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  • 81 settle

    1. I
    1) the dust settled пыль улеглась; the weather has settled погода установилась; I'll wait until the class settles я подожду, пока класс успокоится; stand beer то settle дайте пиву отстояться; let coffee-grounds settle пусть кофе отстоится; the dregs settled and the wine was clear выпал осадок, и вино стало прозрачным
    2) the soil (the earth, the road bed, the grounds, etc.) settled почва и т.д. осела; the house settled дом дал осадку
    3) I can't make up my mind where to settle не могу решить, где мне обосноваться /поселяться/
    2. II
    3) settle in some manner I can't settle finally till I find a roomy house я не могу окончательно устроиться, пока не найду просторного дома
    3. III
    1) settle smth. settle the day (the date of one's return, the pattern of smth., the price, the time, etc.) договориться о дне и т.д., назначить день и т.д.; what have you settled? что вы решили?, о чем вы договорились?, на чем вы остановились?; settle the boundary (one's route. the existence or non-existence of smth., the succession to a throne, etc.) установить границу и т.д.; settle a problem (a matter, one's differences, a quarrel, an argument, etc.) урегулировать /улаживать, разрешать/ вопрос и т.д.; that '-в it (the matter, the question, etc.) это решает дело и т.д.; settle difficulties (smb.'s hesitations, smb.'s doubts, etc.) разрешать трудности и т.д.; settle smb.'s scruples успокоить чью-л. совесть; settle one's affairs приводить свои дела в порядок, улаживать свои дела; settle the future (the fate) of the country определить будущее (судьбу) страны
    2) settle smth. the rain settled the dust дождь прибил пыль; а good thunderstorm would settle the weather после хорошей грозы погода наладится; settle smb.'s nerves (a heated imagination, smb.'s thoughts, etc.) успокаивать чьи-л. нервы и т.д.; his words settled our fears его слова сняли наши страхи; it settled my stomach от этого у меня улеглась тошнота; settle smb. a sharp word will settle that youngster coll. резкое замечание приведет этого юнца в чувство; his argument settled his opponent его довод убедил противника /заставил противника согласиться/; that will settle her all right coll. это ей наука /урок/; I'll soon settle him! coll. погоди, я ему покажу!
    3) settle smth. settle Canada (Kent, Plymouth, etc.) заселить Канаду и т.д.; who first settled America? кто были первые поселенцы в Америке?
    4) settle smth. settle a bill /an account/ (a debt, a balance, etc.) оплатить счет и т.д., заплатить по счету и т.д.; that settles old scores теперь мы расквитались
    4. IV
    1) settle smth. in some manner settle smth. peacefully (privately, satisfactorily, traditionally, voluntarily, etc.) урегулировать /улаживать/ что-л. мирно / мирным путем/ и т.д.; settle a question once and for all разрешить вопрос раз и навсегда; settle it any way you like улаживайте это как хотите; settle the price quickly (immediately, etc.) быстро и т.д. договориться о цене
    2) settle smb. in some manner he quickly settled the crowd он быстро успокоил толпу
    3) settle smth. at some time settle smth. regularly (annually, etc.) регулярно и т.д. оплачивать что-л.: he settled his bills monthly он ежемесячно платил по счетам
    5. XI
    1) be settled in some manner be settled privately (satisfactorily, amicably, irrevocably, unalterably, etc.) решаться /улаживаться/ частным порядком и т.д.; the date (the price, the time, etc.) has not been settled yet дата и т.д. еще не установлена; there is nothing settled yet еще ничего не решено; it will be settled somehow это как-нибудь уладится; the affair is settled and done with дело окончательно решено [и с ним покончено]; your appointment is as good as settled ваше назначение фактически уже состоялось; the bargain has not yet been definitely settled сделка еще окончательно не заключена; the matter (the dispute) has been settled to the relief of everybody дело уладилось к всеобщему облегчению
    2) be settled in some place Englishmen were settled in Virginia англичане осели в Виргинии; we are settled in our new home мы уже устроились в нашем новом доме; be settled by /with / smb. Virginia was settled by /with/ Englishmen Виргинию заселили англичане; be settled in some manner these are sparcely settled regions это очень мало населенные районы;
    3) be settled all legitimate claims will be settled все законные требования будут удовлетворены; be settled at some time the account /the bill/ is not yet settled счет еще не оплачен
    4) be settled upon smb. the throne was settled upon his heirs трон был завещан его наследникам
    6. XIII
    settle to do smth. we had settled to start yesterday but were prevented мы решили /договорились/ выехать вчера, но нам помешали; settle what to say (what, to take, what is to be done, who plays who, etc.) решать /договариваться/, что сказать и т.д.
    7. XVI
    1) settle (up)on smth. settle upon the day of departure (on a time for leaving, on the terms of a contract, on a plan of action, etc.) договориться о дне отъезда и т.д.; what have you settled on? как вы договорились?, на чем порешили?; he helped me to settle on which car to buy он помог мне решить, какую выбрать машину; settle for smth. settle for a compromise пойти на компромисс; I would settle for t 100 меня устроят /я соглашусь на/ сто фунтов || settle out of court договориться /помириться/ до суда, не доводить дело до суда
    2) settle in some place settle in South Africa (in England, in London, in Australia, etc.) a) поселиться в Южной Африке и т.д.; б) заселить Южную Африку и т.д.; settle in the country (in town, on one's estate, on the land, in distant lands, etc.) поселиться /обосноваться/ в деревне и т.д.; settle in a cottage (in a new house, etc.) поселиться /устроиться/ в коттедже и т.д.
    3) settle on smth., smb. a bird settled on a bough (on a branch, on a tree, etc.) птичка села на ветку и т.д.; the show settled on the branches снег покрыл ветви [деревьев]; the last rays of the sun settled for a moment on the mountain peak последние лучи солнца на мгновение осветили вершину горы; the inflammation settled on his lungs у него воспаление легких; the cold has settled on my chest у меня заложило грудь; silence (gloom, darkness, etc.) settled on the wood тишина и т.д. окутала лес; despair settled on the crowd отчаяние охватило толпу
    4) settle to smth. settle to the bottom осесть на дно; wait until the tea leaves settle to the bottom подождите, пока чаинки не осядут на дно: the boat settled to the bottom of the river лодка затонула /погрузилась на дно реки/; settle out of smth. the solids will settle out of the liquid из жидкости выпадут твердые вещества [в виде осадка]
    5) settle to smth. settle to one's work (to dinner, to reading, etc.) приступить к работе и т.д., приняться за работу и т.д.; settle in /to/ smth. settle in the practice of law посвятить себя юриспруденции; at last he settled to trade наконец он остепенился и занялся торговлей
    6) settle for smb. will you settle for me? вы заплатите за меня?; settle with smb., smth. settle with one's creditors (with the bank, etc.) рассчитаться /расплатиться/ с кредиторами и т.д.; I have an account to settle with you я должен с вами рассчитаться; settle with smb. for smth. I told you that I should settle with you for your cruelty! я говорил вам, что рассчитаюсь с вами за вашу жестокость!
    8. XXI1
    1) settle smth. among /between /smb. settle the matter among /between/ ourselves уладить /урегулировать/ дело между собой; settle smth. by smth. settle the issue by vote решать спорный вопрос голосованием; settle a controversy by mutual concession решать спор при помощи взаимных уступок; settle smth. upon (in, etc.) smth. settle the matter upon a sound basis решать вопрос на разумной основе; settle a thing in one's heart решить что-л. в душе || settle the matter out of court решить /не доводить/ дело до суда
    2) settle smth. with smb. settle Australia with English people (this colony with army veterans, Ulster with families from Scotland, etc.) заселять Австралию англичанами и т.д.; settle smb. in some place settle them in urban area размещать /расселять/ их в городских районах; she went to settle her son in his new quarters она поехала устраивать сына на новом-месте
    3) settle smb., smth. in (to) (on, under, etc.) smth. settle her into a chair (on a seat, in a corner, in the saddle, on pillows, under the shade of a tree, etc.) [удобно] устраивать ее в кресле /усаживать ее в кресло/ и т.д.; settle the plant's roots well into the ground посадить корни глубоко в землю; settle one's hat on one's head натянуть шапку на голову; settle smth. in smth. settle one's feet in the stirrups вдеть ноги в стремена; settle smb. for smth. settle a invalid (a child) for the night устроить больного (ребенка) на ночь; she settled herself for a nap она уселась /устроилась/ поудобнее, чтобы вздремнуть; settle smb. to smth. she settled herself to her work она уселась /устроилась/ и принялась за работу
    4) settle smth. (up)on smb. settle one's property (all one's money, one's estate, an annuity, etc.) (up)on smb. завещать всю собственность и т.д. кому-л.; her husband settled quite a sum on her муж обеспечил ее крупной суммой (денег)
    5) settle smb. in smth. settle one's son (a young man, etc.) in business (in trade. etc.) пристроить своего сына и т.д. к делу и т.д.; settle smb. by smth. settle a daughter by marriage устроить дочь, выдав ее замуж
    6) settle smth. with smb., smth. settle accounts with smb. (the bill with the hotel, etc.) платить кому-л. по счету и т.д.

    English-Russian dictionary of verb phrases > settle

  • 82 Chaudron, Joseph

    [br]
    b. 29 November 1822 Gosselies, Belgium
    d. 16 January 1905 Auderghem, Belgium
    [br]
    Belgian mining engineer, pioneer in boring shafts.
    [br]
    In 1842, as a graduate of the Ecole des Mines in Liège, he became a member of the Belgian Corps Royal des Mines, which he left ten years later as Chief Engineer. By that time he had become decisively influential in the Société Anglo-Belge des Mines du Rhin, founded in 1848. After it became the Gelsenkirchen-based Bergwerkgesellschaft Dahlbusch in 1873, he became President of its Board of Directors and remained in this position until his death. Thanks to his outstanding technical and financial abilities, the company developed into one of the largest in the Ruhr coal district.
    When K.G. Kind practised his shaft-boring for the company in the early 1850s but did not overcome the difficulty of making the bottom of the bore-hole watertight, Chaudron joined forces with him to solve the problem and constructed a rotary heading which was made watertight with a box stuffed with moss; rings of iron tubing were placed on this as the sinking progressed, effectively blocking off the aquiferous strata as a result of the hydrostatic pressure which helped support the weight of the tubing until it was secured permanently. The Kind-Chaudron system of boring shafts in the full section marked an important advance upon existing methods, and was completely applied for the first time at a coalmine near Mons, Belgium, in 1854–6. In Brussels Chaudron and Kind founded the Société de Fonçage par le Procédé Kind et Chaudron in 1854, and Chaudron was granted a patent the next year. Foreign patents followed and the Kind-Chaudron system was the one most frequently applied in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Altogether, under Chaudron's control, there were more than eighty shafts sunk in wet strata in Germany, Belgium, France and England.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1853–4, "Notice sur le procédé inventé par l'ingénieur Kind, pour l"établissement des puits de mines', Annales des travaux publics de Belgique 12:327–38.
    1862, "Über die nach dem Kindschen Erdbohrverfahren in Belgien ausgefùhrten Schachtbohrarbeiten", Berg-und Hüttenmännische Zeitschrift 21:402−7, 419−21, 444−7.
    1867, "Notice sur les travaux exécutés en France, en Belgique et en Westphalie de 1862– 1867", Annales des travaux publics de Belgique 25: 136–45.
    1872, "Remplacement d'un cuvelage en bois par un cuvelage en fonte", Annales des
    travaux publics de Belgique 30:77–91.
    Further Reading
    D.Hoffmann, 1962, Acht Jahrzehnte Gefrierverfahren nachPötsch, Essen, pp. 12–18 (evaluates the Kind-Chaudron system as a new era).
    W.Kesten, 1952, Geschichte der Bergwerksgesellschaft Dahlbusch, Essen (gives a delineation of the mining company's flourishing as well as the technical measures under his influence).
    T.Tecklenburg, 1914, Handbuch der Tiefbohrkunde, 2nd edn, Vol VI, Berlin, pp. 39–58 (provides a detailed description of Chaudron's tubing).
    WK

    Biographical history of technology > Chaudron, Joseph

  • 83 Harrison, John

    [br]
    b. 24 March 1693 Foulby, Yorkshire, England
    d. 24 March 1776 London, England
    [br]
    English horologist who constructed the first timekeeper of sufficient accuracy to determine longitude at sea and invented the gridiron pendulum for temperature compensation.
    [br]
    John Harrison was the son of a carpenter and was brought up to that trade. He was largely self-taught and learned mechanics from a copy of Nicholas Saunderson's lectures that had been lent to him. With the assistance of his younger brother, James, he built a series of unconventional clocks, mainly of wood. He was always concerned to reduce friction, without using oil, and this influenced the design of his "grasshopper" escapement. He also invented the "gridiron" compensation pendulum, which depended on the differential expansion of brass and steel. The excellent performance of his regulator clocks, which incorporated these devices, convinced him that they could also be used in a sea dock to compete for the longitude prize. In 1714 the Government had offered a prize of £20,000 for a method of determining longitude at sea to within half a degree after a voyage to the West Indies. In theory the longitude could be found by carrying an accurate timepiece that would indicate the time at a known longitude, but the requirements of the Act were very exacting. The timepiece would have to have a cumulative error of no more than two minutes after a voyage lasting six weeks.
    In 1730 Harrison went to London with his proposal for a sea clock, supported by examples of his grasshopper escapement and his gridiron pendulum. His proposal received sufficient encouragement and financial support, from George Graham and others, to enable him to return to Barrow and construct his first sea clock, which he completed five years later. This was a large and complicated machine that was made out of brass but retained the wooden wheelwork and the grasshopper escapement of the regulator clocks. The two balances were interlinked to counteract the rolling of the vessel and were controlled by helical springs operating in tension. It was the first timepiece with a balance to have temperature compensation. The effect of temperature change on the timekeeping of a balance is more pronounced than it is for a pendulum, as two effects are involved: the change in the size of the balance; and the change in the elasticity of the balance spring. Harrison compensated for both effects by using a gridiron arrangement to alter the tension in the springs. This timekeeper performed creditably when it was tested on a voyage to Lisbon, and the Board of Longitude agreed to finance improved models. Harrison's second timekeeper dispensed with the use of wood and had the added refinement of a remontoire, but even before it was tested he had embarked on a third machine. The balance of this machine was controlled by a spiral spring whose effective length was altered by a bimetallic strip to compensate for changes in temperature. In 1753 Harrison commissioned a London watchmaker, John Jefferys, to make a watch for his own personal use, with a similar form of temperature compensation and a modified verge escapement that was intended to compensate for the lack of isochronism of the balance spring. The time-keeping of this watch was surprisingly good and Harrison proceeded to build a larger and more sophisticated version, with a remontoire. This timekeeper was completed in 1759 and its performance was so remarkable that Harrison decided to enter it for the longitude prize in place of his third machine. It was tested on two voyages to the West Indies and on both occasions it met the requirements of the Act, but the Board of Longitude withheld half the prize money until they had proof that the timekeeper could be duplicated. Copies were made by Harrison and by Larcum Kendall, but the Board still continued to prevaricate and Harrison received the full amount of the prize in 1773 only after George III had intervened on his behalf.
    Although Harrison had shown that it was possible to construct a timepiece of sufficient accuracy to determine longitude at sea, his solution was too complex and costly to be produced in quantity. It had, for example, taken Larcum Kendall two years to produce his copy of Harrison's fourth timekeeper, but Harrison had overcome the psychological barrier and opened the door for others to produce chronometers in quantity at an affordable price. This was achieved before the end of the century by Arnold and Earnshaw, but they used an entirely different design that owed more to Le Roy than it did to Harrison and which only retained Harrison's maintaining power.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Royal Society Copley Medal 1749.
    Bibliography
    1767, The Principles of Mr Harrison's Time-keeper, with Plates of the Same, London. 1767, Remarks on a Pamphlet Lately Published by the Rev. Mr Maskelyne Under the
    Authority of the Board of Longitude, London.
    1775, A Description Concerning Such Mechanisms as Will Afford a Nice or True Mensuration of Time, London.
    Further Reading
    R.T.Gould, 1923, The Marine Chronometer: Its History and Development, London; reprinted 1960, Holland Press.
    —1978, John Harrison and His Timekeepers, 4th edn, London: National Maritime Museum.
    H.Quill, 1966, John Harrison, the Man who Found Longitude, London. A.G.Randall, 1989, "The technology of John Harrison's portable timekeepers", Antiquarian Horology 18:145–60, 261–77.
    J.Betts, 1993, John Harrison London (a good short account of Harrison's work). S.Smiles, 1905, Men of Invention and Industry; London: John Murray, Chapter III. Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. IX, pp. 35–6.
    DV

    Biographical history of technology > Harrison, John

  • 84 Jessop, William

    [br]
    b. 23 January 1745 Plymouth, England
    d. 18 November 1814
    [br]
    English engineer engaged in river, canal and dock construction.
    [br]
    William Jessop inherited from his father a natural ability in engineering, and because of his father's association with John Smeaton in the construction of Eddystone Lighthouse he was accepted by Smeaton as a pupil in 1759 at the age of 14. Smeaton was so impressed with his ability that Jessop was retained as an assistant after completion of his pupilage in 1767. As such he carried out field-work, making surveys on his own, but in 1772 he was recommended to the Aire and Calder Committee as an independent engineer and his first personally prepared report was made on the Haddlesey Cut, Selby Canal. It was in this report that he gave his first evidence before a Parliamentary Committee. He later became Resident Engineer on the Selby Canal, and soon after he was elected to the Smeatonian Society of Engineers, of which he later became Secretary for twenty years. Meanwhile he accompanied Smeaton to Ireland to advise on the Grand Canal, ultimately becoming Consulting Engineer until 1802, and was responsible for Ringsend Docks, which connected the canal to the Liffey and were opened in 1796. From 1783 to 1787 he advised on improvements to the River Trent, and his ability was so recognized that it made his reputation. From then on he was consulted on the Cromford Canal (1789–93), the Leicester Navigation (1791–4) and the Grantham Canal (1793–7); at the same time he was Chief Engineer of the Grand Junction Canal from 1793 to 1797 and then Consulting Engineer until 1805. He also engineered the Barnsley and Rochdale Canals. In fact, there were few canals during this period on which he was not consulted. It has now been established that Jessop carried the responsibility for the Pont-Cysyllte Aqueduct in Wales and also prepared the estimates for the Caledonian Canal in 1804. In 1792 he became a partner in the Butterley ironworks and thus became interested in railways. He proposed the Surrey Iron Railway in 1799 and prepared for the estimates; the line was built and opened in 1805. He was also the Engineer for the 10 mile (16 km) long Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, the Act for which was obtained in 1808 and was the first Act for a public railway in Scotland. Jessop's advice was sought on drainage works between 1785 and 1802 in the lowlands of the Isle of Axholme, Holderness, the Norfolk Marshlands, and the Axe and Brue area of the Somerset Levels. He was also consulted on harbour and dock improvements. These included Hull (1793), Portsmouth (1796), Folkestone (1806) and Sunderland (1807), but his greatest dock works were the West India Docks in London and the Floating Harbour at Bristol. He was Consulting Engineer to the City of London Corporation from 1796to 1799, drawing up plans for docks on the Isle of Dogs in 1796; in February 1800 he was appointed Engineer, and three years later, in September 1803, he was appointed Engineer to the Bristol Floating Harbour. Jessop was regarded as the leading civil engineer in the country from 1785 until 1806. He died following a stroke in 1814.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    C.Hadfield and A.W.Skempton, 1979, William Jessop. Engineer, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.
    JHB

    Biographical history of technology > Jessop, William

  • 85 Lister, Samuel Cunliffe, 1st Baron Masham

    SUBJECT AREA: Textiles
    [br]
    b. 1 January 1815 Calverly Hall, Bradford, England
    d. 2 February 1906 Swinton Park, near Bradford, England
    [br]
    English inventor of successful wool-combing and waste-silk spinning machines.
    [br]
    Lister was descended from one of the old Yorkshire families, the Cunliffe Listers of Manningham, and was the fourth son of his father Ellis. After attending a school on Clapham Common, Lister would not go to university; his family hoped he would enter the Church, but instead he started work with the Liverpool merchants Sands, Turner \& Co., who frequently sent him to America. In 1837 his father built for him and his brother a worsted mill at Manningham, where Samuel invented a swivel shuttle and a machine for making fringes on shawls. It was here that he first became aware of the unhealthy occupation of combing wool by hand. Four years later, after seeing the machine that G.E. Donisthorpe was trying to work out, he turned his attention to mechanizing wool-combing. Lister took Donisthorpe into partnership after paying him £12,000 for his patent, and developed the Lister-Cartwright "square nip" comber. Until this time, combing machines were little different from Cartwright's original, but Lister was able to improve on this with continuous operation and by 1843 was combing the first fine botany wool that had ever been combed by machinery. In the following year he received an order for fifty machines to comb all qualities of wool. Further combing patents were taken out with Donisthorpe in 1849, 1850, 1851 and 1852, the last two being in Lister's name only. One of the important features of these patents was the provision of a gripping device or "nip" which held the wool fibres at one end while the rest of the tuft was being combed. Lister was soon running nine combing mills. In the 1850s Lister had become involved in disputes with others who held combing patents, such as his associate Isaac Holden and the Frenchman Josué Heilmann. Lister bought up the Heilmann machine patents and afterwards other types until he obtained a complete monopoly of combing machines before the patents expired. His invention stimulated demand for wool by cheapening the product and gave a vital boost to the Australian wool trade. By 1856 he was at the head of a wool-combing business such as had never been seen before, with mills at Manningham, Bradford, Halifax, Keighley and other places in the West Riding, as well as abroad.
    His inventive genius also extended to other fields. In 1848 he patented automatic compressed air brakes for railways, and in 1853 alone he took out twelve patents for various textile machines. He then tried to spin waste silk and made a second commercial career, turning what was called "chassum" and hitherto regarded as refuse into beautiful velvets, silks, plush and other fine materials. Waste silk consisted of cocoon remnants from the reeling process, damaged cocoons and fibres rejected from other processes. There was also wild silk obtained from uncultivated worms. This is what Lister saw in a London warehouse as a mass of knotty, dirty, impure stuff, full of bits of stick and dead mulberry leaves, which he bought for a halfpenny a pound. He spent ten years trying to solve the problems, but after a loss of £250,000 and desertion by his partner his machine caught on in 1865 and brought Lister another fortune. Having failed to comb this waste silk, Lister turned his attention to the idea of "dressing" it and separating the qualities automatically. He patented a machine in 1877 that gave a graduated combing. To weave his new silk, he imported from Spain to Bradford, together with its inventor Jose Reixach, a velvet loom that was still giving trouble. It wove two fabrics face to face, but the problem lay in separating the layers so that the pile remained regular in length. Eventually Lister was inspired by watching a scissors grinder in the street to use small emery wheels to sharpen the cutters that divided the layers of fabric. Lister took out several patents for this loom in his own name in 1868 and 1869, while in 1871 he took out one jointly with Reixach. It is said that he spent £29,000 over an eleven-year period on this loom, but this was more than recouped from the sale of reasonably priced high-quality velvets and plushes once success was achieved. Manningham mills were greatly enlarged to accommodate this new manufacture.
    In later years Lister had an annual profit from his mills of £250,000, much of which was presented to Bradford city in gifts such as Lister Park, the original home of the Listers. He was connected with the Bradford Chamber of Commerce for many years and held the position of President of the Fair Trade League for some time. In 1887 he became High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and in 1891 he was made 1st Baron Masham. He was also Deputy Lieutenant in North and West Riding.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Created 1st Baron Masham 1891.
    Bibliography
    1849, with G.E.Donisthorpe, British patent no. 12,712. 1850, with G.E. Donisthorpe, British patent no. 13,009. 1851, British patent no. 13,532.
    1852, British patent no. 14,135.
    1877, British patent no. 3,600 (combing machine). 1868, British patent no. 470.
    1868, British patent no. 2,386.
    1868, British patent no. 2,429.
    1868, British patent no. 3,669.
    1868, British patent no. 1,549.
    1871, with J.Reixach, British patent no. 1,117. 1905, Lord Masham's Inventions (autobiography).
    Further Reading
    J.Hogg (ed.), c. 1888, Fortunes Made in Business, London (biography).
    W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London; and C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of Technology, Vol. IV, Oxford: Clarendon Press (both cover the technical details of Lister's invention).
    RLH

    Biographical history of technology > Lister, Samuel Cunliffe, 1st Baron Masham

  • 86 Shortt, William Hamilton

    SUBJECT AREA: Horology
    [br]
    b. 28 September 1881
    d. 4 February 1971
    [br]
    British railway engineer and amateur horologist who designed the first successful free-pendulum clock.
    [br]
    Shortt entered the Engineering Department of the London and South Western Railway as an engineering cadet in 1902, remaining with the company and its successors until he retired in 1946. He became interested in precision horology in 1908, when he designed an instrument for recording the speed of trains; this led to a long and fruitful collaboration with Frank HopeJones, the proprietor of the Synchronome Company. This association culminated in the installation of a free-pendulum clock, with an accuracy of the order of one second per year, at Edinburgh Observatory in 1921. The clock's performance was far better than that of existing clocks, such as the Riefler, and a slightly modified version was produced commercially by the Synchronome Company. These clocks provided the time standard at Greenwich and many other observatories and scientific institutions across the world until they were supplanted by the quartz clock.
    The period of a pendulum is constant if it swings freely with a constant amplitude in a vacuum. However, this ideal state cannot be achieved in a clock because the pendulum must be impulsed to maintain its amplitude and the swings have to be counted to indicate time. The free-pendulum clock is an attempt to approach this ideal as closely as possible. In 1898 R.J. Rudd used a slave clock, synchronized with a free pendulum, to time the impulses delivered to the free pendulum. This clock was not successful, but it provided the inspiration for Shortt's clock, which operates on the same principle. The Shortt clock used a standard Synchronome electric clock as the slave, and its pendulum was kept in step with the free pendulum by means of the "hit and miss" synchronizer that Shortt had patented in 1921. This allowed the pendulum to swing freely (in a vacuum), apart from the fraction of a second in which it received an impulse each half-minute.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Master of the Clockmakers' Company 1950. British Horological Society Gold Medal 1931. Clockmakers' Company Tompion Medal 1954. Franklin Institute John Price Wetherill Silver Medal.
    Bibliography
    1929, "Some experimental mechanisms, mechanical and otherwise, for the maintenance of vibration of a pendulum", Horological Journal 71:224–5.
    Further Reading
    F.Hope-Jones, 1949, Electrical Timekeeping, 2nd edn, London (a detailed but not entirely impartial account of the development of the free-pendulum clock).
    DV

    Biographical history of technology > Shortt, William Hamilton

  • 87 Education

       In Portugal's early history, education was firmly under the control of the Catholic Church. The earliest schools were located in cathedrals and monasteries and taught a small number of individuals destined for ecclesiastical office. In 1290, a university was established by King Dinis (1261-1325) in Lisbon, but was moved to Coimbra in 1308, where it remained. Coimbra University, Portugal's oldest, and once its most prestigious, was the educational cradle of Portugal's leadership. From 1555 until the 18th century, primary and secondary education was provided by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The Catholic Church's educational monopoly was broken when the Marquis of Pombal expelled the Jesuits in 1759 and created the basis for Portugal's present system of public, secular primary and secondary schools. Pombal introduced vocational training, created hundreds of teaching posts, added departments of mathematics and natural sciences at Coimbra University, and established an education tax to pay for them.
       During the 19th century, liberals attempted to reform Portugal's educational system, which was highly elitist and emphasized rote memorization and respect for authority, hierarchy, and discipline.
       Reforms initiated in 1822, 1835, and 1844 were never actualized, however, and education remained unchanged until the early 20th century. After the overthrow of the monarchy on the Fifth of October 1910 by Republican military officers, efforts to reform Portugal's educational system were renewed. New universities were founded in Lisbon and Oporto, a Ministry of Education was established, and efforts were made to increase literacy (illiteracy rates being 80 percent) and to resecularize educational content by introducing more scientific and empirical methods into the curriculum.
       Such efforts were ended during the military dictatorship (192632), which governed Portugal until the establishment of the Estado Novo (1926-74). Although a new technical university was founded in Lisbon in 1930, little was done during the Estado Novo to modernize education or to reduce illiteracy. Only in 1964 was compulsory primary education made available for children between the ages of 6 and 12.
       The Revolution of 25 April 1974 disrupted Portugal's educational system. For a period of time after the Revolution, students, faculty, and administrators became highly politicized as socialists, communists, and other groups attempted to gain control of the schools. During the 1980s, as Portuguese politics moderated, the educational system was gradually depoliticized, greater emphasis was placed on learning, and efforts were made to improve the quality of Portuguese schools.
       Primary education in Portugal consists of four years in the primary (first) cycle and two years in the preparatory, or second, cycle. The preparatory cycle is intended for children going on to secondary education. Secondary education is roughly equivalent to junior and senior high schools in the United States. It consists of three years of a common curriculum and two years of complementary courses (10th and 11th grades). A final year (12th grade) prepares students to take university entrance examinations.
       Vocational education was introduced in 1983. It consists of a three-year course in a particular skill after the 11th grade of secondary school.
       Higher education is provided by the four older universities (Lisbon, Coimbra, Oporto, and the Technical University of Lisbon), as well as by six newer universities, one in Lisbon and the others in Minho, Aveiro, Évora, the Algarve, and the Azores. There is also a private Catholic university in Lisbon. Admission to Portuguese universities is highly competitive, and places are limited. About 10 percent of secondary students go on to university education. The average length of study at the university is five years, after which students receive their licentiate. The professoriate has four ranks (professors, associate professors, lecturers, and assistants). Professors have tenure, while the other ranks teach on contract.
       As Portugal is a unitary state, the educational system is highly centralized. All public primary and secondary schools, universities, and educational institutes are under the purview of the Ministry of Education, and all teachers and professors are included in the civil service and receive pay and pension like other civil servants. The Ministry of Education hires teachers, determines curriculum, sets policy, and pays for the building and upkeep of schools. Local communities have little say in educational matters.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Education

  • 88 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom

    [br]
    b. 9 April 1806 Portsea, Hampshire, England
    d. 15 September 1859 18 Duke Street, St James's, London, England
    [br]
    English civil and mechanical engineer.
    [br]
    The son of Marc Isambard Brunel and Sophia Kingdom, he was educated at a private boarding-school in Hove. At the age of 14 he went to the College of Caen and then to the Lycée Henri-Quatre in Paris, after which he was apprenticed to Louis Breguet. In 1822 he returned from France and started working in his father's office, while spending much of his time at the works of Maudslay, Sons \& Field.
    From 1825 to 1828 he worked under his father on the construction of the latter's Thames Tunnel, occupying the position of Engineer-in-Charge, exhibiting great courage and presence of mind in the emergencies which occurred not infrequently. These culminated in January 1828 in the flooding of the tunnel and work was suspended for seven years. For the next five years the young engineer made abortive attempts to find a suitable outlet for his talents, but to little avail. Eventually, in 1831, his design for a suspension bridge over the River Avon at Clifton Gorge was accepted and he was appointed Engineer. (The bridge was eventually finished five years after Brunel's death, as a memorial to him, the delay being due to inadequate financing.) He next planned and supervised improvements to the Bristol docks. In March 1833 he was appointed Engineer of the Bristol Railway, later called the Great Western Railway. He immediately started to survey the route between London and Bristol that was completed by late August that year. On 5 July 1836 he married Mary Horsley and settled into 18 Duke Street, Westminster, London, where he also had his office. Work on the Bristol Railway started in 1836. The foundation stone of the Clifton Suspension Bridge was laid the same year. Whereas George Stephenson had based his standard railway gauge as 4 ft 8½ in (1.44 m), that or a similar gauge being usual for colliery wagonways in the Newcastle area, Brunel adopted the broader gauge of 7 ft (2.13 m). The first stretch of the line, from Paddington to Maidenhead, was opened to traffic on 4 June 1838, and the whole line from London to Bristol was opened in June 1841. The continuation of the line through to Exeter was completed and opened on 1 May 1844. The normal time for the 194-mile (312 km) run from Paddington to Exeter was 5 hours, at an average speed of 38.8 mph (62.4 km/h) including stops. The Great Western line included the Box Tunnel, the longest tunnel to that date at nearly two miles (3.2 km).
    Brunel was the engineer of most of the railways in the West Country, in South Wales and much of Southern Ireland. As railway networks developed, the frequent break of gauge became more of a problem and on 9 July 1845 a Royal Commission was appointed to look into it. In spite of comparative tests, run between Paddington-Didcot and Darlington-York, which showed in favour of Brunel's arrangement, the enquiry ruled in favour of the narrow gauge, 274 miles (441 km) of the former having been built against 1,901 miles (3,059 km) of the latter to that date. The Gauge Act of 1846 forbade the building of any further railways in Britain to any gauge other than 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1.44 m).
    The existence of long and severe gradients on the South Devon Railway led to Brunel's adoption of the atmospheric railway developed by Samuel Clegg and later by the Samuda brothers. In this a pipe of 9 in. (23 cm) or more in diameter was laid between the rails, along the top of which ran a continuous hinged flap of leather backed with iron. At intervals of about 3 miles (4.8 km) were pumping stations to exhaust the pipe. Much trouble was experienced with the flap valve and its lubrication—freezing of the leather in winter, the lubricant being sucked into the pipe or eaten by rats at other times—and the experiment was abandoned at considerable cost.
    Brunel is to be remembered for his two great West Country tubular bridges, the Chepstow and the Tamar Bridge at Saltash, with the latter opened in May 1859, having two main spans of 465 ft (142 m) and a central pier extending 80 ft (24 m) below high water mark and allowing 100 ft (30 m) of headroom above the same. His timber viaducts throughout Devon and Cornwall became a feature of the landscape. The line was extended ultimately to Penzance.
    As early as 1835 Brunel had the idea of extending the line westwards across the Atlantic from Bristol to New York by means of a steamship. In 1836 building commenced and the hull left Bristol in July 1837 for fitting out at Wapping. On 31 March 1838 the ship left again for Bristol but the boiler lagging caught fire and Brunel was injured in the subsequent confusion. On 8 April the ship set sail for New York (under steam), its rival, the 703-ton Sirius, having left four days earlier. The 1,340-ton Great Western arrived only a few hours after the Sirius. The hull was of wood, and was copper-sheathed. In 1838 Brunel planned a larger ship, some 3,000 tons, the Great Britain, which was to have an iron hull.
    The Great Britain was screwdriven and was launched on 19 July 1843,289 ft (88 m) long by 51 ft (15.5 m) at its widest. The ship's first voyage, from Liverpool to New York, began on 26 August 1845. In 1846 it ran aground in Dundrum Bay, County Down, and was later sold for use on the Australian run, on which it sailed no fewer than thirty-two times in twenty-three years, also serving as a troop-ship in the Crimean War. During this war, Brunel designed a 1,000-bed hospital which was shipped out to Renkioi ready for assembly and complete with shower-baths and vapour-baths with printed instructions on how to use them, beds and bedding and water closets with a supply of toilet paper! Brunel's last, largest and most extravagantly conceived ship was the Great Leviathan, eventually named The Great Eastern, which had a double-skinned iron hull, together with both paddles and screw propeller. Brunel designed the ship to carry sufficient coal for the round trip to Australia without refuelling, thus saving the need for and the cost of bunkering, as there were then few bunkering ports throughout the world. The ship's construction was started by John Scott Russell in his yard at Millwall on the Thames, but the building was completed by Brunel due to Russell's bankruptcy in 1856. The hull of the huge vessel was laid down so as to be launched sideways into the river and then to be floated on the tide. Brunel's plan for hydraulic launching gear had been turned down by the directors on the grounds of cost, an economy that proved false in the event. The sideways launch with over 4,000 tons of hydraulic power together with steam winches and floating tugs on the river took over two months, from 3 November 1857 until 13 January 1858. The ship was 680 ft (207 m) long, 83 ft (25 m) beam and 58 ft (18 m) deep; the screw was 24 ft (7.3 m) in diameter and paddles 60 ft (18.3 m) in diameter. Its displacement was 32,000 tons (32,500 tonnes).
    The strain of overwork and the huge responsibilities that lay on Brunel began to tell. He was diagnosed as suffering from Bright's disease, or nephritis, and spent the winter travelling in the Mediterranean and Egypt, returning to England in May 1859. On 5 September he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed, and he died ten days later at his Duke Street home.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    L.T.C.Rolt, 1957, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, London: Longmans Green. J.Dugan, 1953, The Great Iron Ship, Hamish Hamilton.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Brunel, Isambard Kingdom

  • 89 Paul, Robert William

    [br]
    b. 3 October 1869 Highbury, London, England
    d. 28 March 1943 London, England
    [br]
    English scientific instrument maker, inventor of the Unipivot electrical measuring instrument, and pioneer of cinematography.
    [br]
    Paul was educated at the City of London School and Finsbury Technical College. He worked first for a short time in the Bell Telephone Works in Antwerp, Belgium, and then in the electrical instrument shop of Elliott Brothers in the Strand until 1891, when he opened an instrument-making business at 44 Hatton Garden, London. He specialized in the design and manufacture of electrical instruments, including the Ayrton Mather galvanometer. In 1902, with a purpose-built factory, he began large batch production of his instruments. He also opened a factory in New York, where uncalibrated instruments from England were calibrated for American customers. In 1903 Paul introduced the Unipivot galvanometer, in which the coil was supported at the centre of gravity of the moving system on a single pivot. The pivotal friction was less than in a conventional instrument and could be used without accurate levelling, the sensitivity being far beyond that of any pivoted galvanometer then in existence.
    In 1894 Paul was asked by two entrepreneurs to make copies of Edison's kinetoscope, the pioneering peep-show moving-picture viewer, which had just arrived in London. Discovering that Edison had omitted to patent the machine in England, and observing that there was considerable demand for the machine from show-people, he began production, making six before the end of the year. Altogether, he made about sixty-six units, some of which were exported. Although Edison's machine was not patented, his films were certainly copyrighted, so Paul now needed a cinematographic camera to make new subjects for his customers. Early in 1895 he came into contact with Birt Acres, who was also working on the design of a movie camera. Acres's design was somewhat impractical, but Paul constructed a working model with which Acres filmed the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race on 30 March, and the Derby at Epsom on 29 May. Paul was unhappy with the inefficient design, and developed a new intermittent mechanism based on the principle of the Maltese cross. Despite having signed a ten-year agreement with Paul, Acres split with him on 12 July 1895, after having unilaterally patented their original camera design on 27 May. By the early weeks of 1896, Paul had developed a projector mechanism that also used the Maltese cross and which he demonstrated at the Finsbury Technical College on 20 February 1896. His Theatrograph was intended for sale, and was shown in a number of venues in London during March, notably at the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square. There the renamed Animatographe was used to show, among other subjects, the Derby of 1896, which was won by the Prince of Wales's horse "Persimmon" and the film of which was shown the next day to enthusiastic crowds. The production of films turned out to be quite profitable: in the first year of the business, from March 1896, Paul made a net profit of £12,838 on a capital outlay of about £1,000. By the end of the year there were at least five shows running in London that were using Paul's projectors and screening films made by him or his staff.
    Paul played a major part in establishing the film business in England through his readiness to sell apparatus at a time when most of his rivals reserved their equipment for sole exploitation. He went on to become a leading producer of films, specializing in trick effects, many of which he pioneered. He was affectionately known in the trade as "Daddy Paul", truly considered to be the "father" of the British film industry. He continued to appreciate fully the possibilities of cinematography for scientific work, and in collaboration with Professor Silvanus P.Thompson films were made to illustrate various phenomena to students.
    Paul ended his involvement with film making in 1910 to concentrate on his instrument business; on his retirement in 1920, this was amalgamated with the Cambridge Instrument Company. In his will he left shares valued at over £100,000 to form the R.W.Paul Instrument Fund, to be administered by the Institution of Electrical Engineers, of which he had been a member since 1887. The fund was to provide instruments of an unusual nature to assist physical research.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Fellow of the Physical Society 1920. Institution of Electrical Engineers Duddell Medal 1938.
    Bibliography
    17 March 1903, British patent no. 6,113 (the Unipivot instrument).
    1931, "Some electrical instruments at the Faraday Centenary Exhibition 1931", Journal of Scientific Instruments 8:337–48.
    Further Reading
    Obituary, 1943, Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 90(1):540–1. P.Dunsheath, 1962, A History of Electrical Engineering, London: Faber \& Faber, pp.
    308–9 (for a brief account of the Unipivot instrument).
    John Barnes, 1976, The Beginnings of Cinema in Britain, London. Brian Coe, 1981, The History of Movie Photography, London.
    BC / GW

    Biographical history of technology > Paul, Robert William

  • 90 Creativity

       Put in this bald way, these aims sound utopian. How utopian they areor rather, how imminent their realization-depends on how broadly or narrowly we interpret the term "creative." If we are willing to regard all human complex problem solving as creative, then-as we will point out-successful programs for problem solving mechanisms that simulate human problem solvers already exist, and a number of their general characteristics are known. If we reserve the term "creative" for activities like discovery of the special theory of relativity or the composition of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, then no example of a creative mechanism exists at the present time. (Simon, 1979, pp. 144-145)
       Among the questions that can now be given preliminary answers in computational terms are the following: how can ideas from very different sources be spontaneously thought of together? how can two ideas be merged to produce a new structure, which shows the influence of both ancestor ideas without being a mere "cut-and-paste" combination? how can the mind be "primed," so that one will more easily notice serendipitous ideas? why may someone notice-and remember-something fairly uninteresting, if it occurs in an interesting context? how can a brief phrase conjure up an entire melody from memory? and how can we accept two ideas as similar ("love" and "prove" as rhyming, for instance) in respect of a feature not identical in both? The features of connectionist AI models that suggest answers to these questions are their powers of pattern completion, graceful degradation, sensitization, multiple constraint satisfaction, and "best-fit" equilibration.... Here, the important point is that the unconscious, "insightful," associative aspects of creativity can be explained-in outline, at least-by AI methods. (Boden, 1996, p. 273)
       There thus appears to be an underlying similarity in the process involved in creative innovation and social independence, with common traits and postures required for expression of both behaviors. The difference is one of product-literary, musical, artistic, theoretical products on the one hand, opinions on the other-rather than one of process. In both instances the individual must believe that his perceptions are meaningful and valid and be willing to rely upon his own interpretations. He must trust himself sufficiently that even when persons express opinions counter to his own he can proceed on the basis of his own perceptions and convictions. (Coopersmith, 1967, p. 58)
       he average level of ego strength and emotional stability is noticeably higher among creative geniuses than among the general population, though it is possibly lower than among men of comparable intelligence and education who go into administrative and similar positions. High anxiety and excitability appear common (e.g. Priestley, Darwin, Kepler) but full-blown neurosis is quite rare. (Cattell & Butcher, 1970, p. 315)
       he insight that is supposed to be required for such work as discovery turns out to be synonymous with the familiar process of recognition; and other terms commonly used in the discussion of creative work-such terms as "judgment," "creativity," or even "genius"-appear to be wholly dispensable or to be definable, as insight is, in terms of mundane and well-understood concepts. (Simon, 1989, p. 376)
       From the sketch material still in existence, from the condition of the fragments, and from the autographs themselves we can draw definite conclusions about Mozart's creative process. To invent musical ideas he did not need any stimulation; they came to his mind "ready-made" and in polished form. In contrast to Beethoven, who made numerous attempts at shaping his musical ideas until he found the definitive formulation of a theme, Mozart's first inspiration has the stamp of finality. Any Mozart theme has completeness and unity; as a phenomenon it is a Gestalt. (Herzmann, 1964, p. 28)
       Great artists enlarge the limits of one's perception. Looking at the world through the eyes of Rembrandt or Tolstoy makes one able to perceive aspects of truth about the world which one could not have achieved without their aid. Freud believed that science was adaptive because it facilitated mastery of the external world; but was it not the case that many scientific theories, like works of art, also originated in phantasy? Certainly, reading accounts of scientific discovery by men of the calibre of Einstein compelled me to conclude that phantasy was not merely escapist, but a way of reaching new insights concerning the nature of reality. Scientific hypotheses require proof; works of art do not. Both are concerned with creating order, with making sense out of the world and our experience of it. (Storr, 1993, p. xii)
       The importance of self-esteem for creative expression appears to be almost beyond disproof. Without a high regard for himself the individual who is working in the frontiers of his field cannot trust himself to discriminate between the trivial and the significant. Without trust in his own powers the person seeking improved solutions or alternative theories has no basis for distinguishing the significant and profound innovation from the one that is merely different.... An essential component of the creative process, whether it be analysis, synthesis, or the development of a new perspective or more comprehensive theory, is the conviction that one's judgment in interpreting the events is to be trusted. (Coopersmith, 1967, p. 59)
       In the daily stream of thought these four different stages [preparation; incubation; illumination or inspiration; and verification] constantly overlap each other as we explore different problems. An economist reading a Blue Book, a physiologist watching an experiment, or a business man going through his morning's letters, may at the same time be "incubating" on a problem which he proposed to himself a few days ago, be accumulating knowledge in "preparation" for a second problem, and be "verifying" his conclusions to a third problem. Even in exploring the same problem, the mind may be unconsciously incubating on one aspect of it, while it is consciously employed in preparing for or verifying another aspect. (Wallas, 1926, p. 81)
       he basic, bisociative pattern of the creative synthesis [is] the sudden interlocking of two previously unrelated skills, or matrices of thought. (Koestler, 1964, p. 121)
        11) The Earliest Stages in the Creative Process Involve a Commerce with Disorder
       Even to the creator himself, the earliest effort may seem to involve a commerce with disorder. For the creative order, which is an extension of life, is not an elaboration of the established, but a movement beyond the established, or at least a reorganization of it and often of elements not included in it. The first need is therefore to transcend the old order. Before any new order can be defined, the absolute power of the established, the hold upon us of what we know and are, must be broken. New life comes always from outside our world, as we commonly conceive that world. This is the reason why, in order to invent, one must yield to the indeterminate within him, or, more precisely, to certain illdefined impulses which seem to be of the very texture of the ungoverned fullness which John Livingston Lowes calls "the surging chaos of the unexpressed." (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 4)
       New life comes always from outside our world, as we commonly conceive our world. This is the reason why, in order to invent, one must yield to the indeterminate within him, or, more precisely, to certain illdefined impulses which seem to be of the very texture of the ungoverned fullness which John Livingston Lowes calls "the surging chaos of the unexpressed." Chaos and disorder are perhaps the wrong terms for that indeterminate fullness and activity of the inner life. For it is organic, dynamic, full of tension and tendency. What is absent from it, except in the decisive act of creation, is determination, fixity, and commitment to one resolution or another of the whole complex of its tensions. (Ghiselin, 1952, p. 13)
       [P]sychoanalysts have principally been concerned with the content of creative products, and with explaining content in terms of the artist's infantile past. They have paid less attention to examining why the artist chooses his particular activity to express, abreact or sublimate his emotions. In short, they have not made much distinction between art and neurosis; and, since the former is one of the blessings of mankind, whereas the latter is one of the curses, it seems a pity that they should not be better differentiated....
       Psychoanalysis, being fundamentally concerned with drive and motive, might have been expected to throw more light upon what impels the creative person that in fact it has. (Storr, 1993, pp. xvii, 3)
       A number of theoretical approaches were considered. Associative theory, as developed by Mednick (1962), gained some empirical support from the apparent validity of the Remote Associates Test, which was constructed on the basis of the theory.... Koestler's (1964) bisociative theory allows more complexity to mental organization than Mednick's associative theory, and postulates "associative contexts" or "frames of reference." He proposed that normal, non-creative, thought proceeds within particular contexts or frames and that the creative act involves linking together previously unconnected frames.... Simonton (1988) has developed associative notions further and explored the mathematical consequences of chance permutation of ideas....
       Like Koestler, Gruber (1980; Gruber and Davis, 1988) has based his analysis on case studies. He has focused especially on Darwin's development of the theory of evolution. Using piagetian notions, such as assimilation and accommodation, Gruber shows how Darwin's system of ideas changed very slowly over a period of many years. "Moments of insight," in Gruber's analysis, were the culminations of slow long-term processes.... Finally, the information-processing approach, as represented by Simon (1966) and Langley et al. (1987), was considered.... [Simon] points out the importance of good problem representations, both to ensure search is in an appropriate problem space and to aid in developing heuristic evaluations of possible research directions.... The work of Langley et al. (1987) demonstrates how such search processes, realized in computer programs, can indeed discover many basic laws of science from tables of raw data.... Boden (1990a, 1994) has stressed the importance of restructuring the problem space in creative work to develop new genres and paradigms in the arts and sciences. (Gilhooly, 1996, pp. 243-244; emphasis in original)

    Historical dictionary of quotations in cognitive science > Creativity

  • 91 notice

    'nəutis
    1. noun
    1) (a written or printed statement to announce something publicly: He stuck a notice on the door, saying that he had gone home; They put a notice in the paper announcing the birth of their daughter.) anuncio
    2) (attention: His skill attracted their notice; I'll bring the problem to his notice as soon as possible.) atención
    3) (warning given especially before leaving a job or dismissing someone: Her employer gave her a month's notice; The cook gave in her notice; Please give notice of your intentions.) aviso

    2. verb
    (to see, observe, or keep in one's mind: I noticed a book on the table; He noticed her leave the room; Did he say that? I didn't notice.) notar, fijarse en, darse cuenta de
    - noticeably
    - noticed
    - notice-board
    - at short notice
    - take notice of
    notice1 n
    1. letrero
    the notice says "No Smoking" en el letrero pone "Prohibido fumar"
    2. anuncio
    3. aviso
    notice2 vb darse cuenta / fijarse
    did you notice his tie? ¿te fijaste en su corbata?
    tr['nəʊtɪs]
    1 (sign) letrero
    ■ there's a notice which says "No parking' hay un letrero que pone "Prohibido aparcar"
    2 (announcement) anuncio
    3 (criticism) crítica, reseña, recensión nombre femenino
    ■ the play got very good notices la obra fue muy bien recibida por la crítica, la obra tenía muy buenas críticas
    ■ it has been brought to my notice that... se me ha informado que...
    5 (warning) aviso
    1 notar, fijarse en, darse cuenta de
    ■ don't worry, the stain doesn't notice no te preocupes, la mancha no se ve
    \
    SMALLIDIOMATIC EXPRESSION/SMALL
    to hand in one's notice presentar la dimisión
    to take no notice of no hacer caso de
    until further notice hasta nuevo aviso
    without notice sin previo aviso
    notice ['no:t̬ɪs] vt, - ticed ; - ticing : notar, observar, advertir, darse cuenta de
    1) notification: aviso m, notificación f
    2) attention: atención f
    to take notice of: prestar atención a
    n.
    • advertencia s.f.
    • anuncio s.m.
    • aviso s.m.
    • cartel s.m.
    • informe s.m.
    • letrero s.m.
    • mandado s.m.
    • nota s.f.
    • noticia s.f.
    v.
    • advertir v.
    • echar de ver expr.
    • fijarse en v.
    • notar v.
    • observar v.
    'nəʊtəs, 'nəʊtɪs
    I
    1) c
    a) ( written sign) letrero m, aviso m

    to put up a notice — poner* un letrero or aviso

    b) ( item of information) anuncio m

    the birth/marriage notices — ( in newspaper) los anuncios or (AmL tb) avisos de nacimientos/matrimonios

    c) ( review) reseña f, crítica f
    2) u ( attention)

    it has come/been brought to my notice that... — (frml) ha llegado a mi conocimiento que.../se me ha señalado que... (frml)

    to take notice (of something/somebody): she took no notice no hizo caso; don't take any notice of him no le hagas caso; take special notice of these instructions preste especial atención a estas instrucciones; this will make them sit up and take notice — esto hará que presten atención

    3) u
    a) ( notification) aviso m

    I can't drop everything at a moment's notice — no puedo abandonarlo todo así, de un momento a otro

    I'll try and get there, but it's rather short notice — (colloq) procuraré ir, pero me avisas con muy poca antelación or anticipación

    notice OF something: we require at least two days' notice of any changes — cualquier cambio nos debe ser comunicado con por lo menos dos días de antelación or anticipación

    to give o hand in one's notice — presentar su (or mi etc) renuncia or dimisión


    II
    1.

    to get oneself noticed — hacerse* notar

    I couldn't help noticing that... — no pude menos que notar que...

    to notice somebody/something + INF/-ing: nobody noticed him put it in his pocket nadie lo vio ponérselo en el bolsillo; I noticed water dripping from the ceiling — noté que caían gotas de agua del techo


    2.
    vi
    a) (realize, observe) darse* cuenta
    b) (BrE) ( show) (colloq) notarse
    ['nǝʊtɪs]
    1. N
    1) (=intimation, warning) aviso m

    • notice to appear — (Jur) citación f judicial, orden f de comparecencia

    • we require 28 days' notice for delivery — se requieren 28 días para la entrega

    • until further notice — hasta nuevo aviso

    • to give sb notice to do sth — avisar a algn que haga algo

    • notice is hereby given that... — se pone en conocimiento del público que...

    • at a moment's notice — en seguida, inmediatamente, luego (Mex), al tiro (Chile)

    • we had no notice of it — no nos habían avisado

    • notice to quit — aviso or notificación de desalojo

    • at short notice — con poca antelación

    sorry, I know it's short notice, but... — lo siento, sé que es avisar con poca antelación, pero...

    • to give sb at least a week's notice — avisar a algn por lo menos con una semana de antelación

    I must have at least a week's notice if you want to... — me tienes que avisar con una semana de antelación si quieres...

    • without previous notice — sin previo aviso

    2) (=order to leave job etc) (by employer) despido m ; (by employee) dimisión f, renuncia f ; (=period) preaviso m

    • to get one's notice — ser despedido

    • to give sb notice — despedir a algn

    • to hand in one's notice — dimitir, renunciar

    • a week's wages in lieu of notice — el salario de una semana en lugar del plazo or de preaviso

    • to be under notice — estar despedido

    • to dismiss sb without notice — despedir a algn sin preaviso

    3) (=announcement) (in press) anuncio m, nota f ; [of meeting] convocatoria f, llamada f ; (=sign) letrero m ; (=poster) cartel m

    birth/marriage notice — anuncio m de nacimiento/matrimonio

    death notice — nota f necrológica, esquela f

    to give out a notice — anunciar algo, comunicar algo

    the notice says "keep out" — el letrero dice "prohibida la entrada"

    4) (=review) [of play, opera etc] reseña f, crítica f
    5) (=attention) atención f

    • to attract sb's notice — atraer or llamar la atención de algn

    • to bring a matter to sb's notice — llamar la atención de algn sobre un asunto

    • it has come to my notice that... — ha llegado a mi conocimiento que...

    • to escape notice — pasar inadvertido

    • to take notice of sb — hacer caso a algn

    to take no notice of sth/sb — no hacer caso de algo/a algn, ignorar algo/a algn (esp LAm)

    take no notice! — ¡no hagas caso!

    a fat lot of notice he takes of me! * — ¡maldito el caso que me hace! *

    to sit up and take notice — (fig) aguzar el oído

    6) (=interest) interés m
    2.
    VT (=perceive) fijarse en, notar; (=realize) darse cuenta de; (=recognize) reconocer

    did you notice the bloodstain on the wall? — ¿te fijaste en or te diste cuenta de or notaste la mancha de sangre que había en la pared?

    have you ever noticed how slowly time passes when you're flying? — ¿te has fijado en or te has dado cuenta de lo lento que pasa el tiempo cuando vas en avión?

    3.
    VI fijarse, darse cuenta

    don't worry about the mark, he won't notice — no te preocupes por la mancha, no se fijará or no se dará cuenta

    yes, so I've noticed! — iro ¡sí, ya me he dado cuenta or ya lo he notado!

    4.
    CPD

    notice board N — (esp Brit) tablón m de anuncios

    * * *
    ['nəʊtəs, 'nəʊtɪs]
    I
    1) c
    a) ( written sign) letrero m, aviso m

    to put up a notice — poner* un letrero or aviso

    b) ( item of information) anuncio m

    the birth/marriage notices — ( in newspaper) los anuncios or (AmL tb) avisos de nacimientos/matrimonios

    c) ( review) reseña f, crítica f
    2) u ( attention)

    it has come/been brought to my notice that... — (frml) ha llegado a mi conocimiento que.../se me ha señalado que... (frml)

    to take notice (of something/somebody): she took no notice no hizo caso; don't take any notice of him no le hagas caso; take special notice of these instructions preste especial atención a estas instrucciones; this will make them sit up and take notice — esto hará que presten atención

    3) u
    a) ( notification) aviso m

    I can't drop everything at a moment's notice — no puedo abandonarlo todo así, de un momento a otro

    I'll try and get there, but it's rather short notice — (colloq) procuraré ir, pero me avisas con muy poca antelación or anticipación

    notice OF something: we require at least two days' notice of any changes — cualquier cambio nos debe ser comunicado con por lo menos dos días de antelación or anticipación

    to give o hand in one's notice — presentar su (or mi etc) renuncia or dimisión


    II
    1.

    to get oneself noticed — hacerse* notar

    I couldn't help noticing that... — no pude menos que notar que...

    to notice somebody/something + INF/-ing: nobody noticed him put it in his pocket nadie lo vio ponérselo en el bolsillo; I noticed water dripping from the ceiling — noté que caían gotas de agua del techo


    2.
    vi
    a) (realize, observe) darse* cuenta
    b) (BrE) ( show) (colloq) notarse

    English-spanish dictionary > notice

  • 92 Ackermann, Rudolph

    [br]
    b. 20 April 1764 Stolberg, Saxony
    d. 30 March 1834 Finchley, London, England
    [br]
    German-born fine-art publisher and bookseller, noted for his arrangement of the steering of the front wheels of horse-drawn carriages, which is still used in automobiles today.
    [br]
    Ackermann's father was a coachbuilder and harness-maker who in 1775 moved to Schneeberg. Rudolph was educated there and later entered his father's workshop for a short time. He visited Dresden, among other towns in Germany, and was resident in Paris for a short time, but eventually settled in London. For the first ten years of his life there he was employed in making designs for many of the leading coach builders. His steering-gear consisted of an arrangement of the track arms on the stub axles and their connection by the track rod in such a way that the inner wheel moved through a greater angle than the outer one, so giving approximately true rolling of the wheels in cornering. A necessary condition for this is that, in the plan view, the point of intersection of the axes of all the wheels must be at a point which always lies on the projection of the rear axle. In addition, the front wheels are inclined to bring the line of contact of the front wheels under the line of the pivots, about which they turn when cornering. This mechanism was not entirely new, having been proposed for windmill carriages in 1714 by Du Quet, but it was brought into prominence by Ackermann and so has come to bear his name.
    In 1801 he patented a method of rendering paper, cloth and other materials waterproof and set up a factory in Chelsea for that purpose. He was one of the first private persons to light his business premises with gas. He also devoted some time to a patent for movable carriage axles between 1818 and 1820. In 1805 he was put in charge of the preparation of the funeral car for Lord Nelson.
    Most of his life and endeavours were devoted to fine-art printing and publishing. He was responsible for the introduction into England of lithography as a fine art: it had first been introduced as a mechanical process in 1801, but was mainly used for copying until Ackermann took it up in 1817, setting up a press and engaging the services of a number of prominent artists, including W.H.Pyne, W.Combe, Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson. In 1819 he published an English translation of J.A.Senefelder's A Complete Course of Lithography, illustrated with lithographic plates from his press. He was much involved in charitable works for widows, children and wounded soldiers after the war of 1814. In 1830 he suffered "an attack of paralysis" which left him unable to continue in business. He died four years later and was buried at St Clement Danes.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    His fine-art publications are numerous and well known, and include the following:
    The Microcosm of London University of Oxford University of Cambridge The Thames
    Further Reading
    Aubrey F.Burstall, "A history of mechanical engineering", Dictionary of National Biography.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Ackermann, Rudolph

  • 93 Egerton, Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater

    SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping
    [br]
    b. 21 May 1736
    d. 9 March 1803 London, England
    [br]
    English entrepreneur, described as the "father of British inland navigation".
    [br]
    Francis Egerton was the younger of the two surviving sons of Scroop, 1st Duke of Bridgewater, and on the death of his brother, the 2nd Duke, he succeeded to the title in 1748. Until that time he had received little or no education as his mother considered him to be of feeble intellect. His guardians, the Duke of Bedford and Lord Trentham, decided he should be given an opportunity and sent him to Eton in 1749. He remained there for three years and then went on the "grand tour" of Europe. During this period he saw the Canal du Midi, though whether this was the spark that ignited his interest in canals is hard to say. On his return to England he indulged in the social round in London and raced at Newmarket. After two unsuccessful attempts at marriage he retired to Lancashire to further his mining interests at Worsley, where the construction of a canal to Manchester was already being considered. In fact, the Act for the Bridgewater Canal had been passed at the time he left London. John Gilbert, his land agent at Worsley, encouraged the Duke to pursue the canal project, which had received parliamentary approval in March 1759. Brindley had been recommended on account of his work at Trentham, the estate of the Duke's brother-in-law, and Brindley was consulted and subsequently appointed Engineer; the canal opened on 17 July 1761. This was immediately followed by an extension project from Longford Brook to Runcorn to improve communications between Manchester and Liverpool; this was completed on 31 December 1772, after Brindley's death. The Duke also invested heavily in the Trent \& Mersey Canal, but his interests were confined to his mines and the completed canals for the rest of his life.
    It is said that he lacked a sense of humour and even refused to read books. He was untidy in his dress and habits yet he was devoted to the Worsley undertakings. When travelling to Worsley he would have his coach placed on a barge so that he could inspect the canal during the journey. He amassed a great fortune from his various activities, but when he died, instead of leaving his beloved canal to the beneficiaries under his will, he created a trust to ensure that the canal would endure; the trust did not expire until 1903. The Duke is commemorated by a large Corinthian pillar, which is now in the care of the National Trust, in the grounds of his mansion at Ashridge, Hertfordshire.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    H.Malet, 1961, The Canal Duke, Dawlish: David \& Charles.
    JHB

    Biographical history of technology > Egerton, Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater

  • 94 Lanston, Tolbert

    SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing
    [br]
    b. 3 February 1844 Troy, Ohio, USA
    d. 18 February 1913 Washington, DC, USA
    [br]
    American inventor of the Monotype typesetting machine.
    [br]
    Although reared in a farming community, Lanston was able to develop his mechanical talent. After serving in the American Civil War he secured a clerkship in the Pensions Office in Washington, where he remained for twenty-two years. He studied law in his spare time and was called to the Bar. At the same time, he invented a whole variety of mechanical devices, many of which he patented. Around 1883 Lanston began taking an interest in machines for composing printers' type, probably stimulated by Ottmar Mergenthaler, who was then in Washington and working in this field. Four years' work were rewarded on 7 June 1887 by the grant of a patent, followed by three more, for a machine "to produce justified lines of type". The machine, the Monotype, consisted of two components: first a keyboard unit produced a strip of paper tape with holes punched in patterns corresponding to the characters required; this tape controlled the matrices in the caster, the second and "hot metal" component, from which types were ejected singly and fed to an assembly point until a complete line of type had been formed. Lanston resigned his post and set up the Lanston Type Machine Company in Washington. He laboured for ten years to convert the device defined in his patents into a machine that could be made and used commercially. In 1897 the perfected Monotype appeared. The company was reorganized as the Lanston Monotype Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia, and Lanston devoted himself to promoting and improving the machine. Monotype, with Mergenthaler's Linotype, steadily supplanted hand-setting and the various inadequate mechanical methods that were then in use, and by the 1920s they reigned supreme, until the 1960s, when they themselves began to be superseded by computer-controlled photosetting methods.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Franklin Institute Cresson Gold Medal 1896.
    Further Reading
    Obituary, 1913, American Printer (March).
    L.A.Legros and J.C.Grant, 1916, Typographical Printing Surfaces, London.
    J.Moran, 1964, The Composition of Reading Matter, London.
    LRD

    Biographical history of technology > Lanston, Tolbert

  • 95 Praed, William

    SUBJECT AREA: Canals
    [br]
    b. 24 June 1747 Trevethoe, Leland, St Ives, Cornwall, England
    d. 9 October 1833 Trevethoe, Leland, St Ives, Cornwall, England
    [br]
    English banker and Member of Parliament.
    [br]
    Born into a wealthy Cornish family, he was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was elected Member of Parliament for St Ives in 1774, but it was alleged that his father, who was a banker, had acted as agent for both his son and Drummond, the other candidate for the same party, in the course of which he advanced money to voters "on their notes payable with interest to the bank of Truro (Praed's bank)" but with the understanding that repayment would not be demanded from those who had voted for Praed and Drummond. Praed's election was therefore declared void on 8 May 1775. He was re-elected in 1780, by which time St Ives was virtually a Praed family monopoly. He served in successive Parliaments until 1806 and then represented Banbury until 1808. Meanwhile, in 1779 he had become a partner in his father's Truro bank, c. 1801 founded the London bank of Praed \& Co. at 189 Fleet Street.
    While in Parliament, he was instrumental in obtaining and carrying into effect the Bill for the Grand Junction Canal from Braunston to London. He was elected Chairman of the company formed for constructing the canal and proved an excellent choice, serving the company faithfully for nearly thirty years until his resignation in 1821. Upon his marriage to Elizabeth Tyringham in 1778 he made his home at Tyringham Hall in Buckinghamshire and so was very much in the Grand Junction Canal Company's area. London's Praed Street, in which Paddington Station stands, is named in his honour and the canal basin is at the rear of this street. His monument in Tyringham Church bears a relief illustrating a pair of lock gates and a canal boat.
    [br]
    Further Reading
    Alan H.Faulkner, 1972, The Grand Junction Canal, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles. L.S.Presnell, 1956, Country Banking in the Industrial Revolution, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 295–6.
    G.C.Boase and W.P.Courtney, 1874, Biblio-theca Cornubiensis, Vol. II, London: Longmans, p. 524.
    JHB

    Biographical history of technology > Praed, William

  • 96 Economy

       Portugal's economy, under the influence of the European Economic Community (EEC), and later with the assistance of the European Union (EU), grew rapidly in 1985-86; through 1992, the average annual growth was 4-5 percent. While such growth rates did not last into the late 1990s, portions of Portugal's society achieved unprecedented prosperity, although poverty remained entrenched. It is important, however, to place this current growth, which includes some not altogether desirable developments, in historical perspective. On at least three occasions in this century, Portugal's economy has experienced severe dislocation and instability: during the turbulent First Republic (1911-25); during the Estado Novo, when the world Depression came into play (1930-39); and during the aftermath of the Revolution of 25 April, 1974. At other periods, and even during the Estado Novo, there were eras of relatively steady growth and development, despite the fact that Portugal's weak economy lagged behind industrialized Western Europe's economies, perhaps more than Prime Minister Antônio de Oliveira Salazar wished to admit to the public or to foreigners.
       For a number of reasons, Portugal's backward economy underwent considerable growth and development following the beginning of the colonial wars in Africa in early 1961. Recent research findings suggest that, contrary to the "stagnation thesis" that states that the Estado Novo economy during the last 14 years of its existence experienced little or no growth, there were important changes, policy shifts, structural evolution, and impressive growth rates. In fact, the average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate (1961-74) was about 7 percent. The war in Africa was one significant factor in the post-1961 economic changes. The new costs of finance and spending on the military and police actions in the African and Asian empires in 1961 and thereafter forced changes in economic policy.
       Starting in 1963-64, the relatively closed economy was opened up to foreign investment, and Lisbon began to use deficit financing and more borrowing at home and abroad. Increased foreign investment, residence, and technical and military assistance also had effects on economic growth and development. Salazar's government moved toward greater trade and integration with various international bodies by signing agreements with the European Free Trade Association and several international finance groups. New multinational corporations began to operate in the country, along with foreign-based banks. Meanwhile, foreign tourism increased massively from the early 1960s on, and the tourism industry experienced unprecedented expansion. By 1973-74, Portugal received more than 8 million tourists annually for the first time.
       Under Prime Minister Marcello Caetano, other important economic changes occurred. High annual economic growth rates continued until the world energy crisis inflation and a recession hit Portugal in 1973. Caetano's system, through new development plans, modernized aspects of the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors and linked reform in education with plans for social change. It also introduced cadres of forward-looking technocrats at various levels. The general motto of Caetano's version of the Estado Novo was "Evolution with Continuity," but he was unable to solve the key problems, which were more political and social than economic. As the boom period went "bust" in 1973-74, and growth slowed greatly, it became clear that Caetano and his governing circle had no way out of the African wars and could find no easy compromise solution to the need to democratize Portugal's restive society. The economic background of the Revolution of 25 April 1974 was a severe energy shortage caused by the world energy crisis and Arab oil boycott, as well as high general inflation, increasing debts from the African wars, and a weakening currency. While the regime prescribed greater Portuguese investment in Africa, in fact Portuguese businesses were increasingly investing outside of the escudo area in Western Europe and the United States.
       During the two years of political and social turmoil following the Revolution of 25 April 1974, the economy weakened. Production, income, reserves, and annual growth fell drastically during 1974-76. Amidst labor-management conflict, there was a burst of strikes, and income and productivity plummeted. Ironically, one factor that cushioned the economic impact of the revolution was the significant gold reserve supply that the Estado Novo had accumulated, principally during Salazar's years. Another factor was emigration from Portugal and the former colonies in Africa, which to a degree reduced pressures for employment. The sudden infusion of more than 600,000 refugees from Africa did increase the unemployment rate, which in 1975 was 10-15 percent. But, by 1990, the unemployment rate was down to about 5-6 percent.
       After 1985, Portugal's economy experienced high growth rates again, which averaged 4-5 percent through 1992. Substantial economic assistance from the EEC and individual countries such as the United States, as well as the political stability and administrative continuity that derived from majority Social Democratic Party (PSD) governments starting in mid-1987, supported new growth and development in the EEC's second poorest country. With rapid infrastruc-tural change and some unregulated development, Portugal's leaders harbored a justifiable concern that a fragile environment and ecology were under new, unacceptable pressures. Among other improvements in the standard of living since 1974 was an increase in per capita income. By 1991, the average minimum monthly wage was about 40,000 escudos, and per capita income was about $5,000 per annum. By the end of the 20th century, despite continuing poverty at several levels in Portugal, Portugal's economy had made significant progress. In the space of 15 years, Portugal had halved the large gap in living standards between itself and the remainder of the EU. For example, when Portugal joined the EU in 1986, its GDP, in terms of purchasing power-parity, was only 53 percent of the EU average. By 2000, Portugal's GDP had reached 75 percent of the EU average, a considerable achievement. Whether Portugal could narrow this gap even further in a reasonable amount of time remained a sensitive question in Lisbon. Besides structural poverty and the fact that, in 2006, the EU largesse in structural funds (loans and grants) virtually ceased, a major challenge for Portugal's economy will be to reduce the size of the public sector (about 50 percent of GDP is in the central government) to increase productivity, attract outside investment, and diversify the economy. For Portugal's economic planners, the 21st century promises to be challenging.

    Historical dictionary of Portugal > Economy

  • 97 stand

    stand [stænd]
    stand ⇒ 1 (a) étal ⇒ 1 (a) support ⇒ 1 (b) plate-forme ⇒ 1 (c) tribune ⇒ 1 (c), 1 (d) barre ⇒ 1 (f) position ⇒ 1 (g) mettre ⇒ 2 (a) poser ⇒ 2 (a) supporter ⇒ 2 (b)-(d) se lever ⇒ 3 (a) être debout ⇒ 3 (b), 3 (c) être ⇒ 3 (b), 3 (e), 3 (f) se tenir ⇒ 3 (b) reposer ⇒ 3 (d), 3 (g) se trouver ⇒ 3 (e) rester ⇒ 3 (g) rester valable ⇒ 3 (h) se classer ⇒ 3 (j)
    (pt & pp stood [stʊd])
    1 noun
    (a) (stall, booth → at exhibition, trade fair) stand m; (→ in market) étal m, éventaire m; (kiosk) kiosque m;
    ∎ a shooting stand un stand de tir;
    ∎ newspaper stand kiosque m (à journaux)
    (b) (frame, support → gen) support m; (→ for lamp, sink) pied m; (→ on bicycle, motorbike) béquille f; (→ for pipes, guns) râtelier m; Commerce (→ for magazines, sunglasses) présentoir m; (lectern) lutrin m;
    ∎ bicycle stand (in street) râtelier m à bicyclettes;
    ∎ plant stand sellette f;
    ∎ plate stand support m à assiette, présentoir m;
    ∎ Commerce revolving stand tourniquet m, présentoir m rotatif
    (c) (platform → gen) plate-forme f; (→ for speaker) tribune f; (pulpit) chaire f
    (d) (in sports ground) tribune f;
    ∎ the stands roared un rugissement s'éleva des tribunes ou des gradins
    ∎ (taxi) stand station f de taxis
    (f) (in courtroom) barre f;
    ∎ the first witness took the stand le premier témoin est venu à la barre
    (g) (position, stance) position f;
    ∎ to take a stand on sth prendre position sur qch;
    ∎ what's your stand on the issue? quelle est votre position sur la question?;
    ∎ he refuses to take a stand il refuse de prendre position
    (h) Military & figurative (defensive effort) résistance f, opposition f;
    ∎ to make a stand résister;
    ∎ they made a stand at the foot of the hill ils ont résisté au pied de la colline;
    ∎ to make a stand against an abuse s'opposer résolument à un abus;
    ∎ History Custer's last stand la dernière bataille de Custer
    (i) (of trees) bosquet m, futaie f; (of crop) récolte f sur pied;
    ∎ a fine stand of corn un beau champ de blé;
    ∎ a stand of bamboo un massif de bambous
    (a) (set, place) mettre, poser;
    ∎ he stood the boy on a chair il a mis le garçon debout sur une chaise;
    ∎ she stood her umbrella in the corner elle a mis son parapluie dans le coin;
    ∎ to stand sth on (its) end mettre qch debout;
    ∎ help me stand the bedstead against the wall aide-moi à dresser le sommier ou mettre le sommier debout contre le mur
    (b) (endure, withstand) supporter;
    ∎ his heart couldn't stand the shock son cœur n'a pas résisté au ou n'a pas supporté le choc;
    ∎ it will stand high temperatures without cracking cela peut résister à ou supporter des températures élevées sans se fissurer;
    ∎ how much weight can the bridge stand? quel poids le pont peut-il supporter?;
    ∎ the motor wasn't built to stand intensive use le moteur n'a pas été conçu pour supporter un usage intensif;
    ∎ wool carpeting can stand a lot of hard wear les moquettes en laine sont très résistantes;
    ∎ she's not strong enough to stand another operation elle n'est pas assez forte pour supporter une nouvelle opération;
    ∎ he certainly doesn't stand comparison with Bogart il n'est absolument pas possible de le comparer avec Bogart;
    ∎ their figures don't stand close inspection leurs chiffres ne résistent pas à un examen sérieux
    (c) (put up with, bear → toothache, cold) supporter; (→ behaviour) supporter, tolérer;
    ∎ I can't stand it any longer! je n'en peux plus!;
    ∎ how can you stand working with him? comment est-ce que vous faites pour ou comment arrivez-vous à travailler avec lui?;
    ∎ I've had as much as I can stand of your griping! j'en ai assez de tes jérémiades!;
    ∎ if there's one thing I can't stand, it's hypocrisy s'il y a quelque chose que je ne supporte pas, c'est bien l'hypocrisie;
    ∎ I can't stand (the sight of) him! je ne peux pas le supporter!, je ne peux pas le voir en peinture!;
    ∎ she can't stand Wagner/smokers elle ne peut pas supporter Wagner/les fumeurs;
    ∎ he can't stand flying il déteste prendre l'avion
    (d) familiar (do with, need) supporter□, avoir besoin de□ ;
    ∎ oil company profits could certainly stand a cut une diminution de leurs bénéfices ne ferait aucun mal aux compagnies pétrolières;
    ∎ he could stand a bath! un bain ne lui ferait pas de mal!;
    ∎ American could I stand a drink! je prendrais bien un petit verre!
    (e) (perform duty of) remplir la fonction de;
    ∎ to stand witness for sb (at marriage) être le témoin de qn
    ∎ to stand sb a meal payer un repas à qn;
    ∎ British I'll stand you a drink, American I'll stand you to a drink je t'offre un verre
    ∎ to stand a chance (of doing sth) avoir de bonnes chances (de faire qch);
    ∎ you don't stand a chance! vous n'avez pas la moindre chance!;
    ∎ the plans stand little chance of being approved les projets ont peu de chances d'être approuvés
    (a) (rise to one's feet) se lever, se mettre debout;
    ∎ he refused to stand for the national anthem il a refusé de se lever pendant l'hymne national
    (b) (be on one's feet) être debout, se tenir debout; (in a specified location, posture) être, se tenir;
    ∎ I've been standing all day je suis resté debout toute la journée;
    ∎ I had to stand all the way j'ai dû voyager debout pendant tout le trajet;
    ∎ she was so tired she could hardly stand elle était si fatiguée qu'elle avait du mal à tenir debout ou sur ses jambes;
    ∎ wear flat shoes if you have to stand a lot portez des chaussures à talons plats si vous devez rester debout pendant des heures;
    ∎ I don't mind standing ça ne me gêne pas de rester debout;
    ∎ don't stand near the edge ne restez pas près du bord;
    ∎ don't just stand there, do something! ne restez pas là à ne rien faire!;
    ∎ stand clear! écartez-vous!;
    ∎ I saw her standing at the window je l'ai vue (debout) à la fenêtre;
    ∎ a man stood in the doorway un homme se tenait à la porte;
    ∎ do you see that man standing over there? vous voyez cet homme là-bas?;
    ∎ where should I stand? - beside Yvonne où dois-je me mettre? - à côté d'Yvonne;
    ∎ I'll be standing outside the theatre j'attendrai devant le théâtre;
    ∎ small groups of men stood talking at street corners des hommes discutaient par petits groupes au coin des rues;
    ∎ he was standing at the bar il était debout au comptoir;
    ∎ is there a chair I can stand on? y a-t-il une chaise sur laquelle je puisse monter?;
    ∎ they were standing a little way off ils se tenaient un peu à l'écart;
    ∎ excuse me, you're standing on my foot excusez-moi, vous me marchez sur le pied;
    ∎ American to stand in line faire la queue;
    ∎ School stand in the corner! au coin!;
    ∎ to stand upright or erect se tenir droit;
    ∎ he was so nervous he couldn't stand still il était si nerveux qu'il ne tenait pas en place;
    ∎ I stood perfectly still, hoping they wouldn't see me je me suis figé sur place en espérant qu'ils ne me verraient pas;
    ∎ stand still! ne bougez pas!, ne bougez plus!;
    ∎ stand with your feet apart écartez les pieds;
    ∎ the heron was standing on one leg le héron se tenait debout sur une patte;
    ∎ to stand on tiptoe se tenir sur la pointe des pieds;
    ∎ stand and deliver! la bourse ou la vie!;
    ∎ figurative to stand on one's own two feet se débrouiller tout seul;
    ∎ figurative he left the others standing (gen) il était de loin le meilleur; (in race) il a laissé les autres sur place
    (c) (be upright → post, target etc) être debout;
    ∎ not a stone (of the building) was left standing le bâtiment était complètement détruit;
    ∎ the house is still standing la maison tient toujours debout;
    ∎ the aqueduct has stood for centuries l'aqueduc est là depuis des siècles;
    ∎ the wheat stood high les blés étaient hauts
    (d) (be supported, be mounted) reposer;
    ∎ the coffin stood on trestles le cercueil reposait sur des tréteaux;
    ∎ the house stands on solid foundations la maison repose ou est bâtie sur des fondations solides;
    ∎ figurative this argument stands on three simple facts ce raisonnement repose sur trois simples faits
    (e) (be located → building, tree, statue) se trouver; (→ clock, vase, lamp) être, être posé;
    ∎ the fort stands on a hill la forteresse se trouve en haut d'une colline;
    ∎ this is where the city gates once stood c'est ici qu'autrefois se dressaient les portes de la ville;
    ∎ the piano stood in the centre of the room le piano était au centre ou occupait le centre de la pièce;
    ∎ the bottles stood in rows of five les bouteilles étaient disposées en rangées de cinq;
    ∎ do you see the lorry standing next to my car? vous voyez le camion qui est à côté de ma voiture?;
    ∎ a wardrobe stood against one wall il y avait une armoire contre un mur
    (f) (indicating current state of affairs, situation) être;
    ∎ how do things stand? où en est la situation?;
    ∎ how do we stand? (in work etc) où en sommes-nous?; (financially) où en sont nos comptes?;
    ∎ I'd like to know where I stand with you j'aimerais savoir où en sont les choses entre nous;
    ∎ I don't know where I stand j'ignore quelle est ma situation ou ma position;
    ∎ you never know how or where you stand with her on ne sait jamais sur quel pied danser avec elle;
    ∎ as things stand, as matters stand telles que les choses se présentent;
    ∎ he's dissatisfied with the contract as it stands il n'est pas satisfait du contrat tel qu'il a été rédigé;
    ∎ just print the text as it stands imprimez le texte tel quel;
    ∎ he stands accused of rape il est accusé de viol;
    ∎ she stands alone in advocating this approach elle est la seule à préconiser cette approche;
    ∎ I stand corrected je reconnais m'être trompé ou mon erreur;
    ∎ the doors stood wide open les portes étaient grandes ouvertes;
    ∎ I've got a taxi standing ready j'ai un taxi qui attend;
    ∎ the police are standing ready to intervene la police se tient prête à intervenir;
    ∎ the party stands united behind him le parti est uni derrière lui;
    ∎ no-one stands above the law personne n'est au-dessus des lois;
    ∎ to stand at (gauge, barometer) indiquer; (score) être de; (unemployment) avoir atteint;
    ∎ their turnover now stands at three million pounds leur chiffre d'affaires atteint désormais les trois millions de livres;
    ∎ the exchange rate stands at 5 francs to the dollar le taux de change est de 5 francs pour un dollar;
    ∎ we're standing right behind you nous sommes avec vous;
    ∎ with the union standing behind him avec le soutien du syndicat;
    ∎ nothing stood between her and victory rien ne pouvait désormais l'empêcher de gagner;
    ∎ it's the only thing standing between us and financial disaster c'est la seule chose qui nous empêche de sombrer dans un désastre financier;
    ∎ to stand in need of… avoir besoin de…;
    ∎ he stands in danger of losing his job il risque de perdre son emploi;
    ∎ I stood lost in admiration j'en suis resté béat d'admiration;
    ∎ to stand in sb's way bloquer le passage à qn;
    ∎ figurative don't stand in my way! n'essaie pas de m'en empêcher!;
    ∎ nothing stands in our way now maintenant, la voie est libre;
    ∎ if you want to leave school I'm not going to stand in your way si tu veux quitter l'école, je ne m'y opposerai pas;
    ∎ it's his lack of experience that stands in his way c'est son manque d'expérience qui le handicape;
    ∎ their foreign debt stands in the way of economic recovery leur dette extérieure constitue un obstacle à la reprise économique;
    ∎ her pride is the only thing standing in the way of their reconciliation son orgueil est le seul obstacle à leur réconciliation
    (g) (remain) rester; (be left undisturbed → marinade, dough) reposer; (→ tea) infuser;
    ∎ the machines stood idle les machines étaient arrêtées;
    ∎ the houses stood empty awaiting demolition les maisons, vidées de leurs occupants, attendaient d'être démolies;
    ∎ time stood still le temps semblait s'être arrêté;
    ∎ the car has been standing in the garage for a year ça fait un an que la voiture n'a pas bougé du garage;
    ∎ I've decided to let my flight reservation stand j'ai décidé de ne pas changer ma réservation d'avion;
    ∎ let the mixture stand until the liquid is clear laissez reposer le mélange jusqu'à ce que le liquide se clarifie;
    ∎ the champion stands unbeaten le champion reste invaincu;
    ∎ his theory stood unchallenged for a decade pendant dix ans, personne n'a remis en cause sa théorie;
    ∎ the government will stand or fall on the outcome of this vote le maintien ou la chute du gouvernement dépend du résultat de ce vote;
    ∎ united we stand, divided we fall l'union fait la force
    (h) (be valid, effective → offer, law) rester valable; (→ decision) rester inchangé;
    ∎ my invitation still stands vous êtes toujours invité;
    ∎ the verdict stands unless there's an appeal le jugement reste valable à moins que l'on ne fasse appel;
    ∎ even with this new plan, our objection still stands ce nouveau projet ne remet pas en cause notre objection première;
    ∎ the bet stands le pari tient;
    ∎ what you said last week, does that still stand? et ce que tu as dit la semaine dernière, ça tient toujours?
    (i) (measure → person, tree) mesurer;
    ∎ she stands 5 feet in her stocking feet elle mesure moins de 1,50 m pieds nus;
    ∎ the building stands ten storeys high l'immeuble compte dix étages
    (j) (rank) se classer, compter;
    ∎ this hotel stands among the best in the world cet hôtel figure parmi les meilleurs du monde;
    ∎ American she stands first/last in her class elle est la première/la dernière de sa classe;
    ∎ I know she stands high in your opinion je sais que tu as une très bonne opinion d'elle;
    ∎ for price and quality, it stands high on my list en ce qui concerne le prix et la qualité, je le range ou le compte parmi les meilleurs
    ∎ how or where does he stand on the nuclear issue? quelle est sa position ou son point de vue sur la question du nucléaire?;
    ∎ you ought to tell them where you stand vous devriez leur faire part de votre position
    ∎ to stand to lose risquer de perdre;
    ∎ to stand to win avoir des chances de gagner;
    ∎ they stand to make a huge profit on the deal ils ont des chances de faire un bénéfice énorme dans cette affaire;
    ∎ no one stands to gain from a quarrel like this personne n'a rien à gagner d'une telle querelle
    (m) British (run in election) se présenter, être candidat;
    ∎ she stood for Waltham elle a été candidate à la circonscription de Waltham;
    ∎ will he stand for re-election? va-t-il se représenter aux élections?;
    ∎ she's standing as an independent elle se présente en tant que candidate indépendante
    (n) American (stop) s'arrêter (pour un court instant);
    ∎ no standing (sign) arrêt interdit
    (o) American (pay) payer la tournée;
    ∎ you're standing c'est ta tournée
    rester là;
    ∎ we stood about or around waiting for the flight announcement nous restions là à attendre que le vol soit annoncé;
    ∎ the prisoners stood about or around in small groups les prisonniers se tenaient par petits groupes;
    ∎ after Mass, the men stand about or around in the square après la messe, les hommes s'attardent sur la place;
    ∎ I can't afford to pay people to stand around all day doing nothing je n'ai pas les moyens de payer les gens à ne rien faire;
    ∎ I'm not just going to stand about waiting for you to make up your mind! je n'ai pas l'intention de rester là à attendre que tu te décides!
    (move aside) s'écarter;
    ∎ stand aside, someone's fainted! écartez-vous, quelqu'un s'est évanoui!;
    ∎ he politely stood aside to let us pass il s'écarta ou s'effaça poliment pour nous laisser passer;
    ∎ figurative to stand aside in favour of sb (gen) laisser la voie libre à qn; Politics se désister en faveur de qn
    (a) (move back) reculer, s'écarter;
    ∎ stand back from the doors! écartez-vous des portes!;
    ∎ she stood back to look at herself in the mirror elle recula pour se regarder dans la glace;
    ∎ the painting is better if you stand back from it le tableau est mieux si vous prenez du recul
    (b) (be set back) être en retrait ou à l'écart;
    ∎ the house stands back from the road la maison est en retrait (de la route)
    (c) (take mental distance) prendre du recul;
    ∎ I need to stand back and take stock j'ai besoin de prendre du recul et de faire le point
    (a) (support → person) soutenir;
    ∎ I'll stand by you through thick and thin je te soutiendrai ou je resterai à tes côtés quoi qu'il arrive
    (b) (adhere to → promise, word) tenir; (→ decision, offer) s'en tenir à;
    ∎ to stand by an agreement respecter un accord;
    ∎ I stand by what I said/my original analysis of the situation je m'en tiens à ce que j'ai dit/ma première analyse de la situation
    (a) (not intervene) rester là (sans rien faire ou sans intervenir);
    ∎ how could you just stand by and watch them mistreat that poor dog? comment as-tu pu rester là à les regarder maltraiter ce pauvre chien (sans intervenir)?;
    ∎ I stood by helplessly while they searched the room je restais là, impuissant, pendant qu'ils fouillaient la pièce
    (b) (be ready → person) être ou se tenir prêt; (→ vehicle) être prêt; (→ army, embassy) être en état d'alerte;
    ∎ the police were standing by to disperse the crowd la police se tenait prête à disperser la foule;
    ∎ we have an oxygen machine standing by nous avons une machine à oxygène prête en cas d'urgence;
    ∎ stand by! attention!; Nautical paré!, attention!;
    ∎ Aviation stand by for takeoff préparez-vous pour le décollage;
    ∎ Radio stand by to receive prenez l'écoute;
    ∎ Military standing by for orders! à vos ordres!
    (a) British Politics (withdraw) se désister; (resign) démissionner;
    ∎ will he stand down in favour of a younger candidate? va-t-il se désister en faveur d'un candidat plus jeune?
    (b) (leave witness box) quitter la barre;
    ∎ you may stand down, Mr Simms vous pouvez quitter la barre, M. Simms
    (c) Military (troops) être déconsigné (en fin d'alerte);
    ∎ stand down! (after drill) rompez (les rangs)!
    (workers) licencier
    (a) (represent) représenter;
    ∎ what does DNA stand for? que veut dire l'abréviation ADN?;
    ∎ the R stands for Ryan le R signifie Ryan;
    ∎ the dove stands for peace la colombe symbolise la paix;
    ∎ we want our name to stand for quality and efficiency nous voulons que notre nom soit synonyme de qualité et d'efficacité;
    ∎ she supports the values and ideas the party once stood for elle soutient les valeurs et les idées qui furent autrefois celles du parti;
    ∎ I detest everything that they stand for! je déteste tout ce qu'ils représentent!
    (b) (tolerate) tolérer, supporter; (allow) permettre;
    ∎ I'm not going to stand for it! je ne le tolérerai ou permettrai pas!
    assurer le remplacement;
    ∎ to stand in for sb remplacer qn; Cinema doubler qn
    British (workers) mettre en chômage technique
    Nautical (coast, island) croiser au large de;
    ∎ they have an aircraft carrier standing off Aden ils ont un porte-avions qui croise au large d'Aden
    (a) (move away) s'écarter
    (b) Nautical (take up position) croiser; (sail away) mettre le cap au large
    (a) (protrude → vein) saillir; (→ ledge) faire saillie, avancer;
    ∎ the veins in his neck stood out les veines de son cou saillaient ou étaient gonflées
    (b) (be clearly visible → colour, typeface) ressortir, se détacher; (→ in silhouette) se découper;
    ∎ the pink stands out against the green background le rose ressort ou se détache sur le fond vert;
    ∎ the masts stood out against the sky les mâts se découpaient ou se dessinaient contre le ciel;
    ∎ the name on the truck stood out clearly le nom sur le camion était bien visible;
    ∎ she stands out in a crowd on la remarque dans la foule;
    ∎ figurative I don't like to stand out in a crowd je n'aime pas me singulariser;
    ∎ this one book stands out from all his others ce livre-ci surclasse tous ses autres livres;
    ∎ there is no one issue which stands out as being more important than the others il n'y a pas une question qui soit plus importante que les autres;
    ∎ the qualities that stand out in his work les qualités marquantes de son œuvre;
    ∎ she stands out above all the rest elle surpasse ou surclasse tous les autres;
    ∎ the day stands out in my memory cette journée est marquée d'une pierre blanche dans ma mémoire;
    ∎ familiar that stands out a mile! (is very obvious) ça se voit comme le nez au milieu de la figure!;
    ∎ it really stands out that he's not a local ça se voit ou se remarque vraiment qu'il n'est pas d'ici
    (c) (resist, hold out) tenir bon, tenir, résister;
    ∎ they won't be able to stand out for long ils ne pourront pas tenir ou résister longtemps;
    ∎ to stand out against (attack, enemy) résister à; (change, tax increase) s'opposer avec détermination à;
    ∎ to stand out for sth revendiquer qch;
    ∎ they are standing out for a pay increase ils revendiquent ou réclament une augmentation de salaire
    (watch over) surveiller;
    ∎ I can't work with someone standing over me je ne peux pas travailler quand quelqu'un regarde par-dessus mon épaule;
    ∎ she stood over him until he'd eaten every last bit elle ne l'a pas lâché avant qu'il ait mangé la dernière miette
    British (postpone) remettre (à plus tard);
    ∎ I'd prefer to stand this discussion over until we have more information je préférerais remettre cette discussion jusqu'à ce que nous disposions de plus amples renseignements
    British être remis (à plus tard);
    ∎ we have two items standing over from the last meeting il nous reste deux points à régler depuis la dernière réunion
    Military mettre en état d'alerte
    Military se mettre en état d'alerte;
    ∎ stand to! à vos postes!
    être ou rester solidaire
    (a) (set upright → chair, bottle) mettre debout;
    ∎ they stood the prisoner up against a tree ils ont adossé le prisonnier à un arbre;
    ∎ stand the ladder up against the wall mettez ou appuyez l'échelle contre le mur;
    ∎ to stand a child up (again) (re)mettre un enfant sur ses pieds
    (b) familiar (fail to meet) poser un lapin à;
    ∎ I was stood up twice in a row on m'a posé un lapin deux fois de suite
    (a) (rise to one's feet) se lever, se mettre debout;
    ∎ she stood up to offer me her seat elle se leva pour m'offrir sa place;
    ∎ stand up! levez-vous!, debout!;
    ∎ figurative to stand up and be counted avoir le courage de ses opinions
    (b) (be upright) être debout;
    ∎ I can't get the candle to stand up straight je n'arrive pas à faire tenir la bougie droite
    (c) (last) tenir, résister;
    ∎ how is that repair job standing up? est-ce que cette réparation tient toujours?
    (d) (be valid → argument, claim) être valable, tenir debout;
    ∎ his evidence won't stand up in court son témoignage ne sera pas valable en justice
    défendre;
    ∎ to stand up for oneself se défendre
    ∎ to stand up to sth résister à qch;
    ∎ to stand up to sb tenir tête à ou faire face à qn;
    ∎ he's too weak to stand up to her il est trop faible pour lui tenir tête;
    ∎ she had a hard time standing up to their criticism ça ne lui a pas été facile de faire face à leurs critiques;
    ∎ it won't stand up to that sort of treatment ça ne résistera pas à ce genre de traitement;
    ∎ her hypothesis doesn't stand up to empirical testing son hypothèse ne résiste pas à la vérification expérimentale

    Un panorama unique de l'anglais et du français > stand

  • 98 Cobbett, William

    [br]
    b. 9 March 1762 Farnham, Surrey, England
    d. 17 June 1835 Guildford, Surrey, England
    [br]
    English political writer and activist; writer on rural affairs, with a particular concern for the conditions of the agricultural worker; a keen experimental farmer who claimed responsibility for the import of Indian maize to Britain.
    [br]
    The son of a smallholder farmer and self-taught surveyor, William Cobbett was brought up to farm work from an early age. In 1783 he took employment as an attorney's clerk in London, but not finding this to his liking he travelled to Chatham with the intention of joining the Navy. A mistake in "taking the King's shilling" found him in an infantry regiment. After a year's training he was sent out to Nova Scotia and quickly gained the rank of sergeant major. On leaving the Army he brought corruption charges against three officers in his regiment, but did not press with the prosecution. England was not to his taste, and he returned to North America with his wife.
    In America Cobbett taught English to the growing French community displaced by the French Revolution. He found American criticism of Britain ill-balanced and in 1796 began to publish a daily newspaper under the title Porcupine's Gazetteer, in which he wrote editorials in defence of Britain. His writings won him little support from the Americans. However, on returning to London in 1800 he was offered, but turned down, the management of a Government newspaper. Instead he began to produce a daily paper called the Porcupine, which was superseded in 1802 by Cobbett's Political Register, this publication continued on a weekly basis until after his death. In 1803 he also began the Parliamentary Debates, which later merged into Hansard, the official report of parliamentary proceedings.
    In 1805 Cobbett took a house and 300-acre (120-hectare) farm in Hampshire, from which he continued to write, but at the same time followed the pursuits he most enjoyed. In 1809 his criticism of the punishment given to mutineers in the militia at Ely resulted in his own imprisonment. On his release in 1812 he decided that the only way to remain an independent publisher was to move back to the USA. He bought a farm at Hampstead, Long Island, New York, and published A Year's Residence in America, which contains, amongst other things, an interesting account of a farmer's year.
    Returning to Britain in the easier political climate of the 1820s, Cobbett bought a small seed farm in Kensington, then outside London. From there he made a number of journeys around the country, publishing accounts of them in his famous Rural Rides. His experiments and advice on the sowing and cultivation of crops, particularly turnips and swedes, and on forestry, were an important mechanism for the spread of ideas within the UK. He also claimed that he was the first to introduce the acacia and Indian maize to Britain. Much of his writing expresses a concern for the rural poor and he was firmly convinced that only parliamentary reform would achieve the changes needed. His political work and writing led to his election as Member of Parlaiment for Oldham in the 1835 election, which followed the Reform Act of 1832. However, by this time his energy was failing rapidly and he died peacefully at Normandy Farm, near Guildford, at the age of 73.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    Cobbett's Observations on Priestley's Emigration, published in 1794, was the first of his pro-British tracts written in America. On the basis of his stay in that country he wrote A Year's Residence in America. His books on agricultural practice included Woodlands (1825) and Treatise on Cobbett's Corn (1828). Dealing with more social problems he wrote an English Grammar for the use of Apprentices, Plough Boys, Soldiers and Sailors in 1818, and Cottage Economy in 1821.
    Further Reading
    Albert Pell, 1902, article in Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England 63:1–26 (describes the life and writings of William Cobbett).
    James Sambrook, 1973, William Cobbett, London: Routledge (a more detailed study).
    AP

    Biographical history of technology > Cobbett, William

  • 99 Curr, John

    [br]
    b. 1756 Kyo, near Lanchester, or in Greenside, near Ryton-on-Tyne, Durham, England
    d. 27 January 1823 Sheffield, England
    [br]
    English coal-mine manager and engineer, inventor of flanged, cast-iron plate rails.
    [br]
    The son of a "coal viewer", Curr was brought up in the West Durham colliery district. In 1777 he went to the Duke of Norfolk's collieries at Sheffield, where in 1880 he was appointed Superintendent. There coal was conveyed underground in baskets on sledges: Curr replaced the wicker sledges with wheeled corves, i.e. small four-wheeled wooden wagons, running on "rail-roads" with cast-iron rails and hauled from the coal-face to the shaft bottom by horses. The rails employed hitherto had usually consisted of plates of iron, the flange being on the wheels of the wagon. Curr's new design involved flanges on the rails which guided the vehicles, the wheels of which were unflanged and could run on any hard surface. He appears to have left no precise record of the date that he did this, and surviving records have been interpreted as implying various dates between 1776 and 1787. In 1787 John Buddle paid tribute to the efficiency of the rails of Curr's type, which were first used for surface transport by Joseph Butler in 1788 at his iron furnace at Wingerworth near Chesterfield: their use was then promoted widely by Benjamin Outram, and they were adopted in many other English mines. They proved serviceable until the advent of locomotives demanded different rails.
    In 1788 Curr also developed a system for drawing a full corve up a mine shaft while lowering an empty one, with guides to separate them. At the surface the corves were automatically emptied by tipplers. Four years later he was awarded a patent for using double ropes for lifting heavier loads. As the weight of the rope itself became a considerable problem with the increasing depth of the shafts, Curr invented the flat hemp rope, patented in 1798, which consisted of several small round ropes stitched together and lapped upon itself in winding. It acted as a counterbalance and led to a reduction in the time and cost of hoisting: at the beginning of a run the loaded rope began to coil upon a small diameter, gradually increasing, while the unloaded rope began to coil off a large diameter, gradually decreasing.
    Curr's book The Coal Viewer (1797) is the earliest-known engineering work on railway track and it also contains the most elaborate description of a Newcomen pumping engine, at the highest state of its development. He became an acknowledged expert on construction of Newcomen-type atmospheric engines, and in 1792 he established a foundry to make parts for railways and engines.
    Because of the poor financial results of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries at the end of the century, Curr was dismissed in 1801 despite numerous inventions and improvements which he had introduced. After his dismissal, six more of his patents were concerned with rope-making: the one he gained in 1813 referred to the application of flat ropes to horse-gins and perpendicular drum-shafts of steam engines. Curr also introduced the use of inclined planes, where a descending train of full corves pulled up an empty one, and he was one of the pioneers employing fixed steam engines for hauling. He may have resided in France for some time before his death.
    [br]
    Bibliography
    1788. British patent no. 1,660 (guides in mine shafts).
    1789. An Account of tin Improved Method of Drawing Coals and Extracting Ores, etc., from Mines, Newcastle upon Tyne.
    1797. The Coal Viewer and Engine Builder's Practical Companion; reprinted with five plates and an introduction by Charles E.Lee, 1970, London: Frank Cass, and New York: Augustus M.Kelley.
    1798. British patent no. 2,270 (flat hemp ropes).
    Further Reading
    F.Bland, 1930–1, "John Curr, originator of iron tram roads", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 11:121–30.
    R.A.Mott, 1969, Tramroads of the eighteenth century and their originator: John Curr', Transactions of the Newcomen Society 42:1–23 (includes corrections to Fred Bland's earlier paper).
    Charles E.Lee, 1970, introduction to John Curr, The Coal Viewer and Engine Builder's Practical Companion, London: Frank Cass, pp. 1–4; orig. pub. 1797, Sheffield (contains the most comprehensive biographical information).
    R.Galloway, 1898, Annals of Coalmining, Vol. I, London; reprinted 1971, London (provides a detailed account of Curr's technological alterations).
    WK / PJGR

    Biographical history of technology > Curr, John

  • 100 Moulton, Alexander

    [br]
    b. 9 April 1920 Stratford-on-Avon
    [br]
    English inventor of vehicle suspension systems and the Moulton bicycle.
    [br]
    He spent his childhood at The Hall in Bradfordon-Avon. He was educated at Marlborough College, and in 1937 was apprenticed to the Sentinel Steam Wagon Company of Shrewsbury. About that same time he went to King's College, Cambridge, where he took the Mechanical Sciences Tripos. It was then wartime, and he did research on aero-engines at the Bristol Aeroplane Company, where he became Personal Assistant to Sir Roy Fedden. He left Bristol's in 1945 to join his family firm, Spencer \& Moulton, of which he eventually became Technical Director and built up the Research Department. In 1948 he invented his first suspension unit, the "Flexitor", in which an inner shaft and an outer shell were separated by an annular rubber body which was bonded to both.
    In 1848 his great-grandfather had founded the family firm in an old woollen mill, to manufacture vulcanized rubber products under Charles Goodyear's patent. The firm remained a family business with Spencer's, consultants in railway engineering, until 1956 when it was sold to the Avon Rubber Company. He then formed Moulton Developments to continue his work on vehicle suspensions in the stables attached to The Hall. Sponsored by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and the Dunlop Rubber Company, he invented a rubber cone spring in 1951 which was later used in the BMC Mini (see Issigonis, Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine): by 1994 over 4 million Minis had been fitted with these springs, made by Dunlop. In 1954 he patented the Hydrolastic suspension system, in which all four wheels were independently sprung with combined rubber springs and damper assembly, the weight being supported by fluid under pressure, and the wheels on each side being interconnected, front to rear. In 1962 he formed Moulton Bicycles Ltd, having designed an improved bicycle system for adult use. The conventional bicycle frame was replaced by a flat-sided oval steel tube F-frame on a novel rubber front and rear suspension, with the wheel size reduced to 41 cm (16 in.) with high-pressure tyres. Raleigh Industries Ltd having refused his offer to produce the Moulton Bicycle under licence, he set up his own factory on his estate, producing 25,000 bicycles between 1963 and 1966. In 1967 he sold out to Raleigh and set up as Bicycle Consultants Ltd while continuing the suspension development of Moulton Developments Ltd. In the 1970s the combined firms employed some forty staff, nearly 50 per cent of whom were graduates.
    He won the Queen's Award for Industry in 1967 for technical innovation in Hydrolastic car suspension and the Moulton Bicycle. Since that time he has continued his innovative work on suspensions and the bicycle. In 1983 he introduced the AM bicycle series of very sophisticated space-frame design with suspension and 43 cm (17 in.) wheels; this machine holds the world speed record fully formed at 82 km/h (51 mph). The current Rover 100 and MGF use his Hydragas interconnected suspension. By 1994 over 7 million cars had been fitted with Moulton suspensions. He has won many design awards and prizes, and has been awarded three honorary doctorates of engineering. He is active in engineering and design education.
    [br]
    Principal Honours and Distinctions
    Queen's Award for Industry 1967; CBE; RDI. Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
    Further Reading
    P.R.Whitfield, 1975, Creativity in Industry, London: Penguin Books.
    IMcN

    Biographical history of technology > Moulton, Alexander

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