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41 Grimthorpe (of Grimthorpe), Edmund Beckett, Baron
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 12 May 1816 Newark, Nottinghamshire, Englandd. 29 April 1905 St Albans, Hertfordshire, England[br]English lawyer and amateur horologist who was the first successfully to apply the gravity escapement to public clocks.[br]Born Edmund Beckett Denison, he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics, graduating in 1838. He was called to the Bar in 1841 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1854. He built up a large and lucrative practice which gave him the independence to pursue his many interests outside law. His interest in horology may have been stimulated by a friend and fellow lawyer, J.M. Bloxham, who interestingly had invented a gravity escapement with an affinity to the escapement eventually used by Denison. Denison studied horology with his usual thoroughness and by 1850 he had published his Rudimentary Treatise on Clock and Watchmaking. It was natural, therefore, that he should have been invited to be a referee when a disagreement arose over the design of the clock for the new Houses of Parliament. Typically, he interpreted his brief very liberally and designed the clock himself. The most distinctive feature of the clock, in its final form, was the incorporation of a gravity escapement. A gravity escapement was particularly desirable in a public clock as it enabled the pendulum to receive a constant impulse (and thus swing with a constant amplitude), despite the variable forces that might be exerted by the wind on the exposed hands. The excellent performance of the prestigious clock at Westminster made Denison's form of gravity escapement de rigueur for large mechanical public clocks produced in Britain and in many other countries. In 1874 he inherited his father's baronetcy, dropping the Denison name, but later adopted the name Grimthorpe when he was created a Baron in 1886.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPeerage 1886. President, British Horological Institute 1868–1905.BibliographyHis highly idiosyncratic A Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks and Watchmaking first published in 1850, went through eight editions, with slight changes of title, and became the most influential work in English on the subject of public clocks.Further ReadingVaudrey Mercer, 1977, The Life and Letters of Edward John Dent, London, pp. 650–1 (provides biographical information relating to horology; also contains a reliable account of Denison's involvement with the clock at Westminster).A.L.Rawlings, 1948, The Science of Clocks and Watcher, repub. 1974, pp. 98–102 (provides a technical assessment of Denison's escapement).DVBiographical history of technology > Grimthorpe (of Grimthorpe), Edmund Beckett, Baron
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42 Napier (Neper), John
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 1550 Merchiston Castle, Edinburgh, Scotlandd. 4 April 1617 Merchiston Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland[br]Scottish mathematician and theological writer noted for his discovery of logarithms, a powerful aid to mathematical calculations.[br]Born into a family of Scottish landowners, at the early age of 13 years Napier went to the University of St Andrews in Fife, but he apparently left before taking his degree. An extreme Protestant, he was active in the struggles with the Roman Catholic Church and in 1594 he dedicated to James VI of Scotland his Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St John, an attempt to promote the Protestant case in the guise of a learned study. About this time, as well as being involved in the development of military equipment, he devoted much of his time to finding methods of simplifying the tedious calculations involved in astronomy. Eventually he realized that by representing numbers in terms of the power to which a "base" number needed to be raised to produce them, it was possible to perform multiplication and division and to find roots, by the simpler processes of addition, substraction and integer division, respectively.A description of the principle of his "logarithms" (from the Gk. logos, reckoning, and arithmos, number), how he arrived at the idea and how they could be used was published in 1614 under the title Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio. Two years after his death his Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Constructio appeared, in which he explained how to calculate the logarithms of numbers and gave tables of them to eight significant figures, a novel feature being the use of the decimal point to distinguish the integral and fractional parts of the logarithm. As originally conceived, Napier's tables of logarithms were calculated using the natural number e(=2.71828…) as the base, not directly, but in effect according to the formula: Naperian logx= 107(log e 107-log e x) so that the original Naperian logarithm of a number decreased as the number increased. However, prior to his death he had readily acceded to a suggestion by Henry Briggs that it would greatly facilitate their use if logarithms were simply defined as the value to which the decimal base 10 needed to be raised to realize the number in question. He was almost certainly also aware of the work of Joost Burgi.No doubt as an extension of his ideas of logarithms, Napier also devised a means of manually performing multiplication and division by means of a system of rods known as Napier's Bones, a forerunner of the modern slide-rule, which evolved as a result of successive developments by Edmund Gunther, William Oughtred and others. Other contributions to mathematics by Napier include important simplifying discoveries in spherical trigonometry. However, his discovery of logarithms was undoubtedly his greatest achievement.[br]BibliographyNapier's "Descriptio" and his "Constructio" were published in English translation as Description of the Marvelous Canon of Logarithms (1857) and W.R.MacDonald's Construction of the Marvelous Canon of Logarithms (1889), which also catalogues all his works. His Rabdologiae, seu Numerationis per Virgulas Libri Duo (1617) was published in English as Divining Rods, or Two Books of Numbering by Means of Rods (1667).Further ReadingD.Stewart and W.Minto, 1787, An Account of the Life Writings and Inventions of John Napier of Merchiston (an early account of Napier's work).C.G.Knott (ed.), 1915, Napier Tercentenary Memorial Volume (the fullest account of Napier's work).KF -
43 Siemens, Sir Charles William
[br]b. 4 April 1823 Lenthe, Germanyd. 19 November 1883 London, England[br]German/British metallurgist and inventory pioneer of the regenerative principle and open-hearth steelmaking.[br]Born Carl Wilhelm, he attended craft schools in Lübeck and Magdeburg, followed by an intensive course in natural science at Göttingen as a pupil of Weber. At the age of 19 Siemens travelled to England and sold an electroplating process developed by his brother Werner Siemens to Richard Elkington, who was already established in the plating business. From 1843 to 1844 he obtained practical experience in the Magdeburg works of Count Stolburg. He settled in England in 1844 and later assumed British nationality, but maintained close contact with his brother Werner, who in 1847 had co-founded the firm Siemens \& Halske in Berlin to manufacture telegraphic equipment. William began to develop his regenerative principle of waste-heat recovery and in 1856 his brother Frederick (1826–1904) took out a British patent for heat regeneration, by which hot waste gases were passed through a honeycomb of fire-bricks. When they became hot, the gases were switched to a second mass of fire-bricks and incoming air and fuel gas were led through the hot bricks. By alternating the two gas flows, high temperatures could be reached and considerable fuel economies achieved. By 1861 the two brothers had incorporated producer gas fuel, made by gasifying low-grade coal.Heat regeneration was first applied in ironmaking by Cowper in 1857 for heating the air blast in blast furnaces. The first regenerative furnace was set up in Birmingham in 1860 for glassmaking. The first such furnace for making steel was developed in France by Pierre Martin and his father, Emile, in 1863. Siemens found British steelmakers reluctant to adopt the principle so in 1866 he rented a small works in Birmingham to develop his open-hearth steelmaking furnace, which he patented the following year. The process gradually made headway; as well as achieving high temperatures and saving fuel, it was slower than Bessemer's process, permitting greater control over the content of the steel. By 1900 the tonnage of open-hearth steel exceeded that produced by the Bessemer process.In 1872 Siemens played a major part in founding the Society of Telegraph Engineers (from which the Institution of Electrical Engineers evolved), serving as its first President. He became President for the second time in 1878. He built a cable works at Charlton, London, where the cable could be loaded directly into the holds of ships moored on the Thames. In 1873, together with William Froude, a British shipbuilder, he designed the Faraday, the first specialized vessel for Atlantic cable laying. The successful laying of a cable from Europe to the United States was completed in 1875, and a further five transatlantic cables were laid by the Faraday over the following decade.The Siemens factory in Charlton also supplied equipment for some of the earliest electric-lighting installations in London, including the British Museum in 1879 and the Savoy Theatre in 1882, the first theatre in Britain to be fully illuminated by electricity. The pioneer electric-tramway system of 1883 at Portrush, Northern Ireland, was an opportunity for the Siemens company to demonstrate its equipment.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1883. FRS 1862. Institution of Civil Engineers Telford Medal 1853. President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1872. President, Society of Telegraph Engineers 1872 and 1878. President, British Association 1882.Bibliography27 May 1879, British patent no. 2,110 (electricarc furnace).1889, The Scientific Works of C.William Siemens, ed. E.F.Bamber, 3 vols, London.Further ReadingW.Poles, 1888, Life of Sir William Siemens, London; repub. 1986 (compiled from material supplied by the family).S.von Weiher, 1972–3, "The Siemens brothers. Pioneers of the electrical age in Europe", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 45:1–11 (a short, authoritative biography). S.von Weihr and H.Goetler, 1983, The Siemens Company. Its Historical Role in theProgress of Electrical Engineering 1847–1980, English edn, Berlin (a scholarly account with emphasis on technology).GWBiographical history of technology > Siemens, Sir Charles William
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44 Pintasilgo, Maria de Lourdes
(1930-2004)Catholic leader and social activist, chemical engineer, and politician. Born in Abrantes, to a middle class family, Pintasilgo had a distinguished record as a student in her Lisbon high school and at Lisbon's Instituto Superior Técnico where, in 1953, she graduated with an engineering degree in industrial chemistry. For seven years, she worked as an engineer for the Portuguese conglomerate Companhia União Fabril (CUF). A progressive Catholic who never formally joined a political party, Pintasilgo became a top lay Catholic leader in Portugal, as well as an influential, international Catholic leader in Catholic student, lay, and women's associations. She also attended Lisbon's Catholic University, where she became a student leader. During the final period of the dictatorship under Marcello Caetano, she held various government posts related to social welfare and women's affairs. In the first provisional government following the Revolution of 25 April 1974, Pintasilgo was secretary of state for social welfare and, by early 1975, became minister of social affairs. That same year, she became Portugal's first ambassador to the United Nations Educational and Social Organization.In July 1979, she became prime minister, following a call from President António Ramalho Eanes, and served in a caretaker role until January 1980. During her brief term, she worked to improve social security coverage and health and social welfare. She was Portugal's first woman prime minister and, following Britain's Margaret Thatcher, was Europe's second woman to serve in that office. In 1986, she ran as an independent for the presidency of the Republic but was unsuccessful. In 1987, she began a two-year term following election as a member of the European Parliament. She died suddenly and unexpectedly in July 2004.Historical dictionary of Portugal > Pintasilgo, Maria de Lourdes
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45 Cabral, Pedro Álvares
(1467?-1520?)Portuguese nobleman whose fleet discovered Brazil for Portugal in 1500. Born in Belmonte, Portugal, Cabral was a fidalgo in the court of King João II, and he married a niece of the conquistador Afonso de Albuquerque. Except for his nobility, it is not known why King Manuel I selected Cabral to command a fleet to voyage to Portuguese India to follow up Vasco da Gama's pioneering journey. Cabral's fleet contained 13 ships and as many as 1,500 crew members, and departed the Tagus River on 9 March 1500. The fleet's pilots and mariners executed the voyage skillfully, with the intention of reaching India directly, but winds and currents carried them farther west than was intended and, on 22 April 1500, they sighted land and later named the country the land of "Vera Cruz" (the True Cross), followed by "Santa Cruz" (Holy Cross), and finally "Brazil," after the wood that was the country's first main product. Cabral landed and claimed the land for Portugal. Much of the detail of this discovery is described in a celebrated account of Pedro Vaz da Caminha. Cabral's fleet continued to Calicut, India, where the Portuguese began to carve out a commercial empire by means of war, alliance, and trade. He returned to Portugal, his ships laden with Asian wealth. Cabral refused to accept the command of another India fleet in 1502 and apparently did not venture to sea again. His tomb is in the Church of Graça, Santarém. -
46 Godinho, Vitorino Magalhães
(1918-)Historian, academic, political figure. Internationally, Portugal's most celebrated historian of the 20th century. Born into a family with strong republican and antidictatorial tendencies, Godinho chose an academic career following his graduation (1940) in history and philosophy from the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon. He taught history at the same institution until 1944, when his academic career was cut short by the Estado Novo's orders. He resumed his academic career in France, where he taught history and received his doctorate in history at the Sorbonne (1959). He returned briefly to Portugal but, during the academic/political crisis of 1962, he was fired from his faculty position at the Instituto Superior de Estudos Ultramarinos in Lisbon.In the 1960s and early 1970s, Godinho's scholarly publications on the social and economic history of the Portuguese overseas empire (1400-1700) first made a lasting impact both in Portuguese historiography and world historiography regarding the Age of Discoveries. His notion of a world system or economy, with ample quantitative data on prices, money, and trade in the style and spirit of the French Annales School of History, had an important influence on social scientists outside Portugal, including on American scholar Immanuel Wallerstein and his world system studies. Godinho's work emphasized social and economic history before 1750, and his most notable works included Prix et monnaies au Portugal (1955), A Economia dos Descobrimentos Henriquinos (1962), and, in three volumes, Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial (1963-71).As a staunch opponent of the Estado Novo who had been dismissed yet again from 1962 to 1971, Godinho concentrated on his research and publications, as well as continuing activity in oppositionist parties, rallies, and elections. Disillusioned by the false "Spring" of freedom under Prime Minister Marcello Caetano (1968-74), he returned to France to teach. Following the Revolution of 25 April 1974, Godinho returned to newly democratic Portugal. During several provisional governments (1974-75), he was appointed minister of education and initiated reforms. The confusing political maelstrom of revolutionary Portugal, however, discouraged his continuation in public office. He returned to university teaching and scholarship, and then helped establish a new institution of higher learning, the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (New University of Lisbon), where he retired, loaded with honors and acclaim, at age 70 in 1988.Historical dictionary of Portugal > Godinho, Vitorino Magalhães
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47 Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis
(1869-1955)Armenian oil tycoon, philanthropist, and art connoisseur-collector who settled in Portugal in World War II and whose donated wealth forms the basis for the Gulbenkian Foundation, situated in Lisbon. Born in Scutari, Turkey, when it was part of the Ottoman Empire, Calouste Gulben-kian made a huge fortune and became one of Europe's wealthiest individuals through investment in Iraqi petroleum. While the oil business and investments were his work, the appreciation and collection of rare art represented his passion. During the 1920s and 1930s, he purchased a rich collection of Western and Oriental art. Some of it was loaned to great museums in London and Washington, and some of it was displayed in his mansion in Paris on Avenue d'lena.Gulbenkian's life and the fate of his possessions were changed by the fortunes of World War II and by his residence in Portugal. In April 1942, Gulbenkian fled Vichy France and settled in Portugal. Between his arrival and his death in July 1955, he made dispositions of his possessions and wealth, which have had an almost incalculable impact on Portugal's arts, culture, science, and education. After declining to build a museum for his unmatched art collection either in London or Washington, D.C., Gulbenkian decided to build such a home in Portugal and to endow an international foundation in Lisbon. Since his death in 1955 and inauguration of the foundation headquarters in the late 1960s, a museum and a contemporary arts museum have opened, and Portuguese and other Lusophone arts and science circles have greatly benefited.Historical dictionary of Portugal > Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis
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