may+be+powered+from

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Wilbur and Orville designed and built bicycles in Dayton, Ohio. In the 1890s they developed an interest in flying which led them to study the experiments of gliding pioneers such as Otto Lilienthal in Germany, and their fellow American Octave Chanute. The Wrights were very methodical and tackled the many problems stage by stage. First, they developed a method of controlling a glider using movable control surfaces, instead of weight-shifting as used in the early hand-gliders. They built a wind tunnel to test their wing sections and by 1902 they had produced a controllable glider. Next they needed a petrol engine, and when they could not find one to suit their needs they designed and built one themselves.

On 17 December 1903 their Flyer was ready and Orville made the first short flight of 12 seconds; Wilbur followed with a 59-second flight covering 853 ft (260 m). An improved design, Flyer II, followed in 1904 and made about eighty flights, including circuits and simple ma-noeuvres. In 1905 Flyer III made several long flights, including one of 38 minutes covering 24½ miles (39 km). Most of the Wrights' flying was carried out in secret to protect their patents, so their achievements received little publicity. For a period of two and a half years they did not fly, but they worked to improve their Flyer and to negotiate terms for the sale of their invention to various governments and commercial syndi-cates.

In 1908 the Wright Model A appeared, and when Wilbur demonstrated it in France he astounded the European aviators by making several flights lasting more than one hour and one of 2 hours 20 minutes. Considerable numbers of the Model A were built, but the European designers rapidly caught up and overtook the Wrights. The Wright brothers became involved in several legal battles to protect their patents: one of these, with Glenn Curtiss, went on for many years. Wilbur died of typhoid fever in 1912. Orville sold his interest in the Wright Company in 1915, but retained an interest in aeronautical research and lived on to see an aeroplane fly faster than the speed of sound.

[br]

['baios] n. shkurtesë nga b asic i nput o utput s ystem ( BIOS) sistemi themelor për hyrje-dalje ( informatikë)

BIOS is an acronym for Basic Input/Output System. It is the boot firmware program on a PC, and controls the computer from the time you start it up until the operating system takes over. When you turn on a PC, the BIOS first conducts a basic hardware check, called a Power-On Self Test (POST), to determine whether all of the attachments are present and working. Then it loads the operating system into your computer's random access memory, or RAM.

The BIOS also manages data flow between the computer's operating system and attached devices such as the hard disk, video card, keyboard, mouse, and printer.

The BIOS stores the date, the time, and your system configuration information in a battery-powered, non-volatile memory chip, called a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) after its manufacturing process.

Although the BIOS is standardized and should rarely require updating, some older BIOS chips may not accommodate new hardware devices. Before the early 1990s, you couldn't update the BIOS without removing and replacing its ROM chip. Contemporary BIOS resides on memory chips such as flash chips or EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory), so that you can update the BIOS yourself if necessary.

For detailed information about BIOS updates, visit:

Firmware consists of programs installed semi-permanently into memory, using various types of programmable ROM chips, such as PROMS, EPROMs, EEPROMs, and flash chips.

Firmware is non-volatile, and will remain in memory after you turn the system off.

Often, the term firmware is used to refer specifically to boot firmware, which controls a computer from the time that it is turned on until the primary operating system has taken over. Boot firmware's main function is to initialize the hardware and then to boot (load and execute) the primary operating system. On PCs, the boot firmware is usually referred to as the BIOS.

Memory and disk storage both refer to internal storage space in a computer.

The term memory usually means RAM (Random Access Memory). To refer to hard drive storage, the terms disk space or storage are usually used.

Typically, computers have much less memory than disk space, because RAM is much more expensive per megabyte than a hard disk. Today, a typical desktop computer might come with 512MB of RAM, and a 40 gigabyte hard disk.

Virtual memory is disk space that has been designated to act like RAM.

Computers also contain a small amount of ROM, or read-only memory, containing permanent or semi-permanent (firmware) instructions for checking hardware and starting up the computer. On a PC, this is called the BIOS.

RAM stands for Random Access Memory. RAM provides space for your computer to read and write data to be accessed by the CPU (central processing unit). When people refer to a computer's memory, they usually mean its RAM.

New computers typically come with at least 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM installed, and can be upgraded to 512MB or even a gigabyte or more.

If you add more RAM to your computer, you reduce the number of times your CPU must read data from your hard disk. This usually allows your computer to work considerably faster, as RAM is many times faster than a hard disk.

RAM is volatile, so data stored in RAM stays there only as long as your computer is running. As soon as you turn the computer off, the data stored in RAM disappears.

When you turn your computer on again, your computer's boot firmware (called BIOS on a PC) uses instructions stored semi-permanently in ROM chips to read your operating system and related files from the disk and load them back into RAM.

Note: On a PC, different parts of RAM may be more or less easily accessible to programs. For example, cache RAM is made up of very high-speed RAM chips which sit between the CPU and main RAM, storing (i.e., caching) memory accesses by the CPU. Cache RAM helps to alleviate the gap between the speed of a CPU's megahertz rating and the ability of RAM to respond and deliver data. It reduces how often the CPU must wait for data from main memory.

ROM is an acronym for Read-Only Memory. It refers to computer memory chips containing permanent or semi-permanent data. Unlike RAM, ROM is non-volatile; even after you turn off your computer, the contents of ROM will remain.

Almost every computer comes with a small amount of ROM containing the boot firmware. This consists of a few kilobytes of code that tell the computer what to do when it starts up, e.g., running hardware diagnostics and loading the operating system into RAM. On a PC, the boot firmware is called the BIOS.

Originally, ROM was actually read-only. To update the programs in ROM, you had to remove and physically replace your ROM chips. Contemporary versions of ROM allow some limited rewriting, so you can usually upgrade firmware such as the BIOS by using installation software. Rewritable ROM chips include PROMs (programmable read-only memory), EPROMs (erasable read-only memory), EEPROMs (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory), and a common variation of EEPROMs called flash memory.

ACPI is an acronym that stands for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, a power management specification developed by Intel, Microsoft, and Toshiba. ACPI support is built into Windows 98 and later operating systems. ACPI is designed to allow the operating system to control the amount of power provided to each device or peripheral attached to the computer system. This provides much more stable and efficient power management and makes it possible for the operating system to turn off selected devices, such as a monitor or CD-ROM drive, when they are not in use.

ACPI should help eliminate computer lockup on entering power saving or sleep mode. This will allow for improved power management, especially in portable computer systems where reducing power consumption is critical for extending battery life. ACPI also allows for the computer to be turned on and off by external devices, so that the touch of a mouse or the press of a key will "wake up" the computer. This new feature of ACPI, called OnNow, allows a computer to enter a sleep mode that uses very little power.

In addition to providing power management, ACPI also evolves the existing Plug and Play BIOS (PnP BIOS) to make adding and configuring new hardware devices easier. This includes support for legacy non-PnP devices and improved support for combining older devices with ACPI hardware, allowing both to work in a more efficient manner in the same computer system. The end result of this is to make the BIOS more PnP compatible.

CMOS, short for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, is a low-power, low-heat semiconductor technology used in contemporary microchips, especially useful for battery-powered devices. The specific technology is explained in detail at:

http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid44_gci213860,00.html

Most commonly, though, the term CMOS is used to refer to small battery-powered configuration chips on system boards of personal computers, where the BIOS stores the date, the time, and system configuration details.

Warning: Your BIOS Setup program is very powerful. An incorrect setting could cause your computer not to boot properly. You should make sure you understand what a setting does before you change it.

You can usually run Setup by pressing a special function key or key combination soon after turning on the computer, during its power-on self test (POST), before the operating system loads (or before the operating system's splash screen shows). During POST, the BIOS usually displays a prompt such as:

Press F2 to enter Setup

Many newer computers display a brief screen, usually black and white, with the computer manufacturer's logo during POST.

Entering the designated keystroke will take you into the BIOS Setup. Common keystrokes to enter the BIOS Setup are F1, F2, F10, and Del.

On some computers, such as some Gateway or Compaq computers, graphics appear during the POST, and the BIOS information is hidden. You must press Esc to make these graphics disappear. Your monitor will then display the correct keystroke to enter.

Note: If you press the key too early or too often, the BIOS may display an error message. To avoid this, wait about five seconds after turning the power on, and then press the key once or twice.

Many people use the terms BIOS (basic input/output system) and CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) to refer to the same thing. Though they are related, they are distinct and separate components of a computer. The BIOS is the program that starts a computer up, and the CMOS is where the BIOS stores the date, time, and system configuration details it needs to start the computer.

The BIOS is a small program that controls the computer from the time it powers on until the time the operating system takes over. The BIOS is firmware, which means it cannot store variable data.

CMOS is a type of memory technology, but most people use the term to refer to the chip that stores variable data for startup. A computer's BIOS will initialize and control components like the floppy and hard drive controllers and the computer's hardware clock, but the specific parameters for startup and initializing components are stored in the CMOS.

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

Orphaned as a child, Hamilton went to work for Southern Pacific Railroad in his teens, and then worked for several other companies. In his spare time he learned mathematics and physics from a retired professor. In 1911 he joined the White Motor Company, makers of road motor vehicles in Denver, Colorado, where he had gone to recuperate from malaria. He remained there until 1922, apart from an eighteenth-month break for war service.

Upon his return from war service, Hamilton found White selling petrol-engined railbuses with mechanical transmission, based on road vehicles, to railways. He noted that they were not robust enough and that the success of petrol railcars with electric transmission, built by General Electric since 1906, was limited as they were complex to drive and maintain. In 1922 Hamilton formed, and became President of, the Electro- Motive Engineering Corporation (later Electro-Motive Corporation) to design and produce petrol-electric rail cars. Needing an engine larger than those used in road vehicles, yet lighter and faster than marine engines, he approached the Win ton Engine Company to develop a suitable engine; in addition, General Electric provided electric transmission with a simplified control system. Using these components, Hamilton arranged for his petrol-electric railcars to be built by the St Louis Car Company, with the first being completed in 1924. It was the beginning of a highly successful series. Fuel costs were lower than for steam trains and initial costs were kept down by using standardized vehicles instead of designing for individual railways. Maintenance costs were minimized because Electro-Motive kept stocks of spare parts and supplied replacement units when necessary. As more powerful, 800 hp (600 kW) railcars were produced, railways tended to use them to haul trailer vehicles, although that practice reduced the fuel saving. By the end of the decade Electro-Motive needed engines more powerful still and therefore had to use cheap fuel. Diesel engines of the period, such as those that Winton had made for some years, were too heavy in relation to their power, and too slow and sluggish for rail use. Their fuel-injection system was erratic and insufficiently robust and Hamilton concluded that a separate injector was needed for each cylinder.

In 1930 Electro-Motive Corporation and Winton were acquired by General Motors in pursuance of their aim to develop a diesel engine suitable for rail traction, with the use of unit fuel injectors; Hamilton retained his position as President. At this time, industrial depression had combined with road and air competition to undermine railway-passenger business, and Ralph Budd, President of the Chicago, Burlington \& Quincy Railroad, thought that traffic could be recovered by way of high-speed, luxury motor trains; hence the Pioneer Zephyr was built for the Burlington. This comprised a 600 hp (450 kW), lightweight, two-stroke, diesel engine developed by General Motors (model 201 A), with electric transmission, that powered a streamlined train of three articulated coaches. This train demonstrated its powers on 26 May 1934 by running non-stop from Denver to Chicago, a distance of 1,015 miles (1,635 km), in 13 hours and 6 minutes, when the fastest steam schedule was 26 hours. Hamilton and Budd were among those on board the train, and it ushered in an era of high-speed diesel trains in the USA. By then Hamilton, with General Motors backing, was planning to use the lightweight engine to power diesel-electric locomotives. Their layout was derived not from steam locomotives, but from the standard American boxcar. The power plant was mounted within the body and powered the bogies, and driver's cabs were at each end. Two 900 hp (670 kW) engines were mounted in a single car to become an 1,800 hp (l,340 kW) locomotive, which could be operated in multiple by a single driver to form a 3,600 hp (2,680 kW) locomotive. To keep costs down, standard locomotives could be mass-produced rather than needing individual designs for each railway, as with steam locomotives. Two units of this type were completed in 1935 and sent on trial throughout much of the USA. They were able to match steam locomotive performance, with considerable economies: fuel costs alone were halved and there was much less wear on the track. In the same year, Electro-Motive began manufacturing diesel-electrie locomotives at La Grange, Illinois, with design modifications: the driver was placed high up above a projecting nose, which improved visibility and provided protection in the event of collision on unguarded level crossings; six-wheeled bogies were introduced, to reduce axle loading and improve stability. The first production passenger locomotives emerged from La Grange in 1937, and by early 1939 seventy units were in service. Meanwhile, improved engines had been developed and were being made at La Grange, and late in 1939 a prototype, four-unit, 5,400 hp (4,000 kW) diesel-electric locomotive for freight trains was produced and sent out on test from coast to coast; production versions appeared late in 1940. After an interval from 1941 to 1943, when Electro-Motive produced diesel engines for military and naval use, locomotive production resumed in quantity in 1944, and within a few years diesel power replaced steam on most railways in the USA.

Hal Hamilton remained President of Electro-Motive Corporation until 1942, when it became a division of General Motors, of which he became Vice-President.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

[br]

[br]

[br]

Fairlie worked on railways in Ireland and India, and established himself as a consulting engineer in London by the early 1860s. In 1864 he patented his design of locomotive: it was to be carried on two bogies and had a double boiler, the barrels extending in each direction from a central firebox. From smokeboxes at the outer ends, return tubes led to a single central chimney. At that time in British practice, locomotives of ever-increasing size were being carried on longer and longer rigid wheelbases, but often only one or two of their three or four pairs of wheels were powered. Bogies were little used and then only for carrying-wheels rather than driving-wheels: since their pivots were given no sideplay, they were of little value. Fairlie's design offered a powerful locomotive with a wheelbase which though long would be flexible; it would ride well and have all wheels driven and available for adhesion.

The first five double Fairlie locomotives were built by James Cross \& Co. of St Helens during 1865–7. None was particularly successful: the single central chimney of the original design had been replaced by two chimneys, one at each end of the locomotive, but the single central firebox was retained, so that exhaust up one chimney tended to draw cold air down the other. In 1870 the next double Fairlie, Little Wonder, was built for the Festiniog Railway, on which C.E. Spooner was pioneering steam trains of very narrow gauge. The order had gone to George England, but the locomotive was completed by his successor in business, the Fairlie Engine \& Steam Carriage Company, in which Fairlie and George England's son were the principal partners. Little Wonder was given two inner fireboxes separated by a water space and proved outstandingly successful. The spectacle of this locomotive hauling immensely long trains up grade, through the Festiniog Railway's sinuous curves, was demonstrated before engineers from many parts of the world and had lasting effect. Fairlie himself became a great protagonist of narrow-gauge railways and influenced their construction in many countries.

Towards the end of the 1860s, Fairlie was designing steam carriages or, as they would now be called, railcars, but only one was built before the death of George England Jr precipitated closure of the works in 1870. Fairlie's business became a design agency and his patent locomotives were built in large numbers under licence by many noted locomotive builders, for narrow, standard and broad gauges. Few operated in Britain, but many did in other lands; they were particularly successful in Mexico and Russia.

Many Fairlie locomotives were fitted with the radial valve gear invented by Egide Walschaert; Fairlie's role in the universal adoption of this valve gear was instrumental, for he introduced it to Britain in 1877 and fitted it to locomotives for New Zealand, whence it eventually spread worldwide. Earlier, in 1869, the Great Southern \& Western Railway of Ireland had built in its works the first "single Fairlie", a 0–4–4 tank engine carried on two bogies but with only one of them powered. This type, too, became popular during the last part of the nineteenth century. In the USA it was built in quantity by William Mason of Mason Machine Works, Taunton, Massachusetts, in preference to the double-ended type.

Double Fairlies may still be seen in operation on the Festiniog Railway; some of Fairlie's ideas were far ahead of their time, and modern diesel and electric locomotives are of the powered-bogie, double-ended type.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

[br]

[br]

[br]

George Stephenson was the son of the fireman of the pumping engine at Wylam colliery, and horses drew wagons of coal along the wooden rails of the Wylam wagonway past the house in which he was born and spent his earliest childhood. While still a child he worked as a cowherd, but soon moved to working at coal pits. At 17 years of age he showed sufficient mechanical talent to be placed in charge of a new pumping engine, and had already achieved a job more responsible than that of his father. Despite his position he was still illiterate, although he subsequently learned to read and write. He was largely self-educated.

In 1801 he was appointed Brakesman of the winding engine at Black Callerton pit, with responsibility for lowering the miners safely to their work. Then, about two years later, he became Brakesman of a new winding engine erected by Robert Hawthorn at Willington Quay on the Tyne. Returning collier brigs discharged ballast into wagons and the engine drew the wagons up an inclined plane to the top of "Ballast Hill" for their contents to be tipped; this was one of the earliest applications of steam power to transport, other than experimentally.

In 1804 Stephenson moved to West Moor pit, Killingworth, again as Brakesman. In 1811 he demonstrated his mechanical skill by successfully modifying a new and unsatisfactory atmospheric engine, a task that had defeated the efforts of others, to enable it to pump a drowned pit clear of water. The following year he was appointed Enginewright at Killingworth, in charge of the machinery in all the collieries of the "Grand Allies", the prominent coal-owning families of Wortley, Liddell and Bowes, with authorization also to work for others. He built many stationary engines and he closely examined locomotives of John Blenkinsop's type on the Kenton \& Coxlodge wagonway, as well as those of William Hedley at Wylam.

It was in 1813 that Sir Thomas Liddell requested George Stephenson to build a steam locomotive for the Killingworth wagonway: Blucher made its first trial run on 25 July 1814 and was based on Blenkinsop's locomotives, although it lacked their rack-and-pinion drive. George Stephenson is credited with building the first locomotive both to run on edge rails and be driven by adhesion, an arrangement that has been the conventional one ever since. Yet Blucher was far from perfect and over the next few years, while other engineers ignored the steam locomotive, Stephenson built a succession of them, each an improvement on the last.

During this period many lives were lost in coalmines from explosions of gas ignited by miners' lamps. By observation and experiment (sometimes at great personal risk) Stephenson invented a satisfactory safety lamp, working independently of the noted scientist Sir Humphry Davy who also invented such a lamp around the same time.

In 1817 George Stephenson designed his first locomotive for an outside customer, the Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, and in 1819 he laid out the Hetton Colliery Railway in County Durham, for which his brother Robert was Resident Engineer. This was the first railway to be worked entirely without animal traction: it used inclined planes with stationary engines, self-acting inclined planes powered by gravity, and locomotives.

On 19 April 1821 Stephenson was introduced to Edward Pease, one of the main promoters of the Stockton \& Darlington Railway (S \& DR), which by coincidence received its Act of Parliament the same day. George Stephenson carried out a further survey, to improve the proposed line, and in this he was assisted by his 18-year-old son, Robert Stephenson, whom he had ensured received the theoretical education which he himself lacked. It is doubtful whether either could have succeeded without the other; together they were to make the steam railway practicable.

At George Stephenson's instance, much of the S \& DR was laid with wrought-iron rails recently developed by John Birkinshaw at Bedlington Ironworks, Morpeth. These were longer than cast-iron rails and were not brittle: they made a track well suited for locomotives. In June 1823 George and Robert Stephenson, with other partners, founded a firm in Newcastle upon Tyne to build locomotives and rolling stock and to do general engineering work: after its Managing Partner, the firm was called Robert Stephenson \& Co.

In 1824 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) invited George Stephenson to resurvey their proposed line in order to reduce opposition to it. William James, a wealthy land agent who had become a visionary protagonist of a national railway network and had seen Stephenson's locomotives at Killingworth, had promoted the L \& MR with some merchants of Liverpool and had carried out the first survey; however, he overreached himself in business and, shortly after the invitation to Stephenson, became bankrupt. In his own survey, however, George Stephenson lacked the assistance of his son Robert, who had left for South America, and he delegated much of the detailed work to incompetent assistants. During a devastating Parliamentary examination in the spring of 1825, much of his survey was shown to be seriously inaccurate and the L \& MR's application for an Act of Parliament was refused. The railway's promoters discharged Stephenson and had their line surveyed yet again, by C.B. Vignoles.

The Stockton \& Darlington Railway was, however, triumphantly opened in the presence of vast crowds in September 1825, with Stephenson himself driving the locomotive Locomotion, which had been built at Robert Stephenson \& Co.'s Newcastle works. Once the railway was at work, horse-drawn and gravity-powered traffic shared the line with locomotives: in 1828 Stephenson invented the horse dandy, a wagon at the back of a train in which a horse could travel over the gravity-operated stretches, instead of trotting behind.

Meanwhile, in May 1826, the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway had successfully obtained its Act of Parliament. Stephenson was appointed Engineer in June, and since he and Vignoles proved incompatible the latter left early in 1827. The railway was built by Stephenson and his staff, using direct labour. A considerable controversy arose c. 1828 over the motive power to be used: the traffic anticipated was too great for horses, but the performance of the reciprocal system of cable haulage developed by Benjamin Thompson appeared in many respects superior to that of contemporary locomotives. The company instituted a prize competition for a better locomotive and the Rainhill Trials were held in October 1829.

Robert Stephenson had been working on improved locomotive designs since his return from America in 1827, but it was the L \& MR's Treasurer, Henry Booth, who suggested the multi-tubular boiler to George Stephenson. This was incorporated into a locomotive built by Robert Stephenson for the trials: Rocket was entered by the three men in partnership. The other principal entrants were Novelty, entered by John Braithwaite and John Ericsson, and Sans Pareil, entered by Timothy Hackworth, but only Rocket, driven by George Stephenson, met all the organizers' demands; indeed, it far surpassed them and demonstrated the practicability of the long-distance steam railway. With the opening of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway in 1830, the age of railways began.

Stephenson was active in many aspects. He advised on the construction of the Belgian State Railway, of which the Brussels-Malines section, opened in 1835, was the first all-steam railway on the European continent. In England, proposals to link the L \& MR with the Midlands had culminated in an Act of Parliament for the Grand Junction Railway in 1833: this was to run from Warrington, which was already linked to the L \& MR, to Birmingham. George Stephenson had been in charge of the surveys, and for the railway's construction he and J.U. Rastrick were initially Principal Engineers, with Stephenson's former pupil Joseph Locke under them; by 1835 both Stephenson and Rastrick had withdrawn and Locke was Engineer-in-Chief. Stephenson remained much in demand elsewhere: he was particularly associated with the construction of the North Midland Railway (Derby to Leeds) and related lines. He was active in many other places and carried out, for instance, preliminary surveys for the Chester \& Holyhead and Newcastle \& Berwick Railways, which were important links in the lines of communication between London and, respectively, Dublin and Edinburgh.

He eventually retired to Tapton House, Chesterfield, overlooking the North Midland. A man who was self-made (with great success) against colossal odds, he was ever reluctant, regrettably, to give others their due credit, although in retirement, immensely wealthy and full of honour, he was still able to mingle with people of all ranks.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Weapons and armour

[br]

[br]

[br]

The son of a coppersmith, as a young man Ernst Heinkel was much affected by seeing the Zeppelin LZ 4 crash and burn out at Echterdringen, near Stuttgart. After studying engineering, in 1910 he designed his first aeroplane, but it crashed; he was more successful the following year when he made a flight in it, with an engine on hire from the Daimler company. After a period working for a firm near Munich and for LVG at Johannisthal, near Berlin, he moved to the Albatros Company of Berlin with a monthly salary of 425 marks. In May 1913 he moved to Lake Constance to work on the design of sea-planes and in May 1914 he moved again, this time to the Brandenburg Company, where he remained as a designer until 1922, when he founded his own company, Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke. Following the First World War, German companies were not allowed to build military aircraft, which was frustrating for Heinkel whose main interest was high-speed aircraft. His sleek He 70 airliner, built for Lufthansa, was designed to carry four passengers at high speeds: indeed it broke many records in 1933. Lufthansa decided it needed a larger version capable of carrying ten passengers, so Heinkel produced his most famous aeroplane, the He 111. Although it was designed as a twin-engined airliner on the surface, secretly Heinkel was producing a bomber. The airliner version first flew on Lufthansa routes in 1936, and by 1939 almost 1,000 bombers were in service with the Luftwaffe. A larger four-engined bomber, the He 177, ran into development problems and it did not see service until late in the Second World War. Heinkel's quest for speed led to the He 176 rocket-powered research aeroplane which flew on 20 June 1939, but Hitler and Goering were not impressed. The He 178, with Dr Hans von Ohain's jet engine, made its historic first flight a few weeks later on 27 August 1939; this was almost two years before the maiden flight in Britain of the Gloster E 28/39, powered by Whittle's jet engine. This project was a private venture by Heinkel and was carried out in great secrecy, so the world's first jet aircraft went almost unnoticed. Heinkel's jet fighters, the He 280 and the He 162, were never fully operational. After the war, Heinkel in 1950 set up a new company which made bicycles, motor cycles and "bubble" cars.

[br]

JDS / IMcN

SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

John Wyatt was the eldest son of John and Jane Wyatt, who lived in the small village of Thickbroom in the parish of Weeford, near Lichfield. John the younger was educated at Lichfield school and then worked as a carpenter at Thickbroom till 1730. In 1732 he was in Birmingham, engaged by a man named Heely, a gunbarrel forger, who became bankrupt in 1734. Wyatt had invented a machine for making files and sought the help of Lewis Paul to manufacture this commercially.

The surviving papers of Paul and Wyatt in Birmingham are mostly undated and show a variety of machines with which they were involved. There was a machine for "making lead hard" which had rollers, and "a Gymcrak of some consequence" probably refers to a machine for boring barrels or the file-making machine. Wyatt is said to have been one of the unsuccessful competitors for the erection of London Bridge in 1736. He invented and perfected the compound-lever weighing machine. He had more success with this: after 1744, machines for weighing up to five tons were set up at Birmingham, Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield and Liverpool. Road construction, bridge building, hydrostatics, canals, water-powered engines and many other schemes received his attention and it is said that he was employed for a time after 1744 by Matthew Boulton.

It is certain that in April 1735 Paul and Wyatt were working on their spinning machine and Wyatt was making a model of it in London in 1736, giving up his work in Birmingham. The first patent, in 1738, was taken out in the name of Lewis Paul. It is impossible to know which of these two invented what. This first patent covers a wide variety of descriptions of the vital roller drafting to draw out the fibres, and it is unknown which system was actually used. Paul's carding patent of 1748 and his second spinning patent of 1758 show that he moved away from the system and principles upon which Arkwright built his success. Wyatt and Paul's spinning machines were sufficiently promising for a mill to be set up in 1741 at the Upper Priory, Birmingham, that was powered by two asses. Wyatt was the person responsible for constructing the machinery. Edward Cave established another at Northampton powered by water while later Daniel Bourn built yet another at Leominster. Many others were interested too. The Birmingham mill did not work for long and seems to have been given up in 1743. Wyatt was imprisoned for debt in The Fleet in 1742, and when released in 1743 he tried for a time to run the Birmingham mill and possibly the Northampton one. The one at Leominster burned down in 1754, while the Northampton mill was advertised for sale in 1756. This last mill may have been used again in conjunction with the 1758 patent. It was Wyatt whom Daniel Bourn contacted about a grant for spindles for his Leominster mill in 1748, but this seems to have been Wyatt's last association with the spinning venture.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

In his own words, Patrick Miller was "without a sixpence" in his early youth; this is difficult to prove one way or another as he ended his life as Director and Deputy Governor of the Bank of Scotland. One thing is clear however, that from his earliest days, in common with most of his counterparts of the late eighteenth century, he was interested in experimental and applied science. Having acquired a substantial income from other sources, Miller was able to indulge his interest in ships and engineering. His first important vessel was the trimaran Edinburgh, designed by him and launched at Leith in 1786. Propulsion was man-powered using paddle wheels positioned in the spaces between the outer and central hulls. This led to several trials of similar craft on the Forth in the 1780s, and ultimately to the celebrated Dalswinton Loch trials. In 1785 Miller had purchased the Dumfriesshire estate of Dalswinton and commenced a series of experiments on agricultural development and other matters. With the help of William Symington he built a double-hull steamship with internal paddle wheels which was tested on the Loch in 1788. The 7.6 m (25 ft) long ship travelled at 5 mph (8 km/h) on her trials, and according to unsubstantiated tradition carried a group of well-known people including the poet Robert Burns (1759–1796).

Miller carried out many more important experiments and in 1796 obtained a patent for the design of shallow-drafted ships able to carry substantial cargo on flat bottoms. His main achievement may have been to stimulate William Symington, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century went on to design and build two of the world's first important steamships, each named Charlotte Dundas, for service on the Forth and Clyde Canal.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

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.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Ader was a distinguished engineer and versatile inventor who was involved with electrical developments, including the telephone and air-cushion vehicles. In the field of aeronautics he became the centre of a long-lasting controversy: did he, or did he not, fly before the Wright brothers' flight of 1903? In 1882 Ader started work on his first aeroplane, the Eole (god of the winds), which was bat-like in appearance and powered by a very well-designed lightweight steam engine developing about 15 kW (20 hp). On 9 October 1890 the Eole was ready, and with Ader as pilot it increased speed over a level surface and lifted off the ground. It was airborne for about 5 seconds and covered some 50 m (164 ft), reaching a height of 20 cm (8 in.). Whether such a short hop constituted a flight has caused much discussion and argument over the years. An even greater controversy followed Ader's claim in 1906 that his third aeroplane (Avion III) had made a flight of 300 m (328 yd) in 1897. He repeated this claim in his book written in 1907, and many historians accepted his account of the "flight". C.H.Gibbs-Smith, an eminent aviation historian, investigated the Ader controversy and in his book published in 1966 came to the conclusion that the Avion III did not fly at all. Avion III was donated to the Museum of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris, and still survives. From 1906 onwards Ader concentrated his inventive efforts elsewhere, but he did mount a successful campaign to persuade the French War Ministry to create an air force.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Geoffrey de Havilland started experimenting with aircraft and engines of his own design in 1908. In the following year, with the help of his friend Frank Hearle, he built and flew his first aircraft; it crashed on its first flight. The second aircraft used the same engine and made its first flight on 10 September 1910, and enabled de Havilland to teach himself to fly. From 1910 to 1914 he was employed at Farnborough, where in 1912 the Royal Aircraft Factory was established. As Chief Designer and Chief Test Pilot he was responsible for the BE 2, which was the first British military aircraft to land in France in 1914.

In May 1914 de Havilland went to work for George Holt Thomas, whose Aircraft Manufacturing Company Ltd (Airco) of Hendon was expanding to design and build aircraft of its own design. However, because de Havilland was a member of the Royal Flying Corps Reserve, he had to report for duty when war broke out in August. His value as a designer was recognized and he was transferred back to Airco, where he designed eight aircraft in four years. Of these, the DH 2, DH 4, DH 5, DH 6 and DH 9 were produced in large numbers, and a modified DH 4A operated the first British cross- Channel air service in 1919.

On 25 September 1920 de Havilland founded his own company, the De Havilland Aircraft Company Ltd, at Stag Lane near Edgware, London. During the 1920s and 1930s de Havilland concentrated on civil aircraft and produced the very successful Moth series of small biplanes and monoplanes, as well as the Dragon, Dragon Rapide, Albatross and Flamingo airliners. In 1930 a new site was acquired at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and by 1934 a modern factory with a large airfield had been established. His Comet racer won the England-Australia air race in 1934 using de Havilland engines. By this time the company had established very successful engine and propeller divisions. The Comet used a wooden stressed-skin construction which de Havilland developed and used for one of the outstanding aircraft of the Second World War: the Mosquito. The de Havilland Engine Company started work on jet engines in 1941 and their Goblin engine powered the Vampire jet fighter first flown by Geoffrey de Havilland Jr in 1943. Unfortunately, Geoffrey Jr and his brother John were both killed in flying accidents. The Comet jet airliner first flew in 1949 and the Trident in 1962, although by 1959 the De Havilland Company had been absorbed into Hawker Siddeley Aviation.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

[br]

[br]

[br]

Engerth was Chairman of the judges for the Semmering Locomotive Trials, held in 1851 to find locomotives suitable for working the sharply curved and steeply graded section of the Vienna-Trieste railway that was being built over the Semmering Pass, the first of the transalpine main lines. When none of the four locomotives entered proved suitable, Engerth designed his own. Six coupled wheels were at the fore part of the locomotive, with the connecting rods driving the rear pair: at the back of the locomotive the frames of the tender were extended forward on either side of the firebox, the front wheels of the tender were ahead of it, and the two parts were connected by a spherical pivot ahead of these. Part of the locomotive's weight was carried by the tender portion, and the two pairs of tender wheels were coupled by rods and powered by a geared drive from the axle of the rear driving-wheels. The powered drive to the tender wheels proved a failure, but the remaining characteristics of the locomotive, namely short rigid wheel-base, large firebox, flexibility and good tracking on curves (as drawbar pull was close behind the driving axle), were sufficient for the type to be a success. It was used on many railways in Europe and examples in modified form were built in Spain as recently as 1956. Engerth became General Manager of the Austro-Hungarian State Railway Company and designed successful flood-prevention works on the Danube at Vienna.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

[br]

[br]

[br]

David Dale, the son of a grocer, began his working life by herding cattle. His connection with the textile industry started when he was apprenticed to a Paisley weaver. After this he travelled the country buying home-spun linen yarns, which he sold in Glasgow. At about the age of 24 he settled in Glasgow as Clerk to a silk merchant. He then started a business importing fine yarns from France and Holland for weaving good-quality cloths such as cambrics. Dale was to become one of the pre-eminent yarn dealers in Scotland. In 1778 he acquired the first cotton-spinning mill built in Scotland by an English company at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. In 1784 he met Richard Arkwright, who was touring Scotland, and together they visited the Falls of the Clyde near the town of Lanark. Arkwright immediately recognized the potential of the site for driving water-powered mills. Dale acquired part of the area from Lord Braxfield and in 1785 began to build his first mill there in partnership with Arkwright. The association with Arkwright soon ceased, however, and by c.1795 Dale had erected four mills. Because the location of the mills was remote, he built houses for the workers and then employed pauper children brought from the slums of Edinburgh and Glasgow; at one time there were over 400 of them. Dale's attitude to his workers was benevolent and humane. He tried to provide reasonable working conditions and the mills were well designed with a large workshop in which machinery was constructed. Dale was also a partner in mills at Catrine, Newton Stewart, Spinningdale in Sutherlandshire and some others. In 1785 he established the first Turkey red dye works in Scotland and was in partnership with George Macintosh, the father of Charles Macintosh. Dale manufactured cloth in Glasgow and from 1783 was Agent for the Royal Bank of Scotland, a lucrative position. In 1799 he was persuaded by Robert Owen to sell the New Lanark mills for £60,000 to a Manchester partnership which made Owen the Manager. Owen had married Dale's daughter, Anne Caroline, in 1799. Possibly due in part to poor health, Dale retired in 1800 to Rosebank near Glasgow, having made a large fortune. In 1770 he had withdrawn from the established Church of Scotland and founded a new one called the "Old Independents". He visited the various branches of this Church, as well as convicts in Bridewell prison, to preach. He was also a great benefactor to the poor in Glasgow. He had a taste for music and sang old Scottish songs with great gusto.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

[br]

[br]

[br]

The son of the millwright James Meikle, who is credited with the introduction of the winnowing machine into Britain, Andrew Meikle followed in his father's footsteps. His inventive inclinations were first turned to developing his father's idea, and together with his own son George he built and patented a double-fan winnowing machine.

However, in the history of agricultural development Andrew Meikle is most famous for his invention of the threshing machine, patented in 1784. He had been presented with a model of a threshing mill designed by a Mr Ilderton of Northumberland, but after failing to make a full-scale machine work, he developed the concept further. He eventually built the first working threshing machine for a farmer called Stein at Kilbagio. The patent revolutionized farming practice because it displaced the back-breaking and soul-destroying labour of flailing the grain from the straw. The invention was of great value in Scotland and in northern England when the land was becoming underpopulated as a result of heavy industrialization, but it was bitterly opposed in the south of England until well into the nineteenth century. Although the introduction of the threshing machine led to the "Captain Swing" riots of the 1830s, in opposition to it, it shortly became universal.

Meikle's provisional patent in 1785 was a natural progression of earlier attempts by other millwrights to produce such a machine. The published patent is based on power provided by a horse engine, but these threshing machines were often driven by water-wheels or even by windmills. The corn stalks were introduced into the machine where they were fed between cast-iron rollers moving quite fast against each other to beat the grain out of the ears. The power source, whether animal, water or wind, had to cause the rollers to rotate at high speed to knock the grain out of the ears. While Meikle's machine was at first designed as a fixed barn machine powered by a water-wheel or by a horse wheel, later threshing machines became mobile and were part of the rig of an agricultural contractor.

In 1788 Meikle was awarded a patent for the invention of shuttered sails for windmills. This patent is part of the general description of the threshing machine, and whilst it was a practical application, it was superseded by the work of Thomas Cubitt.

At the turn of the century Meikle became a manufacturer of threshing machines, building appliances that combined the threshing and winnowing principles as well as the reciprocating "straw walkers" found in subsequent threshing machines and in conventional combine harvesters to the present day. However, he made little financial gain from his invention, and a public subscription organized by the President of the Board of Agriculture, Sir John Sinclair, raised £1,500 to support him towards the end of his life.

[br]

KM / AP

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Civil engineering

[br]

[br]

[br]

Villard was one of the thirteenth-century architect-engineers who were responsible for the design and construction of the great Gothic cathedrals and other churches of the time. Their responsibilities covered all aspects of the work, including (in the spirit of the Roman architect Vitruvius) the invention and construction of mechanical devices. In their time, these men were highly esteemed and richly rewarded, although few of the inscriptions paying tribute to their achievements have survived. Villard stands out among them because a substantial part of his sketchbook has survived, in the form of thirty-three parchment sheets of drawings and notes, now kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Villard's professional career lasted roughly from 1225 to 1250. As a boy, he went to work on the building of the Cistercian monastery at Vaucelles, not far from Honnecourt, and afterwards he was apprenticed to the masons' lodge at Cambrai Cathedral, where he began copying the drawings and layouts on the tracing-house floor. All his drawings are, therefore, of the plans, elevations and sections of cathedrals. These buildings have long since been destroyed, but his drawings, perhaps among his earliest, bear witness to their architecture. He travelled widely in France and recorded features of the great works at Reims, Laon and Chartres. These include the complex system of passageways built into the fabric of a great cathedral; Villard comments that one of their purposes was "to allow circulation in case of fire".

Villard was invited to Hungary and reached there c. 1235. He may have been responsible for the edifice dedicated to St Elizabeth of Hungary, canonized in 1235, at Kassa (now Košice, Slovakia). Villard probably returned to France c. 1240, at least before the Tartar invasion of Hungary in 1241.

His sketchbook, which dates to c. 1235, stands as a memorial to Villard's skill as a draughtsman, a student of perspective and a mechanical engineer. He took his sketchbook with him on his travels, and used ideas from it in his work abroad. It contains architectural designs, geometrical constructions for use in building, surveying exercises and drawings for various kinds of mechanical devices, for civil or military use. He was transmitting details from the highly developed French Gothic masons to the relatively underdeveloped eastern countries. The notebooks were annotated for the use of pupils and other master masons, and the notes on geometry were obviously intended for pupils. The prize examples are the pages in the book, clearly Villard's own work, related to mechanical devices. Whilst he, like many others of the period and after, played with designs for perpetual-motion machines, he concentrated on useful devices. These included the first Western representation of a perpetualmotion machine, which at least displays a concern to derive a source of energy: this was a water-powered sawmill, with automatic feed of the timber into the mill. This has been described as the first industrial automatic power-machine to involve two motions, for it not only converts the rotary motion of the water-wheel to the reciprocating motion of the saw, but incorporates a means of keeping the log pressed against the saw. His other designs included water-wheels, watermills, the Archimedean screw and other curious devices.

[br]

KM / LRD

SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

[br]

[br]

[br]

The son of an immigrant merchant, he was educated at the local school, leaving at the age of 13 to take on various jobs, eventually becoming a purser on a Mississippi steamboat. He was struck by the number of wrecks lying in the river; he devised a diving bell and, at the age of 22, set up in business as a salvage engineer. So successful was he at this venture that he was able to retire in three years' time and set up the first glassworks west of the Ohio River. This, however, was a failure and in 1848 he returned to the business of salvage on the Ohio River. He was so successful that he was able to retire permanently in 1857. From the start of the American Civil War in 1861 he recommended to President Lincoln that he should obtain a fleet of armour-plated, steam-powered gunboats to operate on the western rivers. He built seven of these himself, later building or converting a further eighteen. After the end of the war he obtained the contract to design and build a bridge over the Mississippi at St Louis. In this he made use of his considerable knowledge of the river-bed currents. He built a bridge with a 500 ft (150 m) centre span and a clearance of 50 ft (15 m) that was completed in 1874. The three spans are, respectively, 502 ft, 520 ft and 502 ft (153 m, 158 m and 153 m), each being spanned by an arch. The Mississippi river is subject to great changes, both seasonal and irregular, with a range of over 41 ft (12.5 m) between low and high water and a velocity varying from 4 ft (1.2 m) to 12 1/2 ft (3.8 m) per second. The Eads Bridge was completed in 1874 and in the following year Eads was commissioned to open one of the mouths of the Mississippi, for which he constructed a number of jetty traps. He was involved later in attempts to construct a ship railway across the isthmus of Panama. He had been suffering from indifferent health for some years, and this effort was too much for him. He died on 8 March 1887. He was the first American to be awarded the Royal Society of Arts' Albert Medal.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

William Henson worked in the lacemaking industry and in his spare time invented many mechanical devices, from a breech-loading cannon to an ice-machine. It could be claimed that he invented the airliner, for in 1842 he prepared a patent (granted in 1843) for an "aerial steam carriage". The patent application was not just a vague outline, but contained detailed drawings of a large monoplane with an enclosed fuselage to accommodate the passengers and crew. It was to be powered by a steam engine driving two pusher propellers aft of the wing. Henson had followed the lead give by Sir George Cayley in his basic layout, but produced a very much more advanced structural design with cambered wings strengthened by streamlined bracing wires: the intended wing-span was 150 ft (46 m). Henson probably discussed the design of the steam engine and boiler with his friend John Stringfellow (who was also in the lacemaking industry). Stringfellow joined Henson and others to found the Aerial Transit Company, which was set up to raise the finance needed to build Henson's machine. A great publicity campaign was mounted with artists' impressions of the "aerial steam carriage" flying over London, India and even the pyramids. Passenger-carrying services to India and China were proposed, but the whole project was far too optimistic to attract support from financiers and the scheme foundered. Henson and Stringfellow drew up an agreement in December 1843 to construct models which would prove the feasibility of an "aerial machine". For the next five years they pursued this aim, with no real success. In 1848 Henson and his wife emigrated to the United States to further his career in textiles. He became an American citizen and died there at the age of 75.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace, Steam and internal combustion engines

[br]

[br]

[br]

Harry Ricardo was the eldest child and only son of Halsey Ricardo (architect) and Catherine Rendel (daughter of Alexander Rendel, senior partner in the firm of consulting civil engineers that later became Rendel, Palmer and Tritton). He was educated at Rugby School and at Cambridge. While still at school, he designed and made a steam engine to drive his bicycle, and by the time he went up to Cambridge in 1903 he was a skilled craftsman. At Cambridge, he made a motor cycle powered by a petrol engine of his own design, and with this he won a fuel-consumption competition by covering almost 40 miles (64 km) on a quart (1.14 1) of petrol. This brought him to the attention of Professor Bertram Hopkinson, who invited him to help with research on turbulence and pre-ignition in internal combustion engines. After leaving Cambridge in 1907, he joined his grandfather's firm and became head of the design department for mechanical equipment used in civil engineering. In 1916 he was asked to help with the problem of loading tanks on to railway trucks. He was then given the task of designing and organizing the manufacture of engines for tanks, and the success of this enterprise encouraged him to set up his own establishment at Shoreham, devoted to research on, and design and development of, internal combustion engines.

Leading on from the work with Hopkinson were his discoveries on the suppression of detonation in spark-ignition engines. He noted that the current paraffinic fuels were more prone to detonation than the aromatics, which were being discarded as they did not comply with the existing specifications because of their high specific gravity. He introduced the concepts of "highest useful compression ratio" (HUCR) and "toluene number" for fuel samples burned in a special variable compression-ratio engine. The toluene number was the proportion of toluene in heptane that gave the same HUCR as the fuel sample. Later, toluene was superseded by iso-octane to give the now familiar octane rating. He went on to improve the combustion in side-valve engines by increasing turbulence, shortening the flame path and minimizing the clearance between piston and head by concentrating the combustion space over the valves. By these means, the compression ratio could be increased to that used by overhead-valve engines before detonation intervened. The very hot poppet valve restricted the advancement of all internal combustion engines, so he turned his attention to eliminating it by use of the single sleeve-valve, this being developed with support from the Air Ministry. By the end of the Second World War some 130,000 such aero-engines had been built by Bristol, Napier and Rolls-Royce before the piston aero-engine was superseded by the gas turbine of Whittle. He even contributed to the success of the latter by developing a fuel control system for it.

Concurrent with this was work on the diesel engine. He designed and developed the engine that halved the fuel consumption of London buses. He invented and perfected the "Comet" series of combustion chambers for diesel engines, and the Company was consulted by the vast majority of international internal combustion engine manufacturers. He published and lectured widely and fully deserved his many honours; he was elected FRS in 1929, was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1944–5 and was knighted in 1948. This shy and modest, though very determined man was highly regarded by all who came into contact with him. It was said that research into internal combustion engines, his family and boats constituted all that he would wish from life.

[br]

on

❢ When on is used as a straightforward preposition expressing position ( on the beach, on the table) it is generally translated by sur: sur la plage, sur la table ; on it is translated by dessus: there's a table over there, put the key on it = il y a une table là-bas, mets la clé dessus.on is often used in verb combinations in English ( depend on, rely on, cotton on etc). For translations, consult the appropriate verb entry (depend, rely, cotton etc).

If you have doubts about how to translate a phrase or expression beginning with on ( on demand, on impulse, on top etc) consult the appropriate noun or other entry (demand, impulse, top etc).

This dictionary contains usage notes on such topics as dates, islands, rivers etc. Many of these use the preposition on.

For examples of the above and further uses of on, see the entry below.

A prep

1 ( position) sur ; on the table/the pavement sur la table/le trottoir ; on the coast/the lake sur la côte/le lac ; on top of the piano sur le piano ; on the wall/ceiling/blackboard au mur/plafond/tableau noir ; on the floor par terre ; there's a stain on it il y a une tache dessus ; to live on Park Avenue habiter Park Avenue ; it's on Carson Road c'est sur Carson Road ; on the M4 motorway sur l'autoroute M4 ; a studio on Avenue Montaigne un studio Avenue Montaigne ; the paintings on the wall les tableaux qui sont au mur ; accidents on and off the piste des accidents sur la piste et en dehors ; to climb/leap on to sth grimper/sauter sur qch ; ⇒ get, hang, jump, pin, sew, tie ;

2 (indicating attachment, contact) to hang sth on a nail accrocher qch à un clou ; on a string au bout d'une or attaché à une ficelle ; to put a hand on sb's shoulder mettre la main sur l'épaule de qn ; to punch sb on the nose/on the chin donner un coup dans le nez/sur le menton de qn ; ⇒ hit, pat, slap ;

3 ( on or about one's person) I've got no small change on me je n'ai pas de monnaie sur moi ; have you got the keys on you? est-ce que tu as les clés (sur toi)? ; to have a ring on one's finger avoir une bague au doigt ; the finger with the ring on it le doigt qui porte la bague ; a girl with sandals on her feet une fille avec des sandales aux pieds ; to have a smile/to have a frown on one's face sourire/froncer les sourcils ;

4 (about, on the subject of) sur ; a book/a programme on Africa un livre/une émission sur l'Afrique ; information on the new tax des renseignements sur le nouvel impôt ; to read Freud on dreams lire ce que Freud a écrit sur les rêves ; have you heard him on electoral reform? est-ce que tu l'as entendu parler de la réforme électorale? ; we're on fractions in maths en maths, nous en sommes aux fractions ;

5 (employed, active) to be on faire partie de [team] ; être membre de [board, committee, council] ; to be on the Gazette travailler pour la Gazette ; a job on the railways un travail dans les chemins de fer ; there's a bouncer on the door il y a un videur à la porte ; there are 20 staff on this project il y a 20 personnes qui travaillent sur ce projet ;

6 ( in expressions of time) on 22 February le 22 février ; on Friday vendredi ; on Saturdays le samedi ; on the night of 15 May la nuit du 15 mai ; on or about the 23rd vers le 23 ; on sunny days quand il fait beau ; on Christmas Day le jour de Noël ; on your birthday le jour de ton anniversaire ; ⇒ dot, hour ;

7 ( immediately after) on his arrival à son arrivée ; on the death of his wife à la mort de sa femme ; on hearing the truth she… quand elle a appris la vérité, elle… ; on reaching London he… quand il est arrivé à Londres, il… ;

8 (taking, using) to be on tablets/steroids/heroin prendre des médicaments/des stéroïdes/de l'héroïne ; to be on drugs se droguer ; to be on 40 (cigarettes) a day fumer 40 cigarettes par jour ; to be on a bottle of whisky a day boire une bouteille de whisky par jour ; ⇒ antibiotic, pill, tranquillizer ;

9 ( powered by) to work ou run on batteries marcher à piles, fonctionner sur piles ; to run on electricity être électrique ;

10 ( indicating support) sur ; to stand on one leg se tenir sur un pied ; to lie on one's back s'allonger sur le dos ; put it on its side pose-le sur le côté ;

11 ( indicating a medium) on TV/the radio à la télé/radio ; I heard it on the news j'ai entendu ça au journal ; on video/cassette en vidéo/cassette ; on disk/computer sur disquette/ordinateur ; on channel four sur la quatrième chaîne ; to play sth on the piano jouer qch au piano ; with Lou Luciano on drums avec Lou Luciano à la batterie ;

12 (income, amount of money) to be on £20,000 a year gagner 20 000 livres sterling par an ; to be on a salary ou income of £15,000 gagner 15 000 livres sterling ; he's on more than me il gagne plus que moi ; to be on a low income avoir un bas salaire ; ⇒ dole, grant, live, overtime ;

13 (paid for by, at the expense of) this round is on me c'est ma tournée ; have a beer on me je te paye une bière ; ⇒ credit, expenses, house ;

14 ( repeated events) disaster on disaster désastre sur désastre ; defeat on defeat défaite sur défaite ;

15 ( in scoring) to be on 25 points avoir 25 points ; Martin is the winner on 50 points Martin est le gagnant avec 50 points ;

16 Turf he's got £10 on Easy Rider il a parié 10 livres sterling sur Easy Rider ; I'll have 50 dollars on Rapido je parie 50 dollars sur Rapido ; ⇒ odds ;

17 Transp to travel on the bus/train voyager en bus/train ; to be on the plane/the train être dans l'avion/le train ; to be on the yacht être sur le yacht ; to be on one's bike être à vélo ; to leave on the first train/flight prendre le premier train/avion ; ⇒ foot, horseback.

B adj

1 (taking place, happening) to be on [event] avoir lieu ; is the match still on? est-ce que le match aura lieu? ; the engagement is back on again ils sont à nouveau fiancés ; while the meeting is on pendant la réunion ; there's a war/recession on il y a une guerre/récession ; I've got nothing on tonight je n'ai rien de prévu pour ce soir ; to have something on avoir quelque chose de prévu ; I've got a lot on je suis très occupé ;

2 (being broadcast, performed, displayed) Euro-express is on tonight il y a Euro-express à la télé ce soir ; the news is on in 10 minutes le journal est dans 10 minutes ; it's on at the Rex ça passe au Rex ; there's an exhibition on at the Town Hall il y a une exposition à la mairie ; what's on? ( on TV) qu'est-ce qu'il y a à la télé? ; ( at the cinema) qu'est-ce qui passe au cinéma? ; ( at the theatre) qu'est-ce qu'il y a à l'affiche or au théâtre? ; there's nothing on il n'y a rien de bien ; Hamlet is still on Hamlet est toujours à l'affiche ;

3 (functional, live) to be on [TV, oven, heating, light] être allumé ; [handbrake] être serré ; [dishwasher, radio, washing machine] marcher ; [hot tap, gas tap] être ouvert ; the power is on il y a du courant ; the power is back on le courant est rétabli ; the switch is in the ‘on’ position l'interrupteur est en position ‘allumé’ ; ⇒ switch on (switch), turn on (turn) ;

4 GB ( permissible) it's just ou simply not on ( out of the question) c'est hors de question ; ( not the done thing) ça ne se fait pas ; ( unacceptable) c'est inadmissible ; it's simply not on to expect me to do that c'est inadmissible de penser que je vais faire ça ;

5 (attached, in place) to be on [lid, top, cap] être mis ; the cap isn't properly on le couvercle est mal mis ; once the roof is on une fois le toit construit ; ⇒ put, screw.

C adv

1 ( on or about one's person) to have a hat/coat on porter un chapeau/manteau ; to have one's glasses on porter ses lunettes ; he's got his suit on il est en costume ; to have nothing on être nu, ne rien avoir sur le dos ; on with your coats! allez, mettez vos manteaux! ; to have make-up on être maquillé ; with sandals/slippers on en sandales/pantoufles ; ⇒ put, try ;

2 ( ahead in time) 20 years on he was still the same 20 ans plus tard, il n'avait pas changé ; a few years on from now dans quelques années ; from that day on à partir de ce jour-là ; to be well on in years ne plus être tout jeune ; the party lasted well on into the night la soirée s'est prolongée tard dans la nuit ; ⇒ later, now ;

3 ( further) to walk on continuer à marcher ; to walk on another 2 km faire encore 2 km ; to go on to Newcastle continuer jusqu'à Newcastle ; to go to Paris then on to Marseilles aller à Paris et de là à Marseille ; to play/work on continuer à jouer/travailler ; a little further on un peu plus loin ; ⇒ carry, go, move, press, read ;

4 ( on stage) I'm on after the juggler je passe juste après le jongleur ; he's not on until Act II il n'entre en scène qu'au deuxième acte ; you're on! en scène!

D on and off adv phr ( also off and on) to see sb on and off voir qn de temps en temps ; she's been working at the novel on and off for years ça fait des années que son roman est en chantier ; he lives there on and off il y habite de temps en temps ; to flash on and off clignoter.

E on and on adv phr to go on and on [speaker] parler pendant des heures ; [lectures, speech] durer des heures ; he went ou talked on and on about the war il n'a pas arrêté de parler de la guerre ; the list goes on and on la liste n'en finit pas.

you're on d'accord ; are you still on for tomorrow's party? c'est toujours d'accord pour la soirée de demain? ; to be always on at sb être toujours sur le dos de qn ; she's always on at me to get my hair cut elle est toujours sur mon dos pour que je me fasse couper les cheveux ; what's he on about? GB qu'est-ce qu'il raconte? ; I don't know what you're on about je ne sais pas de quoi tu parles ; he's been on to me about the lost files GB il m'a contacté à propos des dossiers perdus. ⇒ get, go, put.

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Railways and locomotives

[br]

[br]

[br]

Page graduated from Harvard in 1832 and subsequently attended Boston Medical School. He began to practise in Salem and also engaged in experimental research in electricity, discovering the improvement effected by substituting bundles of iron wire for solid bars in induction coils. He also created a device which he termed a Dynamic Multiplier, the prototype of the auto-transformer. Following a period in medical practice in Virginia, in 1841 he became one of the first two principal examiners in the United States Patent Office. He also held the Chair of Chemistry and Pharmacy at Columbian College, later George Washington University, between 1844 and 1849.

A prolific inventor, Page completed several large electric motors in which reciprocating action was converted to rotary motion, and invested an extravagant sum of public money in a foredoomed effort to develop a 10-ton electric locomotive powered by primary batteries. This was unsuccessfully demonstrated in April 1851 on the Washington-Baltimore railway and seriously damaged his reputation. Page approached Thomas Davenport with an offer of partnership, but Davenport refused.

After leaving the Patent Office in 1852 he became a patentee himself and advocated the reform of the patent procedures. Page returned to the Patent Office in 1861, and later persuaded Congress to pass a special Act permitting him to patent the induction coil. This was the cause, after his death, of protracted and widely publicized litigation.

[br]