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81 Renard, Charles
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. 23 November 1847 Damblain, Vosges, Franced. 13 April 1905 Chalais-Meudon, France[br]French pioneer of military aeronautics who, with A.C.Krebs, built an airship powered by an electric motor.[br]Charles Renard was a French army officer with an interest in aviation. In 1873 he constructed an unusual unmanned glider with ten wings and an automatic stabilizing device to control rolling. This operated by means of a pendulum device linked to moving control surfaces. The model was launched from a tower near Arras, but unfortunately it spiralled into the ground. The control surfaces could not cope with the basic instability of the design, but as an idea for automatic flight control it was ahead of its time.Following a Commission report on the military use of balloons, carrier pigeons and an optical telegraph, an aeronautical establishment was set up in 1877 at Chalais-Meudon, near Paris, under the direction of Charles Renard, who was assisted by his brother Paul. The following year Renard and a colleague, Arthur Krebs, began to plan an airship. They received financial help from Léon Gambetta, a prominent politician who had escaped from Paris by balloon in 1870 during the siege by the Prussians. Renard and Krebs studied earlier airship designs: they used the outside shape of Paul Haenlein's gas-engined airship of 1872 and included Meusnier's internal air-filled ballonnets. The gas-engine had not been a success so they decided on an electric motor. Renard developed lightweight pile batteries while Krebs designed a motor, although this was later replaced by a more powerful Gramme motor of 6.5 kW (9 hp). La France was constructed at Chalais-Meudon and, after a two-month wait for calm conditions, the airship finally ascended on 9 August 1884. The motor was switched on and the flight began. Renard and Krebs found their airship handled well and after twenty-three minutes they landed back at their base. La, France made several successful flights, but its speed of only 24 km/h (15 mph) meant that flights could be made only in calm weather. Parts of La, France, including the electric motor, are preserved in the Musée de l'Air in Paris.Renard remained in charge of the establishment at Chalais-Meudon until his death. Among other things, he developed the "Train Renard", a train of articulated road vehicles for military and civil use, of which a number were built between 1903 and 1911. Towards the end of his life Renard became interested in helicopters, and in 1904 he built a large twin-rotor model which, however, failed to take off.[br]Bibliography1886, Le Ballon dirigeable La France, Paris (a description of the airship).Further ReadingDescriptions of Renard and Kreb's airship are given in most books on the history of lighter-than-air flight, e.g.L.T.C.Rolt, 1966, The Aeronauts, London; pub. in paperback 1985.C.Bailleux, c. 1988, Association pour l'Histoire de l'Electricité en France, (a detailed account of the conception and operations of La France).1977, Centenaire de la recherche aéronautique à Chalais-Meudon, Paris (an official memoir on the work of Chalais-Meudon with a chapter on Renard).JDS -
82 Thomson, Elihu
SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 29 March 1853 Manchester, Englandd. 13 March 1937 Swampscott, Massachusetts, USA[br]English (naturalized) American electrical engineer and inventor.[br]Thomson accompanied his parents to Philadelphia in 1858; he received his education at the Central High School there, and afterwards remained as a teacher of chemistry. At this time he constructed several dynamos after studying their design, and was invited by the Franklin Institute to give lectures on the subject. After observing an arc-lighting system operating commercially in Paris in 1878, he collaborated with Edwin J. Houston, a senior colleague at the Central High School, in working out the details of such a system. An automatic regulating device was designed which, by altering the position of the brushes on the dynamo commutator, maintained a constant current irrespective of the number of lamps in use. To overcome the problem of commutation at the high voltages necessary to operate up to forty arc lamps in a series circuit, Thomson contrived a centrifugal blower which suppressed sparking. The resulting system was efficient and reliable with low operating costs. Thomson's invention of the motor meter in 1882 was the first of many such instruments for the measurement of electrical energy. In 1886 he invented electric resistance welding using low-voltage alternating current derived from a transformer of his own design. Thomson's work is recorded in his technical papers and in the 700plus patents granted for his inventions.The American Electric Company, founded to exploit the Thomson patents, later became the Thomson-Houston Company, which was destined to be a leader in the electrical manufacturing industry. They entered the field of electric power in 1887, supplying railway equipment and becoming a major innovator of electric railways. Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric were consolidated to form General Electric in 1892. Thomson remained associated with this company throughout his career.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsChevalier and Officier de la Légion d'honneur 1889. American Academy of Arts and Sciences Rumford Medal 1901. American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal 1909. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1916. Institution of Electrical Engineers Kelvin Medal 1923, Faraday Medal 1927.Bibliography1934, "Some highlights of electrical history", Electrical Engineering 53:758–67 (autobiography).Further ReadingD.O.Woodbury, 1944, Beloved Scientist, New York (a full biography). H.C.Passer, 1953, The Electrical Manufacturers: 1875–1900, Cambridge, Mass, (describes Thomson's industrial contribution).K.T.Compton, 1940, Biographical Memoirs of Elihu Thomson, Washington, DCovides an abridged list of Thomson's papers and patents).GW -
83 Varian, Russell Harrison
[br]b. 24 April 1898 Washington, DC, USAd. 28 July 1959 Juneau, Alaska, USA[br]American physicist who, with his brother Sigurd Varian and others, developed the klystron.[br]After attending schools in Palo Alto and Halcyon, Russell Varian went to Stanford University, gaining his BA in 1925 and his MA in 1927 despite illness and being dyslexic. His family being in need of financial help, he first worked for six months for Bush Electric in San Francisco and then for an oil company in Texas, returning to San Francisco in 1930 to join Farnsworth's Television Laboratory. After a move to Philadelphia, in 1933 the laboratory closed and Russell tried to take up a PhD course at Stanford but was rejected, so he trained as a teacher. However, although he did some teaching at Stanford it was not to be his career, for in 1935 he joined his brothers Sigurd and Eric in the setting up of a home laboratory.There, with William Hansen, a former colleague of Russell's at Stanford, they worked on the development of microwave oscillators, based on some of the latter's ideas. By 1937 they had made sufficient progress on an electron velocity-bunching tube, which they called the klystron, to obtain an agreement with the university to provide laboratory facilities in return for a share of any proceeds. By August that year they were able to produce continuous power at a wavelength of 13 cm. Clearly needing greater resources to develop and manufacture the tube, and with a possible war looming, a deal was struck with the Sperry Gyroscope Company to finance the work, which was transferred to the East Coast.In 1946, after the death of his first wife, Russell returned to Palo Alto, and in 1948 the brothers and Hansen founded Varian Associates to make microwave tubes for transmitters and linear accelerators and nuclear magnetic-resonance detectors. Subsequent research also resulted in the development of a satellite-borne magnetometer for measuring the earth's magnetic field.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsHonorary DSc Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute 1943. Franklin Institute Medal.Bibliography1939, with S.F.Varian, "High frequency oscillator and amplifier", Journal of Applied Physics 10:321 (describes the klystron).Further ReadingJ.R.Pierce, 1962, "History of the microwave tube art", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 979 (provides background to development of the klystron).D.Varian, 1983, The Inventor and the Pilot (biographies of the brothers).See also: Varian, Sigurd FergusKFBiographical history of technology > Varian, Russell Harrison
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84 Whinfield, John Rex
[br]b. 16 February 1901 Sutton, Surrey, Englandd. 6 July 1955 Dorking, Surrey, England[br]English inventor ofTerylene.[br]Whinfield was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied chemistry. Before embarking on his career as a research chemist, he worked as an un-paid assistant to the chemist C.F. Cross, who had taken part in the discovery of rayon. Whinfield then joined the Calico Printers' Association. There his interest was aroused by the discovery of nylon by W.H. Carothers to seek other polymers which could be produced in fibre form, usable by the textile industries. With his colleague J.T. Dickson, he discovered in 1941 that a polymerized condensate of terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, polyethylene terephthgal-late, could be drawn into strong fibres. Whinfield and Dickson filed a patent application in the same year, but due to war conditions it was not published until 1946. The Ministry of Supply considered that the new material might have military applications and undertook further research and development. Its industrial and textile possibilities were evaluated by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in 1943 and "Terylene", as it came to be called, was soon recognized as being as important as nylon.In 1946, Dupont acquired rights to work the Calico Printers' Association patent in the USA and began large-scale manufacture in 1954, marketing the product under the name "Dacron". Meanwhile ICI purchased world rights except for the USA and reached the large-scale manufacture stage in 1955. A new branch of the textile industry has grown up from Whinfield's discovery: he lived to see most people in the western world wearing something made of Terylene. It was one of the major inventions of the twentieth century, yet Whinfield, perhaps because he published little, received scant recognition, apart from the CBE in 1954.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsCBE 1954.Further ReadingObituary, 1966, The Times (7 July).Obituary, 1967, Chemistry in Britain 3:26.J.Jewkes, D.Sawers and R.Stillerman, 1969, The Sources of Invention, 2nd edn, London: Macmillan.LRD -
85 hoamahi
[n.]colleague; work friend
См. также в других словарях:
colleague — col‧league [ˈkɒliːg ǁ ˈkɑː ] noun [countable] someone you work with, used especially by professional people or managers: • a colleague of mine at the bank * * * colleague UK US /ˈkɒliːg/ noun [C] ► WORKPLACE a person that you work with: »He has a … Financial and business terms
Work behavior — is a term used to describe the behavior one uses in employment and is normally more formal than other types of human behavior. This varies from profession to profession, as some are far more casual than others. For example, a computer programmer… … Wikipedia
colleague — 1530s, from M.Fr. collègue (16c.), from L. collega partner in office, from com with (see COM (Cf. com )) + leg , stem of legare to choose (see LEGATE (Cf. legate)). So, one chosen to work with another, or one chosen at the same time as anoth … Etymology dictionary
colleague — 01. One of my [colleagues] has just written a book about his experiences teaching in Vietnam. 02. A [colleague] of mine has just gotten a new job at a private school, so we re going to have a good bye party for her. 03. You should discuss your… … Grammatical examples in English
colleague */*/*/ — UK [ˈkɒliːɡ] / US [ˈkɑˌlɪɡ] noun [countable] Word forms colleague : singular colleague plural colleagues someone who works in the same organization or department as you Friends and colleagues will remember him with affection. his Cabinet/party… … English dictionary
colleague — col|league [ ka,lig ] noun count *** someone who works in the same organization or department as you: Friends and colleagues will remember him with affection. his Cabinet/party colleagues colleague at/in/from: her colleagues at the university a.… … Usage of the words and phrases in modern English
work rage — n. Extreme workplace anger exhibited by an employee who has been mistreated or fired. Example Citation: Not all the rage happens on the road, spewed by people making their way to and from work. Social scientists are measuring air rage in the sky … New words
colleague — col|league W2S3 [ˈkɔli:g US ˈka: ] n [Date: 1500 1600; : French; Origin: collègue, from Latin collega, from com ( COM ) + legare to choose for a particular job ] someone you work with, used especially by professional people ▪ a colleague of mine… … Dictionary of contemporary English
colleague — [16] A colleague is literally ‘one chosen or delegated to be or work with another’. It comes via French collègue from Latin collēga, a compound noun formed from com ‘with’ and lēg , the stem of lēgāre ‘choose’ (whence also English legation and… … The Hutchinson dictionary of word origins
colleague — [[t]kɒ̱liːg[/t]] ♦♦ colleagues N COUNT: oft with poss Your colleagues are the people you work with, especially in a professional job. Without consulting his colleagues he flew from Lisbon to Split... A colleague urged him to see a psychiatrist,… … English dictionary
colleague — noun (C) someone you work with, used especially by professional people or managers: a colleague of mine at the bank … Longman dictionary of contemporary English
