры роют норы

2) make smth. make one's reputation (one's name) создать себе репутацию (имя); make smb.'s character формировать чей-л. характер; make one's own life строить свой собственную жизнь, самостоятельно строить свой жизнь; make haste торопиться; make progress делать успехи; make preparations делать приготовления; make plans разрабатывать / вынашивать/ планы; he is making plans to go away он собирается /намеревается/ уехать; who made this ridiculous rule? кто придумал это глупое правило?; make war вести войну, воевать; are they willing to make peace? a) они согласны заключить мир?; б) они готовы примириться? || make a stand занимать принципиальную позицию: make love а) ухаживать; говорить ласковые слова; б) ласкать, заниматься любовью

3) make smb., smth. one big deal made the young man молодой человек добился успеха благодаря лишь всего одной крупной сделке; hard work made him он добился успеха упорным трудом; wars made and unmade this country эта страна возвеличилась благодаря войнам, и они же привели ее к гибели; industry has made Manchester Манчестер превратился в важный центр благодаря развитию промышленности

4) make smth. make trouble (a fuss, a mess, etc.) создавать неприятности и т. д.; he made a terrible to-do он устроил ужасный скандал; don't make noise не делай шума, не шуми; make a change (a disturbance, a panic, etc.) вызывать изменение и т. д., make mischief а) наносить вред; б) шалить, безобразничать; this makes a great difference это совсем другое дело; it makes no difference это ничего не меняет. это все равно; make a great hit coll. иметь огромный успех

5) make smth. make eighty miles (five kilometres, etc.) сделать / пройти/ восемьдесят миль и т. д.; make twenty knots идти со скоростью двадцать узлов; make good time а) идти /двигаться/ с хорошей скоростью; б) sport. показать хорошее время

6) make smth. соll. make port (harbour, home, land, one's destination, etc.) добираться до /достигать/ порта и т. д., he's tired out, he'll never make the summit он уже выдохся, ему ни за что не добраться до вершины; make the tram (the bus, the next flight, etc.) успевать на /поймать/ трамвай и т. д.; I had hoped to get to the meeting but I found at the last minute that I couldn't make it я надеялся попасть на собрание, но в последнюю минуту понял, что не успею

7) make smth. make good grades получать хорошие отметки, хорошо учиться; make the highest score получить больше всего очков; who made the score? кто выиграл /победил/?; I doubt whether he will make much сомневаюсь, чтобы он мог многого добиться, вряд ли он мог многого добиться, вряд ли он многого добьется; those plants will not make much, the soil is too poor эти растения не пойдут /не будут хорошо расти/, здесь плохая почва; do you think a table this wide can make the doorway? вы думаете такой ширины стол пройдет в дверь?; make the team (the best-seller list, the first ten, etc.) попасть в команду и т. д.; this news made the front page это известие поместили на первой полосе [газеты] || make it добиться успеха; make one's point доказать свою течку зрения; has he made his point? понятно, что он хотел сказать?

8) make smth. make a good salary (three pounds a week, a profit, etc.) получать хорошее жалованье и т. д.; make a living зарабатывать на жизнь; make money а) зарабатывать деньги; б) разбогатеть; make a fortune приобрести состояние; make a loss потерпеть /понести/ убыток; make smb. make friends приобрести /завеете/ друзей; make enemies нажить врагов

9) make smth. one hundred pence make a pound сто пенсов составляют фунт; twelve inches make one foot в одном футе двенадцать дюймов; that makes 40 cents you owe me итак, ты мне должен сорок центов; this made his tenth novel это был уже его десятый роман; how many people make a quorum? сколько человек требуется /необходимо/ для кворума?; how many players make а, football team? сколько человек в футбольной команде?; will you make one of the party? не составите ли вы нам компанию?, не присоединитесь ли вы к нам?; "mouse" makes "mice" in the plural множественное число от "mouse" - "mice"

10) make smth. make a will (a deal of transfer, a promissory note, a bill of exchange, etc.) составлять завещание и т. д.; make a list составлять список; make a report написать отчет, подготовить доклад; make a contract (a bargain, an agreement, etc.) заключать /подписывать/ контракт и т. д.

11) semiaux make smth. make a stop остановиться, сделать остановку; make a landing сделать посадку; make a pause сделать паузу; make a move а) стронуться с места, двинуться; it's ten o'clock, it's time we made a move уже десять часов, нам пора двигаться / отправляться/; don't make a move! ни с места!, не двигаться!; б) сделать ход; make a start начать; make a good start положить хорошее начало; make an early start рано отправиться в путь; make a jump прыгнуть; make a sign сделать /подать/ знак; make a bow поклониться; make a curtsey сделать книксен; make a call а) нанести короткий визит; I have to make a few calls мне надо забежать в несколько мест: б) позвонить по телефону; let me make a call first разрешите мне сначала позвонить по телефону; make a trip совершать /предпринимать/ поездку; make a speech произнести речь, выступить с речью; make an offer /а proposition/ внести предложение, предложить; make a proposal сделать предложение, предложить выйти замуж; make an answer /а reply/ дать ответ, ответить; make a denial отклонять; опровергать, помещать опровержение; make a joke отпустить шутку; make a complaint (по)жаловаться; make a vow дать клятву, поклясться; make a choice выбирать, делать выбор; make a mistake сделать /допустить/ ошибку, ошибиться; make inquiries наводить справки; make a sacrifice приносить жертву, жертвовать; make room /place/ подвинуться, освободить место; make way освободить дорогу /путь/, отойти в сторону; make a face скорчить рожу, гримасничать

12) aux make smb. make a lawyer (a good teacher, a bad farmer, a waiter, an excellent husband, etc.) быть хорошим юристом и т. д., he makes a good carpenter он хороший плотник: he made a very poor musician из него получился очень плохой музыкант; one good verse doesn't make a poet одно хорошее стихотворение еще не дает права называться поэтом; he and his cousin would make a handsome couple он и его кузина составляют прекрасную пару; make smth. cold tea makes an excellent drink холодный чай make прекрасный напиток; dry wood makes a good fire сухое дерево хорошо горит; that makes a good answer! вот хороший ответ!; this makes no sense в этом нет никакого смысла; это бессмысленно; these plays (their letters to each other, etc.) make pleasant reading эти пьесы и т. д. приятно читать; his adventures make all exciting story рассказ о его приключениях слушаешь с волнением

1) make smth. in some manner make smth. quickly (eventually, inevitably, unhesitatingly, etc.) делать что-л. быстро и т. д.; make smth. lawfully (scientifically. delicately, persistently, etc.) делать /осуществлять/ что-л. на законных основаниях и т. д.

2) make some distance in some time make 200 miles an hour (ten miles a day, etc.) делать двести миль в час и т. д.; we made only three miles that day в тот день мы прошли /проделали/ только три мили; some airplanes can make over 500 miles an hour скорость некоторых самолетов превышает пятьсот миль в час

3) make smth. at some time he will never make much он никогда не добьется успеха

4) make sonic money in some time make L 2000 a year зарабатывать /получать/ две тысячи фунтов в год; how much money do you make a week (a month, a year, etc.)? сколько [денег] вы получаете /зарабатываете/ в неделю и т. д.?

1) make smb. smth. make him a new toy (her a dress, the children a swing in the garden, etc.) сделать ему /для него/ новую игрушку и т. д., make her a cup of tea приготовь /подай/ ей чашку чаю

2) make smth. smth. make it a rule взять [что-л.] за правило; he made it a rule to get up early он взял себе за правило рано вставать; make it one's business считать это своим делом; don't make cheating a practice не привыкай обманывать; he made a certificate his object он поставил себе целью получить диплом

3) make smb. smb. make smb. one's heir (him king, a page knight, him a teacher, etc.) сделать кого-л. своим наследником и т. д., make a priest a bishop возвести священника в сан епископа; make smb. a judge (one's spokesman, one's special envoy, etc.) назначать кого-л. судьей и т. д., they made him chairman его выбрали председателем; make a colonel general присвоить /дать/ полковнику звание генерала; произвести полковника в генералы; make smb. a duke (a peer, etc.) дать /пожаловать/ кому-л. титул герцога и т. д., he intended to make his son a barrister (a soldier, a carpenter, etc.) он хотел, чтобы его сын стал адвокатом и т. д.; he made her his wife он сделал ее своей женой, он женился на ней; make smb. prisoner взять кого-л. в плен; make oneself a martyr сделать из себя мученика, пойти на муки; make this character an important person (Hamlet a figure of tragic indecision, Shylock a tragic figure, her a figure of fun, etc.) делать из этого персонажа значительную личность и т. д.

4) make smth. smth. add one more egg and make it a round dozen прибавь еще одно яйцо, и будет /получится/ дюжина

5) make it smth. shall we make it Tuesday? договоримся на вторник?; can you come at six? - make it half past вы можете прийти в шесть? - Лучше условимся на половину седьмого; I shall make it tomorrow я договорись на завтра

6) make smth. smth. make the distance about 70 miles полагать /считать/, что расстояние равно примерно семидесяти милям; I make the total about L 50 по-моему, общая сумма составит фунтов пятьдесят; how large do you make the crowd? как вы думаете, сколько в этой толпе человек?; what do you make the time? сколько, по-вашему, сейчас времени?; what time do you make it? - I make it half past four сколько сейчас времени, по-вашему? - Мне кажется, что сейчас примерно половина пятого

7) semiaux make smb. smth. make smb. an offer (one or two attractive proposals, a bid for the antique table, etc.) сделать кому-л. какое-л. предложение и т. д.; I made her a present of the vase я подарил ей эту вазу; he made me a sign он сделал /подал/ мне знак; she made him a face она скорчила ему рожу

8) 0 make smb. smb. she will make him a good wife (a good mother, a loyal friend, etc.) она будет ему хорошей женой и т. д.; make smb. smth. this cloth will make me a good suit из этого отреза мне выйдет хороший костюм

1) make smb., smth. be of some nudity his upbringing made him selfish воспитание сделало его эгоистом; her eyes made her beautiful глаза делали ее прекрасной; he was trying to make himself agreeable он старался быть приятным; we shall try to make your stay here agreeable мы постараемся [сделать так], чтобы ваш визит сюда доставил вам удовольствие; make oneself responsible взять на себя ответственность; make children immune against this disease создать /выработать/ у детей иммунитет против /к/ этой болезни; this portrait makes him too old на портрете он выглядит гораздо старше [, чем он есть на самом деле]; this opera made him immortal эта опера принесла ему бессмертие; make his novels (the song, this new theory, the actress, etc.) popular (famous) сделать его романы и т. д. популярными, создать /принести/ популярность (славу) его романам и т. д.; don't stand about doing nothing - make yourself useful не стойте без дела, помогите [нам]; you've made my nose too big вы нарисовали мне слишком большей нос; make smb., smth. be in some state make smb. happy (rich, poor, etc.) сделать кого-л. счастливым и т. д., make the prisoners free освободить заключенных; make oneself comfortable удобно устроиться; they are coming, make yourselves ready они приближаются, будьте готовы; she is seeing it for the first time, we must make her ready такое она увидит впервые, надо ее подготовить; make smb. angry рассердить кого-л.; her answers made him furious ее ответы взбесили его: make smb. sick a) вызывать у кого-л. тошноту; what made you sick? отчего вам стало плохо?; б) coll. раздражать кого-л.: your questions make me sick мне надоели ваши вопросы, меня тошнит от ваших вопросов; hot weather makes some people sleepy в жару некоторых людей клонит ко сну; it will make you ridiculous in their eyes это выставит вас в смешном свете в их глазах; make it flat сплющить что-л. || make it worth smb.'s while компенсировать кому-л. что-л.; if you help me with this job I'll make it worth your while если вы поможете мне в этом [деле], я в долгу не останусь / вы не будете внакладе/: make oneself (one's point) clear ясно излагать свои мысли (аргументы)

2) make smb. be in some state what makes you so late? что вас так задержало?, отчего вы так опоздали?; it made her more careful после этого она стала осторожнее

1) make smb., smth. do smth. make smb. stop (go, laugh, cry, sign a statement, repeat a story, fall asleep, etc.) заставить кого-л. остановиться и т. д.: they made me feel ashamed они меня смутили; make smb. understand а) заставить кого-л. понять; б) дать кому-л. понять; don't make me do it не вынуждай меня это делать / к этому/; I can make him believe anything I choose я могу убедить его в чем угодно; it makes me think you are right это убеждает меня в вашей правоте; I can't make anyone hear не могу достучаться или дозваться, дозвониться к кому-л.; make an engine start завести мотор; make the kettle boil вскипятить чайник; make water boil довести воду до кипения; I can't make the fire burn никак не могу разжечь костер или развести огонь; what makes the grass grow so quickly? отчего трава растет так быстро?; the wind made the bells ring колокольчики звенели на ветру: onions make our eyes smart от лука [у нас] щиплет глаза; his account made our hair stand on end от его рассказа у нас волосы встали дыбом || make smth. do обходиться чем-л.: there is not much money but I'll make it do денег немного, но я постараюсь, чтобы их хватило; I shall have to make this coat do for a bit longer придется еще немного походить в старом пальто id make both ends meet сводить концы с концами

2) make smb. do smth. most of the chronicles make the king die in 1026 согласно большинству хроник король умер в тысяча двадцать шестом году; some scholars make Homer come from one city, others from another ученые спорят о месте рождения Гомера

1) be made somewhere be made in England (in France, etc.) производиться /выпускаться/ в Англии и т. д. ; made in USSR сделано в СССР; be made in a factory производиться /делаться/ на фабрике; be made of (with, from, into) smth. be made of wood (of silk, of plastic, etc.) быть [сделанным] из дерева и т. д., this cloth is made of cotton эта ткань делается из хлопка; what is this made of? из чего это сделано?; а bow is made of stick and string лук делается из палки и бечевки; cheese is made from milk (cereal is made from grain, rubber is made from sap, etc.) сыр делают из молока и т. д., gas is made from coal газ производят из каменного угля; wool is made into cloth из шерсти делают /ткут/ ткань; grapes are made into raisins из винограда сушат изюм; the skin of the walrus is made into leather из шкуры моржа выделывают кожу; their food is always made with garlic в пищу они всегда добавляют чеснок; I like my coffee made with milk я люблю кофе [приготовленный] с молоком; be made for smb., smth. these houses are made for our workers эти дома построены для наших рабочих; this hat was made for you эту шляпку сделали [специально] для вас; this car is made for speed эти автомашины производятся специально для скоростной езды; be made with /by/ smth. this can be made with a knife это можно сделать ножом; this tool is made by a very intricate process изготовление этого инструмента сопряжено с большими сложностями; this thing is made by hand (by machinery) эту вещь делают вручную (на машине); be made by smb., smth. this was made by my friend это сделал (построил, создал и т. п.) мой друг; these experiments are made by robots эти опыты выполняют роботы; this grotto was not made by nature, it was made by man это не естественный грот, он создан человеком || be made to order (to measure) быть сделанным /сшитым/ на заказ; all his clothes are made to order он шьет все свои вещи [у портного], он делает все свои вещи на заказ id be made of different stuff быть совсем другим человеком, make быть сделанным из другого теста; let them all see what you are made of пусть все видят, что ты за человек /чего ты стоишь/; а first-class job was made of his house его дом прекрасно отремонтировали

2) be made the decision is made решение вынесено; be made at some time unless a move is made very soon, it will be too late если в ближайшее время что-либо не сделают, будет слишком поздно; be made by smb. the first move was made by my brother первый шаг сделал мой брат; be made of smth. effective use was made of this money эти деньги были потрачены с пользой; be made for smth. these rules were made for a special purpose эти правила были составлены с особой целью; be made to do smth. the regulations were made to protect children эти правила созданы /выработаны/ для защиты детей || note should be made следует обратить внимание; а careful note should be made of what he says нужно внимательно отнестись /прислушаться/ к тому, что он говорит

3) be made smb. he was made commander-in-chief (general manager, president of the club, a judge, etc.) его назначили главнокомандующим и т. д., he was made an officer его произвели в офицеры; he was made a knight он был посвящен в рыцари; he was made prisoner его взяли в плен; be made by smb., smth. the recommendation was made by the committee эта рекомендация была предложена комиссией; the writer was made by his first book с первой же книги его признали настоящим писателем; be made for smb. they are made for each other они созданы друг для друга

4) be made to be of some state be made known придать гласность; the results are to be made known on application результаты сообщают, если подано соответствующее заявление; the full story was never made public все подробности этой истории так и не стали достоянием общественности; be made about smth., smb. much fuss has been made about it (about the affair, about her, etc.) вокруг этого и т. д. была поднята большая шумиха; be made to do smth. the pupil was made to write his biography (to speak up, to stay after lessons, etc.) ученика заставили написать свою биографию и т. д.; the crowd was made to disperse толпу разогнали; these two statements cannot be made to agree эти два заявления противоречат друг другу

5) be made on (out of, by, etc.) smth. how much will be made on the business? какой доход будет получен от этого предприятия /даст это предприятие/?; а good deal of capital will be made out of this это принесет солидный капитал: I have по desire for money that has been made by dishonest means я не хочу брать деньги, заработанные нечестным путем

6) be made of smth. nothing could be made of the scribble in his note books (of her note, of his mumbling, etc,) ничего нельзя было понять из каракулей в его тетради и т. д.

7) be made with smb. a treaty has been made with other countries был заключен договор с другими странами

1) || make believe делать вид; he made believe to work hard (to throw a ball, not to know anything, etc.) он делал вид, что он усердно работает и т. д., make believe to be a scholar воображать себя ученым

2) semiaux make to do smth. he made to go он хотел было уйти; he made to stop me он попытался было остановить меня; he made to snatch her bag он рванулся вперед, чтобы вы хватить у нее сумку

3) · make do with (without, on) smth. I will have to make do with cold meat for dinner (with a very short holiday, with an old wireless set, etc.) мне придется довольствоваться холодным мясом вместо обеда и т. д.; I shall have to make do without a coat придется мне обойтись без пальто; I don't know how she makes do on so small an income не знаю, как она сводит концы с концами при таком небольшом заработке; I shall make do on biscuits and cheese сыра и галет мне будет достаточно

1) || make good coll. добиться успеха; I never believed that he would make good я никогда не верил, что он чего-нибудь добьется; talent and education are necessary to make good in this field чтобы добиться успеха в этой области, необходимы талант и образование

2) || make good smth. оправдывать что-л.; he made good his promise он выполнил /сдержал/ свое обещание; she made good her claims она доказала справедливость или законность своих притязаний: you will have to make good your boast тебе придется доказать, что это не пустое хвастовство; make good its title tic) be ranked as an independent science обосновать /доказать/ свое право считаться самостоятельной наукой; make good the damage (the shortage, the loss, etc.) возмещать убытки и т. д. ; any money that you cannot account for you will have to make good тебе придется возместить /вернуть/ все деньги, за которые ты не сумеешь отчитаться

3) 0 || make sure /certain/ быть уверенным или удостовериться; have you made sure of the facts (of the timetable, of the results, etc.)? вы проверили факты и т. д.?, вы убеждены в правильности фактов и т. д.?; if you want to make sure of a seat you had better book in advance если вы хотите наверняка иметь билет, закажите его заранее / заблаговременно/; first they made sure of him сначала они [проверили его и] убедились в его надежности; I want to make sure of catching her (of getting there in time, of having a good seat, of his answering the letter, etc.) я хочу быть уверенным, что застану ее и т. д.,make sure that the letter was delivered (that the doors are locked, that there is no one here, etc.) убедиться, что письмо доставлено и т. д.; will you please make sure that they are all here? проверьте, пожалуйста, все ли она пришли; I made certain that he would do so я был уверен, что он так и поступит; make bold осмеливаться; make bold to ask a favour (to call on you, to express my opinion, etc.) осмелиться просить об одолжении и т. д.; I make bold to say that he knows nothing about it осмелюсь утверждать, что он ничего об этом не знает; make light of smth. не придавать чему-л. особого значения; she made light of her troubles (of this accident, of a situation, of other people's illness, etc.) она легко относится к своим неприятностям и т. д., она особенно не переживает из-за своих неприятностей и т. д.; make ready подготовиться; make merry веселиться; make merry over his victory радоваться /веселиться/ по случаю его победы; make free with smth. пользоваться чем-л., не стесняясь

1) make after smb. make after the fox (after the rabbit, after the escaped convict, etc.) броситься /пуститься/ преследовать лису и т. д., she made after him like a mad woman она как безумная бросилась за ним; in the morning we made after them утром мы пустились за ними вслед; make at smb. he gave a shout and made at me он издал крик и (на)бросился на меня; the dog made at the postman собака накинулась на почтальона; the angry woman made at me with her umbrella рассерженная женщина (накинулась на меня с зонтиком; make for /toward/ smb., smth. make for the crowd (for the sea, for the nearest town, toward a distant hill, for home, etc.) двигаться по направлению /направляться/ к толпе и т. д., he quickly made for /toward/ the door он бросился к двери; she made for the sound of guns она пошла туда, откуда раздавались выстрелы; the dog made for the robber собака бросилась за грабителем; make for the open sea направиться в открытое море

2) make on smth. coll. make on this business (on shares, on oil, etc.) заработать на этом деле и т. д., he made pretty handsomely on that bargain он неплохо заработал /нажился/ на этой сделке

3) 0 make for smth. make for better understanding between countries ( for the happiness of all, for a friendly atmosphere in the club, for peace, for stability of marriage, etc.) способствовать лучшему взаимопониманию между странами и т. д.; does early rising make for good health? полезно ли для здоровья рано вставать?; that weather makes for optimism в такую погоду и настроение хорошее; new facts made for the prisoner's acquittal новые факты ускорили вынесение /помогли вынесению/ оправдательного приговора заключенному; make against smth. experience makes against this assertion опыт опровергает это утверждение; your behaviour makes against your chance of success ваше поведение не способствует /мешает/ вашему успеху

1) make smth. out of /from, of, with/ smth. make bottles out of glass (bricks of clay, flour from wheat, a box out of a bit of mahogany, etc.) делать бутылки из стекла и т. д., make wreaths of daisies плести венки из маргариток; make a megaphone of one's hands сложить руки рупором; the cake was spoilt as she made it with a bad egg торт был испорчен, так как она положила в тесто несвежее яйцо; what do you make with flour (with the eggs, with these things, etc.)? что вы делаете из муки и т. д.?; what will you make with all these flowers? что вы будете делать с таким количеством цветов?; what can you make out of this stuff? что ты можешь сделать / сшить/ из этого материала?; make smth. in smth. make a hole in the ground выкопать яму в земле; make a gap in the hedge проделать лаз /дыру/ в изгороди; it made a hole /а dent/ in my savings (in my reserves, in smb.'s finances, etc.) от этого пострадали мои сбережения и т. д., make smth. for smth. make an opening for the wires сделать входное отверстие для проводов; make a hole for a tree выкопать яму под дерево; he made a bookcase for his apartment он сам сделал в своей квартире книжный шкаф; make smth. into smth. make milk into cheese and butter (hide into leather, wood into pulp, etc.) перерабатывать молоко на масло и сыр и т. д.; make these huts into temporary houses (it into a stock company, the desert into a garden, etc.) превращать эти хижины во временное жилье и т. д., make these books into bundles связать книги в пачки; make a story into a play переделать повесть в пьесу

2) make smth. of smb. make an example of smb. ставить кого-л. в пример; make fun of smb. подшучивать или издеваться над кем-л.; make a laughing-stock of smb. сделать кого-л. посмешищем, выставлять кого-л. в смешном виде; make a fool /an ass/ of him (of her husband, etc.) делать из него и т. д. дурака; make a fool (a beast, a pig, etc.) of oneself вести себя как дурак и т. д., make a nuisance of oneself надоедать /докучать, досаждать/ кому-л.; make an exhibition /а spectacle, a show/ of oneself привлекать к себе внимание; make smth. of smth. make a profession of smth. сделать что-л. своей профессией; make a business of politics заниматься политикой профессионально; make a parade / a show/ of one's talents щеголять /кичиться/ своими талантами; make a boast of smth. хвастаться / хвалиться/ чем-л.; make a secret of smth. делать из чего-л. тайну /секрет/; he was asked to help but he made a hash /a muddle, a mess/ of everything его просили помочь, а он все испортил; make hell of smb.'s life превратить чью-л. жизнь в ад; make a note of his telephone number записать номер его телефона; make notes of a lecture записать лекцию; you must make a mental note of what he is saying вы должны запомнить /взять на заметку/, что он говорят; don't make a habit of it смотри, чтобы это не превратилось в привычку; make the most of smth. максимально использовать что-л.; make the best of one's delay (of this scanty information, of his absence, etc.) наилучшим образом /наиболее эффективно/ использовать задержку и т. д.; make a good thing of it извлечь из этого пользу; make good use of this opportunity воспользоваться предоставившейся возможностью; make a good (a bad) job of smth. хорошо (плохо) справиться с чем-л.; make smth. for smb., smth. make a name for oneself стать известным; make a reputation for oneself создать себе репутацию; make allowance (s) for circumstances (for smb.'s inexperience, for her age, etc.) делать скидку на обстоятельства и т. д.; make arrangements for a meeting (for a party, for a dance, for their departure, etc.) подготовить собрание и т. д., make much for the peace of the world много сделать для сохранения мира; make smb., smth. with smb. make friends with smb. подружиться с кем-л., наладить с кем-л. дружеские отношения; а quarrel with smb. поссориться с кем-л.; make peace with smb. помириться с кем-л.; make smth. in (on, etc.) smth., smb. make a name in the world снискать мировую славу, приобрести известность во всем мире; make an impression on smb. производить на кого-л. впечатление; make war upon smb., smth. a) идти войной на кого-л., что-л.; б) вести войну с кем-л., чем-л. || make love to smb. а) ласкать кого-л., заниматься любовью с кем-л., б) ухаживать за кем-л.; говорить кому-л. ласковые слова

3) make smb. of smb. his parents want to make a doctor (a lawyer, a soldier, an actor, etc.) of their son родители хотят, чтобы их сын стал врачом и т. д., make a man of him сделать из него человека; make a friend of her children подружиться с ее детьми; make a friend of an enemy превратить врага в друга; make smb. into smb. make them into slaves (him into a bully, her into a sophisticated hostess, etc.) превратить их в /сделать из них/ рабов и т. д.

4) make smth. over smth. make a fuss (a row, a scandal, etc.) over smth. поднимать шум и т. д. по какому-л. поводу; make a to-do over a trifle поднимать шумиху из-за пустяка

5) make smth. for smth. make a dash for the open window (a bolt for the door, a bee-line for the gates, etc.) броситься к открытому окну и т. д., make smth. to smth. make one's way to the station (to the river, to the house, back to the tower, etc.) пойти /направиться/ к станции и т. д., make smth. by smth. make the crossing by ferry переправиться на пароме; make smth. at smb. make a grab at him попытаться схватить его || it's time we were making tracks for home нам уже пора повернуть к дому

6) make some distance in some time we made the whole distance in ten days мы прошли весь путь /покрыли все расстояние/ за десять дней; we've made 80 miles since noon с полудня мы проделали восемьдесят миль

7) make smth. in some time the train will make Moscow in five hours поезд будет в Москве через пять часов

8) make smth. at /in/ smth. make good grades at school получать [в школе] хорошие отметки, хорошо учиться; make the highest score in the match получать в этом матче больше всех очков /самый лучший результат/; make one's way in the world преуспеть, добиться успеха || coll. he'll make it through college ему удастся окончить колледж; he made six towns on this trip во время этой поездки он посетил шесть городов /побывал в шести городах/

9) make smth. by (out of, from, in, etc.) smth. make a good deal by it хорошо на этом заработать; make much profit out of this undertaking извлекать большую выгоду из этого предприятия; he made a great fortune out of tea он составил большое состояние на торговле чаем; make a great deal of money in oil много заработать на нефти; make a living from literary work зарабатывать [на жизнь] литературным трудом; make a loss on the transaction потерпеть /понести/ убытки на этой сделке

10) make smth. of smth., smb. read this letter and tell me what you make of it прочтите это письмо и скажите, как вы его расцениваете; what do you make of the new assistant? какое у тебя впечатление /что ты думаешь/ о новом помощнике?; make much of this article ( of her work, of this man, etc.) быть высокого мнения об этой статье и т. д., newspapers made much of his achievements газеты превозносили его успехи; she makes too much of the boy уж слишком она носится с этим мальчиком; make little of smth., smb. относиться пренебрежительно к чему-л., кому-л., не считаться с чем-л., кем-л.; he made little of his feat он принижал значение своего героического поступка

11) make smth. of smth. I could make nothing of his words (of all this scribble, of her letter, etc.) я ничего не мог понять из его слов и т. д., его слова были мне совершенно непонятны и т. д., you will make more of it than I вы в этом лучше разберетесь [, чем я]; I can make no sense of what he says я не вижу никакого смысла в том, что он говорит; what are we to make of his behaviour? как нам следует /нам прикажете/ понимать его поведение?

12) make smth. with smb. they made a bargain with him они заключили с ним сделку || make a settlement on smb. распорядиться имуществом в пользу кого-л.

13) semiaux make smth. for smb. make room for smb. [подвинуться и] дать кому-л. место; can you make room for one more man? найдется место еще для одного человека?; make way for others посторониться, дать дорогу другим; make smth. at smb. he made a face at them он состроил им рожу; don't make eyes at him не строй ему глазки

14) 0 make smth. in some time he will make a sergeant in six months через шесть месяцев он станет сержантом

1) make smth. of doing smth. make a practice of working in his garden in the morning (of helping others, of doing his exercises in front of an open window, etc.) взять за правило по утрам работать в его саду и т. д.; he makes a practice of cheating он всегда обманывает; make a point of being on time у него принцип make не опаздывать /быть пунктуальным/; she made it a point of being very patient with these children она особенно старалась быть терпеливой с этими детьми

2) make smth. by doing smth. make one's living by giving piano lessons (by writing books for children, by selling flowers, etc.) зарабатывать на жизнь уроками игры на фортепиано и т. д.; she makes money by nursing она зарабатывает деньги, ухаживая за больными; she made her name by writing memoirs она прославилась своими мемуарами

SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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Guinand received little formal education and followed his father's trade of joiner. He specialized in making clock cases, but after learning how to cast metals he took up the more lucrative work of making watch cases. When he was about 20 years old, in a customer's house he caught sight of an English telescope, a rarity in a Swiss mountain village. Intrigued, he obtained permission to examine it. This aroused his interest in optical matters and he began making spectacles and small telescopes.

Achromatic lenses were becoming known, their use being to remove the defect of chromatic aberration or coloured optical images, but there remained defects due to imperfections in the glass itself. Stimulated by offers of prizes by scientific bodies, including the Royal Society of London, for removing these defects, Guinand set out to remedy them. He embarked in 1784 on a long and arduous series of experiments, varying the materials and techniques for making glass. The even more lucrative trade of making bells for repeaters provided the funds for a furnace capable of holding 2 cwt (102 kg) of molten glass. By 1798 or so he had succeeded in making discs of homogeneous glass. He impressed the famous Parisian astronomer de Lalande with them and his glass became well enough known for scientists to visit him. In 1805 Fraunhofer persuaded Guinand to join his optical-instrument works at Benediktheurn, in Bavaria, to make lenses. After nine years, Guinand returned to Brenets with a pension, on condition he made no more glass and disclosed no details of his methods. After two years these conditions had become irksome and he relinquished the pension. On 19 February 1823 Guinand described his discoveries in his classic "Memoir on the making of optical glass, more particularly of glass of high refractive index for use in the production of achromatic lenses", presented to the Société de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Genève. This gives details of his experiments and investigations and discusses a suitable pot-clay stirrer and stirring mechanism for the molten glass, with temperature control, to overcome optical-glass defects such as bubbles, seeds, cords and colours. Guinand was hailed as the man in Europe who had achieved this and has thus rightly been called the founder of the era of optical glassmaking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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Educated at Harrow, where he first showed an interest in science, and at Cambridge, Talbot was an outstanding scholar and a formidable mathematician. He published over fifty scientific papers and took out twelve English patents. His interests outside the field of science were also wide and included Assyriology, etymology and the classics. He was briefly a Member of Parliament, but did not pursue a parliamentary career.

Talbot's invention of photography arose out of his frustrating attempts to produce acceptable pencil sketches using popular artist's aids, the camera discura and camera lucida. From his experiments with the former he conceived the idea of placing on the screen a paper coated with silver salts so that the image would be captured chemically. During the spring of 1834 he made outline images of subjects such as leaves and flowers by placing them on sheets of sensitized paper and exposing them to sunlight. No camera was involved and the first images produced using an optical system were made with a solar microscope. It was only when he had devised a more sensitive paper that Talbot was able to make camera pictures; the earliest surviving camera negative dates from August 1835. From the beginning, Talbot noticed that the lights and shades of his images were reversed. During 1834 or 1835 he discovered that by placing this reversed image on another sheet of sensitized paper and again exposing it to sunlight, a picture was produced with lights and shades in the correct disposition. Talbot had discovered the basis of modern photography, the photographic negative, from which could be produced an unlimited number of positives. He did little further work until the announcement of Daguerre's process in 1839 prompted him to publish an account of his negative-positive process. Aware that his photogenic drawing process had many imperfections, Talbot plunged into further experiments and in September 1840, using a mixture incorporating a solution of gallic acid, discovered an invisible latent image that could be made visible by development. This improved calotype process dramatically shortened exposure times and allowed Talbot to take portraits. In 1841 he patented the process, an exercise that was later to cause controversy, and between 1844 and 1846 produced The Pencil of Nature, the world's first commercial photographically illustrated book.

Concerned that some of his photographs were prone to fading, Talbot later began experiments to combine photography with printing and engraving. Using bichromated gelatine, he devised the first practicable method of photo engraving, which was patented as Photoglyphic engraving in October 1852. He later went on to use screens of gauze, muslin and finely powdered gum to break up the image into lines and dots, thus anticipating modern photomechanical processes.

Talbot was described by contemporaries as the "Father of Photography" primarily in recognition of his discovery of the negative-positive process, but he also produced the first photomicrographs, took the first high-speed photographs with the aid of a spark from a Leyden jar, and is credited with proposing infra-red photography. He was a shy man and his misguided attempts to enforce his calotype patent made him many enemies. It was perhaps for this reason that he never received the formal recognition from the British nation that his family felt he deserved.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Jedediah Strutt was the second of three sons of William, a small farmer and maltster at South Normanton, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, where the only industry was a little framework knitting. At the age of 14 Jedediah was apprenticed to Ralph Massey, a wheelwright near Derby, and lodged with the Woollats, whose daughter Elizabeth he later married in 1755. He moved to Leicester and in 1754 started farming at Blackwell, where an uncle had died and left him the stock on his farm. It was here that he made his knitting invention.

William Lee's knitting machine remained in virtually the same form as he left it until the middle of the eighteenth century. The knitting industry moved away from London into the Midlands and in 1730 a Nottingham workman, using Indian spun yarn, produced the first pair of cotton hose ever made by mechanical means. This industry developed quickly and by 1750 was providing employment for 1,200 frameworkers using both wool and cotton in the Nottingham and Derby areas. It was against this background that Jedediah Strutt obtained patents for his Derby rib machine in 1758 and 1759.

The machine was a highly ingenious mechanism, which when placed in front of an ordinary stocking frame enabled the fashionable ribbed stockings to be made by machine instead of by hand. To develop this invention, he formed a partnership first with his brother-in-law, William Woollat, and two leading Derby hosiers, John Bloodworth and Thomas Stamford. This partnership was dissolved in 1762 and another was formed with Woollat and the Nottingham hosier Samuel Need. Strutt's invention was followed by a succession of innovations which enabled framework knitters to produce almost every kind of mesh on their machines. In 1764 the stocking frame was adapted to the making of eyelet holes, and this later lead to the production of lace. In 1767 velvet was made on these frames, and two years later brocade. In this way Strutt's original invention opened up a new era for knitting. Although all these later improvements were not his, he was able to make a fortune from his invention. In 1762 he was made a freeman of Nottingham, but by then he was living in Derby. His business at Derby was concerned mainly with silk hose and he had a silk mill there.

It was partly his need for cotton yarn and partly his wealth which led him into partnership with Richard Arkwright, John Smalley and David Thornley to exploit Arkwright's patent for spinning cotton by rollers. Together with Samuel Need, they financed the Arkwright partnership in 1770 to develop the horse-powered mill in Nottingham and then the water-powered mill at Cromford. Strutt gave advice to Arkwright about improving the machinery and helped to hold the partnership together when Arkwright fell out with his first partners. Strutt was also involved, in London, where he had a house, with the parliamentary proceedings over the passing of the Calico Act in 1774, which opened up the trade in British-manufactured all-cotton cloth.

In 1776 Strutt financed the construction of his own mill at Helper, about seven miles (11 km) further down the Derwent valley below Cromford. This was followed by another at Milford, a little lower on the river. Strutt was also a partner with Arkwright and others in the mill at Birkacre, near Chorley in Lancashire. The Strutt mills were developed into large complexes for cotton spinning and many experiments were later carried out in them, both in textile machinery and in fireproof construction for the mills themselves. They were also important training schools for engineers.

Elizabeth Strutt died in 1774 and Jedediah never married again. The family seem to have lived frugally in spite of their wealth, probably influenced by their Nonconformist background. He had built a house near the mills at Milford, but it was in his Derby house that Jedediah died in 1797. By the time of his death, his son William had long been involved with the business and became a more important cotton spinner than Jedediah.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

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Robert Bakewell was the son of the tenant farming the 500-acre (200 hectare) Dishley Grange Farm, near Loughborough, where he was born. The family was sufficiently wealthy to allow Robert to travel, which he began to do at an early age, exploring the farming methods of the West Country, Norfolk, Ireland and Holland. On taking over the farm he continued the development of the irrigation scheme begun by his father. Arthur Young visited the farm during his tour of east England in 1771. At that time it consisted of 440 acres (178 hectares), 110 acres (45 hectares) of which were arable, and carried a stock of 60 horses, 400 sheep and 150 other assorted beasts. Of the arable land, 30 acres (12 hectares) were under root crops, mainly turnips.

Bakewell was not the first to pioneer selective breeding, but he was the first successfully to apply selection to both the efficiency with which an animal utilized its food, and its physical appearance. He always had a clear idea of the animal he wanted, travelled extensively to collect a range of animals possessing the characteristics he sought, and then bred from these towards his goal. He was aware of the dangers of inbreeding, but would often use it to gain the qualities he wanted. His early experiments were with Longhorn cattle, which he developed as a meat rather than a draught animal, but his most famous achievement was the development of the Improved Leicester breed of sheep. He set out to produce an animal that would put on the most meat in the least time and with the least feeding. As his base he chose the Old Leicester, but there is still doubt as to which other breeds he may have introduced to produce the desired results. The Improved Leicester was smaller than its ancestor, with poorer wool quality but with greatly improved meat-production capacity.

Bakewell let out his sires to other farms and was therefore able to study their development under differing conditions. However, he made stringent rules for those who hired these animals, requiring the exclusive use of his rams on the farms concerned and requiring particular dietary conditions to be met. To achieve this control he established the Dishley Society in 1783. Although his policies led to accusations of closed access to his stock, they enabled him to keep a close control of all offspring. He thereby pioneered the process now recognized as "progeny testing".

Bakewell's fame and that of his farm spread throughout the country and overseas. He engaged in an extensive correspondence and acted as host to all of influence in British and overseas agriculture, but it would appear that he was an over-generous host, since he is known to have been in financial difficulties in about 1789. He was saved from bankruptcy by a public subscription raised to allow him to continue with his breeding experiments; this experience may well have been the reason why he was such a staunch advocate of State funding of agricultural research.

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SUBJECT AREA: Photography, film and optics

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Dickson was born in France of English and Scottish parents. As a young man of almost 19 years, he wrote in 1879 to Thomas Edison in America, asking for a job. Edison replied that he was not taking on new staff at that time, but Dickson, with his mother and sisters, decided to emigrate anyway. In 1883 he contacted Edison again, and was given a job at the Goerk Street laboratory of the Edison Electric Works in New York. He soon assumed a position of responsibility as Superintendent, working on the development of electric light and power systems, and also carried out most of the photography Edison required. In 1888 he moved to the Edison West Orange laboratory, becoming Head of the ore-milling department. When Edison, inspired by Muybridge's sequence photographs of humans and animals in motion, decided to develop a motion picture apparatus, he gave the task to Dickson, whose considerable skills in mechanics, photography and electrical work made him the obvious choice. The first experiments, in 1888, were on a cylinder machine like the phonograph, in which the sequence pictures were to be taken in a spiral. This soon proved to be impractical, and work was delayed for a time while Dickson developed a new ore-milling machine. Little progress with the movie project was made until George Eastman's introduction in July 1889 of celluloid roll film, which was thin, tough, transparent and very flexible. Dickson returned to his experiments in the spring of 1891 and soon had working models of a film camera and viewer, the latter being demonstrated at the West Orange laboratory on 20 May 1891. By the early summer of 1892 the project had advanced sufficiently for commercial exploitation to begin. The Kinetograph camera used perforated 35 mm film (essentially the same as that still in use in the late twentieth century), and the kinetoscope, a peep-show viewer, took fifty feet of film running in an endless loop. Full-scale manufacture of the viewers started in 1893, and they were demonstrated on a number of occasions during that year. On 14 April 1894 the first kinetoscope parlour, with ten viewers, was opened to the public in New York. By the end of that year, the kinetoscope was seen by the public all over America and in Europe. Dickson had created the first commercially successful cinematograph system. Dickson left Edison's employment on 2 April 1895, and for a time worked with Woodville Latham on the development of his Panoptikon projector, a projection version of the kinetoscope. In December 1895 he joined with Herman Casier, Henry N.Marvin and Elias Koopman to form the American Mutoscope Company. Casier had designed the Mutoscope, an animated-picture viewer in which the sequences of pictures were printed on cards fixed radially to a drum and were flipped past the eye as the drum rotated. Dickson designed the Biograph wide-film camera to produce the picture sequences, and also a projector to show the films directly onto a screen. The large-format images gave pictures of high quality for the period; the Biograph went on public show in America in September 1896, and subsequently throughout the world, operating until around 1905. In May 1897 Dickson returned to England and set up as a producer of Biograph films, recording, among other subjects, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897, Pope Leo XIII in 1898, and scenes of the Boer War in 1899 and 1900. Many of the Biograph subjects were printed as reels for the Mutoscope to produce the "what the butler saw" machines which were a feature of fairgrounds and seaside arcades until modern times. Dickson's contact with the Biograph Company, and with it his involvement in cinematography, ceased in 1911.

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   1) I Am a Thinking Thing

   But what then am I? A thing which thinks. What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels. (Descartes, 1951, p. 153)

   2) Thinking Is Not Independent of the Expression of Thought

   I have been trying in all this to remove the temptation to think that there "must be" a mental process of thinking, hoping, wishing, believing, etc., independent of the process of expressing a thought, a hope, a wish, etc.... If we scrutinize the usages which we make of "thinking," "meaning," "wishing," etc., going through this process rids us of the temptation to look for a peculiar act of thinking, independent of the act of expressing our thoughts, and stowed away in some particular medium. (Wittgenstein, 1958, pp. 41-43)

   3) The Experimental Differentiation of Concrete and Propositional Operations

   Analyse the proofs employed by the subject. If they do not go beyond observation of empirical correspondences, they can be fully explained in terms of concrete operations, and nothing would warrant our assuming that more complex thought mechanisms are operating. If, on the other hand, the subject interprets a given correspondence as the result of any one of several possible combinations, and this leads him to verify his hypotheses by observing their consequences, we know that propositional operations are involved. (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958, p. 279)

   4) In Every Age, Philosophical Thinking Exploits Some Dominant Concepts

   In every age, philosophical thinking exploits some dominant concepts and makes its greatest headway in solving problems conceived in terms of them. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers construed knowledge, knower, and known in terms of sense data and their association. Descartes' self-examination gave classical psychology the mind and its contents as a starting point. Locke set up sensory immediacy as the new criterion of the real... Hobbes provided the genetic method of building up complex ideas from simple ones... and, in another quarter, still true to the Hobbesian method, Pavlov built intellect out of conditioned reflexes and Loeb built life out of tropisms. (S. Langer, 1962, p. 54)

   5) The Experimental Differentiation of Deductive and Inductive Reasoning

   Experiments on deductive reasoning show that subjects are influenced sufficiently by their experience for their reasoning to differ from that described by a purely deductive system, whilst experiments on inductive reasoning lead to the view that an understanding of the strategies used by adult subjects in attaining concepts involves reference to higher-order concepts of a logical and deductive nature. (Bolton, 1972, p. 154)

   6) The Power of Machine Thought

   There are now machines in the world that think, that learn and create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until-in the visible future-the range of problems they can handle will be coextensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied. (Newell & Simon, quoted in Weizenbaum, 1976, p. 138)

   7) Thinking Is Sometimes Accompanied by Action and Sometimes Not

   But how does it happen that thinking is sometimes accompanied by action and sometimes not, sometimes by motion, and sometimes not? It looks as if almost the same thing happens as in the case of reasoning and making inferences about unchanging objects. But in that case the end is a speculative proposition... whereas here the conclusion which results from the two premises is an action.... I need covering; a cloak is a covering. I need a cloak. What I need, I have to make; I need a cloak. I have to make a cloak. And the conclusion, the "I have to make a cloak," is an action. (Nussbaum, 1978, p. 40)

   8) The Growth of Philosophy

   It is well to remember that when philosophy emerged in Greece in the sixth century, B.C., it did not burst suddenly out of the Mediterranean blue. The development of societies of reasoning creatures-what we call civilization-had been a process to be measured not in thousands but in millions of years. Human beings became civilized as they became reasonable, and for an animal to begin to reason and to learn how to improve its reasoning is a long, slow process. So thinking had been going on for ages before Greece-slowly improving itself, uncovering the pitfalls to be avoided by forethought, endeavoring to weigh alternative sets of consequences intellectually. What happened in the sixth century, B.C., is that thinking turned round on itself; people began to think about thinking, and the momentous event, the culmination of the long process to that point, was in fact the birth of philosophy. (Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1980, p. xi)

   9) Thought Is, in Great Part, a Public Activity

   The way to look at thought is not to assume that there is a parallel thread of correlated affects or internal experiences that go with it in some regular way. It's not of course that people don't have internal experiences, of course they do; but that when you ask what is the state of mind of someone, say while he or she is performing a ritual, it's hard to believe that such experiences are the same for all people involved.... The thinking, and indeed the feeling in an odd sort of way, is really going on in public. They are really saying what they're saying, doing what they're doing, meaning what they're meaning. Thought is, in great part anyway, a public activity. (Geertz, quoted in J. Miller, 1983, pp. 202-203)

    10) In Thinking, Everything Needs to Be Made as Simple as Possible

   Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. (Einstein, quoted in Minsky, 1986, p. 17)

    11) The Conditions for the Construction of Formal Thought

   What, in effect, are the conditions for the construction of formal thought? The child must not only apply operations to objects-in other words, mentally execute possible actions on them-he must also "reflect" those operations in the absence of the objects which are replaced by pure propositions. Thus, "reflection" is thought raised to the second power. Concrete thinking is the representation of a possible action, and formal thinking is the representation of a representation of possible action.... It is not surprising, therefore, that the system of concrete operations must be completed during the last years of childhood before it can be "reflected" by formal operations. In terms of their function, formal operations do not differ from concrete operations except that they are applied to hypotheses or propositions [whose logic is] an abstract translation of the system of "inference" that governs concrete operations. (Piaget, quoted in Minsky, 1986, p. 237)

    12) Language Enables the Rehearsal of Thought and, Thereby, Commitment to Long- Term Memory

   [E]ven a human being today (hence, a fortiori, a remote ancestor of contemporary human beings) cannot easily or ordinarily maintain uninterrupted attention on a single problem for more than a few tens of seconds. Yet we work on problems that require vastly more time. The way we do that (as we can observe by watching ourselves) requires periods of mulling to be followed by periods of recapitulation, describing to ourselves what seems to have gone on during the mulling, leading to whatever intermediate results we have reached. This has an obvious function: namely, by rehearsing these interim results... we commit them to memory, for the immediate contents of the stream of consciousness are very quickly lost unless rehearsed.... Given language, we can describe to ourselves what seemed to occur during the mulling that led to a judgment, produce a rehearsable version of the reaching-a-judgment process, and commit that to long-term memory by in fact rehearsing it. (Margolis, 1987, p. 60)

SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors

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The family fortunes having been extinguished by the South Sea Bubble of 1720, Cookworthy and his brother had to fend for themselves. They set up, and succeeded, in the pharmacy trade. At the age of 31, however, William left the business, and after a period of probation he became a minister in the Society of Friends. In a letter of 5 May 1745, Cookworthy mentions some samples of kaolin and china or growan stone that had been brought to him from Virginia. He found similar materials at Treginning Hill in Cornwall, and between 1755 and 1758 he found sufficiently pure china clay and china stone to make a pure white porcelain. Cookworthy took out a patent for his discovery in 1768 which covered the manufacture of porcelain from moonstone or growan and growan clay, with a glaze made from china stone to which lime and fern ash or magnesia alba (basic carbonate of magnesium) were added. Cookworthy's experiments had been carried out on the property of Lord Camelford, who later assisted him, in the company of other Quakers, in setting up a works at Coxside, Plymouth, to manufacture the ware; the works employed between fifty and sixty people. In the absence of coal, Cookworthy resorted to wood as fuel, but this was scarce, so in 1770 he transferred his operation to Castle Green, Bristol. However, he had no greater success there, and in 1773 he sold the entire interest in porcelain manufacture to Richard Champion (1743–91), although Cookworthy and his heirs were to receive royalties for ninety-nine years. Champion, who had been working with Cookworthy since 1764 and was active in Bristol city affairs, continued the firm as Richard Champion \& Co., but when in 1775 Champion tried to renew Cookworthy's patent, Wedgwood and other Staffordshire potters challenged him. After litigation, the use of kaolin and china stone was thrown open to general use. The Staffordshire potters made good use of this new-found freedom and Champion was forced to sell the patent to them and dispose of his factory the following year. The potters of Staffordshire said of Cookworthy, "the greatest service ever conferred by one person on the pottery manufacturers is that of making them acquainted with china clay".

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Francis Crossley was the youngest of three brothers employed in their father's carpet-weaving business in Halifax and who took over the running of the company on their father's death in 1837. Francis seems to have been the one with technical ability, for it was he who saw the possibilities of weaving by power. Growth of the company was rapid through his policy of acquiring patents and then improving them, and it was soon at the forefront of the carpet-manufacturing trade. He had taken out rights on the patents of John Hill of Manchester, but his experiments with Hill's looms for weaving carpets were not successful.

In the spring of 1850 Francis asked a textile inventor, George Collier of Barnsley, to develop a power loom for carpet manufacture. Collier produced a model that was a distinct advance on earlier looms, and Francis engaged him to perfect a power loom for weaving tapestry and Brussels carpets. After a great deal of money had been expended, a patent was taken out in 1850 in the name of his brother, Joseph Crossley, for a loom that could weave velvet as well as carpets and included some of the ideas of the American E.B. Bigelow. This new loom proved to be a great advance on all the earlier ones, and thus brought the Crossleys a great fortune from both sales of patent rights and the production of carpets from their mills, which were soon enlarged.

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Francis Crossley was Mayor of Halifax in 1849 and 1850, but Hogg gives this position to his elder brother John. In 1852 Francis was returned to Parliament as the Liberal member for Halifax, and in 1859 he became the member for the West Riding. Among his benefactions, in 1855 he gave to the town of Halifax a twelve-acre park that cost £41,300; a statue of him was erected there. In the same year he endowed twenty-one almshouses. In 1863 a baronetcy was conferred upon him in recognition of his commercial and public services, which he continued to perform until his death. In 1870 he gave the London Missionary Society £20,000, their largest single donation up to that time, and another £10,000 to the Congregational Pastor's Retiring Fund. He became ill when on a journey to the Holy Land in 1869, but although he made a partial recovery he grew worse again towards the end of 1871 and died early in the following year. He left £800,000 in his will.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport, Mining and extraction technology, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Educated at Truro Grammar School, he then studied under Dr Avery at Wadebridge to become a doctor of medicine. He settled as a surgeon in Wadebridge, spending his leisure time in building an organ and in the study of chemistry and mechanical science. He married Elizabeth Symons in 1814, and in 1820 moved with his wife to London. He delivered a course of lectures at the Surrey Institution on the elements of chemical science, attended by, amongst others, the young Michael Faraday. While there, Gurney made his first invention, the oxyhydrogen blowpipe. For this he received the Gold Medal of the Society of Arts. He experimented with lime and magnesia for the production of an illuminant for lighthouses with some success. He invented a musical instrument of glasses played like a piano.

In 1823 he started experiments related to steam and locomotion which necessitated taking a partner in to his medical practice, from which he resigned shortly after. His objective was to produce a steam-driven vehicle to run on common roads. His invention of the steam-jet of blast greatly improved the performance of the steam engine. In 1827 he took his steam carriage to Cyfarthfa at the request of Mr Crawshaw, and while there applied his steam-jet to the blast furnaces, greatly improving their performance in the manufacture of iron. Much of the success of George Stephenson's steam engine, the Rocket was due to Gurney's steam blast.

In July 1829 Gurney made a historic trip with his road locomotive. This was from London to Bath and back, which was accomplished at a speed of 18 mph (29 km/h) and was made at the instigation of the Quartermaster-General of the Army. So successful was the carriage that Sir Charles Dance started to run a regular service with it between Gloucester and Cheltenham. This ran for three months without accident, until Parliament introduced prohibitive taxation on all self-propelled vehicles. A House of Commons committee proposed that these should be abolished as inhibiting progress, but this was not done. Sir Goldsworthy petitioned Parliament on the harm being done to him, but nothing was done and the coming of the railways put the matter beyond consideration. He devoted his time to finding other uses for the steam-jet: it was used for extinguishing fires in coal-mines, some of which had been burning for many years; he developed a stove for the production of gas from oil and other fatty substances, intended for lighthouses; he was responsible for the heating and the lighting of both the old and the new Houses of Parliament. His evidence after a colliery explosion resulted in an Act of Parliament requiring all mines to have two shafts. He was knighted in 1863, the same year that he suffered a stroke which incapacitated him. He retired to his house at Reeds, near Bude, where he was looked after by his daughter, Anna.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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Thomas was educated at Dulwich College and from the age of 17, for the next twelve years, he made his living as a police-court clerk, although he studied chemistry in his spare time as an evening student at Birkbeck College, London. While there, he heard of the difficulties encountered by the Bessemer steelmaking process, which at that time was limited to using phosphorus-free iron. Any of this element present in the iron was oxidized to phosphoric acid, which would not react with the acidic lining in the converter, with the result that it would remain in the iron and render it too brittle to use. Unfortunately, phosphoric iron ores are more common than those free of this harmful element. Thomas was attracted by the view that a fortune awaited anyone who could solve this problem, and was not discouraged by the failure of several august figures in the industry, including Siemens and Lowthian Bell.

Thomas's knowledge of chemistry taught him that whereas an acidic lining allowed the phosphorus to remain in the iron, a basic lining would react with it to form part of the slag, which could then be tapped off. His experiments to find a suitable material were conducted in difficult conditions, in his spare time with meagre apparatus. Finally he found that a converter lined with dolomite, a form of limestone, would succeed, and he appealed to his cousin Percy Carlyle Gilchrist, Chemist at the Blaenavon Ironworks in Monmouthshire, for help in carrying out pilot-scale trials. In 1879 he gave up his police-court job to devote himself to the work, and in the same year they patented the Thomas- Gilchrist process. The first licence to use it was granted to Bolckow, Vaughan \& Co. of Middlesborough, and there the first steel was made in a basic Bessemer converter on 4 April 1879. The process was rapidly taken up and spread widely in Europe and beyond and was applied to other furnaces. Thomas made a fortune, but his health did not long allow him to enjoy it, for he died at the early age of 34.

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SUBJECT AREA: Horology, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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Son of Revd John Hooke, minister of the parish, he was a sickly child who was subject to headaches which prevented protracted study. He devoted his time while alone to making mechanical models including a wooden clock. On the death of his father in October 1648 he was left £100 and went to London, where he became a pupil of Sir Peter Lely and then went to Westminster School under Dr Busby. There he learned the classical languages, some Hebrew and oriental languages while mastering six books of Euclid in one week. In 1653 he entered Christ Church College, Oxford, where he graduated MA in 1663, after studying chemistry and astronomy. In 1662 he was appointed Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society and was elected a Fellow in 1663. In 1665 his appointment was made permanent and he was given apartments in Gresham College, where he lived until his death in 1703. He was an indefatigable experimenter, perhaps best known for the invention of the universal joint named after him. The properties of the atmosphere greatly engaged him and he devised many forms of the barometer. He was the first to apply the spiral spring to the regulation of the balance wheel of the watch in an attempt to measure longitude at sea, but he did not publish his results until after Huygens's reinvention of the device in 1675. Several of his "new watches" were made by Thomas Tompion, one of which was presented to King Charles II. He is said to have invented, among other devices, thirty different ways of flying, the first practical system of telegraphy, an odometer, a hearing aid, an arithmetical machine and a marine barometer. Hooke was a small man, somewhat deformed, with long, lank hair, who went about stooped and moved very quickly. He was of a melancholy and mistrustful disposition, ill-tempered and sharp-tongued. He slept little, often working all night and taking a nap during the day. John Aubrey, his near-contemporary, wrote of Hooke, "He is certainly the greatest Mechanick this day in the World." He is said to have been the first to establish the true principle of the arch. His eyesight failed and he was blind for the last year of his life. He is best known for his Micrographia, or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies, first published in 1665. After the Great Fire of London, he exhibited a model for the rebuilding of the City. This was not accepted, but it did result in Hooke's appointment as one of two City Surveyors. This proved a lucrative post and through it Hooke amassed a fortune of some thousands of pounds, which was found intact after his death some thirty years later. It had never been opened in the interim period. Among the buildings he designed were the new Bethlehem (Bedlam) Hospital, the College of Physicians and Montague House.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Photography, film and optics

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At the age of 14 Swan was apprenticed to a Sunderland firm of druggists, later joining John Mawson who had opened a pharmacy in Newcastle. While in Sunderland Swan attended lectures at the Athenaeum, at one of which W.E. Staite exhibited electric-arc and incandescent lighting. The impression made on Swan prompted him to conduct experiments that led to his demonstration of a practical working lamp in 1879. As early as 1848 he was experimenting with carbon as a lamp filament, and by 1869 he had mounted a strip of carbon in a vessel exhausted of air as completely as was then possible; however, because of residual air, the filament quickly failed.

Discouraged by the cost of current from primary batteries and the difficulty of achieving a good vacuum, Swan began to devote much of his attention to photography. With Mawson's support the pharmacy was expanded to include a photographic business. Swan's interest in making permanent photographic records led him to patent the carbon process in 1864 and he discovered how to make a sensitive dry plate in place of the inconvenient wet collodian process hitherto in use. He followed this success with the invention of bromide paper, the subject of a British patent in 1879.

Swan resumed his interest in electric lighting. Sprengel's invention of the mercury pump in 1865 provided Swan with the means of obtaining the high vacuum he needed to produce a satisfactory lamp. Swan adopted a technique which was to become an essential feature in vacuum physics: continuing to heat the filament during the exhaustion process allowed the removal of absorbed gases. The inventions of Gramme, Siemens and Brush provided the source of electrical power at reasonable cost needed to make the incandescent lamp of practical service. Swan exhibited his lamp at a meeting in December 1878 of the Newcastle Chemical Society and again the following year before an audience of 700 at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. Swan's failure to patent his invention immediately was a tactical error as in November 1879 Edison was granted a British patent for his original lamp, which, however, did not go into production. Parchmentized thread was used in Swan's first commercial lamps, a material soon superseded by the regenerated cellulose filament that he developed. The cellulose filament was made by extruding a solution of nitro-cellulose in acetic acid through a die under pressure into a coagulating fluid, and was used until the ultimate obsolescence of the carbon-filament lamp. Regenerated cellulose became the first synthetic fibre, the further development and exploitation of which he left to others, the patent rights for the process being sold to Courtaulds.

Swan also devised a modification of Planté's secondary battery in which the active material was compressed into a cellular lead plate. This has remained the central principle of all improvements in secondary cells, greatly increasing the storage capacity for a given weight.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Jacquard was apprenticed at the age of 12 to bookbinding, and later to type-founding and cutlery. His parents, who had some connection with weaving, left him a small property upon their death. He made some experiments with pattern weaving, but lost all his inheritance; after marrying, he returned to type-founding and cutlery. In 1790 he formed the idea for his machine, but it was forgotten amidst the excitement of the French Revolution, in which he fought for the Revolutionists at the defence of Lyons. The machine he completed in 1801 combined earlier inventions and was for weaving net. He was sent to Paris to demonstrate it at the National Exposition and received a bronze medal. In 1804 Napoleon granted him a patent, a pension of 1,500 francs and a premium on each machine sold. This enabled him to study and work at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers to perfect his mechanism for pattern weaving. A method of selecting any combination of leashes at each shoot of the weft had to be developed, and Jacquard's mechanism was the outcome of various previous inventions. By taking the cards invented by Falcon in 1728 that were punched with holes like the paper of Bouchon in 1725, to select the needles for each pick, and by placing the apparatus above the loom where Vaucanson had put his mechanism, Jacquard combined the best features of earlier inventions. He was not entirely successful because his invention failed in the way it pressed the card against the needles; later modifications by Breton in 1815 and Skola in 1819 were needed before it functioned reliably. However, the advantage of Jacquard's machine was that each pick could be selected much more quickly than on the earlier draw looms, which meant that John Kay's flying shuttle could be introduced on fine pattern looms because the weaver no longer had to wait for the drawboy to sort out the leashes for the next pick. Robert Kay's drop box could also be used with different coloured wefts. The drawboy could be dispensed with because the foot-pedal operating the Jacquard mechanism could be worked by the weaver. Patterns could be changed quickly by replacing one set of cards with another, but the scope of the pattern was more limited than with the draw loom. Some machines that were brought into use aroused bitter hostility. Jacquard suffered physical violence, barely escaping with his life, and his machines were burnt by weavers at Lyons. However, by 1812 his mechanism began to be generally accepted and had been applied to 11,000 draw-looms in France. In 1819 Jacquard received a gold medal and a Cross of Honour for his invention. His machines reached England c.1816 and still remain the basic way of weaving complicated patterns.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Giffard entered the works of the Western Railway of France at the age of 16 but became absorbed by the problem of steam-powered aerial navigation. He proposed a steam-powered helicopter in 1847, but he then turned his attention to an airship. He designed a lightweight coke-burning, single-cylinder steam engine and boiler which produced just over 3 hp (2.2 kW) and mounted it below a cigar-shaped gas bag 44 m (144 ft) in length. A triangular rudder was fitted at the rear to control the direction of flight. On 24 September 1852 Giffard took off from Paris and, at a steady 8 km/h (5 mph), he travelled 28 km (17 miles) to Trappes. This can be claimed to be the first steerable lighter-than-air craft, but with a top speed of only 8 km/h (5 mph) even a modest headwind would have reduced the forward speed to nil (or even negative). Giffard built a second airship, which crashed in 1855, slightly injuring Giffard and his companion; a third airship was planned with a very large gas bag in order to lift the inherently heavy steam engine and boiler, but this was never built. His airships were inflated by coal gas and refusal by the gas company to provide further supplies brought these promising experiments to a premature end.

As a draughtsman Giffard had the opportunity to travel on locomotives and he observed the inadequacies of the feed pumps then used to supply boiler feedwater. To overcome these problems he invented the injector with its series of three cones: in the first cone (convergent), steam at or below boiler pressure becomes a high-velocity jet; in the second (also convergent), it combines with feedwater to condense and impart high velocity to it; and in the third (divergent), that velocity is converted into pressure sufficient to overcome the pressure of steam in the boiler. The injector, patented by Giffard, was quickly adopted by railways everywhere, and the royalties provided him with funds to finance further experiments in aviation. These took the form of tethered hydrogen-inflated balloons of successively larger size. At the Paris Exposition of 1878 one of these balloons carried fifty-two passengers on each tethered "flight". The height of the balloon was controlled by a cable attached to a huge steam-powered winch, and by the end of the fair 1,033 ascents had been made and 35,000 passengers had seen Paris from the air. This, and similar balloons, greatly widened the public's interest in aeronautics. Sadly, after becoming blind, Giffard committed suicide; however, he died a rich man and bequeathed large sums of money to the State for humanitarian an scientific purposes.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Land transport

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Goodyear entered his father's country hardware business before setting up his own concern in Philadelphia. While visiting New York, he noticed in the window of the Roxburgh India Rubber Company a rubber life-preserver. Goodyear offered to improve its inflating valve, but the manager, impressed with Goodyear's inventiveness, persuaded him to tackle a more urgent problem, that of seeking a means of preventing rubber from becoming tacky and from melting or decomposing when heated. Goodyear tried treatments with one substance after another, without success. In 1838 he started using Nathaniel M.Hayward's process of spreading sulphur on rubber. He accidentally dropped a mass of rubber and sulphur on to a hot stove and noted that the mixture did not melt: Goodyear had discovered the vulcanization of rubber. More experiments were needed to establish the correct proportions for a uniform mix, and eventually he was granted his celebrated patent no. 3633 of 15 June 1844. Goodyear's researches had been conducted against a background of crippling financial difficulties and he was forced to dispose of licences to vulcanize rubber at less than their real value, in order to pay off his most pressing debts.

Goodyear travelled to Europe in 1851 to extend his patents. To promote his process, he designed a spectacular exhibit for London, consisting of furniture, floor covering, jewellery and other items made of rubber. A similar exhibit in Paris in 1855 won him the Grande Médaille d'honneur and the Croix de la Légion d'honneur from Napoleon III. Patents were granted to him in all countries except England. The improved properties of vulcanized rubber and its stability over a much wider range of temperatures greatly increased its applications; output rose from a meagre 31.5 tonnes a year in 1827 to over 28,000 tonnes by 1900. Even so, Goodyear profited little from his invention, and he bequeathed to his family debts amounting to over $200,000.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology

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The son of a prosperous Sheffield manufacturer, Roebuck forsook the family business to pursue studies in medicine at Edinburgh University. There he met Dr Joseph Black (1727–99), celebrated Professor of Chemistry, who aroused in Roebuck a lasting interest in chemistry. Roebuck continued his studies at Leyden, where he took his medical degree in 1742. He set up in practice in Birmingham, but in his spare time he continued chemical experiments that might help local industries.

Among his early achievements was his new method of refining gold and silver. Success led to the setting up of a large laboratory and a reputation as a chemical consultant. It was at this time that Roebuck devised an improved way of making sulphuric acid. This vital substance was then made by burning sulphur and nitre (potassium nitrate) over water in a glass globe. The scale of the process was limited by the fragility of the glass. Roebuck substituted "lead chambers", or vessels consisting of sheets of lead, a metal both cheap and resistant to acids, set in wooden frames. After the first plant was set up in 1746, productivity rose and the price of sulphuric acid fell sharply. Success encouraged Roebuck to establish a second, larger plant at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. He preferred to rely on secrecy rather than patents to preserve his monopoly, but a departing employee took the secret with him and the process spread rapidly in England and on the European continent. It remained the standard process until it was superseded by the contact process towards the end of the nineteenth century. Roebuck next turned his attention to ironmaking and finally selected a site on the Carron river, near Falkirk in Scotland, where the raw materials and water power and transport lay close at hand. The Carron ironworks began producing iron in 1760 and became one of the great names in the history of ironmaking. Roebuck was an early proponent of the smelting of iron with coke, pioneered by Abraham Darby at Coalbrookdale. To supply the stronger blast required, Roebuck consulted John Smeaton, who c. 1760 installed the first blowing cylinders of any size.

All had so far gone well for Roebuck, but he now leased coal-mines and salt-works from the Duke of Hamilton's lands at Borrowstonness in Linlithgow. The coal workings were plagued with flooding which the existing Newcomen engines were unable to overcome. Through his friendship with Joseph Black, patron of James Watt, Roebuck persuaded Watt to join him to apply his improved steam-engine to the flooded mine. He took over Black's loan to Watt of £1,200, helped him to obtain the first steam-engine patent of 1769 and took a two-thirds interest in the project. However, the new engine was not yet equal to the task and the debts mounted. To satisfy his creditors, Roebuck had to dispose of his capital in his various ventures. One creditor was Matthew Boulton, who accepted Roebuck's two-thirds share in Watt's steam-engine, rather than claim payment from his depleted estate, thus initiating a famous partnership. Roebuck was retained to manage Borrowstonness and allowed an annuity for his continued support until his death in 1794.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Electricity, Land transport, Ports and shipping

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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.

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