war+honours

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

He was the son of a headmaster who, when Mitchell was aged 6 years, set up his own printing business. Mitchell was apprenticed at the age of 16 to a locomotive builder in Stoke and also studied engineering, mechanics, mathematics and drawing at night-school. With the outbreak of war in 1914 he became increasingly interested in aircraft and in 1916 joined the Supermarine Aviation Works at Southampton. Such was his talent for aviation design that within three years he had risen to be Chief Engineer Designer. Initially Mitchell's work was concentrated on flying boats, but with the resurrection after the First World War of the biennial Schneider Trophy races for seaplanes he turned his attention increasingly to high-speed floatplanes. He first achieved success with his S-5 in the 1927 race at Venice and followed it up with further victories in 1929 and 1931 with the S-6 and S-6B, enabling Britain to win the trophy outright (See also Royce, Sir Frederick Henry). Using the experience gained from the Schneider Trophy races, Mitchell now began to design fighter aircraft. He was dissatisfied with his first attempt, which was to produce a fighter to an Air Ministry specification, and started afresh on his own. The result was the Supermarine Spitfire, which was to become one of the outstanding aircraft of the Second World War. Sadly, he died of cancer before his project came to full fruition, with the Spitfire not entering Royal Air Force service until June 1938. The success of Mitchell's designs was due to his ability to combine good engineering with aerodynamic grace.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Mining and extraction technology, Weapons and armour

[br]

[br]

[br]

The son of a barber-surgeon who deserted his family to serve in the Swedish army, Nobel showed little interest in academic pursuits as a child and was sent to sea at the age of 16, but jumped ship in Egypt and was eventually employed as an architect by the pasha. Returning to Sweden, he won a scholarship to the Stockholm School of Architecture, where he studied from 1821 to 1825 and was awarded a number of prizes. His interest then leaned towards mechanical matters and he transferred to the Stockholm School of Engineering. Designs for linen-finishing machines won him a prize there, and he also patented a means of transforming rotary into reciprocating movement. He then entered the real-estate business and was successful until a fire in 1833 destroyed his house and everything he owned. By this time he had married and had two sons, with a third, Alfred (of Nobel Prize fame; see Alfred Nobel), on the way. Moving to more modest quarters on the outskirts of Stockholm, Immanuel resumed his inventions, concentrating largely on India rubber, which he applied to surgical instruments and military equipment, including a rubber knapsack.

It was talk of plans to construct a canal at Suez that first excited his interest in explosives. He saw them as a means of making mining more efficient and began to experiment in his backyard. However, this made him unpopular with his neighbours, and the city authorities ordered him to cease his investigations. By this time he was deeply in debt and in 1837 moved to Finland, leaving his family in Stockholm. He hoped to interest the Russians in land and sea mines and, after some four years, succeeded in obtaining financial backing from the Ministry of War, enabling him to set up a foundry and arms factory in St Petersburg and to bring his family over. By 1850 he was clear of debt in Sweden and had begun to acquire a high reputation as an inventor and industrialist. His invention of the horned contact mine was to be the basic pattern of the sea mine for almost the next 100 years, but he also created and manufactured a central-heating system based on hot-water pipes. His three sons, Ludwig, Robert and Alfred, had now joined him in his business, but even so the outbreak of war with Britain and France in the Crimea placed severe pressures on him. The Russians looked to him to convert their navy from sail to steam, even though he had no experience in naval propulsion, but the aftermath of the Crimean War brought financial ruin once more to Immanuel. Amongst the reforms brought in by Tsar Alexander II was a reliance on imports to equip the armed forces, so all domestic arms contracts were abruptly cancelled, including those being undertaken by Nobel. Unable to raise money from the banks, Immanuel was forced to declare himself bankrupt and leave Russia for his native Sweden. Nobel then reverted to his study of explosives, particularly of how to adapt the then highly unstable nitroglycerine, which had first been developed by Ascanio Sobrero in 1847, for blasting and mining. Nobel believed that this could be done by mixing it with gunpowder, but could not establish the right proportions. His son Alfred pursued the matter semi-independently and eventually evolved the principle of the primary charge (and through it created the blasting cap), having taken out a patent for a nitroglycerine product in his own name; the eventual result of this was called dynamite. Father and son eventually fell out over Alfred's independent line, but worse was to follow. In September 1864 Immanuel's youngest son, Oscar, then studying chemistry at Uppsala University, was killed in an explosion in Alfred's laboratory: Immanuel suffered a stroke, but this only temporarily incapacitated him, and he continued to put forward new ideas. These included making timber a more flexible material through gluing crossed veneers under pressure and bending waste timber under steam, a concept which eventually came to fruition in the form of plywood.

In 1868 Immanuel and Alfred were jointly awarded the prestigious Letterstedt Prize for their work on explosives, but Alfred never for-gave his father for retaining the medal without offering it to him.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Son of a successful mining engineer, Sopwith did not shine at school and, having been turned down by the Royal Navy as a result, attended an engineering college. His first interest was motor cars and, while still in his teens, he set up a business in London with a friend in order to sell them; he also took part in races and rallies.

Sopwith's interest in aviation came initially through ballooning, and in 1906 he purchased his own balloon. Four years later, inspired by the recent flights across the Channel to France and after a joy-ride at Brooklands, he bought an Avis monoplane, followed by a larger biplane, and taught himself to fly. He was awarded the Royal Aero Society's Aviator Certificate No. 31 on 21 November 1910, and he quickly distinguished himself in flying competitions on both sides of the Atlantic and started his own flying school. In his races he was ably supported by his friend Fred Sigrist, a former motor engineer. Among the people Sopwith taught to fly were an Australian, Harry Hawker, and Major Hugh Trenchard, who later became the "father" of the RAF.

In 1912, depressed by the poor quality of the aircraft on trial for the British Army, Sopwith, in conjunction with Hawker and Sigrist, bought a skating rink in Kingston-upon-Thames and, assisted by Fred Sigrist, started to design and build his first aircraft, the Sopwith Hybrid. He sold this to the Royal Navy in 1913, and the following year his aviation manufacturing company became the Sopwith Aviation Company Ltd. That year a seaplane version of his Sopwith Tabloid won the Schneider Trophy in the second running of this speed competition. During 1914–18, Sopwith concentrated on producing fighters (or "scouts" as they were then called), with the Pup, the Camel, the 1½ Strutter, the Snipe and the Sopwith Triplane proving among the best in the war. He also pioneered several ideas to make flying easier for the pilot, and in 1915 he patented his adjustable tailplane and his 1 ½ Strutter was the first aircraft to be fitted with air brakes. During the four years of the First World War, Sopwith Aviation designed thirty-two different aircraft types and produced over 16,000 aircraft.

The end of the First World War brought recession to the aircraft industry and in 1920 Sopwith, like many others, put his company into receivership; none the less, he immediately launched a new, smaller company with Hawker, Sigrist and V.W.Eyre, which they called the H.G. Hawker Engineering Company Ltd to avoid any confusion with the former company. He began by producing cars and motor cycles under licence, but was determined to resume aircraft production. He suffered an early blow with the death of Hawker in an air crash in 1921, but soon began supplying aircraft to the Royal Air Force again. In this he was much helped by taking on a new designer, Sydney Camm, in 1923, and during the next decade they produced a number of military aircraft types, of which the Hart light bomber and the Fury fighter, the first to exceed 200 mph (322 km/h), were the best known. In the mid-1930s Sopwith began to build a large aviation empire, acquiring first the Gloster Aircraft Company and then, in quick succession, Armstrong-Whitworth, Armstrong-Siddeley Motors Ltd and its aero-engine counterpart, and A.V.Roe, which produced Avro aircraft. Under the umbrella of the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Company (set up in 1935) these companies produced a series of outstanding aircraft, ranging from the Hawker Hurricane, through the Avro Lancaster to the Gloster Meteor, Britain's first in-service jet aircraft, and the Hawker Typhoon, Tempest and Hunter. When Sopwith retired as Chairman of the Hawker Siddeley Group in 1963 at the age of 75, a prototype jump-jet (the P-1127) was being tested, later to become the Harrier, a for cry from the fragile biplanes of 1910.

Sopwith also had a passion for yachting and came close to wresting the America's Cup from the USA in 1934 when sailing his yacht Endeavour, which incorporated a number of features years ahead of their time; his greatest regret was that he failed in his attempts to win this famous yachting trophy for Britain. After his retirement as Chairman of the Hawker Siddeley Group, he remained on the Board until 1978. The British aviation industry had been nationalized in April 1977, and Hawker Siddeley's aircraft interests merged with the British Aircraft Corporation to become British Aerospace (BAe). Nevertheless, by then the Group had built up a wide range of companies in the field of mechanical and electrical engineering, and its board conferred on Sopwith the title Founder and Life President.

[br]

CM / JDS

SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour

[br]

[br]

[br]

Educated at Westminster College, in 1904 Tizard went to Magdalen College, Oxford, gaining Firsts in mathematics and chemistry. After a period of time in Berlin with Nernst, he joined the Royal Institution in 1909 to study the colour changes of indicators. From 1911 until 1914 he was a tutorial Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, but with the outbreak of the First World War he joined first the Royal Garrison Artillery, then, in 1915, the newly formed Royal Flying Corps, to work on the development of bomb-sights. Successively in charge of testing aircraft, a lieutenant-colonel in the Ministry of Munitions and Assistant Controller of Research and Experiments for the Royal Air Force, he returned to Oxford in 1919 and the following year became Reader in Chemical Thermodynamics; at this stage he developed the use of toluene as an air-craft-fuel additive.

In 1922 he was appointed an assistant secretary at the government Department of Industrial and Scientific Research, becoming Principal Assistant Secretary in 1922 and its Permanent Director in 1927; during this time he was also a member of the Aeronautical Research Committee, being Chairman of the latter in 1933–43. From 1929 to 1942 he was Rector of Imperial College. In 1932 he was also appointed Chairman of a committee set up to investigate possible national air-defence systems, and it was largely due to his efforts that the radar proposals of Watson-Watt were taken up and an effective system made operational before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was also involved in various other government activities aimed at applying technology to the war effort, including the dam-buster and atomic bombs.

President of Magdalen College in 1942–7, he then returned again to Whitehall, serving as Chairman of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy and of the Defence Research Policy Committee. Finally, in 1952, he became Pro-Chan-cellor of Southampton University.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Gabriel Voisin was one of a group of aviation pioneers working in France c. 1905. One of the leaders of this group was a rich lawyer-sportsman, Ernest Archdeacon. For a number of years they had been building gliders based on those of the Wright brothers. Archdeacon's glider of 1904 was flown by Voisin, who went on to assist in the design and manufacture of gliders for Archdeacon and Louis Blériot, including successful float-gliders. Gabriel Voisin was joined by his brother Charles in 1905 and they set up the first commercial aircraft factory. As the Voisins had limited funds, they had to seek customers who could afford to indulge in the fashionable hobby of flying. One was Santos- Dumont, who commissioned Voisin to build his "14 bis" aeroplane in 1906.

Early in 1907 the Voisins built their first powered aeroplane, but it was not a success.

Later that year they completed a biplane for a Paris sculptor, Léon Delagrange, and another for Henri Farman. The basic Voisin was a biplane with the engine behind the pilot and a "pusher" propeller. Pitching was controlled by biplane elevators forward of the pilot and rudders were fitted to the box kite tail, but there was no control of roll.

Improvements were gradually introduced by the Voisins and their customers, such as Farman. Incidentally, to flatter their clients the Voisins often named the aircraft after them, thus causing some confusion to historians. Many Voisins were built up until 1910, when the company's fortunes sank. Competition was growing, the factory was flooded, and Charles left. Gabriel started again, building robust biplanes of steel construction. Voisin bombers were widely used during the First World War, and a subsidiary factory was built in Russia.

In August 1917, Voisin sold his business when the French Air Ministry decided that Voisin aeroplanes were obsolete and that the factory should be turned over to the building of engines. After the war he started another business making prefabricated houses, and then turned to manufacturing motor cars. From 1919 to 1939 his company produced various models, mainly for the luxury end of the market but also including a few sports and racing cars. In the early 1950s he designed a small two-seater, which was built by the Biscuter company in Spain. The Voisin company finally closed in 1958.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology

[br]

[br]

[br]

Following education at Stockport Grammar School, Williams entered Manchester University in 1929, gaining his BSc in 1932 and MSc in 1933. After a short time as a college apprentice with Metropolitan Vickers, he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, to study for a DPhil, which he was awarded in 1936. He returned to Manchester University that year as an assistant lecturer, gaining his DSc in 1939. Following the outbreak of the Second World War he worked for the Scientific Civil Service, initially at the Bawdsey Research Station and then at the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Malvern, Worcestershire. There he was involved in research on non-incandescent amplifiers and diode rectifiers and the development of the first practical radar system capable of identifying friendly aircraft. Later in the war, he devised an automatic radar system suitable for use by fighter aircraft.

After the war he resumed his academic career at Manchester, becoming Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the University Electrotechnical Laboratory in 1946. In the same year he succeeded in developing a data-memory device based on the cathode ray tube, in which the information was stored and read by electron-beam scanning of a charge-retaining target. The Williams storage tube, as it became known, not only found obvious later use as a means of storing single-frame, still television images but proved to be a vital component of the pioneering Manchester University MkI digital computer. Because it enabled both data and program instructions to be stored in the computer, it was soon used worldwide in the development of the early stored-program computers.

[br]

1 trick.

jugó bien sus bazas (figurative) she played her cards right

están jugando su última baza (figurative) they're playing their last card

no pude meter baza (en la conversación) I couldn't get a word in edgeways

siempre trata de meter baza (en la conversación) she's always trying to butt in

2 advantage.

la gran baza del producto es su reducido precio the product's great advantage is its low price

el delantero ruso es la gran baza del equipo the Russian forward is the team's main weapon

3 trump card.

* * *

► nombre femenino

1 (naipes) trick

2 (ventaja) asset, advantage

3 (ocasión) chance

\

meter baza figurado to butt in, stick one's oar in

no poder meter baza not to be able to get a word in edgeways

* * *

1) (Naipes) trick

2) [en asunto, negocio] (=recurso) weapon; (=oportunidad) chance

- meter baza

- sacar baza de algo

* * *

1) ( en naipes) trick

2) (recurso, arma)

* * *

= trump card, bargaining chip.

Ex. Having failed apparently with her trump card, she fell back on finesse.

Ex. The only ones 'using' the war dead as a political bargaining chip are the Republicans who have fought to keep the images of these fallen heroes in the dark.

----

* jugar bien + Posesivo + baza = play + Posesivo + cards right.

* * *

1) ( en naipes) trick

2) (recurso, arma)

* * *

* * *

A (en naipes) trick

hacer or ganar una baza to win a trick

meter baza ( fam); to butt in ( colloq), to stick one's oar in ( BrE colloq)

(recurso, arma): mi experiencia es la baza fundamental que puedo aportar a la empresa my experience is the most important thing I can bring to the company

parece la mejor baza del equipo colombiano he could prove to be the Colombian team's trump card, he seems to be the great hope of the Colombian team

jugaron su última baza they played their last card, they used their ultimate weapon

tomó la determinación de jugar la baza decisiva she decided to play her trump card

2 (logro, adelanto) achievement

su gran baza ha sido la conquista del mercado escandinavo their greatest achievement o success has been their conquest of the Scandinavian market

esto constituyó la primera baza victoriosa de los rebeldes this represented the first taste of victory o first moment of triumph for the rebels

(oportunidad): esta carrera será la última baza para Romero this race will be Romero's last chance

* * *

* * *

baza nf

1. [en naipes] trick;

hacer una baza to make a trick;

jugar una baza: jugó bien sus bazas she played her cards right;

están jugando su última baza they're playing their last card;

meter baza: no pude meter baza (en la conversación) I couldn't get a word in edgeways;

siempre trata de meter baza (en la conversación) she's always trying to butt in;

intentan meter baza en la gestión de la empresa they are trying to elbow in on the management of the company

2. [ventaja] advantage;

la gran baza del producto es su reducido precio the product's great advantage is its low price;

presentaron como baza electoral la educación they played the education card in the election;

el delantero ruso es la gran baza del equipo the Russian forward is the team's main weapon

* * *

1 en naipes trick; fig

trump card;

jugar sus bazas fig play one’s cards right

meter baza fam interfere;

no dejar a alguien meter baza fam not let s.o. get a word in edgewise

* * *

baza nf

1) : trick (in card games)

meter baza en : to butt in on

revenir [ʀəv(ə)niʀ, ʀ(ə)vəniʀ]

➭ TABLE 22

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

► revenir is conjugated with être.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━intransitive verb

   a. ( = venir de nouveau) to come back ; [calme, ordre, oiseaux] to return ; [soleil] to reappear ; [fête, date] to come round again ; [thème, idée] to recur

• il doit revenir nous voir demain he's coming back to see us tomorrow

• pouvez-vous revenir plus tard ? can you come back later?

• cette expression revient souvent dans ses livres that expression often crops up in his books

   b. ( = rentrer) to come back, to return

• revenir à Paris to return to Paris

• revenir de quelque part to return from somewhere

• revenir chez soi to come back home

• revenir à la hâte to hurry back

• revenir de voyage to return from a trip

• en revenant de l'école on the way back from school

• je lui téléphonerai en revenant I'll phone him when I get back

• je reviens dans un instant I'll be back in a minute

   c. ( = retourner) revenir en arrière to go back

• on ne peut pas revenir en arrière (dans le temps) you can't turn back the clock

   d. ( = coûter) ça revient cher it's expensive

• ça reviendrait moins cher d'en acheter trois it would be cheaper to buy three

   e. ( = cuire) faire revenir to brown

• faites revenir les oignons dans le beurre brown the onions gently in the butter

   f. (locutions)

► revenir à qch ( = reprendre) to return to sth ; ( = équivaloir à) to amount to sth ; ( = totaliser) to come to sth

• revenir à de meilleurs sentiments to return to a better frame of mind

• revenir à la vie to come back to life

• nous y reviendrons dans un instant we'll come back to that in a moment

• j'en reviens toujours là, il faut... I still come back to this, we must...

• il n'y a pas à y revenir there's no going back on it

• revenir à la charge to return to the attack

• cela revient à dire que... it amounts to saying that...

• ça revient au même it comes to the same thing

• ça revient à 100 € it comes to €100

• à combien est-ce que cela va vous revenir ? how much will that cost you?

• revenir à la marque to draw

• revenir au score to draw► revenir à qn [courage, appétit, parole] to return to sb ; [droit, honneur, responsabilité] to fall to sb ; [biens, somme d'argent] to come to sb ; [souvenir, idée] to come back to sb

• ça me revient ! it's coming back to me now!

• revenir aux oreilles de qn to get back to sb

• tout le mérite vous revient all the credit goes to you

• là-dessus, 100 € me reviennent 100 euros of that comes to me

• il a une tête qui ne me revient pas (inf) I don't like the look of him

• elle ne me revient pas du tout, cette fille (inf) I don't like that girl at all► revenir à soi [personne] to come to

► revenir de [+ surprise] to get over ; [+ erreurs] to leave behind

• il revient de loin he had a close shave

• je n'en reviens pas ! I can't get over it!► revenir sur [+ affaire, problème] to go back over ; [+ promesse, décision] to go back on ; ( = rattraper) to catch up with

• ne revenons pas là-dessus let's not go back over that

* * *

verbe intransitif (+ v être)

1) ( fréquenter de nouveau) to come back; ( venir une fois encore) to come again

2) ( rentrer) [personne, animal, véhicule] to come back (à to; de from), to return (à to; de from)

3) (reprendre, retourner à)

4) ( réapparaître) [tache, rhume, mode] to come back; [soleil] to come out again; [saison] to return; [date, fête] to come round again GB, to come again US; [idée, thème] to recur

5) ( être recouvré) [appétit, mémoire] to come back

6) ( être remémoré)

7) ( coûter)

8) ( équivaloir à)

9) ( reconsidérer)

10) ( sortir d'un état)

11) ( être rapporté)

12) ( être attribué)

13) Culinaire

s'en revenir verbe pronominal liter to return (de from)

verbe impersonnel

1) ( incomber)

2) ( parvenir à la connaissance de)

3) ( être remémoré)

••

* * *

1) [personne] (en un lieu) to come back

2) (sujet chose) (= coûter) to come to

3) (= équivaloir à) to amount to

4)

5) CUISINE

* * *

revenir verb table: venir

A vi (+ v être)

1 ( fréquenter de nouveau) to come back; ( venir une fois encore) to come again; un client mal servi ne revient pas a dissatisfied customer won't come back; elle revient chaque année en France she comes back to France every year; elle revient en France cette année she's coming to France again this year; nous fermons, revenez demain we're closing, come back tomorrow; tu reviendras nous voir? will you come and see us again?; revenir (pour) faire to come back to do;

2 ( rentrer) [personne, animal, véhicule] to come back, to return; revenir à/de to come back ou return to/from; revenir de Tokyo to come back from Tokyo; revenir chez soi to come back ou return home; revenir sur terre fig to come back to earth; revenir à sa place to return to one's seat; partir pour ne jamais revenir to leave never to return; revenir de loin lit to come back from far away; fig to have had a close shave; son mari lui est revenu her husband came back to her; en revenant du bureau ( en route) coming home from the office, on the way home from the office; ( à l'arrivée) on getting home from the office; je reviens tout de suite I'll be back in a minute, I'll be right back○; il en est revenu vivant he got back in one piece; elle est revenue en vitesse à la maison she rushed back home; mon chèque m'est revenu parce qu'il n'était pas signé my cheque GB ou check US was returned because I forgot to sign it; ⇒ galop;

3 (reprendre, retourner à) revenir à to return to, to come back to [méthode, conception, histoire]; revenons à notre héros let's return to our hero; revenir à la normale to return to normal; revenir au pouvoir to return to power; ça revient à la mode it's coming back into fashion; la livre est revenue à 1,6 euro the pound has gone back to 1.6 euros; revenir à la politique to come back into politics; revenir à ses habitudes to return ou revert to one's old habits; revenir aux frontières d'avant la guerre to revert to pre-war borders; pour (en) revenir à mon histoire/ce que je disais to get back to my story/what I was saying; revenir à de meilleurs sentiments to return to a better frame of mind; n'y reviens pas! ( ne recommence pas) don't let it happen again!; ( n'en parle plus) don't start that again!;

4 ( réapparaître) [tache, rhume, douleur] to come back; [soleil] to come out again; [saison] to return; [date, fête] to come round again GB, to come again US; [idée, thème] to recur; [mode] to come back; cette idée me revenait souvent the idea kept occurring to me; le mot revient souvent sous sa plume the word keeps cropping up in his/her writing; le calme est revenu calm has been restored, things have calmed down;

5 ( être recouvré) [appétit, mémoire] to come back; l'appétit me revient I'm getting my appetite back; sa mémoire ne lui reviendra jamais comme avant his/her memory will never be the same again;

6 ( être remémoré) revenir à qn, revenir à la mémoire or l'esprit de qn to come back to sb; ça me revient! now I remember!, now it's coming back!; cette journée me revient en mémoire I remember that day; si le nom me/te revient if I/you remember the name, if the name comes to mind;

7 ( coûter) revenir à 100 euros to come to 100 euros, to cost 100 euros; ça m'est revenu à 100 euros it cost me 100 euros; ça revient cher it works out expensive;

8 ( équivaloir à) ça revient au même it amounts ou comes to the same thing; ce qui revient à dire que which amounts to saying that;

9 ( reconsidérer) revenir sur to go back over [question, différend, passé]; ( changer d'avis) to go back on [décision, parole, promesse]; to retract [aveu]; ne revenons pas là-dessus don't let's go over all that again;

10 ( sortir d'un état) revenir de to get over [maladie, frayeur, surprise]; to lose [illusion]; to abandon [théorie] ; revenir de ses illusions to lose one's illusions; revenir de son erreur to realize one's mistake; la vie à la campagne, j'en suis revenu as for life in the country, I've seen it for what it is; je le croyais honnête mais j'en suis revenu I thought he was honest but I've seen him for what he is; être revenu de tout to be blasé; je n'en reviens pas○! I can't get over it!, I'm amazed!; je n'en reviens pas qu'il ait dit oui○ I can't get over the fact that he said yes, I am amazed that he said yes; je n'en reviens pas des progrès que tu as faits○ I'm amazed at the progress you've made;

11 ( être rapporté) [propos, remarque] revenir à qn, revenir aux oreilles de qn to get back to sb, to reach sb's ears;

12 ( être attribué) revenir à qn [bien, titre] to go to sb, to pass to sb; [honneur] to fall to sb; ( de droit) to be due to sb; le titre leur revient à la mort de leur père the title goes ou passes to them on their father's death; ce poste pourrait revenir à un écologiste this post could go to an ecologist; ça leur revient de droit it's theirs by right; les 10% qui me reviennent the 10% that's coming to me; la décision revient au rédacteur it is the editor's decision, the decision lies with the editor;

13 Culin faire revenir to brown [ail, oignons, viande].

B s'en revenir vpr liter to return (de from).

C v impers

1 ( incomber) c'est à vous qu'il revient de trancher it is for you to decide;

2 ( parvenir à la connaissance de) il m'est revenu certains propos certain remarks have reached my ears; s'il leur en revenait quelque chose if it reached their ears, if it got back to them; il me revient de tous côtés qu'on me critique I keep hearing that people are criticizing me;

3 ( être remémoré) liter il me revient que I recall ou remember that.

revenir à soi to come round, to come to; revenir à la vie to come back to life; il a une tête or un air qui ne me revient pas I don't like the look of him.

[rəvnir] verbe intransitif

1. [venir à nouveau - généralement] to come back ; [ - chez soi] to come back, to come (back) home, to return home ; [ - au point de départ] to return, to come ou to get back

a. [dans le temps] to go back (in time)

b. [dans l'espace] to retrace one's steps, to go back

a. to go back to the starting point

b. (figuré) to be back to square one

a. [elle a failli mourir] it was touch and go (for her)! (euphémisme)

b. [elle a eu de graves ennuis] she's had a close shave!

2. [se manifester à nouveau - doute, inquiétude] to return, to come back ; [ - calme, paix] to return, to be restored ; [ - symptôme] to recur, to return, to reappear ; [ - problème] to crop up ou to arise again ; [ - occasion] to crop up again ; [ - thème, rime] to recur, to reappear ; [ - célébration] to come round again ; [ - saison] to return, to come back ; [ - soleil] to come out again, to reappear

3. SPORT [dans une course] to come back, to catch up

4. [coûter]

5. CUISINE

6. (familier) [retrouver son état normal - tissu]

les draps sont bien revenus au lavage the sheets came up like new in the wash

————————

revenir à verbe plus préposition

1. [équivaloir à] to come down to, to amount to

2. [reprendre - mode, procédé, thème] to go back to, to revert to, to return to

3. [suj: part, récompense] to go ou to fall to, to devolve on ou upon (soutenu)

[suj: droit, tâche] to fall to

4. [suj: faculté, souvenir] to come back to

5. (familier) [plaire à]

elle a une tête qui ne me revient pas I don't really like the look of her

————————

revenir de verbe plus préposition

1. [émotion, étonnement, maladie] to get over, to recover from

[évanouissement] to come round from, to come to after

a. [guérir] to come ou to pull through it, to recover

b. [échapper à un danger] to come through (it)

2. [idée, préjugé] to put ou to cast aside (separable) , to throw over (separable)

[illusion] to shake off (separable)

[principe] to give up (separable) , to leave behind

il est revenu de tout he's seen it all (before)

————————

revenir sur verbe plus préposition

1. [question] to go back over, to hark back to

2. [décision, déclaration, promesse] to go back on

revenir sur sa parole ou sur la parole donnée to go back on one's word, to break one's promise

————————

s'en revenir verbe pronominal intransitif

nous nous en revenions tranquillement lorsque... we were slowly making our way home when...

1) (вн.; помогать идти) lead (d), guide (d); direct (d)

2) (вн.; возглавлять) lead (d)

3) (вн.; управлять транспортным средством) drive (d); operate (d)

4) (сов. провести́) (вн.; прокладывать) lay (d); build (d)

5) (сов. провести́) (тв.; двигать) move (d)

6) (сов. привести́) (к; куда-л; о дороге, тропе и т.п.) lead (to); ( о двери) open (on), lead (to)

7) (сов. привести́) (к дт.; иметь следствия) lead to, result in

8) (вн.; осуществлять, поддерживать) have (d), lead (d); carry on (d)

9) (вн.; руководить) conduct (d), direct (d)

10) (вн.; заниматься кем-чем-л, отвечать за кого-что-л) be in charge (of); be responsible (for); take care (of)

11) спорт ( опережать) be in the lead

••

SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

[br]

[br]

[br]

Interested from childhood in anything mechanical, as a teenager Armstrong constructed a variety of wireless equipment in the attic of his parents' home, including spark-gap transmitters and receivers with iron-filing "coherer" detectors capable of producing weak Morse-code signals. In 1912, while still a student of engineering at Columbia University, he applied positive, i.e. regenerative, feedback to a Lee De Forest triode amplifier to just below the point of oscillation and obtained a gain of some 1,000 times, giving a receiver sensitivity very much greater than hitherto possible. Furthermore, by allowing the circuit to go into full oscillation he found he could generate stable continuous-waves, making possible the first reliable CW radio transmitter. Sadly, his claim to priority with this invention, for which he filed US patents in 1913, the year he graduated from Columbia, led to many years of litigation with De Forest, to whom the US Supreme Court finally, but unjustly, awarded the patent in 1934. The engineering world clearly did not agree with this decision, for the Institution of Radio Engineers did not revoke its previous award of a gold medal and he subsequently received the highest US scientific award, the Franklin Medal, for this discovery.

During the First World War, after some time as an instructor at Columbia University, he joined the US Signal Corps laboratories in Paris, where in 1918 he invented the superheterodyne, a major contribution to radio-receiver design and for which he filed a patent in 1920. The principle of this circuit, which underlies virtually all modern radio, TV and radar reception, is that by using a local oscillator to convert, or "heterodyne", a wanted signal to a lower, fixed, "intermediate" frequency it is possible to obtain high amplification and selectivity without the need to "track" the tuning of numerous variable circuits.

Returning to Columbia after the war and eventually becoming Professor of Electrical Engineering, he made a fortune from the sale of his patent rights and used part of his wealth to fund his own research into further problems in radio communication, particularly that of receiver noise. In 1933 he filed four patents covering the use of wide-band frequency modulation (FM) to achieve low-noise, high-fidelity sound broadcasting, but unable to interest RCA he eventually built a complete broadcast transmitter at his own expense in 1939 to prove the advantages of his system. Unfortunately, there followed another long battle to protect and exploit his patents, and exhausted and virtually ruined he took his own life in 1954, just as the use of FM became an established technique.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

[br]

[br]

[br]

After obtaining degrees from the universities of Marburg and Berlin (PhD) and spending a short time as Headmaster of the Thomas School in Berlin, Braun successively held professorships in theoretical physics at the universities of Marburg (1876), Strasbourg (1880) and Karlsruhe (1883) before becoming Professor of Experimental Physics at Tübingen in 1885 and Director and Professor of Physics at Strasbourg in 1895.

During this time he devised experimental apparatus to determine the dielectric constant of rock salt and developed the Braun high-tension electrometer. He also discovered that certain mineral sulphide crystals would only conduct electricity in one direction, a rectification effect that made it possible to detect and demodulate radio signals in a more reliable manner than was possible with the coherer. Primarily, however, he was concerned with improving Marconi's radio transmitter to increase its broadcasting range. By using a transmitter circuit comprising a capacitor and a spark-gap, coupled to an aerial without a spark-gap, he was able to obtain much greater oscillatory currents in the latter, and by tuning the transmitter so that the oscillations occupied only a narrow frequency band he reduced the interference with other transmitters. Other achievements include the development of a directional aerial and the first practical wavemeter, and the measurement in Strasbourg of the strength of radio waves received from the Eiffel Tower transmitter in Paris. For all this work he subsequently shared with Marconi the 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Around 1895 he carried out experiments using a torsion balance in order to measure the universal gravitational constant, g, but the work for which he is probably best known is the addition of deflecting plates and a fluorescent screen to the Crooke's tube in 1897 in order to study the characteristics of high-frequency currents. The oscilloscope, as it was called, was not only the basis of a now widely used and highly versatile test instrument but was the forerunner of the cathode ray tube, or CRT, used for the display of radar and television images.

At the beginning of the First World War, while in New York to testify in a patent suit, he was trapped by the entry of the USA into the war and remained in Brooklyn with his son until his death.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Electronics and information technology, Horology, Telecommunications

[br]

[br]

[br]

After obtaining BSc and MSc degrees in physics at Brown University in 1896 and 1897, respectively, Cady went to Berlin, obtaining his PhD in 1900. Returning to the USA he initially worked for the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, but in 1902 he took up a post at the Wesleyan University, Connecticut, remaining as Professor of Physics from 1907 until his retirement in 1946. During the First World War he became interested in piezo-electricity as a result of attending a meeting on techniques for detecting submarines, and after the war he continued to work on the use of piezo-electricity as a transducer for generating sonar beams. In the process he discovered that piezo-electric materials, such as quartz, exhibited high-stability electrical resonance, and in 1921 he produced the first working piezo-electric resonator. This idea was subsequently taken up by George Washington Pierce and others, resulting in very stable oscillators and narrow-band filters that are widely used in the 1990s in radio communications, electronic clocks and watches.

Internationally known for his work, Cady retired from his professorship in 1946, but he continued to work for the US Navy. From 1951 to 1955 he was a consultant and research associate at the California Institute of Technology, after which he returned to Providence to continue research at Brown, filing his last patent (one of over fifty) at the age of 93 years.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

James Caird was educated at Glasgow Academy. While the connections are difficult to unravel, it is clear he was related to the Cairds of Greenock, whose shipyard on the Clyde built countless liners for the P \& O Company, and to the Caird family who were munificent benefactors of Dundee and the Church of Scotland.

In 1878 Caird joined a firm of East India Merchants in Glasgow, but later went to London. In 1890 he entered the service of Turnbull, Martin \& Co., managers of the Scottish Shire Line of Steamers; he quickly rose to become Manager, and by 1903 he was the sole partner and owner. In this role his business skill became apparent, as he pioneered (along with the Houlder and Federal Lines) refrigerated shipping connections between the United Kingdom and Australia and New Zealand. In 1917 he sold his shipping interests to Messrs Cayzer Irvine, managers of the Clan Line.

During the First World War, Caird set up a new shipyard on the River Wye at Chepstow in Wales. Registered in April 1916, the Standard Shipbuilding and Engineering Company took over an existing shipbuilder in an area not threatened by enemy attacks. The purpose of the yard was rapid building of standardized merchant ships during a period when heavy losses were being sustained because of German U-boat attacks. Caird was appointed Chairman, a post he held until the yard came under full government control later in the war. The shipyard did not meet the high expectations of the time, but it did pioneer standard shipbuilding which was later successful in the USA, the UK and Japan.

Caird's greatest work may have been the service he gave to the councils which helped form the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. He used all his endeavours to ensure the successful launch of the world's greatest maritime museum; he persuaded friends to donate, the Government to transfer artefacts and records, and he gave of his wealth to purchase works of art for the nation. Prior to his death he endowed the Museum with £1.25 million, a massive sum for the 1930s, and this (the Caird Fund) is administered to this day by the Trustees of Greenwich.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

[br]

[br]

[br]

Colpitts obtained Bachelor's degrees at Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, and Harvard in 1894 and 1896, respectively, followed by a Master's degree at Harvard in 1897. After two years as assistant to the professor of physics there, he joined the American Bell Telephone Company. When the Bell Company was reorganized in 1907, he moved to the Western Electric branch of the company in New York as Head of the Physical Laboratories. In 1911 he became a director of the Research Laboratories, and in 1917 he became Assistant Chief Engineer of the company. During this time he invented both the push-pull amplifier and the Colpitts oscillator, both major developments in communications. In 1917, during the First World War, he spent some time in France helping to set up the US Signal Corps Research Laboratories. Afterwards he continued to do much, both technically and as a manager, to place telephone communications on a firm scientific basis, retiring as Vice-President of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1937. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1941 he was recalled from retirement and appointed Director of the Engineering Foundation to work on submarine warfare techniques, particularly echo-ranging.

[br]

See also: Hartley, Ralph V.L.

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

He was the son of a country lawyer who became legal advisor and travelling companion to certain rich Americans. At an early age Cousteau acquired a love of travel, of the sea and of cinematography: he made his first film at the age of 13. After an interrupted education he nevertheless passed the difficult entrance examination to the Ecole Navale in Brest, but his naval career was cut short in 1936 by injuries received in a serious motor accident. For his long recuperation he was drafted to Toulon. There he met Philippe Tailliez, a fellow naval officer, and Frédéric Dumas, a champion spearfisher, with whom he formed a long association and began to develop his underwater swimming and photography. He apparently took little part in the Second World War, but under cover he applied his photographic skills to espionage, for which he was awarded the Légion d'honneur after the war.

Cousteau sought greater freedom of movement underwater and, with Emile Gagnan, who worked in the laboratory of Air Liquide, he began experimenting to improve portable underwater breathing apparatus. As a result, in 1943 they invented the aqualung. Its simple design and robust construction provided a reliable and low-cost unit and revolutionized scientific and recreational diving. Gagnan shunned publicity, but Cousteau revelled in the new freedom to explore and photograph underwater and exploited the publicity potential to the full.

The Undersea Research Group was set up by the French Navy in 1944 and, based in Toulon, it provided Cousteau with the Opportunity to develop underwater exploration and filming techniques and equipment. Its first aims were minesweeping and exploration, but in 1948 Cousteau pioneered an extension to marine archaeology. In 1950 he raised the funds to acquire a surplus US-built minesweeper, which he fitted out to further his quest for exploration and adventure and named Calypso. Cousteau also sought and achieved public acclaim with the publication in 1953 of The Silent World, an account of his submarine observations, illustrated by his own brilliant photography. The book was an immediate success and was translated into twenty-two languages. In 1955 Calypso sailed through the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean, and the outcome was a film bearing the same title as the book: it won an Oscar and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival. This was his favoured medium for the expression of his ideas and observations, and a stream of films on the same theme kept his name before the public.

Cousteau's fame earned him appointment by Prince Rainier as Director of the Oceanographie Institute in Monaco in 1957, a post he held until 1988. With its museum and research centre, it offered Cousteau a useful base for his worldwide activities.

In the 1980s Cousteau turned again to technological development. Like others before him, he was concerned to reduce ships' fuel consumption by harnessing wind power. True to form, he raised grants from various sources to fund research and enlisted technical help, namely Lucien Malavard, Professor of Aerodynamics at the Sorbonne. Malavard designed a 44 ft (13.4 m) high non-rotating cylinder, which was fitted onto a catamaran hull, christened Moulin à vent. It was intended that its maiden Atlantic crossing in 1983 should herald a new age in ship propulsion, with large royalties to Cousteau. Unfortunately the vessel was damaged in a storm and limped to the USA under diesel power. A more robust vessel, the Alcyone, was fitted with two "Turbosails" in 1985 and proved successful, with a 40 per cent reduction in fuel consumption. However, oil prices fell, removing the incentive to fit the new device; the lucrative sales did not materialize and Alcyone remained the only vessel with Turbosails, sharing with Calypso Cousteau's voyages of adventure and exploration. In September 1995, Cousteau was among the critics of the decision by the French President Jacques Chirac to resume testing of nuclear explosive devices under the Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing

[br]

[br]

[br]

After education at a private school, Dickinson was apprenticed to a London stationer. In 1806 he started in business as a stationer, in partnership with George Longman; they transferred to 65 Old Bailey, where the firm remained until their premises were destroyed during the Second World War. In order to secure the supply of paper and be less dependent on the papermakers, Dickinson turned to making paper on his own account. In 1809 he acquired Apsley Mill, near Hemel Hempstead on the river Gade in Hertfordshire. There, he produced a new kind of paper for cannon cartridges which, unlike the paper then in use, did not smoulder, thus reducing the risk of undesired explosions. The new paper proved very useful during the Napoleonic War.

Dickinson developed a continuous papermaking machine about the same time as the Fourdrinier brothers, but his worked on a different principle. Instead of a continuous flat wire screen, Dickinson used a wire-covered cylinder which dipped into the dilute pulp as it revolved. A felt-covered roller removed the layer of wet pulp, which was then subjected to drying, as in the Fourdrinier machine. The latter was first in use at Frogmore, just upstream from Apsley Mill on the river Gade. Dickinson patented his machine in 1809 and claimed that it was superior for some kinds of paper. In feet, both types of machine have survived, in much enlarged and modified form: the Fourdrinier for general papermaking, the Dickinson cylinder for the making of board. In 1810 Dickinson acquired the nearby Nash Mill, and over the years he extended the scope of his papermaking business, introducing many technical improvements. Among his inventions was a machine to paste together continuous webs of paper to form cardboard. Another, patented in 1829, was a process for incorporating threads of cotton, flax or silk into the body of the paper to make forgery more difficult. He became increasingly prosperous, overcoming labour disputes with unemployed hand-papermakers. and lawsuits against a canal company which threatened the water supply to his mills. Dickinson was the first to use percolation gauges to predict river flow, and his work on water supply brought him election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1845.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

[br]

[br]

[br]

Peter Du Cane was appointed a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1913, having commenced as a cadet at the tender age of 13. At the end of the First World War he transferred to the engineering branch and was posted ultimately to the Yangtze River gunboat fleet. In 1928 he resigned, trained as a pilot and then joined the shipbuilders Vosper Ltd of Portsmouth. For thirty-five years he held the posts of Managing Director and Chief Designer, developing the company's expertise in high-speed, small warships, pleasure craft and record breakers. During the Second World War the company designed and built many motor torpedo-boats, air-sea rescue craft and similar ships. Du Cane served for some months in the Navy, but at the request of the Government he returned to his post in the shipyard. The most glamorous products of the yard were the record breakers Bluebird II, with which Malcolm Campbell took the world water speed record in 1939, and the later Crusader, in which John Cobb lost his life. Despite this blow the company went from strength to strength, producing the epic Brave class fast patrol craft for the Royal Navy, which led to export orders. In 1966 the yard merged with John I.Thornycroft Ltd. Commander Du Cane retired seven years later.

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering

[br]

[br]

[br]

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

[br]

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

[br]

[br]

[br]

After early education at home and at private school, Eccles won a scholarship to the Royal College of Science (now Imperial College), London, where he gained a First Class BSc in physics in 1898. He then worked as a demonstrator at the college and studied coherers, for which he obtained a DSc in 1901. Increasingly interested in electrical engineering, he joined the Marconi Company in 1899 to work on oscillators at the Poole experimental radio station, but in 1904 he returned to academic life as Professor of Mathematics and Physics and Department Head at South West Polytechnic, Chelsea. There he discovered ways of using the negative resistance of galena-crystal detectors to generate oscillations and gave a mathematical description of the operation of the triode valve. In 1910 he became Reader in Engineering at University College, London, where he published a paper explaining the reflection of radio waves by the ionosphere and designed a 60 MHz short-wave transmitter. From 1916 to 1926 he was Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering at the Finsbury City \& Guilds College and a private consulting engineer. During the First World War he was a military scientific adviser and Secretary to the Joint Board of Scientific Societies. After the war he made many contributions to electronic-circuit development, many of them (including the Eccles-Jordan "flip-flop" patented in 1918 and used in binary counters) in conjunction with F.W.Jordan, about whom little seems to be known. Illness forced Eccles's premature academic retirement in 1926, but he remained active as a consultant for many years.

[br]

See also: Heaviside, Oliver; Kennelly, Arthur Edwin

SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

[br]

[br]

[br]

Between 1911 and 1914 Heinrich Focke and Georg Wulf built a monoplane and some years later, in 1924, they founded the Focke-Wulf company. They designed and built a variety of civil and military aircraft including the F 19Ente, a tail-first design of 1927. This canard layout was thought to be safer than conventional designs but, unfortunately, it crashed, killing Wulf. Around 1930 Focke became interested in rotary-wing aircraft, and in 1931 he set up a company with Gerd Achgelis to conduct research in this field. The Focke-Wulf company took out a licence to build Cierva autogiros. Focke designed an improved autogiro, the Fw 186, which flew in 1938; it was entered for a military competition, but it was beaten by a fixed-wing aircraft, the Fieseler Storch. In May 1935 Focke resigned from Focke-Wulf to concentrate on helicopter development with the Focke-Achgelis company. His first design was the Fa 61 helicopter, which utilized the fuselage and engine of a conventional aeroplane but instead of wings had two out-riggers, each carrying a rotor. The engine drove these rotors in opposite directions to counteract the adverse torque effect (with a single rotor the fuselage tends to rotate in the opposite direction to the rotor). Following its first flight on 26 June 1936, the Fa 61 went on to break several world records. However, it attracted more public attention when it was flown inside the huge Deutschlandhalle in Berlin by the famous female test pilot Hanna Reitsch in February 1938. Focke continued to develop his helicopter projects for the Focke-Achgelis company and produced the Fa 223 Drache in 1940. This used twin contra-rotating rotors, like the Fa 61, but could carry six people. Its production was hampered by allied bombing of the factory. During the Second World War Focke- Achgelis also produced a rotor kite which could be towed behind a U-boat to provide a flying "crow's nest", as well as designs for an advanced convertiplane (part aeroplane, part helicopter). After the war, Focke worked in France, the Netherlands and Brazil, then in 1954 he became Professor of Aeroplane and Helicopter Design at the University of Stuttgart.

[br]