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61 Babbage, Charles
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 26 December 1791 Walworth, Surrey, Englandd. 18 October 1871 London, England[br]English mathematician who invented the forerunner of the modern computer.[br]Charles Babbage was the son of a banker, Benjamin Babbage, and was a sickly child who had a rather haphazard education at private schools near Exeter and later at Enfield. Even as a child, he was inordinately fond of algebra, which he taught himself. He was conversant with several advanced mathematical texts, so by the time he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1811, he was ahead of his tutors. In his third year he moved to Peterhouse, whence he graduated in 1814, taking his MA in 1817. He first contributed to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1815, and was elected a fellow of that body in 1816. He was one of the founders of the Astronomical Society in 1820 and served in high office in it.While he was still at Cambridge, in 1812, he had the first idea of calculating numerical tables by machinery. This was his first difference engine, which worked on the principle of repeatedly adding a common difference. He built a small model of an engine working on this principle between 1820 and 1822, and in July of the latter year he read an enthusiastically received note about it to the Astronomical Society. The following year he was awarded the Society's first gold medal. He submitted details of his invention to Sir Humphry Davy, President of the Royal Society; the Society reported favourably and the Government became interested, and following a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer Babbage was awarded a grant of £1,500. Work proceeded and was carried on for four years under the direction of Joseph Clement.In 1827 Babbage went abroad for a year on medical advice. There he studied foreign workshops and factories, and in 1832 he published his observations in On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. While abroad, he received the news that he had been appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. He held the Chair until 1839, although he neither resided in College nor gave any lectures. For this he was paid between £80 and £90 a year! Differences arose between Babbage and Clement. Manufacture was moved from Clement's works in Lambeth, London, to new, fireproof buildings specially erected by the Government near Babbage's house in Dorset Square, London. Clement made a large claim for compensation and, when it was refused, withdrew his workers as well as all the special tools he had made up for the job. No work was possible for the next fifteen months, during which Babbage conceived the idea of his "analytical engine". He approached the Government with this, but it was not until eight years later, in 1842, that he received the reply that the expense was considered too great for further backing and that the Government was abandoning the project. This was in spite of the demonstration and perfectly satisfactory operation of a small section of the analytical engine at the International Exhibition of 1862. It is said that the demands made on manufacture in the production of his engines had an appreciable influence in improving the standard of machine tools, whilst similar benefits accrued from his development of a system of notation for the movements of machine elements. His opposition to street organ-grinders was a notable eccentricity; he estimated that a quarter of his mental effort was wasted by the effect of noise on his concentration.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1816. Astronomical Society Gold Medal 1823.BibliographyBabbage wrote eighty works, including: 1864, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.July 1822, Letter to Sir Humphry Davy, PRS, on the Application of Machinery to the purpose of calculating and printing Mathematical Tables.Further Reading1961, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines: Selected Writings by Charles Babbage and Others, eds Philip and Emily Morrison, New York: Dover Publications.IMcN -
62 Huygens, Christiaan
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 14 April 1629 The Hague, the Netherlandsd. 8 June 1695 The Hague, the Netherlands[br]Dutch scientist who was responsible for two of the greatest advances in horology: the successful application of both the pendulum to the clock and the balance spring to the watch.[br]Huygens was born into a cultured and privileged class. His father, Constantijn, was a poet and statesman who had wide interests. Constantijn exerted a strong influence on his son, who was educated at home until he reached the age of 16. Christiaan studied law and mathematics at Ley den University from 1645 to 1647, and continued his studies at the Collegium Arausiacum in Breda until 1649. He then lived at The Hague, where he had the means to devote his time entirely to study. In 1666 he became a Member of the Académie des Sciences in Paris and settled there until his return to The Hague in 1681. He also had a close relationship with the Royal Society and visited London on three occasions, meeting Newton on his last visit in 1689. Huygens had a wide range of interests and made significant contributions in mathematics, astronomy, optics and mechanics. He also made technical advances in optical instruments and horology.Despite the efforts of Burgi there had been no significant improvement in the performance of ordinary clocks and watches from their inception to Huygens's time, as they were controlled by foliots or balances which had no natural period of oscillation. The pendulum appeared to offer a means of improvement as it had a natural period of oscillation that was almost independent of amplitude. Galileo Galilei had already pioneered the use of a freely suspended pendulum for timing events, but it was by no means obvious how it could be kept swinging and used to control a clock. Towards the end of his life Galileo described such a. mechanism to his son Vincenzio, who constructed a model after his father's death, although it was not completed when he himself died in 1642. This model appears to have been copied in Italy, but it had little influence on horology, partly because of the circumstances in which it was produced and possibly also because it differed radically from clocks of that period. The crucial event occurred on Christmas Day 1656 when Huygens, quite independently, succeeded in adapting an existing spring-driven table clock so that it was not only controlled by a pendulum but also kept it swinging. In the following year he was granted a privilege or patent for this clock, and several were made by the clockmaker Salomon Coster of The Hague. The use of the pendulum produced a dramatic improvement in timekeeping, reducing the daily error from minutes to seconds, but Huygens was aware that the pendulum was not truly isochronous. This error was magnified by the use of the existing verge escapement, which made the pendulum swing through a large arc. He overcame this defect very elegantly by fitting cheeks at the pendulum suspension point, progressively reducing the effective length of the pendulum as the amplitude increased. Initially the cheeks were shaped empirically, but he was later able to show that they should have a cycloidal shape. The cheeks were not adopted universally because they introduced other defects, and the problem was eventually solved more prosaically by way of new escapements which reduced the swing of the pendulum. Huygens's clocks had another innovatory feature: maintaining power, which kept the clock going while it was being wound.Pendulums could not be used for portable timepieces, which continued to use balances despite their deficiencies. Robert Hooke was probably the first to apply a spring to the balance, but his efforts were not successful. From his work on the pendulum Huygens was well aware of the conditions necessary for isochronism in a vibrating system, and in January 1675, with a flash of inspiration, he realized that this could be achieved by controlling the oscillations of the balance with a spiral spring, an arrangement that is still used in mechanical watches. The first model was made for Huygens in Paris by the clockmaker Isaac Thuret, who attempted to appropriate the invention and patent it himself. Huygens had for many years been trying unsuccessfully to adapt the pendulum clock for use at sea (in order to determine longitude), and he hoped that a balance-spring timekeeper might be better suited for this purpose. However, he was disillusioned as its timekeeping proved to be much more susceptible to changes in temperature than that of the pendulum clock.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1663. Member of the Académie Royale des Sciences 1666.BibliographyFor his complete works, see Oeuvres complètes de Christian Huygens, 1888–1950, 22 vols, The Hague.1658, Horologium, The Hague; repub., 1970, trans. E.L.Edwardes, AntiquarianHorology 7:35–55 (describes the pendulum clock).1673, Horologium Oscillatorium, Paris; repub., 1986, The Pendulum Clock or Demonstrations Concerning the Motion ofPendula as Applied to Clocks, trans.R.J.Blackwell, Ames.The balance spring watch was first described in Journal des Sçavans 25 February 1675, and translated in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1675) 4:272–3.Further ReadingH.J.M.Bos, 1972, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. C.C.Gillispie, Vol. 6, New York, pp. 597–613 (for a fuller account of his life and scientific work, but note the incorrect date of his death).R.Plomp, 1979, Spring-Driven Dutch Pendulum Clocks, 1657–1710, Schiedam (describes Huygens's application of the pendulum to the clock).S.A.Bedini, 1991, The Pulse of Time, Florence (describes Galileo's contribution of the pendulum to the clock).J.H.Leopold, 1982, "L"Invention par Christiaan Huygens du ressort spiral réglant pour les montres', Huygens et la France, Paris, pp. 154–7 (describes the application of the balance spring to the watch).A.R.Hall, 1978, "Horology and criticism", Studia Copernica 16:261–81 (discusses Hooke's contribution).DV -
63 Lister, Joseph, Baron Lister
SUBJECT AREA: Medical technology[br]b. 5 April 1827 Upton, Essex, Englandd. 10 February 1912 Walmer, Kent, England[br]English surgeon, founder of the antiseptic and aseptic principles of surgical practice.[br]Of Quaker stock, his father also being a Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied medicine at University College, London. He qualified, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1852. Wishing to pursue a surgical career, he moved to Edinburgh to study surgery under William Syme, whose daughter he married in 1852, the same year he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.Until his appointment as Regius Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University and Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1861, he was engaged in a wide variety of investigations into the nature of inflammation and the effects of irritants on wounds. Following his move to Glasgow, he became particularly involved in the major problems arising out of the vast increase in the number of surgical procedures brought about by the recent introduction of general anaesthesia. By 1865 his continuing study of wound inflammation and the microbial studies of Pasteur had led him to institute in the operating theatre a regime of surgical antisepsis involving the use of a carbolic acid spray coupled with the sterilization of instruments, the site of operation and the hands of the operator. Increasingly it was appreciated that the air was the least important origin of infection, and by 1887 the antiseptic approach had been superseded by the aseptic.In 1869 he succeeded Syme in the Chair at Edinburgh and his methods were widely accepted abroad. In 1877 he moved to the Chair of Surgery at King's College Hospital, London, in the hope of encouraging acceptance of his work in the metropolis. As well as developing a variety of new surgical procedures, he was engaged for many years in the development of surgical ligatures, which had always been a potent stimulant of infection. His choice of catgut as a sterilizable, absorbable material paved the way for major developments in this field. The Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine was named in his honour in 1903.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCreated Baronet 1883. Baron 1897. Order of Merit 1902. President, Royal Society 1895– 1900.Bibliography1870, "On the effects of the antiseptic system of treatment upon the salubrity of a surgical hospital", Lancet.1859, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.1863, Croonian Lecture.1881, 1900, Transactions of the International Medical Congress.Further ReadingR.J.Godlee, 1924, Lord Lister.1927, Lister Centenary Handbook, London: Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. H.C.Cameron, 1948, Joseph Lister, the Friend of Man.MGBiographical history of technology > Lister, Joseph, Baron Lister
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64 Roberts, Richard
[br]b. 22 April 1789 Carreghova, Llanymynech, Montgomeryshire, Walesd. 11 March 1864 London, England[br]Welsh mechanical engineer and inventor.[br]Richard Roberts was the son of a shoemaker and tollkeeper and received only an elementary education at the village school. At the age of 10 his interest in mechanics was stimulated when he was allowed by the Curate, the Revd Griffith Howell, to use his lathe and other tools. As a young man Roberts acquired a considerable local reputation for his mechanical skills, but these were exercised only in his spare time. For many years he worked in the local limestone quarries, until at the age of 20 he obtained employment as a pattern-maker in Staffordshire. In the next few years he worked as a mechanic in Liverpool, Manchester and Salford before moving in 1814 to London, where he obtained employment with Henry Maudslay. In 1816 he set up on his own account in Manchester. He soon established a reputation there for gear-cutting and other general engineering work, especially for the textile industry, and by 1821 he was employing about twelve men. He built machine tools mainly for his own use, including, in 1817, one of the first planing machines.One of his first inventions was a gas meter, but his first patent was obtained in 1822 for improvements in looms. His most important contribution to textile technology was his invention of the self-acting spinning mule, patented in 1825. The normal fourteen-year term of this patent was extended in 1839 by a further seven years. Between 1826 and 1828 Roberts paid several visits to Alsace, France, arranging cottonspinning machinery for a new factory at Mulhouse. By 1826 he had become a partner in the firm of Sharp Brothers, the company then becoming Sharp, Roberts \& Co. The firm continued to build textile machinery, and in the 1830s it built locomotive engines for the newly created railways and made one experimental steam-carriage for use on roads. The partnership was dissolved in 1843, the Sharps establishing a new works to continue locomotive building while Roberts retained the existing factory, known as the Globe Works, where he soon after took as partners R.G.Dobinson and Benjamin Fothergill (1802–79). This partnership was dissolved c. 1851, and Roberts continued in business on his own for a few years before moving to London as a consulting engineer.During the 1840s and 1850s Roberts produced many new inventions in a variety of fields, including machine tools, clocks and watches, textile machinery, pumps and ships. One of these was a machine controlled by a punched-card system similar to the Jacquard loom for punching rivet holes in plates. This was used in the construction of the Conway and Menai Straits tubular bridges. Roberts was granted twenty-six patents, many of which, before the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, covered more than one invention; there were still other inventions he did not patent. He made his contribution to the discussion which led up to the 1852 Act by publishing, in 1830 and 1833, pamphlets suggesting reform of the Patent Law.In the early 1820s Roberts helped to establish the Manchester Mechanics' Institute, and in 1823 he was elected a member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. He frequently contributed to their proceedings and in 1861 he was made an Honorary Member. He was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1838. From 1838 to 1843 he served as a councillor of the then-new Municipal Borough of Manchester. In his final years, without the assistance of business partners, Roberts suffered financial difficulties, and at the time of his death a fund for his aid was being raised.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember, Institution of Civil Engineers 1838.Further ReadingThere is no full-length biography of Richard Roberts but the best account is H.W.Dickinson, 1945–7, "Richard Roberts, his life and inventions", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 25:123–37.W.H.Chaloner, 1968–9, "New light on Richard Roberts, textile engineer (1789–1864)", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 41:27–44.RTS -
65 Staite, William Edwards
[br]b. 19 April 1809 Bristol, Englandd. 26 September 1854 Caen, France[br]English inventor who did much to popularize electric lighting in early Victorian England and demonstrated the first self-regulating arc lamp.[br]Before devoting the whole of his attention to the electric light, Staite was a partner in a business of iron merchants and patented a method of obtaining extracts and essences. From 1834 he attempted to produce a continuous light by electricity. The first public exhibition of Staite's arc lamp incorporating a fixed-rate clockwork mechanism was given in 1847 to the Sunderland Literary and Philosophical Society. He also demonstrated an incandescent lamp with an iridioplatinum filament. Sir Joseph Wilson Swan recorded that it was attending lectures by Staite in Sunderland, Newcastle and Carlisle that started him on the quest which many years later was to lead to his incandescent lamp.In association with William Petrie (1821–1904), Staite made an important advance in the development of arc lamps by introducing automatic regulation of the carbon rods by way of an electromagnet. This was the first of many self-regulating arc lamps that were invented during the nineteenth century employing this principle. A contributory factor in the success of Staite's lamp was the semi enclosure of the arc in a transparent vessel that reduced the consumption of carbons, a feature not used again until the 1890s. His patents included processes for preparing carbons and the construction of primary cells for arc lighting. An improved lamp used by Staite in a theatrical production at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, in April 1849 may be considered the first commercial success of the electric light in England. In spite of the limitations imposed by the use of primary cells as the only available source of power, serious interest in this system of electric lighting was shown by railway companies and dock authorities. However, after he had developed a satisfactory arc lamp, an end to these early experiments was brought about by Staite's death.[br]BibliographyJuly 1847, British patent no. 1,1783 (electromagnetic regulation of an arc lamp).His manuscript "History of electric light" is in the Institution of Electrical Engineers archives.Further ReadingJ.J.Fahie, 1902, "Staite and Petrie's electric light 1846–1853", Electrical Engineer 30:297–301, 337–40, 374–6 (a detailed reliable account).G.Woodward, 1989, "Staite and Petrie: pioneers of electric lighting", Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 136 (Part A): 290–6 GWBiographical history of technology > Staite, William Edwards
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66 Tainter, Charles Sumner
SUBJECT AREA: Recording[br]b. 1854d. 1940[br]American scientific instrument maker, co-developer of practical cylinder recording.[br]He manufactured "philosophical devices" in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was approached by Alexander Graham Bell in connection with the construction of toys using sound recordings. A more formal co-operation was agreed, and after Bell's receipt of the French Volta prize in 1880 he financed the Volta Laboratory Association in Washington, DC. He founded this in 1881 together with a cousin and Tainter to develop a practical sound-recording and -reproducing system. Another area that was developed was the transmission of sound by means of modulated light and reception via a selenium cell.The advances in sound recording and reproduction were very positive, and T.A. Edison was approached in mid-1885 in order to establish co-operation in the further development of a cylinder instrument. In early 1886 the Volta Graphophone Company was incorporated in Virginia, and an experimental laboratory was established in Washington, DC. The investors were connected with the secretarial services at the House of Representatives and needed the development for increasing efficiency in debate reporting. In mid-1887 Edison, against the advice of his collaborators, declined co-operation and went ahead on his own. There is no doubt that Tainter's skill in developing functional equipment and the speed with which he was able to work in the crucial years provoked other developments in the field, in particular the perfection of the Edison phonograph and the development of the disc record by Berliner.[br]BibliographyTainter's patents were numerous; those on sound recording were the most important, because they incorporated so many fundamental ideas, and included US patent no. 341, 214 (with C.A.Bell), and US patent no. 375, 579 (a complete dictation outfit).Further ReadingV.K.Chew, 1981, Talking Machines, London: Science Museum and HMSO, pp. 9–12 (provides a good overview, not only of Tainter's contribution, but also of early sound recording and reproduction).GB-NBiographical history of technology > Tainter, Charles Sumner
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