crème de la crème

Jai Ganesh · 2021-12-26 01:26:15

990) Hans von Ohain

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (born Dec. 14, 1911, Dessau, Ger.—died March 13, 1998, Melbourne, Fla., U.S.), was German designer of the first operational jet engine.

After obtaining his doctorate at the University of Göttingen, he became a junior assistant to Hugo von Pohl, director of the Physical Institute there. When the German aircraft builder Ernst Heinkel asked the university for assistance in design, Pohl recommended Ohain, who joined Heinkel’s manufacturing firm in 1936. Ohain’s experiments, carried out in secret at Heinkel’s factory, resulted in a bench test by 1937 and a fully operational jet aircraft, the He 178, by 1939. This plane made the world’s first jet-powered aircraft flight on Aug. 27, 1939. Ohain’s centrifugal-flow turbojet engine, the HeS 3B, performed perfectly, though the landing gear of the plane failed to retract, preventing the test pilot from accelerating to planned speed.

Ohain continued his work, developing an improved engine, the HeS 8A, which was first flown on April 2, 1941. Ohain’s engine design, which used a centrifugal compressor, was inherently less efficient than one using an axial-flow compressor, and it was a turbojet of this type, designed by Anselm Franz, that powered the Me 262, the world’s first operational jet fighter aircraft. Ohain’s engines, by comparison, saw little use in World War II. After the war Ohain resettled in the United States, where he worked on jet aircraft for the U.S. Air Force.

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (14 December 1911 – 13 March 1998) was a German physicist, engineer, and the designer of the first operational jet engine. His first test unit ran on externally supplied hydrogen in March 1937, and it was a later development that powered the world's first flyable all-jet aircraft, the prototype of the Heinkel He 178 (He 178 V1) in late August 1939. In spite of these early successes, other German designs quickly eclipsed Ohain's, and none of his engine designs entered widespread production or operational use.

Ohain started to develop his first turbojet engine designs independently during the same period that Frank Whittle was working on his own similar designs in Britain, and their turbojet designs are said by some to be an example of simultaneous invention. However, Frank Whittle was already working on his design in the late 1920s and openly patented the design in 1930, a full seven years before Ohain's design ran. The core of Ohain's first jet engine, the Heinkel HeS 1, which he described as his 'hydrogen test engine' was run 'in March or early April' according to Ohain (although Ernst Heinkel's diaries record it as September 1937) but it was not self-sustaining, requiring externally supplied hydrogen. The engine required modifications to cure overtemperature problems and to fit a fuel system to enable it to run self-contained on liquid fuel which was achieved in September 1937. Ohain's jet engine was the first to fly operationally within the Heinkel He 178 aircraft in 1939, which was followed by Whittle's engine within the Gloster E.28/39 in 1941. Operational jet fighter aircraft from both Germany and Britain entered operational use virtually simultaneously in July, 1944. After the war the two men met and became friends.

Jai Ganesh · 2021-12-28 00:03:24

991) Ian Wilmut

Details

Sir Ian Wilmut, (born July 7, 1944, Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, Eng.), is a British developmental biologist who was the first to use nuclear transfer of differentiated adult cells to generate a mammalian clone, a Finn Dorset sheep named Dolly, born in 1996.

Education and cryopreservation research

Wilmut was raised in Coventry, a town in the historic English county of Warwickshire, and he attended the Agricultural College at the University of Nottingham. In his undergraduate studies, Wilmut initially pursued his lifelong interest in farming, particularly in raising animals such as sheep. However, he soon turned his attention to animal science and basic research. In 1966, his final year at Nottingham, he received a scholarship to conduct research for a summer under English biologist Ernest John Christopher Polge in the Unit of Reproductive Physiology and Biochemistry, then a division of the Agricultural Research Council at the University of Cambridge. During this time, Wilmut performed basic experiments on animal embryos. Following his graduation from Nottingham in 1967, he returned to Cambridge, where he pursued a doctorate under the guidance of Polge, whose research was focused on improving methods of embryo cryopreservation. In 1971 Wilmut was awarded a doctorate by Darwin College, Cambridge; the title of his thesis was “Deep Freeze Preservation of Boar Semen.” Wilmut remained at Cambridge and conducted extensive research on the cryopreservation of embryos. In 1973 he successfully implanted into a surrogate cow a calf embryo that had been cryopreserved. The embryo was carried to term, and Wilmut named the first-ever “frozen calf” Frostie.

Genetic engineering and cloning research:

Pharming

In 1973 Wilmut was appointed senior scientific officer at the Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO; renamed Edinburgh Research Station of the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research in 1985 and finally Roslin Institute in 1993), a government-supported research facility located in Roslin, Scot., just south of Edinburgh. At the ABRO facility, Wilmut studied embryo development and became interested in the underlying causes of embryo death in mammals. However, in the early 1980s, changes in ABRO leadership and a shift in the focus of government research projects forced Wilmut into the realm of genetic engineering. The new goal of ABRO was to generate sheep genetically engineered to produce large quantities of human proteins that would be suitable for therapeutic uses, a pursuit that came to be known as “pharming.” Although Wilmut had little experience with genetic engineering and had limited enthusiasm for the project, he used his knowledge of developmental biology to obtain zygotes (one-celled embryos) from sheep and developed techniques to inject DNA into the zygote pronucleus (a haploid nucleus occurring in embryos prior to fertilization). This work eventually led to the generation of a sheep named Tracy. Tracy was created from a zygote genetically engineered through DNA injection to produce milk containing large quantities of the human enzyme alpha-1 antitrypsin, a substance used to treat cystic fibrosis and emphysema.

Nuclear transfer

Wilmut’s initial forays into cloning began in the late 1980s with embryonic stem cells. Wilmut and his colleagues were interested primarily in nuclear transfer, a technique first conceived in 1928 by German embryologist Hans Spemann. Nuclear transfer involves the introduction of the nucleus from a cell into an enucleated egg cell (an egg cell that has had its own nucleus removed). This can be accomplished through fusion of the cell to the egg (the technique that Wilmut used in all his later cloning experiments) or through the removal of the nucleus from the cell and the subsequent transplantation of that nucleus into the enucleated egg cell (a technique refined in the early 2000s). In 1989 Wilmut and Lawrence Smith, a graduate student conducting his thesis research at Roslin, generated four cloned lambs by using embryonic cell nuclear transfer, in which the nucleus from an embryonic stem cell was inserted into an enucleated egg. This research led Wilmut and Smith to an important discovery—namely, that the stage of the cell cycle (the sequence through which each cell progresses from one cell division to the next) at the time of nuclear transfer determined the success or failure of the experiment. They realized that the four clones they had generated happened by chance.

In 1991 Wilmut hired English biologist Keith Campbell (Smith had left the research centre in 1990), whose knowledge of the cell cycle proved instrumental in advancing the technique of nuclear transfer developed at Roslin. Wilmut and Campbell’s first major success came in 1995, with the generation of two cloned Welsh mountain sheep, Megan and Morag. The following year Wilmut, Campbell, and their team of scientists decided to test a new theory based on the idea that the age or the stage of differentiation of a donor cell did not matter in nuclear transfer. Prior to this theory, nuclear transfer was believed to work only if the nucleus used as the donor for nuclear transfer came from a cell that was totipotent—i.e., having the ability to differentiate into any type of cell in the body and therefore possessing no characteristics of differentiation itself. However, observations from laboratory experiments and from Megan and Morag, who were produced using nine-day-old embryonic cells, which are presumably less totipotent than younger embryonic cells, indicated that an enucleated host egg could somehow reverse the differentiation of the donor cell nucleus, converting it back to a state of totipotency or pluripotency (slightly more differentiated than a totipotent cell). This led to the idea of using the nucleus from an already differentiated adult cell as a donor nucleus.

Dolly and Polly

During the winter of 1995–96, Wilmut was involved in three pivotal cloning experiments conducted at Roslin. In the first, Wilmut and his team of scientists performed embryonic cell nuclear transfer by using cultured embryonic cells that were nine days old. This was similar to the experiment that led to the creation of Megan and Morag. However, the new experiment involved a different sheep breed; the cells used for nuclear transfer came from a Poll Dorset sheep. This first experiment resulted in the birth in 1996 of four Poll Dorset clones: Cedric, Cecil, Cyril, and Tuppence. In the second experiment, the team used fetal fibroblasts isolated from sheep fetuses after 26 days of development; these cells served as nucleus donors for transfer into an enucleated egg. This experiment resulted in the birth of two clones, Taffy and Tweed. In the third experiment, the scientists isolated adult cells (in this case, mammary gland cells) from a six-year-old ewe and used these cells as nucleus donors for transfer into egg cells; this technique inspired the later development of a procedure called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Wilmut and his team constructed 277 embryos containing adult cell nuclei that were implanted into 13 surrogate mothers, only one of which became pregnant. This pregnancy was carried to term successfully. The Finn Dorset lamb, born on July 5, 1996, was Dolly.

In 1997, following the publication in the journal Nature of a summary of their research leading to Dolly, Wilmut, Campbell, and the Roslin Institute instantly became known for having opened the door to a new era of controversial cloning research. The cloning of Dolly generated speculation in the media and in the scientific community about the possibility of cloning humans. Wilmut considered human cloning impractical for both ethical and scientific reasons. From his work with sheep, he knew the dangers of cloning; many embryos died following implantation, and those embryos that survived and developed to term as full-grown fetuses sometimes died immediately following birth or were born with birth defects.

Wilmut was not interested in cloning simply for the sake of producing cloned animals, and neither was his team of scientists at Roslin. They still had problems to solve concerning their work on pharming. In 1997 Wilmut and his colleagues generated Polly, a Poll Dorset clone made from nuclear transfer using a fetal fibroblast nucleus genetically engineered to express a human gene known as FIX. This gene encodes a substance called human factor IX, a clotting factor that occurs naturally in most people but is absent in people with hemophilia, who require replacement therapy with a therapeutic form of the substance. Polly—along with two other sheep engineered to produce human factor IX that also were born in 1997—represented a major advance in pharming. The successful birth of Polly marked Wilmut’s last major cloning experiment.

Later career

Throughout Wilmut’s career at Roslin, he had been slowly moving away from research relying on embryonic stem cells, primarily because culturing embryonic stem cells from sheep embryos was extraordinarily difficult and impractical in terms of cost and time. In 2000 Wilmut was promoted to head of the department of gene expression and development at the Roslin Institute, and his research interests shifted from animals to humans. He was particularly interested in uncovering the genetic mechanisms that control embryonic development and the role that these mechanisms play in human disease. In 2005 he accepted a position as chair of reproductive science at the University of Edinburgh. He maintained a relationship with the Roslin Institute, acting as a visiting scientist. Wilmut also directed the Medical Research Council’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine, located in Edinburgh, and led research efforts into cellular reprogramming.

Wilmut received several awards during his career, including the Ernst Schering prize in 2002 and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter prize in 2005. Wilmut also was made fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000 and of the Royal Society of London in 2002; he was knighted in 2007. In addition to papers published in high-ranking journals such as Nature and Science, Wilmut also published several books, including The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control (2000; with Keith Campbell and Colin Tudge) and After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning (2006; with Roger Highfield).

More Details

Sir Ian Wilmut (born 7 July 1944) is an English embryologist and Chair of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a Finnish Dorset lamb named Dolly. He was appointed OBE in 1999 for services to embryo development and knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours.

Early life and education

Wilmut was born in Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, England. Wilmut's father, Leonard Wilmut, was a mathematics teacher who suffered from diabetes for fifty years, which eventually caused him to become blind. He was a student of the former Boys' High School, in Scarborough, where his father taught. Wilmut's early desire was to embark on a naval career, but he was unable to do so due to his colour blindness. As a school boy, Wilmut worked as a farm hand on weekends, which inspired him to study Agriculture at the University of Nottingham.

In 1966, Wilmut spent 8 weeks working in the laboratory of Christopher Polge, who is credited with developing the technique of cryopreservation in 1949. The following year Wilmut joined Polge's laboratory to undertake a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Cambridge from which he graduated in 1971 with a thesis on semen cryopreservation. During this time he was a postgraduate student at Darwin College, Cambridge.

Career and research

Since his PhD, he has been involved in research focusing on gametes and embryogenesis, including working at the Roslin Institute.

Wilmut was the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal, a lamb named Dolly. Dolly died of a respiratory disease in 2003. However, in 2008 Wilmut announced that he would abandon the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer by which Dolly was created in favour of an alternative technique developed by Shinya Yamanaka. This method has been used in mice to derive pluripotent stem cells from differentiated adult skin cells, thus circumventing the need to generate embryonic stem cells. Wilmut believes that this method holds greater potential for the treatment of degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease and to treat stroke and heart attack patients.

Wilmut led the team that created Dolly, but in 2006 admitted his colleague Keith Campbell deserved "66 per cent" of the invention that made Dolly's birth possible, and that the statement "I did not create Dolly" was accurate. His supervisory role is consistent with the post of principal investigator held by Wilmut at the time of Dolly's creation.

Wilmut is an Emeritus Professor at the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and in 2008 was knighted in the New Year Honours for services to science.

In 2006 his book After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning was published, co-authored with Roger Highfield.

Awards and honours

In 1998 he received the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award and the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Wilmut was appointed Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1999 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2002. He is also an elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999 and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was elected an EMBO Member in 2003. (Membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is an award granted by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in recognition of "research excellence and the outstanding achievements made by a life scientist".)

In 1997 Wilmut was Time magazine man of the year runner up. He was knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours.

Jai Ganesh · 2021-12-29 22:12:29

992) Konrad Zuse

Summary

Konrad Zuse (22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled Turing-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse has often been regarded as the inventor of the modern computer.

Zuse was noted for the S2 computing machine, considered the first process control computer. In 1941, he founded one of the earliest computer businesses, producing the Z4, which became the world's first commercial computer. From 1943 to 1945 he designed Plankalkül, the first high-level programming language. In 1969, Zuse suggested the concept of a computation-based universe in his book Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space).

Much of his early work was financed by his family and commerce, but after 1939 he was given resources by the Nazi German government. Due to World War II, Zuse's work went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom and the United States. Possibly his first documented influence on a US company was IBM's option on his patents in 1946.

Details

Konrad Zuse (22 June 1910 Berlin – 18 December 1995 Hünfeld) was a German engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world’s first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer, the Z3, in 1941 (the program was stored on a punched tape). He received the Werner-von-Siemens-Ring in 1964 for the Z3.

Zuse also designed the first high-level programming language, Plankalkül, first published in 1948, although this was a theoretical contribution, since the language was not implemented in his lifetime and did not directly influence early languages. One of the inventors of ALGOL (Rutishauser) wrote: “The very first attempt to devise an algorithmic language was undertaken in 1948 by K. Zuse. His notation was quite general, but the proposal never attained the consideration it deserved.”

In addition to his technical work, Zuse founded one of the earliest computer businesses in 1946. This company built the Z4, which became the second commercial computer leased to ETH Zürich in 1950. Due to World War II, however, Zuse’s work went largely unnoticed in the UK and the U.S.; possibly his first documented influence on a U.S. company was IBM’s option on his patents in 1946. In the late 1960s, Zuse suggested the concept of a Calculating Space (a computation-based universe).

There is a replica of the Z3, as well as the Z4, in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

The Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin in Berlin has an exhibition devoted to Zuse, displaying twelve of his machines, including a replica of the Z1, some original documents, including the specifications of Plankalkül, and several of Zuse’s paintings.

Jai Ganesh · 2021-12-30 20:47:05

993) John Venn

Summary

John Venn, (born August 4, 1834, Kingston upon Hull, England—died April 4, 1923, Cambridge), was a English logician and philosopher best known as the inventor of diagrams—known as Venn diagrams—for representing categorical propositions and testing the validity of categorical syllogisms. He also made important contributions to symbolic logic (also called mathematical logic), probability theory, and the philosophy of science.

Venn was the first child of Henry Venn, an Anglican clergyman, and Martha Sykes Venn. He was educated by tutors and in private schools before entering Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics and became a fellow in 1857. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 1859. Appointed lecturer at Gonville and Caius in 1862, he taught logic and the philosophy of science, later devoting himself to the history of the college and of his own family. He resigned from the clergy in 1883, having concluded that Anglicanism was incompatible with his philosophical beliefs. He served as college president from 1903 until his death.

The diagrams that bear his name were introduced by Venn as a means of depicting relations of inclusion and exclusion between classes, or sets. They consist of two or three intersecting circles, each representing a class and each labeled with an uppercase letter. Lowercase x’s and shading are used to indicate the existence and nonexistence, respectively, of some (at least one) member of a given class.

Two-circle Venn diagrams represent categorical propositions, the basic forms of which are: “All A are B,” “No A are B,” “Some A are B,” and “Some A are not B.” Three-circle diagrams (in which each circle intersects the other two) represent syllogisms, an ancient form of deductive argument consisting of two categorical premises and a categorical conclusion.

If, after both premises have been represented in the diagram—universal (“All” or “No”) premises first—the conclusion is also represented, the syllogism is valid (i.e., its conclusion follows necessarily from its premises); if not, it is invalid. The syllogism above is valid. Venn diagrams were soon recognized for their pedagogical value, and they have since been a standard part of the curriculum in introductory logic.

Venn developed his diagramming method in Symbolic Logic (1881), a work that was primarily a sophisticated defense of the attempt by the English mathematician George Boole to represent logical relations in algebraic terms. In The Logic of Chance (1866) Venn presented the first systematic formulation of the frequency theory of probability, according to which statements of the probability of an event are predictions of the frequency with which events of that type will occur in the long run, rather than descriptions of the strength of a rational person’s belief that such events will occur, as the then-reigning theory held. Venn’s last major philosophical work, The Principles of Empirical or Inductive Logic (1889), was a critique of John Stuart Mill’s inductive account of scientific reasoning. In 1897 Venn published Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College, 1349–1897; his Alumni Cantabrigienses (1922), compiled with the help of his son, is a historical list of students, alumni, and officials of Cambridge from its founding to 1900.

Details

John Venn, (4 August 1834 – 4 April 1923) was an English mathematician, logician and philosopher noted for introducing the Venn diagrams, which are used in logic, set theory, probability, statistics, and computer science. In 1866, Venn published The Logic of Chance, a ground-breaking book which espoused the frequency theory of probability, arguing that probability should be determined by how often something is forecast to occur as opposed to “educated” assumptions. Venn then further developed George Boole's theories in the 1881 work Symbolic Logic, where he highlighted what would become known as Venn diagrams.

Life and career

John Venn was born on 4 August 1834 in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, to Martha Sykes and Rev. Henry Venn, who was the rector of the parish of Drypool. His mother died when he was three years old. Venn was descended from a long line of church evangelicals, including his grandfather John Venn. Venn was brought up in a very strict atmosphere at home. His father Henry had played a significant part in the Evangelical movement and he was also the secretary of the ‘Society for Missions to Africa and the East’, establishing eight bishoprics overseas. His grandfather was pastor to William Wilberforce of the abolitionist movement, in Clapham.

He began his education in London joining Sir Roger Cholmeley's School, now known as Highgate School, with his brother Henry in September 1846. He moved on to Islington Proprietary School and in October 1853 he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1857, he obtained his degree in mathematics and became a fellow. In 1903 he was elected President of the College, a post he held until his death. He followed his family vocation and became an Anglican priest, ordained in 1859, serving first at the church in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and later in Mortlake, Surrey.

In 1862, he returned to Cambridge as a lecturer in moral science, studying and teaching logic and probability theory, and, beginning around 1869, giving intercollegiate lectures. These duties led to his developing the diagram which would eventually bear his name.

He built rare machines. A certain machine was meant to bowl cricket balls. The machine was so fascinating that when Australian cricketers were visiting Cambridge, the machines were used to entertain their arrival. The bowl cricket ball machine that Venn built actually bowled out the top ranked player of the team four times consecutively.

I began at once somewhat more steady work on the subjects and books which I should have to lecture on. I now first hit upon the diagrammatical device of representing propositions by inclusive and exclusive circles. Of course the device was not new then, but it was so obviously representative of the way in which any one, who approached the subject from the mathematical side, would attempt to visualise propositions, that it was forced upon me almost at once.

- John Venn

In 1868, he married Susanna Carnegie Edmonstone with whom he had one son, John Archibald Venn. His son entered the mathematics field as well.

In 1883, he resigned from the clergy, having concluded that Anglicanism was incompatible with his philosophical beliefs. In that same year, Venn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1884, he was awarded a Sc.D. by Cambridge.

He died on 4 April 1923.

Charity work and a civic presence in the town of Cambridge

Newspaper archives show that Venn was a very active member of local civic society in Cambridge, and a committee member of the Cambridge Charitable Organisations Society, later elected vice-chairman in December 1884.

Venn was president of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society in 1908–1909. He is also listed as a vice president of the Cambridge Provident Medical Institution.

Venn was a prominent supporter of votes for women. He co-signed with his wife Susanna, a letter to the Cambridge Independent Press published 16 October 1908, encouraging women to put themselves forward as candidates for the up-and-coming Cambridge town council elections. The letter was co-sponsored by Lady Maud Darwin, wife of Sir George Darwin, and Florence Ada Keynes.

The newspaper archives reveal that Venn was also a passionate gardener, regularly taking part in local competitions organised by groups such as the Cambridgeshire Horticultural Society, winning prizes for his roses in July 1885 and for his white carrots later that September.

Memorials

* In 2017 The Drypool Bridge in Hull was decorated with intersecting circles, in honour of Venn.
* Venn is commemorated at the University of Hull by the Venn Building.
* A stained glass window in the dining hall of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, commemorates Venn's work.
* In commemoration of the 180th anniversary of Venn's birth, on 4 August 2014, Google replaced its normal logo on global search pages with an interactive and animated Google doodle that incorporated the use of a Venn diagram.
* Venn Street in Clapham, London, which was the home of his grandfather, shows a Venn diagram on the street sign.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-01 01:21:16

994) Artur Fischer

Artur Fischer (31 December 1919 – 27 January 2016) was a German inventor. He is best known for inventing the plastic expanding wall plug.

Born in Tumlingen, Artur Fischer was the son of the village tailor Georg Fischer. His mother Pauline, who ironed collars to make ends meet, recognized her son’s mechanical aptitude and encouraged him at every turn, helping him set up a workbench at home and buying him the German equivalent of an Erector Set.

In the second world war, Fischer survived the Battle of Stalingrad, leaving on the last plane, and later in the war was captured in Italy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in England. After returning to his hometown in 1946, he found work as an assistant at an engineering company and began making lighters and loom switches out of military scrap. In 1948, he founded his own company, the Fischer Group.

Synchronized photo flash

In 1949, he invented synchronized flash light photography, which was later purchased by the camera company Agfa. Inspired by his inability to photograph his young daughter indoors, his insight was to synchronize an electronic flash with the camera shutter.

Wall plug

His most famous invention is the grey "S Plug" (Split-)Wallplug made from plastic materials (Polyamide) and is available in various shapes and sizes since 1958 (see Wall plug). Fischer held over 1100 patents and overtook Thomas Alva Edison, who held 1093 patents. Fischer also held 5867 trade rights and invented fischertechnik.

Further inventions are (bone-)plugs for fixing bone fractures and one of Fischer’s most recent inventions was a gadget that makes it possible to hold and cut the top off an egg of any size. He got started on the problem when a hotel owner complained to him that his guests, on opening their boiled eggs for breakfast, always made a mess.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-02 21:57:54

995) Clive Sinclair

Summary

Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (30 July 1940 – 16 September 2021) was an English entrepreneur and inventor, best known for being a pioneer in the computing industry, and also as the founder of several companies that developed consumer electronics in the 1970s and early 1980s.

After spending several years as assistant editor of Instrument Practice, Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics Ltd in 1961. He produced the world's first slimline electronic pocket calculator (the Sinclair Executive) in 1972. Sinclair then moved into the production of home computers in 1980 with Sinclair Research Ltd, producing the Sinclair ZX80 (the UK's first mass-market home computer for less than £100), and in the early 1980s, the ZX81, ZX Spectrum and the Sinclair QL. Sinclair Research is widely recognised for its importance in the early days of the British and European home computer industry, as well as helping to give rise to the British video game industry.

Sinclair also had several commercial failures, including the Sinclair Radionics Black Watch wristwatch, the Sinclair Vehicles C5 battery electric vehicle, and the Sinclair Research TV80 flatscreen CRT handheld television set. The failure of the C5 along with a weakened computer market forced Sinclair to sell most of his companies by 1986. Through 2010, Sinclair concentrated on personal transport, including the A-bike, a folding bicycle for commuters which was small enough to fit in a handbag. He also developed the Sinclair X-1, a revised version of the C5 electric vehicle, which never made it to the market.

Sinclair was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1983 Birthday Honours for his contributions to the personal computer industry in the UK.

Recognition

Sinclair received several honours for his contributions towards helping establish the personal computer industry in the United Kingdom. In 1983, he was awarded Honorary Degrees of Doctor of Science by the University of Bath, Heriot-Watt University and University of Warwick. He was knighted in the Queen's 1983 Birthday Honours List. In 1984, he was honoured by Imperial College London by being made a fellow. In 1988, London's National Portrait Gallery purchased a portrait of Sinclair by photographer Simon Lewis for its permanent collection.

Details

Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (30 July 1940 – 16 September 2021) was an English entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known as being a pioneer in the computing industry, and as the founder of several companies that developed consumer electronics models from the early 1970s through to the early 1980s.

After spending several years as assistant editor of Instrument Practice, Sinclair in 1961 founded Sinclair Radionics Ltd, where he produced the first slimline electronic pocket calculator, the Sinclair Executive, in 1972. Sinclair subsequently moved into the production of home computers in 1980 producing the Sinclair ZX80 (the UK's first mass-market home computer for less than £100), and, in the early 1980s, the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum with Sinclair Research Ltd. The latter is widely recognised by consumers and programmers for its importance in the early days of the British and wider European home computer industry, as well as helping to give birth to the British video game industry.

Amongst other honours, Sinclair was knighted in 1983 for his contributions to the personal computer industry in the UK.

Sinclair was also recognized for several commercial failures, including the Sinclair Radionics Black Watch wristwatch, the Sinclair Vehicles C5 battery electric vehicle, and the Sinclair Research TV80 flatscreen CRT handheld television set. The failure of the C5 along with a weakened computer market forced Sinclair to sell most of his companies by 1986. Through 2010, Sinclair concentrated on personal transport, including the A-bike, a folding bicycle for commuters, and the Sinclair X-1, a revised version of the C5 electric vehicle but which never made it to market.

Early life, family and education

Sinclair's father and grandfather were engineers; both had been apprentices at the shipbuilders Vickers. His grandfather George Sinclair was a naval architect who got the paravane, a mine sweeping device, to work. George Sinclair's son, George William "Bill" Sinclair, wanted to take religious orders or become a journalist. His father suggested he train as an engineer first; Bill became a mechanical engineer and remained in the field. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he was running his own machine tools business in London, and later worked for the Ministry of Supply.

Clive Sinclair was born to George Sinclair and Thora Edith Ella Marles in 1940 near Richmond, then in Surrey. He and his mother left London for safety to stay with an aunt in Devon, where they eventually travelled to Teignmouth. A telegram arrived shortly afterwards, bringing the news that their home in Richmond had been bombed. Sinclair's father found a house in Bracknell in Berkshire. His brother Iain was born in 1943 and his sister Fiona in 1947.

During holidays, he could pursue his ideas and teach himself what he wanted to know. Sinclair had little interest in sports and found himself out of place at school. He preferred the company of adults, which he got only from his family.

Sinclair attended Boxgrove Preparatory School, excelling in mathematics. By the time he was ten, his father had financial problems. He had branched out from machine tools and planned to import miniature tractors from the U.S.; he had to give up the business. Because of his father's problems, Sinclair had to move school several times. After a time at Reading School, Sinclair took his O-levels at Highgate School in London in 1955 and A-levels in physics, pure maths, and applied maths at St. George's College, Weybridge.

During his early years, Sinclair earned money mowing lawns and washing up in a café—earning 6d (2½p) more than permanent staff. Later he went for holiday jobs at electronic companies. At Solartron he inquired about the possibility of electrically propelled personal vehicles. Sinclair applied for a holiday job at Mullard and took one of his circuit designs; he was rejected for precociousness. While still at school he wrote his first article for Practical Wireless.

Sinclair did not want to go to university when he left school at the age of 18 and instead he sold miniature electronic kits by mail order to the hobby market.

Career:

Sinclair Radionics

Sinclair's Micro Kit was formalised in an exercise book dated 19 June 1958, three weeks before his A-levels. Sinclair drew a radio circuit, Model Mark I, with a components list: cost per set 9/11 (49½p), plus coloured wire and solder, nuts and bolts, plus celluloid chassis (drilled) for nine shillings (45p). Also in the book are advertisement rates for Radio Constructor (9d (3¾p)/word, minimum 6/- (30p)) and Practical Wireless (5/6 (27½p) per line or part line).

Sinclair estimated producing 1,000 a month, placing orders with suppliers for 10,000 of each component to be delivered.

Sinclair wrote a book for Bernard's Publishing, Practical transistor receivers Book 1, which appeared in January 1959. It was re-printed late that year and nine times subsequently. His practical stereo handbook was published in June 1959 and reprinted seven times over 14 years. The last book Sinclair wrote as an employee of Bernard's was Modern Transistor Circuits for Beginners, published in May 1962. At Bernard Babani, he produced 13 constructors' books.

In 1961, Sinclair registered Sinclair Radionics Ltd. His original choice, Sinclair Electronics, was taken; Sinclair Radio was available but did not sound right. Sinclair Radionics was formed on 25 July 1961. Sinclair made two attempts to raise startup capital to advertise his inventions and buy components. He designed PCB kits and licensed some technology. Then he took his design for a miniature transistor pocket radio and sought a backer for its production in kit form. Eventually he found someone who agreed to buy 55% of his company for £3,000 but the deal did not go through.

Sinclair, unable to find capital, joined United Trade Press (UTP) as technical editor of Instrument Practice. Sinclair appeared in the publication as an assistant editor in March 1962. Sinclair described making silicon planar transistors, their properties and applications and hoped they might be available by the end of 1962. Sinclair's obsession with miniaturisation became more obvious as his career progressed. Sinclair undertook a survey for Instrument Practice of semiconductor devices, which appeared in four sections between September 1962 and January 1963.

Sinclair Black Watch

His last appearance as assistant editor was in April 1969. Through UTP, Sinclair had access to thousands of devices from 36 manufacturers. He contacted Semiconductors Ltd (who at that time sold semiconductors made by Plessey) and ordered rejects to repair. He produced a design for a miniature radio powered by a couple of hearing aid cells and made a deal with Semiconductors to buy its micro-alloy transistors at 6d (2½p) each in boxes of 10,000. He then carried out his own quality control tests, and marketed his renamed MAT 100 and 120 at 7s 9d (38¾p) and 101 and 121 at 8s 6d (42½p).

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sinclair Radionics was producing handheld electronic calculators, miniature televisions, and the digital Black Watch wristwatch. The latter product, introduced in 1975, was a significant failure for Sinclair: in addition to being unable to meet demand, the watch itself was found to be inaccurate, its battery life too low, and was difficult to service by users. Sinclair Radionics suffered its first financial loss in 1975–1976, and Sinclair sought potential investors to help recover the lost funds. He eventually worked with the National Enterprise Board (NEB), which bought a 43% interest in the company in 1976, but this injection of funds was found to be too late as by this point, other companies were starting to make similar products at lower costs on the market. The NEB streamlined Sinclair Radionics' product line, selling off the watch and television lines, and brought in Norman Hewitt as a managing director to assist Sinclair. While Sinclair made efforts to work with Hewitt and the NEB, his relationship with these worsened, as the NEB had little faith in Sinclair's vision. By 1979, the NEB opted to break up Sinclair Radionics, holding its instruments division as Sinclair Electronics, and selling its television division to Binatone and its calculator division to ESL Bristol. Sinclair himself left the company at this point. Effectively NEB wrote off its estimated ₤7 million investment into Sinclair Radionics as a loss. Sinclair himself was given a golden handshake and an estimated ₤10,000 package with the dissolution of his company.

Sinclair Research

While Sinclair was dealing with the NEB and had seen problems developing, he had a former employee, Christopher Curry, establish a "lifeboat" company, called Science of Cambridge Ltd, in July 1977, called such as they were located near University of Cambridge and planned for Curry to develop technology from ideas from the school. An early product out of Science of Cambridge was a wrist calculator kit which helped to keep the company afloat. By the time that Sinclair had left Radionics and joined Curry at Science of Cambridge, inexpensive microprocessors had started appearing on the market. Sinclair came up with the idea of selling a microprocessor teaching kit, and in June 1978, Science of Cambridge launched the MK14 kit, based on the National SC/MP chip, in June 1978. As Sinclair began postulating on the followup to the MK14, Curry got into discussions with Hermann Hauser and opted to leave Science of Cambridge to co-found Acorn Computers with Hauser in 1978. Acorn became a direct competitor to Sinclair's products, with the Acorn System 75 as its answer to the MK14, effectively an MK14 chip with a keyboard.

To follow up on the MK14, Sinclair starting looking to build a personal computer. At around that time (1979), premade systems such as the Commodore PET cost about £700, and Sinclair believed he could get the price of a system to under £100. Keeping the cost low was also essential for Sinclair to avoid his products from becoming outpriced by American or Japanese equivalents as had happened to several of the Sinclair Radionics products. In May 1979, Jim Westwood, a former Sinclair Radionics employee Sinclair hired for this new company, started the ZX80 project at Science of Cambridge; it was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. The ZX80 was immediately successful, and besides sales in the UK, Sinclair also sought to introduce the computer into the United States. Science of Cambridge was subsequently renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd, and then again to Sinclair Research Ltd.

On hearing that the BBC was preparing to run a television series to teach viewers about computing and programming, both Sinclair and Curry pressured the BBC to choose computers from their respective companies to use as the primary tool. This pushed the development of the Sinclair ZX81 ahead as Sinclair's standard for the BBC. The ZX81 was launched at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built, by mail order. Ultimately, the BBC chose Acorn and standardized on a successor to the Acorn Atom—originally named Acorn Proton, but ultimately branded as the BBC Micro. Despite losing out to the BBC, Sinclair's push had established the ZX80 and ZX81 as one of the highest-selling brands of computers across the UK and the United States as well as establishing a deal with distribution in Japan with Mitsui. A number of users' groups, magazines and homebrew hardware accessories for both systems also arose.

In February 1982, Timex obtained a licence to manufacture and market Sinclair's computers in the United States under the name Timex Sinclair. In April, the ZX Spectrum was launched at £125 for the 16 kB RAM version and £175 for the 48 kB version. It was the first computer in the ZX line to support colour output. The ZX Spectrum remained more affordable than other computers on the market, including the BBC Micro, the Commodore VIC-20 or Apple II, and during a time of recession and high unemployment in the UK, was positioned by Sinclair as a low-cost home computer for productivity applications. However, it also proved to be a popular gift for teenagers and young adults that year. This led to a number of these young people learning to program on the ZX Spectrum, using its newfound colour support, to make quirky video games inspired by British humour which they sold through word of mouth and mail order. So-called "bedroom coders" using the ZX Spectrum gave rise to the start of the UK's video game industry. By 1984, over 3500 games had been released for the ZX Spectrum.

The popularity of the ZX Spectrum spread to Western Europe. While Sinclair could not import into Eastern European countries still within the Soviet bloc at the time, numerous low-cost clones of the ZX Spectrum sprung up within these countries, further boosting the start of video game development by similar bedroom coders. The ZX Spectrum went on to become the UK's highest-selling computer, selling more than 5 million units before it was discontinued in 1992. Sinclair Research computers accounted for 45% of the British market in 1984, including those from British and American companies.

The continued success of the computer market continued to help boost Sinclair Research's profit. In 1982, the company has a pre-tax profit of £9.2 million on a turnover of £27.6 million. Sinclair himself was estimated to a net value of over £100 million in 1983, two years after launching the first of the ZX computers. With the additional funds, Sinclair converted the Barker & Wadsworth mineral water bottling factory into the company's headquarters in 1982.

Sinclair Vehicles and market decline

As Sinclair Research continued to be successful, Sinclair launched a new company, Sinclair Vehicles Ltd., in March 1983 to develop electric vehicles, using 10% of the capital generated by Sinclair Research and selling some of his own shares to fund the new venture. Sinclair had an interest in electric vehicles since the 1970s at Sinclair Radionics, and had been working with Tony Wood Rogers, a former Radionics employee, since 1979 to start developing prototypes of a new vehicle for the market. The company's only product was the Sinclair C5 which launched in January 1985. The Sinclair C5 was considered a significant failure, having been developed without any market research. It was widely criticised and widely ridiculed for its high price, its toy-like appearance, lack of safety features and exposure to the elements, and the need for the user to pedal the vehicle up steeper hills. Whilst Sinclair had anticipated 100,000 C5's would be sold in the first year, only 14,000 units were produced and 4,500 sold before the C5 line was terminated in August that same year.

Another noted misfire for Sinclair was the Sinclair Research TV80, a flatscreen portable mini television utilising a cathode ray tube, which took several years to develop, and by the time the TV80 was ready for market in 1983, the Sony Watchman had been released in Japan in 1982. Furthermore, LCD television technology was already in advanced development to bypass the limitations of CRT. The TV80 was a commercial flop, only 15,000 units being produced. Despite these commercial failures, both the C5 and TV80 have since been considered products ahead of their time, with the C5 a precursor to the modern day electric car and the TV80 comparable to watching videos on smartphones.

Sinclair continued to direct Sinclair Research as they continued the ZX Spectrum line of computers through 1983 and 1984 as well as launching the Sinclair QL (short for Quantum Leap) brand in 1984 intended to compete with business lines of computers from IBM and Apple but at about half their cost. However, towards the end of 1984, the market for personal computers in the United Kingdom became cautious; Sinclair Research had entered into a small price war with Acorn Computers which produced the rival BBC Micro. Consumers began to see these computers as more toys rather than productivity tools coupled with these price drops, and Sinclair Research missed its planned sales milestones for the 1984 holiday season. Into 1985, Acorn fell under investigation which propagated solvency concerns throughout the computer industry, including Sinclair Research. Robert Maxwell, the owner of The Daily Mirror, planned to help Sinclair Research through its £12 million acquisition announced in June 1985. However the deal was aborted in August 1985.

The lack of funds for Sinclair Research and the failure of the C5 created financial difficulties for Sinclair. Sinclair Vehicles was placed into receivership by October 1985, and in April 1986, Sinclair sold the bulk of Sinclair Research to Amstrad for £5 million. Sinclair Research Ltd. was reduced to an R&D business and holding company, with shareholdings in several spin-off companies, formed to exploit technologies developed by the company. These included Anamartic Ltd. (wafer-scale integration) and Cambridge Computer Ltd. (Z88 portable computer and satellite television receivers).

Later years

By 1990, Sinclair Research consisted of Sinclair and two other employees down from 130 employees at its peak in 1985, and its activities later concentrated on personal transport, including the Zike electric bicycle. By 2003, Sinclair Research was collaborating with Hong Kong-based firm Daka. A laboratory was set up for Daka near Croydon to develop products on a royalty basis. The two firms collaborated on a Sea Scooter and a wheelchair drive.

Sinclair had planned to introduce the Sinclair X-1 through Sinclair Research, another attempt at a personal electric vehicle following the Sinclair C5. The X-1 was first announced in 2010, and incorporated design aspects that the C5 had been panned for, including an open egg-like shell for the rider with a more ergonomic seat, a more powerful motor and larger battery storage, and an effectively lower cost accounting for inflation than the C5. However, the X-1 failed to reach the market.

Recognition

Sinclair received several honours for his contributions towards helping establish the personal computer industry in the United Kingdom. In 1983, he was awarded Honorary Degrees of Doctor of Science by the University of Bath, Heriot-Watt University and University of Warwick. He was knighted in the Queen's 1983 Birthday Honours List. In 1984, he was honoured by Imperial College London by being made a fellow. In 1988, the National Portrait Gallery, London, purchased a portrait of Sinclair by photographer Simon Lewis for its permanent collection.

Personal life

Sinclair was a poker player and appeared in the first three series of the Late Night Poker on Channel 4. He won the first series final of the Celebrity Poker Club spin-off. Sinclair was an atheist. He was a member of British Mensa, and chairman from 1980 to 1997. He also participated in marathons including several New York City Marathons.

Despite his involvement in computing, Sinclair did not use the Internet, stating that he does not like to have "technical or mechanical things around me" as it distracts from the process of invention. In 2010, he stated that he did not use computers himself, and preferred using the telephone rather than email. In 2014, he predicted, "Once you start to make machines that are rivalling and surpassing humans with intelligence, it's going to be very difficult for us to survive. It's just an inevitability."

His first marriage with Ann of twenty years ended in divorce around 1985 due to the pressure from the ongoing financial issues he had with his companies. From his marriage with Ann, he had three children, Crispin, Bartholomew and Belinda. In 2010 Sinclair married Angie Bowness, a former dancer at a Stringfellows nightclub and who represented England for Miss Europe 1995. This second marriage lasted for seven years before also ending in divorce.

On 16 September 2021, Sinclair died in London following an illness related to cancer that he had for over a decade. He was 81 years old.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-03 20:32:52

996) Alexander Bain

Alexander Bain (12 October 1810 – 2 January 1877) was a Scottish inventor and engineer who was first to invent and patent the electric clock. He invented the Telegraph Clock, which was a technology of synchronizing many electric clocks placed anywhere in the world; they would all have the exact same time. He also invented and patented the technology of the facsimile machine for scanning images and transmitting them across telegraph lines hundreds of miles away.

He installed the railway telegraph lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland, for recording messages, to regulate the safe movement of trains, marking time, giving signals, and printing information at different locations. He invented a chemical telegraph technology of being able to transmit across a telegraph line messages at up to 1000 words per minute, while at the time Morse's telegraph could only produce 40 words a minute.

Early life

Bain was born in Houstry, near Watten, Caithness, Scotland. He was born on 12 October 1810. His father was a crofter.[2] He had a twin sister, Margaret, and, in total, he had six sisters and six brothers. Bain did not excel in school and was therefore apprenticed to a clock maker in Wick, Scotland.

Bain learned the art of clock making and then first went to Edinburgh, Scotland. Later in 1837 went to London where he obtained work as a journeyman in Clerkenwell. He frequented the lectures at the Polytechnic Institution and Adelaide Gallery to further his knowledge of electricity. Later again he constructed his own workshop on Hanover Street in Edinburgh.

Career:

Electric clocks and railway telegraphs

In 1840, desperate for money to develop his inventions, Bain mentioned his financial problems to the editor of the Mechanics Magazine, who introduced him to Sir Charles Wheatstone. Bain demonstrated his models to Wheatstone, who, when asked for his opinion, said he shouldn't bother developing those ideas any further as there was no future in them. Three months later Wheatstone demonstrated an electric clock to the Royal Society, claiming it was his own invention. However, Bain had already applied for a patent for it in October 1840 and received patent No. 8783 as the first electric clock invented and patented. Wheatstone tried to block Bain's patents, but failed. When Wheatstone organized an Act of Parliament to set up the Electric Telegraph Company, the House of Lords summoned Bain to give evidence, and eventually compelled the company to pay Bain £10,000 and give him a job as manager, causing Wheatstone to resign.

Bain's next invention was for Telegraphic Clocks. They were developed and constructed between 1837 and 1840. They were put into practical application in 1840 and a patent applied for. The patent received was dated 11 January 1841, and was in the names of John Barwise, chronometer maker, and Alexander Bain, mechanic. It describes his master electric clock which uses a pendulum kept moving by electromagnetic impulses that were also sent to other Telegraphic Clocks in a system of electric clocks located at various points around the world. The master clock could be located at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. or at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, England. The master clock with these impulses would cause all the clocks in the system to beat synchronously together as if one clock.

Bain improved on this later in 1843 patents that included a proposal to derive the required electricity from an "earth battery", which consisted of plates of zinc and copper buried in the ground about 1 yard (0.9 m) apart in drained moist earth. He caused the sun itself to set his Telegraphic Clocks to Greenwich Mean Time. In the meridian was placed a powerful glass lens and behind it a Thermo-Electric pile which made an electric battery. The lens was placed in such a manner that as soon as the sun came on the meridian of the place its rays were made to strike powerfully the end of the electric battery, which then generated an electric current pulse. That pulse was then sent out out to all the clocks in the system and set them all instantaneously to the true Greenwich Mean Time.

In December 1841, Bain in conjunction with Lieutenant Thomas Wright RN, patented a method for helping to control railway trains with the use of electricity. The most significant idea incorporated in the patent was his plan for inverting the needle telegraph earlier developed by Ampere, Wheatstone and others: instead of making signals by a pivoted magnetic needle under the influence of an electromagnet, he made them by suspending a movable coil between the poles of a fixed magnet. A similar concept appears in Sir William Thomson's siphon recorder. Bain also proposed to make the coil record messages by printing them, an idea he developed further in a subsequent patent. Bain's telegraph was first used in December 1845 on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway which had opened in 1842. In January 1846 he convinced the directors of the Stockton and Darlington Railway to install his telegraph between the north and south ends of their Shildon tunnel. These instruments remained in use until September 1865.

On 12 December 1846, Bain, who was then living in Edinburgh, patented a chemical telegraph. He had seen that the Morse and other telegraphs then in use were comparatively slow, due to the mechanical inertia of their moving parts, and realized that the signal current could be used to make a readable mark on a moving paper tape soaked in a mixture of ammonium nitrate and potassium ferrocyanide, which gave a blue mark when a current was passed through it. The speed at which marks could be made on the paper was so high that hand signalling could not keep up with it, and so Bain devised a method of automatic signalling using punched paper tape. The concept was later used by Wheatstone in his automatic sender. Bain's chemical telegraph was tried between Paris and Lille, and attained a speed of 282 words in 52 seconds, a great advance on Morse's telegraph which could only give about 40 words per minute. Development on the concept later showed it was capable of operating at 1,000 words a minute.

In England Bain's telegraph was used on the wires of the Electric Telegraph Company. In 1850 it was used in America by Henry O'Reilly who obtained from Bain in 1849 the exclusive rights to use. However, it incurred the hostility of Samuel Morse, who obtained an injunction against it on the grounds that the paper tape and alphabet used fell under his 1840 patent. After this Bain's other chemical telegraph lines consolidated with Morse's companies. By 1859 there was only one electro-chemical telegraph line system in America which went from Boston to Montreal consisting of about 800 miles (1,300 km) of lines and worked in cooperation with the Morse company lines.

A 1848 newspaper reported that electric clocks connected to telegraph lines for synchronizing together were included among the telegraphic inventions to which Bain had the rights to as the inventor. This was established under several patents which were dated years before the 1848 experiments made at the observatories of Philadelphia and Cincinnati. Bain's patents for synchronizing electric clocks together through telegraph lines (Telegraphic Clocks) were established years before Ezra Cornell devised the plan which he claims is the only one that works on Morse's telegraph system. The British Electric Telegraph Company had already purchased from Bain and was then in possession of several of his inventions. One of these was the electric clock specimen of which several of these special clocks were made for that company under Bain's patents and were exhibited at his apartment on Broadway Street in Glasgow, Scotland, some 46 miles (74 km) from his Edinburgh workshop. This had been seen and witnessed by many citizens, including most of the editors of the public journals of Great Britain at the time.

Surviving examples

One of Bain's telegraph instruments is on display at the National Museum of Scotland, probably from the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway. The two instruments used by the Stockton and Darlington Railway at Shildon tunnel are in the National Railway Museum collection. The Shildon instruments were also provided with single-stroke bells, the hammers of which were held up by 'trip gear' which was released by the first electrical pulse to deflect the needle; upon completion of the message exchange the hammer then had to be raised again by hand. If the operator failed to hear the single ring, there was no method of repeating it – only the movement of the needle could be observed.

Facsimile machine

Bain worked on an experimental fax machine from 1843. He used two pendulums for a message, one that scanned an image and another that wrote this scan. These pendulums' movements were synchronized line-by-line using a clock. He applied metal pins arranged on a cylinder made of insulating material for transmission. An electric probe then transmitted on-off pulses from the scan of the pins. These pulses were duplicated at the receiving station and reproduced the message on electrochemically sensitive paper that had been previously soaked in a specially formulated solution.

Bain's British patent 9745 description dated 27 May 1843 for improvements in electric printing claimed that a copy of any other surface can be taken. The transmitter and receiver were connected by five wires. In 1850 he applied for an improved version but was too late, as Frederick Bakewell had obtained a patent for his superior "image telegraph" that is sometimes known as a "copying telegraph" that was an major improvement over Bain's.

Bain's and Bakewell's laboratory mechanisms reproduced poor quality images and were not viable systems because the transmitter and receiver were never truly synchronized. In 1861, the first practical operating electro-mechanical commercially exploited telefax machine, the Pantelegraph, was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon at least 11 years before the invention of workable telephones.

Later life

Initially Bain made a considerable sum from his inventions but lost his wealth in poor investments. In 1873, Sir William Thomson, Sir William Siemens, Latimer Clark and others obtained a Civil List pension for Bain from Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone of £80 per year and the Royal Society gave him £150.

Death and legacy

Bain died on 2 January 1877, and was interred in the Auld Aisle Cemetery, Kirkintilloch. His tombstone was restored in 1959 because it was in a state of disrepair. The headstone had a fallacious date of death (1876) which was corrected to 1877.

JD Wetherspoon's pub in Wick, close to where Alexander Bain served his apprenticeship, is now named 'The Alexander Bain' after the inventor. Also, as a tribute to his inventions, the main British Telecom building in Glasgow is named Alexander Bain House.

One of the earliest examples of an electrically impulsed pendulum clock is on display at the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum. In 2016, he was posthumously awarded the Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for his pioneering work transmitting images electrically. A statuette award is on display in Kirkintilloch Town Hall.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-04 20:37:58

997) Percy Spencer

Summary

Percy Lebaron Spencer was an American inventor best known as the inventor of the microwave. Spencer was born in Howland, Maine in 1894. His father passed away when he was still a toddler and he was abandoned by his mother soon after. Spencer was brought up by his poverty-stricken uncle and aunt, who barely had enough to get by themselves. He was a curious child and once spent days exploring a log hauler truck that broke down in front of his house, trying to figure out how it worked. Spencer’s uncle died when he was seven years old, which made him the head of the family at a very early age. Soon after he left school to earn a living and support himself and his aunt.

Between the ages of 12 and 16 he worked at a spool mill. Then he heard about an opening at a paper factory that was going to be run on electricity. This was a new concept in the remote town where he lived, so he learned as much as he could about it and applied for the job of wiring the plant. Spencer was one of three people who got selected for the job, despite the fact that he had received no formal education or training in the field. At the age of 18, he joined the U.S. Navy and where he learnt all he could about wireless and radio technology. Spencer was strongly motivated to learn and gained expertise in a number of fields such as trigonometry, calculus, chemistry, physics, and metallurgy by reading extensively about them.

Spencer was also an expert in radar tube design, and worked at a company called Raytheon as the chief of the power tube division. His expertise helped the company win a major contract from the U.S. government to produce magnetrons for radar equipments which was invaluable in the second world war. Under his leadership, the division expanded from a mere 15 employees to more than 5000 employees and productivity was also largely improved.

His invention of the microwave cooking was purely coincidental, though. One day while working at the plant, he crossed an active radar set when he noticed that the candy in his pocket had suddenly melted. His always active sense of curiosity was heightened and he decided to experiment further by testing out different types of food such as unpopped kernels of corn. To his surprise and delight, they began to pop. Unlike others who had experienced the same, Spencer was keen to learn more about it.

After researching further and conducting more experiments, Percy Spencer filed for and successfully received a patent in 1945. In 1947, he produced the first commercially built microwave which was between 5 and a half to 6 feet tall and weighed around 750 lbs. It cost between $2000 to $3000 and was initially used in restaurants, railways and ships as they were too bulky and expensive for home use. It also had some shortcomings; for instance, meat would not cook properly in it. After further research and modification in design, the first microwave for home use was developed in 1967. It cost $495 and could be fit on a kitchen counter top.

In all, Spencer held more than 300 patents in his lifetime including those received at Raytheon where he eventually became a senior member of the Board of Directors. His notable awards include a Distinguished Public Service Award, a membership of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Massachusetts. He died in 1970 at the age of 77.

Details

Percy Lebaron Spencer (July 19, 1894 – September 8, 1970) was an American physicist and inventor. He became known as the inventor of the microwave oven.

Early life

Spencer was born in Howland, Maine. Eighteen months later, Spencer's father died, and his mother soon left him in the care of his aunt and uncle. His uncle then died when Spencer was just seven years old. Spencer subsequently left grammar school to earn money to support himself and his aunt. From the ages of twelve to sixteen, he worked from sunrise to sunset at a spool mill. At the later age, he discovered that a local paper mill was soon to begin using electricity, a concept little known in his rural home region, and he began learning as much as possible about the phenomenon. When he applied to work at the mill, he was one of three people hired to install electricity in the plant, despite never having received any formal training in electrical engineering or even finishing grammar school.

At the age of 18, Spencer decided to join the U.S. Navy. He had become interested in wireless communications after learning about the wireless operators aboard the Titanic when it sank. While he was with the navy, he made himself an expert on radio technology: "I just got hold of a lot of textbooks and taught myself while I was standing watch at night." He also subsequently taught himself trigonometry, calculus, chemistry, physics, and metallurgy, among other subjects.

Career

By 1939 Spencer became one of the world's leading experts in radar tube design. Spencer worked at Raytheon, a contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense, as the chief of the power tube division. While working at Raytheon, Spencer developed a more efficient way to manufacture magnetrons, increasing production from 100 to 2600 magnetrons per day. With his reputation and expertise, Spencer managed to help Raytheon win a government contract to develop and produce combat radar equipment for M.I.T.’s Radiation Laboratory. This was of huge importance to the Allies of World War II and became the military's second highest priority project during World War II, behind the Manhattan Project. For his work, he was awarded the Distinguished Public Service Award by the U.S. Navy.

One day while building magnetrons, Spencer was standing in front of an active radar set when he noticed the candy bar he had in his pocket melted. Spencer was not the first to notice this phenomenon, but he was the first to investigate it. He decided to experiment using food, including popcorn kernels, which became the world's first microwaved popcorn. In another experiment, an egg was placed in a tea kettle, and the magnetron was placed directly above it. The result was the egg exploding in the face of one of his co-workers, who was looking in the kettle to observe. Spencer then created the first true microwave oven by attaching a high-density electromagnetic field generator to an enclosed metal box. The magnetron emitted microwaves into the metal box blocking any escape, allowing for controlled and safe experimentation. He then placed various food items in the box, while observing effects and monitoring temperatures.

Raytheon filed a U.S. patent on October 8, 1945, for a microwave cooking oven, eventually named the Radarange. In 1947, the first commercially produced microwave oven was about 6 feet tall, weighed about 750 lbs, and cost about US$5,000. In 1967 the first relatively affordable ($495) and reasonably sized (counter-top) microwave oven was available for sale, produced by Amana (a division of Raytheon).

Spencer became Senior Vice President and a Senior Member of the Board of Directors at Raytheon. He received 300 patents during his career. Originally, a Raytheon facility in Burlington, Massachusetts involved in vacuum tube development and manufacturing was named Spencer Labs after Spencer. This facility was eventually closed. Later, a new building at the Raytheon Missile Defense Center in Woburn, Massachusetts, was named in his honor. Other achievements and awards, besides the Distinguished Public Service Award, included a membership of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Massachusetts, despite having no formal education.

For his invention, Spencer received no royalties, but he was paid a one-time $2.00 gratuity from Raytheon, the same token payment the company made to all inventors on its payroll at that time for company patents.

Personal life

Spencer and his wife, Louise, had three children: John, James, and George. He counted Vannevar Bush, Omar Bradley, William Redington Hewlett and David Packard as friends. Later, he was married to Lillian Ottenheimer on November 18, 1960.

Legacy

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, which deals extensively in radar systems, has named a building after Spencer in the Woburn, Massachusetts facility. An early Radarange model sits in the lobby, across from the dining center.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-05 21:46:58

998) Paul Zoll

Paul Maurice Zoll (July 15, 1911 – January 5, 1999) was a Jewish American cardiologist and one of the pioneers in the development of the artificial cardiac pacemaker and cardiac defibrillator. He graduated from Boston Latin School in 1928.

Introduction

Paul Maurice Zoll succeeded in preventing life-threatening disturbances of heart rhythm and in restoring effective heart action to victims about to die from sudden cardiac arrest. He accomplished these feats with the application of indirect and direct electrical shocks that restored a life sustaining heart rhythm. Because of his methods, he has been called "The Father of Modern Cardiac Therapy". Still today there is an annual toll of approximately 450,000 sudden arrhythmic deaths in the USA alone. Paul Zoll was a pioneer with a panoramic wide-angle view of his patients’ needs gleaned from his office and bedside hospital practice. During his career, Paul Zoll equally divided his time between clinical care and research in his laboratory. His first in the world milestones resulted in paradigm shifts in cardiac care. Each conformed to the scientific "gold" standards with well documented detailed published data of laboratory experiments and results in patients that were replicated by independent investigators. Among those milestones are chest surface pacing of an arrested heart in 1952; clinical alarmed heart rhythm monitors in 1953; chest surface electrical shock ("defibrillation") to terminate life-threatening ventricular fibrillation in 1956; installation of a Zoll-Belgard- Electrodyne self-contained long term pacemaker in a child in 1960; and the introduction of a new concept that permitted "painless" chest surface pacing in 1982. The new device launched a small company that grew to be known as the Zoll Medical Corporation.

Paul Zoll developed methods of applying electric shocks to the surface of the chest that stimulated the heart within. When the heart of his first clinical success ceased to beat because its native stimulus signal failed, Zoll saved the man by substituting a sequence of chest shocks produced by an experimental pacemaker borrowed from Otto Krayer of the Harvard Medical School Department of Physiology. The next year he collaborated with Alan Belgard, the chief electrical engineer and co-owner of the Electrodyne Company, to develop an efficient chest surface pacemaker to conform to Paul's needs. That collaboration became long-term as together they developed production model chest surface pacemakers, clinical alarmed heart rhythm monitors, chest surface defibrillators, cardiac monitor- automatic pacemakers, and long-term implantable self-contained pacemakers.

Youth and education

Zoll's parents met in the US after emigrating from Eastern Europe. Hyman's roots were in Lithuania and Mollie's in Belarus. They settled in the Boston district of Roxbury, Massachusetts. Hyman worked with his father and brother in the family leather business. Mollie, in addition to being a homemaker, worked in her one-room home office electrolysis treatment center. The couple was Jewish and devoutly observant of their religion's customs and rituals. They were parents of two boys. The first, Herbert, was followed four years later by Paul. Both attended religious school and at the age of thirteen had a Bar Mitzvah rite of passage to celebrate their transition to manhood in the Jewish community.

Paul followed Herbert to Boston Latin School and Harvard College. Herbert graduated in 1932 with hopes of becoming an English teacher in the Boston Public School System. At Harvard, Paul majored in psychology with aspirations of remaining in academics. Because Herbert could not secure a teaching position, Mollie feared that Paul would suffer the same fate and advised that he pursue a career in medicine. (Herbert eventually did secure a position and rose in the ranks to become chairman of the language department at Boston Latin School.)

Paul graduated Harvard College Summa Cum Laude in 1932 and entered Harvard Medical School (HMS). Because of high academic standing, he was able to spend a portion of his senior year engaged in cardiac research with Soma Weiss, the venerated mentor of students at the medical school.

Paul was shaken during his last year of medical school by the death of his mother, Mollie, at the age of 49. That event had lasting personal repercussions. Mollie was believed to suffer from rheumatic heart disease and perhaps from underlying congenital heart disease. On several occasions, Mollie requested that a post mortem autopsy be performed to clarify the cause when she died and to help others. Paul's father, Hyman, disregarded his wife's wishes and Paul's arguments on the grounds that autopsy was a religious prohibition. Paul dissociated himself from his religious roots and never returned.

After graduation in 1936, Paul interned at Beth Israel Hospital—a major teaching hospital of HMS. He then completed a one-year medical residency at New York Bellevue Hospital and returned to Beth Israel Hospital as a Macy Research Fellow to study the pathophysiology of coronary disease. After settling in at his new position, he married Janet Jones, who he met while training at Bellevue.

Military service

Home life and work were interrupted by World War Two. Paul served as an army physician from 1941 to 1946. He was deployed to the Aleutians and then to England, where he became Chief of Medicine at the 160th General Hospital that was designated for wounded military evacuees with chest injuries. Paul and Dwight Harken, a HMS classmate and brilliant chest surgeon, removed bullets and shrapnel from in and around the hearts and great vessels of 138 soldiers without a fatality.

Commitment

After the war, Paul resumed his research work with coronary disease and continued to care for cardiac patients at Beth Israel Hospital. A life changing event affected Paul in 1947 when a woman directly under his care who suffered from fainting spells caused by increasingly prolonged periods of cardiac arrest, died. An autopsy revealed that her only heart abnormality was a faulty electrical system. Paul remembered what he learned practicing in the military with Harken- that the hearts of the wounded contracted from the slightest stimulus during surgery. With this in mind, Paul Zoll embarked on a mission to develop electrical methods to prevent sudden arrhythmic death. After proving that his new discoveries were superior to established methods, he had to defend them when other techniques emerged. A sampling of controversies that engulfed Paul Zoll include his technique of closed chest resuscitation versus open chest rescue; his application of alternating current countershock versus direct current cardioversion; and his preference for open chest long-term lead placement versus transvenous lead placement.

Paul Zoll was helped by several colleagues who shared his goals and worked by his side. They were Alan Belgard, his sole engineer; surgeon Leona Norman Zarsky, who directed the animal research laboratory; Arthur Linenthal, cardiac pharmacologist and electrophysiologist; and Howard Frank, thoracic surgeon and pioneering partner in implanting long-term pacemakers.

Family, honors

In 1948 Paul Zoll and Janet Jones became parents of what Paul termed "…a pair of assorted twins…." In later years, son Ross attended Harvard College, and earned a graduate degree in physics at the University of Chicago. He then assisted Paul in the laboratory, and earned his MD degree at the University of Miami. Daughter Mary earned her Doctorate Degree in biochemistry and taught at Northeastern University in Boston and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During his more than 50 years of active practice and research, Paul Zoll received many awards and honors. Janet died in 1978. Three years later, Paul married Ann Blumgart Gurewich. He retired from practice in 1993.

The descendants of Paul Zoll's discoveries continue to evolve in the forms of alarmed cardiac monitors, pacemakers, and closed chest defibrillators. These machines continue to be the platform for all modern cardiac care units. Light weight portable Automated External Defibrillators (AED) are mandated by federal and state authorities in many locations, including schools, commercial airplanes, airports, and health clubs. Since 2005 there are now wearable automatic defibrillators which need no direct medical interventions. Their presence is a constant reminder of Paul Maurice Zoll.

Death

Paul Zoll died from pneumonia on January 5, 1999.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-06 18:38:42

999) Mahlon Loomis

Summary

Mahlon Loomis (21 July 1826 – 13 October 1886) was the American inventor of radio. He is best known for promulgating the theory that the Earth's upper atmosphere was divided into discrete voltage layers,rising from zero at ground level to higher voltage with altitude and asserting that these could be "tapped" using kites fitted with metallic screen conductors and 600 foot long copper cords, flown high above hills and mountains, in order to transmit and receive electromagnetic code impulse messages. This is described in his notebook and issued US patent. His theory of atmospheric electrical layers was confirmed in 1957, in Atmospheric Electricity by John Alan Chalmers. Based on Loomis's US patent and successful wireless telegraphic transmission between two Virginia hilltops 18 miles apart,in October1868,Loomis'equipment was the clearly first to ever transmit and receive electromagetic waves (radio signals) for communication. Details are in Loomis's experiment notebook in the manuscript collection of the Library of Congress.

Details:

The Early Days

Mahlon Loomis was born July 21, 1826, in Oppenhiem New York, into the family of Professor Nathan Loomis and Waitie Loomis. He was the fourth of nine children.

Not a lot of details are available about Mahlon Loomis’ early life. This is unfortunate because it is often interesting to see how a young inventive mind grows. We do, however, know that he was surrounded by educated minds, as his father was a founder of the AMERICAN EPHEMERIS and NATIONAL ALMANAC. In addition to this, his older brother George, was an inventor and holder of several patents himself.

In 1836, Mahlon’s family moved to Springvale, Virginia. In September of 1848, Mahlon went to Cleveland, Ohio to partake in the study of dentistry. In 1850, he returned to Springvale to continue his dental work.

For several years Mahlon spent time as a traveling dentist. During this time he went to Earlville, New York, Cambridgeport Massachusetts and Philadelphia. During this practice in Massachusetts he received a patent for a mineral plate (Kaolin ) process for the making of artificial teeth.

In November of 1856, Loomis and his bride of only a few months, Achsah Ashley, settled in Washington D.C. to set up a dentistry practice.

The Start Of The Electrical Days

About 1860, Mahlon Loomis became interested in electricity, and his first application of this was an experiment in the forced increase of growth in plants. This was achieved by buried metal plates connected to an electrical current furnished by batteries.

In this same time period Mahlon became interested in using the electrical charges obtainable from the upper atmosphere by means of kites carrying metal wires. At first he planned to use this natural source of electricity to replace batteries on a telegraph circuit. It is noted in many references that this was something that was actually achieved on a telegraph line that was 400 miles long.

Later on, from experiments in this area, Mahlon discovered that a kite sent aloft would affect the flow of current in another kite that was some distance away from the first kite.

This set him on a path of developing it as a system of wireless telegraphy for practical long distance communications.

It Actually Works!

The year is 1868, and Mahlon Loomis demonstrates to a group of Congressmen and eminent scientists a wireless "communication" system between two sites 14 to 18 miles apart. There seems to be some discrepancy as to the distance in the various records that exist, however in the picture that was drawn by Mahlon Loomis, 14 miles is mentioned. This and many other pictures and notes are on file in the Library of Congress.

From one mountain peak he sent up a kite, the bottom of which was covered with thin copper gauze, and the kite string was copper wire. He connected this apparatus up to a galvometer that had the other end of the circuit connected to ground. Immediately the galvometer showed the passage of current!

He then set up an identical outfit on a mountain peak 18 miles away, to send. He would touch this second kites wire to ground and by this action reduced the voltage of the charged stratum and lowered the deflection in the galvometer attached to the other kite at first location we discussed.

There were problems with the communications system sometimes. It seemed that if one of the kites was at the wrong height, the system would not work. This led Loomis to believe that there were different areas in the atmosphere, and depending which area you were in, would control if the communication would work or not.

There were even days when the system just would not work at all. In thinking about that, I suppose it could be due to the electrostatic charge in the atmosphere that existed at that time during the experiment.

Mahlon Seeks the Government’s Help

Senator Charles Sumner, encouraged by a previous government grant to Samuel F.B. Morse, introduced a bill into the Senate on January 13, 1869. The "Loomis Aerial Telegraph Bill" asked for an act of incorporation for the Loomis Aerial Telegraph Company, and for the appropriation of $50,000 to help perfect Loomis’s discovery and make it practical.

Loomis had proposed a system where wireless telegraph messages could be sent across the Atlantic at 1/16 the cost of what it was using a Trans-Atlantic cable.

In an address to Congress, Loomis explained his system worked by: "Causing electrical vibrations or waves to pass around the world, as upon the surface of some quiet lake one wave circlet follows another from the point of the disturbance to the remotest shores, so that from any other mountain top upon the globe another conductor, which shall pierce this plane and receive the impressed vibration, may be connected to an indicator which will mark the length and duration of the vibration; and indicate by any agreed system of notation, convertible into human language, the message of the operator at the point of the first disturbance."

The bill, although gaining the support of a few Congressmen, was thought to be a fraud by many others. It was shuttled from committee to committee with much delay.

On May 20 thru 21, 1872, a lengthy discussion took place in the House. The issue of appropriations had been removed from the bill, and issue of incorporation was all that remained of the Loomis bill.

The newspapers became extremely active on the Loomis issue, unfortunately the majority of them were not favorable to the concept of wireless communication. Their reports ranged from polite skepticism to outright ridicule and allegations of the Loomis method being a fraud!

A copy of the Loomis Bill was also submitted to the committee for patents. On July 30, 1872, Patent number 129,971 was issued to Mahlon Loomis.

On January 6, 1873, the Loomis Bill was brought to a vote in the Senate and passed by a vote of 29 to 12, with 33 Senators absent. The record shows that neither of Virginia's Senators voted for the bill, despite the fact that Loomis was a resident there. Five days later the bill was signed into law by President Grant, thus incorporating the Loomis Aerial Telegraph Company. What had been achieved by this? Actually, not very much! Although Loomis now had a legal corporation, it was not allowed to operate outside Washington D.C. with out the prior consent of the state the corporation wished to operate within.

The Twilight Years

During the later years of his life, Mahlon worked as a dentist only to the extent to get some more capital to use to purchase goods for his electrical and communications experiments.

In the late 1870’s a distance was obtained of 20 miles. In this experiment he erected steel masts on top of wooden towers (these replaced the kites of the earlier experiments) and reportably maintained fairly reliable communications for periods of months at a time.

There was even some hints in his notes about experimenting with a "Wireless Telephone". There do not seem to be any surviving details of these experiments however, so it is really hard to say if he met with any successes in this area or not.

There are also drawings of buzzers connected to the Loomis system. Was this the start of an idea never finished?

Twilight Fades to Dark

Mahlon Loomis was heard to say many time the following statement:

"I know that I am regarded as a crank, perhaps a fool by some, and as to the latter, possibly I am, for I could have discarded this thing entirely and turned my attention to making money."

"I have not only discovered a new world, but the means to invade it. My compensation is poverty, contempt, neglect, forgetfulness. In the distant future, when the possibilities of this discovery are more fully developed, public attention will be directed to it’s originator, and the congressional records will furnish the indisputable proof that the credit belongs to me."

On October 13,1886, after a weeks long illness, Mahlon Loomis died at his brother’s country home in Terra Alta, West Virginia ; he was 60 years old. During the illness, his brother George reported that Mahlon was in hopes that the world would realize and use his invention. George Loomis also told others his brother's thoughts as Mahlon’s life neared it’s end......

"I know that I am by some, even many, regarded as a crank - by some perhaps a fool.... But I know that I am right, and if the present generation lives long enough their opinions will be changed - and their wonder will be that they did not perceive it before. I shall never see it perfected - but it will be, and others will have the honor of the discovery "

The Aftermath

What is Loomis’s place in communications history? At the very least there are several areas he should receive credit for.

1. First to use a complete antenna and ground system

2. First experimental transmission of wireless telegraph signals.

3. The first use of kites to carry an antenna aloft.

4. The first use of balloons to raise an antenna wire.

5. First vertical antenna (steel rod mounted on top of a wood tower).

6. Formulation of the idea of ‘waves’ traveling out from his antenna.

7. The first Patent for wireless telegraphy.

His actions did not catch the attention of the world as those experiments and successes that Marconi had. It almost seems that he was just a generation ahead of his time. The wireless system that was to happen had to wait another generation until there would be a bit more knowledge to draw upon to bring it to it’s fulfillment and usefulness.

Who is to know though, what the publicity that surrounded his experiments may have done to inspire other people. It is often a chain reaction, once an idea is brought to light, and it inspires other people to think along the same lines or to start experimenting with their own variation of an idea. We will never know if there was any of this inspiration ‘transmitted’ to other thinkers or not. I would like to think that even though he did not personally succeed, that somehow he had an influence on what was to later happen.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-07 18:29:35

1000) Narinder Singh Kapany

Narinder Singh Kapany (31 October 1926 – 4 December 2020) was an Indian-American physicist best known for his work on fiber optics. He is credited with inventing fiber optics, and is considered the 'Father of Fiber Optics'. Fortune named him one of seven 'Unsung Heroes of the 20th century' for his Nobel Prize-deserving invention.He was awarded India's second highest civilian award the Padma Vibhushan posthumously in 2021. He served as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service (IOFS) officer. He was also offered the post of Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister of India, by the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Early life and research

Kapany was born on 31 October 1926, in a Sikh family in Moga, Punjab. He completed his schooling in Dehradun and went on to graduate from Agra University. He served as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service officer, before going to Imperial College London in 1952 to work on a Ph.D. degree in optics from the University of London, which he obtained in 1955.

At Imperial College, Kapany worked with Harold Hopkins on transmission through fibers, achieving good image transmission through a large bundle of optical fibers for the first time in 1953. Optical fibers had been tried for image transmission before, but Hopkins and Kapany's technique allowed much better image quality than could previously be achieved. This, combined with the almost-simultaneous development of optical cladding by Dutch scientist Bram van Heel, helped jump start the new field of fiber optics. Kapany coined the term 'fiber optics' in an article in Scientific American in 1960, wrote the first book about the new field, and was the new field's most prominent researcher, writer, and spokesperson.

Kapany's research and work encompassed fiber-optics communications, lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring. He had over 120 patents, and was a member of the National Inventors Council. He was an International Fellow of numerous scientific societies including the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Career

As an entrepreneur and business executive, Kapany specialized in the processes of innovation and the management of technology and technology transfer. In 1960, he founded Optics Technology Inc. and was chairman of the board, President, and Director of Research for twelve years. In 1967 the company went public with numerous corporate acquisitions and joint-ventures in the United States and abroad. In 1973, Kapany founded Kaptron Inc. and was president and CEO until 1990 when he sold the company to AMP Incorporated. For the next nine years, Kapany was an AMP Fellow, heading the Entrepreneur & Technical Expert Program and serving as Chief Technologist for Global Communications Business. He founded K2 Optronics. He also served on the boards of various companies. He was a member of the Young Presidents Organization and later a member of the World Presidents Organization.

As an academic, Kapany taught and supervised research activity of postgraduate students. He was a Regents Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He founded the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED) at UCSC and served as Director for seven years. At Stanford University, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Physics Department and Consulting Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering.

As an author and lecturer, Kapany published over 100 scientific papers and four books on opto-electronics and entrepreneurship. He lectured to various national and international scientific societies.

Philanthropy and art

As a philanthropist, Kapany was active in education and the arts. He was the founding chairman of the Sikh Foundation and a major funder of its activities for over 50 years. In collaboration with international institutions and publishers, the Foundation runs programs in publishing, academia and the arts. In 1998, Kapany endowed a Chair of Sikh Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His gift in 1999 of $500,000 to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco established a gallery in its new building displaying the works he donated from his collection of Sikh art. In 1999, he endowed a Chair of Optoelectronics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Again in 2012, he established the Narinder Kapany Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship at UC Santa Cruz. He was a trustee of the University of California, Santa Cruz Foundation. He also served as a trustee of the Menlo School in Menlo Park, California.

As an art collector, Kapany specialised in Sikh art. He provided paintings and other objects on loan for the "Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms" exhibition, which was held at London's Victoria & Albert Museum beginning in March 1999. From there, the exhibition proceeded to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (with the Sikh Foundation as a sponsor) and opened in May 2000 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The exhibition follows "Splendors of the Punjab: Sikh Art and Literature in 1992" organised by Kapany in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum and UC Berkeley to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sikh Foundation. As an artist, Kapany's dynoptic sculptures were displayed at the Exploratorium of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 1972 and at museums and art galleries in Chicago, Monterey, Palo Alto, and Stanford.

Awards and recognitions

Kapany was posthumously included in the list of Padma Vibhushan awardees for 2021. The award is India's second highest civilian honor. He received the UC Santa Cruz Foundation Fiat Lux Award in 2008. He was also the recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2004. "The Excellence 2000 Award" from the USA Pan-Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 1998. In November 1999, he was identified by Fortune as one of the seven "unsung heroes who greatly influenced life in the twentieth century" in the "Businessmen of the Century" issue. Dr. Kapany was also on Time Magazine's list of top ten scientists of the 20th century in Time's last issue of 1999.

Personal life

Kapany married Miss Satinder Kaur in 1954, in London. His wife Satinder Kaur died in 2016.

Death

He died on 4 December 2020, aged 94.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-09 00:10:03

1001) Hugo Junkers

Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works), was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. His multi-engined, all-metal passenger- and freight planes helped establish airlines in Germany and around the world.

In addition to aircraft, Junkers also built both diesel and petrol engines and held various thermodynamic and metallurgical patents. He was also one of the main sponsors of the Bauhaus movement and facilitated the move of the Bauhaus from Weimar to Dessau (where his factory was situated) in 1925.

Amongst the highlights of his career were the Junkers J 1 of 1915, the world's first practical all-metal aircraft, incorporating a cantilever wing design with virtually no external bracing, the Junkers F 13 of 1919 (the world's first all-metal passenger aircraft), the Junkers W 33 (which made the first successful heavier-than-air east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic Ocean), the Junkers G.38 "flying wing", and the Junkers Ju 52, affectionately nicknamed "Tante Ju", one of the most famous airliners of the 1930s.

When the Nazis came into power in 1933 they requested Junkers and his businesses aid in the German re-armament. When Junkers declined, the Nazis responded by demanding ownership of all patents and market shares from his remaining companies, under threat of imprisonment on the grounds of High Treason. In 1934 Junkers was placed under house arrest, and died at home in 1935 during negotiations to give up the remaining stock and interests in Junkers. Under Nazi control, his company produced some of the most successful German warplanes of the Second World War.

Biography

Junkers was born in Rheydt in the Prussian Rhine Province, the son of a wealthy industrialist. After taking his Abitur exams in 1878, he attended the Royal Polytechnic University in Charlottenburg and the Royal Technical University in Aachen, where he completed his engineering studies in 1883.

At first, he returned to Rheydt to work in his father's company, but soon attended further lectures on electromagnetism and thermodynamics held by Adolf Slaby in Charlottenburg. Slaby placed him with the Continental-Gasgesellschaft in Dessau, where he worked on the development of the first opposed-piston engine. To measure heating value, Junkers patented a calorimeter and founded a manufacturing company in 1892. Junkers personally introduced the calorimeter at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where it was awarded a gold medal. The next year, he patented a gas-fired bath boiler, which he refined as a tankless heater. In 1895, he founded Junkers & Co. to utilize his inventions.

From 1897, he was offered a professorship of mechanical engineering at Aachen, where he lectured until 1912. Working as an engineer at the same time, Junkers taking substantial gains of Junkers & Co. devised, patented, and exploited calorimeters, domestic appliances (gas stoves), pressure regulators, gas oil engines, fan heaters, and other inventions.

Aeronautical work

Junkers' aeronautical work began in earnest at age 50 when he worked with engineer Hans Reissner in Aachen. Reissner had developed an all-metal aircraft, on which work first started in 1909 at the Brand Heath, equipped with corrugated iron wings built by Junkers & Co. in Dessau. The iron wings were patented one year later. Junkers had a wind tunnel built and invented a hydraulic brake.

He had far-sighted ideas of metal aeroplanes and flying wings, but the necessities of the war held him back. During World War I, the government forced him to focus on aircraft production. In 1915, he developed the world's first practical all-metal aircraft design, the Junkers J 1 "Blechesel" (Sheetmetal Donkey), which survived on display in Deutsches Museum in Munich until WWII. His firm's first military production design in 1916–17 was the armored-fuselage, two-seat, all-metal sesquiplane known by its IdFlieg designation, the Junkers J.I, considered the best German ground attack aircraft of the war. During this time, the German government's IdFlieg military aviation inspectorate forced him to merge his firm with Anthony Fokker's to form the Junkers-Fokker Aktiengesellschaft on 20 October 1917. The J.I's pattern of an armored fuselage that protected the nose-mounted engine, pilot, and observer in a unitized metal "bathtub" was the possible inspiration[citation needed] for Sergei Ilyushin's later Il-2 Shturmovik (conceivably appropriate as Junkers did have a manufacturing plant in Fili, a suburb of Moscow, in the Soviet Union in the 1920s) with a similar armored fuselage design. As this design philosophy for such combat aircraft had proven to be a good idea, it was once again broadly reused for the 1970s-premiered American Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" twin-turbofan powered attack aircraft, also having its pilot enveloped in an armoured titanium bathtub. By 1918, Junkers' firm, with its previously demonstrated preference for monoplane-pattern airframe designs, had created the world's first production low-winged, single-seat monoplane all-metal fighter aircraft, the Junkers D.I, which pioneered the use of Alfred Wilm's 1906 invention of duralumin throughout a production airframe. The D.I did not enter production until 1918. He also produced a two-seat monoplane fighter, the Junkers CL.I. Both postwar Soviet aviation pioneer Andrei Tupolev and American aviation designer William Bushnell Stout owed much to Hugo Junkers in the designs of their earlier aircraft, which benefited from Junkers' corrugated, light-metal construction technique.

The Junkers F.13 of 1919 was the first of several successful civil aircraft designs produced by Junkers Flugzeugwerke: later designs include the Junkers Ju 52/3m from 1932. Through a variety of business initiatives, Junkers was active in founding and developing airlines around the globe, initially intending to sell them aircraft. Airlines where Junkers played a pivotal role in early phases of their development include Deutsche Luft Hansa and Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano. Several business ventures failed from wider economic or political problems that hampered sound engineering plans. Junkers always had more ideas: the massive four-engined G.38, nicknamed "Der Grosse Dessauer", delivered to Luft Hansa, made no commercial trips for many months as he repeatedly recalled it to the factory for improvements.

Legacy

Hugo Junkers is mainly known in connection with aircraft bearing his name. These include some he reluctantly developed for the German Empire during World War I, later in minor association with Anthony Fokker, as well as civil aircraft designs during the "interwar period" produced by Junkers Flugzeugwerke (Junkers Aircraft Works). Junkers died in 1935, on his 76th birthday.

The earliest all-metal post-World War I aircraft designs of both Andrei Tupolev — with his Tupolev ANT-2 two-passenger small aircraft of 1924 — and William Bushnell Stout's initial all-metal design, the Stout ST twin-engine torpedo bomber of 1922, were both based directly on the pioneering work of Junkers, with each engineer (one Soviet, one American) separately developing examples of aircraft like Tupolev's enormous, 63 meter wingspan, eight-engined Maksim Gorki — the largest aircraft built anywhere in the world in the early 1930s — and Stout's popular Ford Trimotor airliner.

In 1976, Junkers was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.

Junkers was featured in the 2013 semi-fictional movie ''The Wind Rises'' by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-11 00:16:57

1002) Jacob Schick

Colonel Jacob Schick (September 16, 1877 – July 3, 1937) was an American inventor and entrepreneur who patented the first electric razor and started the Schick Dry Shaver, Inc. razor company. He is the father of electric razors. Schick became a Canadian citizen in 1935 to avoid an investigation by the Joint Congressional Committee on Tax Evasion & Avoidance after he moved most of his wealth to a series of holding companies in the Bahamas.

Early life

At the early age of 16, Schick was in charge of a railroad line that ran from Los Corrillos, New Mexico to a coal mine opened by his father. Schick enlisted in the 14th Infantry Regiment in 1898 and was shortly thereafter assigned to the Philippines in the 1st Division 8th Army Corps. He returned to the Philippines from 1903-1905 as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 8th Infantry Regiment. He returned to the U.S. suffering from dysentery, where one version of the invention story claims he conceived of the idea of an electric razor. He was promoted to first lieutenant and was transferred to the 22nd Infantry Regiment in Alaska a year later, where he helped to lay telegraph lines for the military. He officially separated from the military in 1910, but returned to duty from 1916-1918 as a Captain (eventually promoted to Lt. Colonel) due to the outbreak of World War I.

Business

Jacob Schick's first business venture, the Magazine Repeating Razor Co. (founded 1926) sold a razor with injection cartridge blades designed much like a repeating rifle, where the blades were sold in clips that could be loaded into the razor without touching the blade. This business provided the necessary capital to develop his electric razor concept when he sold it to the American Chain & Cable Company in 1928.

Inventions

Successfully patented first electric razor in May 1930. Also patented the General Jacobs Boat for use in shallow water, and an improved pencil sharpener.

Later life

After moving to Canada, Schick died from complications due to a kidney operation. He was survived by his wife Florence Leavitt Schick Stedman, and his two daughters Virginia and Barbara. He is buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal, Quebec.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-13 00:05:23

1003) Amos Edward Joel Jr.

Summary

Amos Edward Joel Jr. (March 12, 1918 – October 25, 2008) was an American electrical engineer, known for several contributions and over seventy patents related to telecommunications switching systems.

Biography
Joel was born in Philadelphia, and spent portions of his youth living in New York City, where he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.[2]

He earned his B.Sc. (1940) and M.Sc. (1942) in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on the Rockefeller Differential Analyzer (project headed by Vannevar Bush), and a thesis on functional design of relays and switch circuits, advised by Samuel H. Caldwell. Joel worked at Bell Labs (1940–83) where he first undertook cryptology studies (collaboration with Claude Shannon), followed by studies on electronic switching system that resulted in the 1ESS switch (1948–60). He then headed the development of advanced telephone services (1961–68), which led to several patents, including one on Traffic Service Position System and a mechanism for handoff in cellular communication (1972). The latter invention made mobile telephony widely available by allowing a multitude of callers to use the limited number of available frequencies simultaneously and by allowing the seamless switching of calls from tower to tower as callers traveled. After 1983, he worked as a consultant to AT&T, developing mechanisms for optical switching.

Joel died in his home in Maplewood, New Jersey, on October 25, 2008, at age 90.

Details

Biography
Amos Edward Joel Jr. was born on 12 March 1918 in Philadelphia, PA. He obtained the B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940 and 1942, respectively. He spent his entire professional career, from July 1940 to March 1983, with Bell Telephone Laboratories, starting as a Member of Technical Staff. There, Joel's efforts were devoted to the study, design, and evaluation of telephone switching systems, a field in which he has made many contributions.

During World War II, Joel designed early general-purpose digital computers and cryptanalysis machines. Following the war, he conceived and taught the first course on switching system and circuit design and went on to design the first automatic telephone billing equipment (AMA).

A pioneer in the development of electronic switching systems, Joel started fundamental engineering studies in 1948 that later became the basis for his many contributions. He supervised development planning for the Bell System's first electronic telephone switching systems, and played a major role in establishing the concepts of electronic switching now employed throughout the world.

From 1961 to 1967, Joel was responsible for the design of two systems used to improve operator services: one for 0 and 0 + calls that require operator services (TSPS), and the other that announces telephone number changes (AIS). Versions of both systems are in service throughout the nation.

Joel received a basic patent for his early studies of the switching aspects of cellular mobile radio service. More than seventy other U.S. patents have been issued for his work, including the largest ever U.S. patent for his work on AMA. He has authored and co-authored several books and numerous papers on switching. He has been the co-recipient of the New Jersey R & D Council's Outstanding Patent Award, 1972; and the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, 1976. He has been recognized for his work in switching with the Franklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal, 1981; the International Telecommunication Union Centenary Prize, 1983; the Genoa, Italy Columbian Medal, 1984; and in 1989 the Kyoto Prize of the Inamori Foundation of Japan, and the New Jersey "Inventors of the Year" Award by the NJ Institute of Technology. In 1992, he was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor, "For fundamental contributions to and leadership in telecommunications switching systems."

Joel was active in the IEEE (AIEE) since his student days serving on many committees and boards, as Chairman of the New York Section and President of the Communications Society. He was a member of the AAAS, ACM, Sigma XI, and the National Academy of Engineering, and a Life Fellow of IEEE.

He was married to Rhoda Fenton Joel; they had children, Jeffrey, Andrea, and Stephanie. His non-professional interests included music, playing electronic instruments, computers, and railroading. Joel died on 25 October 2008 at his home in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-15 00:14:18

1004) Thomas Savery

Thomas Savery (c. 1650 – 15 May 1715) was an English inventor and engineer, born at Shilstone, a manor house near Modbury, Devon, England. He invented the first commercially used steam-powered device, a steam pump which is often referred to as an "engine", although it is not technically an engine. Savery's steam pump was a revolutionary method of pumping water, which solved the problem of mine drainage and made widespread public water supply practicable.

Career

Savery became a military engineer, rising to the rank of Captain by 1702, and spent his free time performing experiments in mechanics. In 1696 he took out a patent for a machine for polishing glass or marble and another for "rowing of ships with greater ease and expedition than hitherto been done by any other" which involved paddle-wheels driven by a capstan and which was dismissed by the Admiralty following a negative report by the Surveyor of the Navy, Edmund Dummer.

Savery also worked for the Sick and Hurt Commissioners, contracting the supply of medicines to the Navy Stock Company, which was connected with the Society of Apothecaries. His duties on their behalf took him to Dartmouth, which is probably how he came into contact with Thomas Newcomen.

Steam powered pump

On 2 July 1698 Savery patented a steam powered pump, "A new invention for raising of water and occasioning motion to all sorts of mill work by the impellent force of fire, which will be of great use and advantage for draining mines, serving towns with water, and for the working of all sorts of mills where they have not the benefit of water nor constant winds." He demonstrated it to the Royal Society on 14 June 1699. The patent had no illustrations or even description, but in 1702 Savery described the machine in his book The Miner's Friend; or, An Engine to Raise Water by Fire, in which he claimed that it could pump water out of mines.

Schematic of Savery engine operation. The engine drags water in with valves a and c closed, and valves b and d open. It pushes water up with valves a and c open, and valves b and d closed.
Savery's was a pistonless pump with no moving parts except from the taps. It was operated by first raising steam in the boiler; the steam was then admitted to one of the first working vessels, allowing it to blow out through a downpipe into the water that was to be raised. When the system was hot and therefore full of steam the tap between the boiler and the working vessel was shut, and if necessary the outside of the vessel was cooled. This made the steam inside it condense, creating a partial vacuum, and atmospheric pressure pushed water up the downpipe until the vessel was full. At this point the tap below the vessel was closed, and the tap between it and the up-pipe opened, and more steam was admitted from the boiler. As the steam pressure built up, it forced the water from the vessel up the up-pipe to the top of the mine.

However, his pump had four serious problems. First, every time water was admitted to the working vessel much of the heat was wasted in warming up the water that was being pumped. Second, the next stage of the process required high-pressure steam to force the water up, and the pump's soldered joints were barely capable of withstanding high pressure steam and needed frequent repair. Third, although this pump used positive steam pressure to push water up out (with no theoretical limit to the height to which water could be lifted by a single high-pressure pump) practical and safety considerations meant that in practice, to clear water from a deep mine would have needed a series of moderate-pressure pumps all the way from the bottom level to the surface. Fourth, water was pushed up into the pump only by atmospheric pressure (working against a condensed-steam 'vacuum'), so the pump had to be no more than about 30 feet (9.1 m) above the water level – requiring it to be installed, operated, and maintained far down in the dark mines all over.

Fire Engine Act

Savery's original patent of July 1698 gave 14 years' protection; the next year, 1699, an Act of Parliament was passed which extended his protection for a further 21 years. This Act became known as the "Fire Engine Act". Savery's very broad patent covered all pumps that raised water by fire, and it thus hindered the early development of steam machinery in the British Isles.

The architect James Smith of Whitehill acquired the rights to use Savery's pump in Scotland. In 1699, he entered into an agreement with the inventor, and in 1701 he secured a patent from the Parliament of Scotland, modelled on Savery's grant in England, and designed to run for the same period of time. Smith described the machine as "an engine or invention for raising of water and occasioning motion of mill-work by the force of fire", and he claimed to have modified it to pump from a depth of 14 fathoms, or 84 feet.

In England, Savery's patent meant that Thomas Newcomen was forced to go into partnership with him. By 1712, arrangements had been made between the two men to develop Newcomen's more advanced design of steam engine, which was marketed under Savery's patent, adding water tanks and pump rods so that deeper water mines could be accessed with steam power. Newcomen's engine worked purely by atmospheric pressure, thereby avoiding the dangers of high-pressure steam, and used the piston concept invented in 1690 by the Frenchman Denis Papin to produce the first steam engine capable of raising water from deep mines.

When Denis Papin was back to London in 1707, he was asked by Newton, new President of The Royal Society after Robert Boyle, Papin's friend, to work with Savery, who worked for 5 years with Papin, but never gave any credit nor revenue to the French scientist.

After his death in 1715 Savery's patent and Act of Parliament became vested in a company, The Proprietors of the Invention for Raising Water by Fire. This company issued licences to others for the building and operation of Newcomen engines, charging as much as £420 per year patent royalties for the construction of steam engines. In one case a colliery paid the Proprietors £200 per year and half their net profits "in return for their services in keeping the engine going".

The Fire Engine Act did not expire until 1733, four years after the death of Newcomen.

Application of the steam pump

A newspaper in March 1702 announced that Savery's pumps were ready for use and might be seen on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons at his workhouse in Salisbury Court, London, over against the Old Playhouse.

One of his pumps was set up at York Buildings in London. According to later descriptions this produced steam 'eight or ten times stronger than common air' (i.e. 8–10 atmospheres), but blew open the joints of the machine, forcing him to solder the joints with spelter.

Another was built to control the water supply at Hampton Court, while another at Campden House in Kensington operated for 18 years.

A few Savery pumps were tried in mines, an unsuccessful attempt being made to use one to clear water from a pool called Broad Waters in Wednesbury (then in Staffordshire) and nearby coal mines. This had been covered by a sudden eruption of water some years before. However the pump could not be 'brought to answer'. The quantity of steam raised was so great as 'rent the whole machine to pieces'. The steam pump was laid aside, and the scheme for raising water was dropped as impracticable. This may have been in about 1705.

Another pump was proposed in 1706 by George Sparrow at Newbold near Chesterfield, where a landowner was having difficulty in obtaining the consent of his neighbours for a sough to drain his coal. Nothing came of this, perhaps due to the explosion of the Broad Waters pump. It is also possible that a steam pump was tried at Wheal Vor, a copper mine in Cornwall.

Comparison with Newcomen steam engine

The Savery steam pump was much lower in capital cost than the Newcomen steam engine, with a 2 to 4 horsepower Savery pump costing from 150-200 GBP. It was also available in small sizes, down to one horsepower. Newcomen steam engines were larger and much more expensive. The larger size was due to the fact that piston steam engines became very inefficient in small sizes, at least until around 1900 when 2 horsepower piston engines were available. Savery-type pumps continued to be produced well into the late 18th century.

Inspiration for later work

Several later pumping systems may be based on Savery's pump. For example, the twin-chamber pulsometer steam pump was a successful development of it.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-17 00:14:45

1005) James M. Spangler

James Murray Spangler (November 20, 1848 – January 22, 1915) was an American inventor, salesman, and janitor who invented the first commercially successful portable electric vacuum cleaner that revolutionized household carpet cleaning. His device was not the first vacuum cleaner, but it was the first that was practical for home use. It was the first to use both a cloth filter bag and cleaning attachments. Spangler improved this basic model and received a patent for it in 1908. He formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company to manufacture his device. William H. Hoover was so impressed with the vacuum cleaner that he bought into Spangler's business and patents.

Early years and personal life

Spangler was one of ten children born to Mr. William Spangler & Mrs. Elizabeth Lind Spangler on November 20, 1848. The Spangler family was originally from Plains Township, Pennsylvania and settled in Stark County, Ohio.

On May 21, 1874, Spangler married Elista (Lettie) Amanda Holtz. They had three children, Clarence, Francis, and Jennie. In 1880 they moved to Akron.

Careers, jobs and patents

After moving to Akron, Spangler was in business with his brother selling gent's furnishings. He also worked for the Aultman Company as a salesman.

Spangler was granted a patent on a grain harvester in 1887. He invented certain new and useful improvements such as the sliding tailboard made of sheet metal. He removed a standard tailboard and provided the sliding tailboard to regulate the width of the platform and adjust it to grain of different length. He also installed guards that prevented straw or grain from wrapping around the roller. Spangler invented a combined hay rake and tedder which was patented in 1893. By his peculiar arrangement, he was able to provide a combined hay rake and tedder in one machine, thereby reducing the cost. He formed a company for its sale which was unsuccessful and short-lived.

In 1897 he was granted a patent for a velocipede wagon and sold his invention to a company in Springfield, Ohio. He claimed as new "the combination of the body or box, mounted upon traveling wheels". The bicycle became quite popular at the same time and interfered with the sale of the wagon.

He later worked as a sweeper at the Zollinger Dept. Store located in the Folwell Building. located on the northwest corner of the public square in Canton, Ohio. (The top floor was occupied – in 1907 - by the Elks Club and the remaining floors occupied by the Wm. R. Zollinger Dept. Store.)

Invention of the portable electric vacuum cleaner

Spangler was an asthmatic. Almost 60 and cursed with strong disease, he grew frustrated at the tiring and dusty work of sweeping the carpet in the store where he worked. He suspected that the carpet sweeper he used on the job was the source of his cough. A tinkerer at heart, he set his mind to making an electric carpet sweeper.

While watching a rotary street sweeper in operation, Spangler got the idea to mount the motor from a ceiling fan onto a carpet sweeper and cut a hole in the back of the sweeper to attach fan blades which would blow dirt out of the rear of the cleaner into an attached dirt bag (a pillow case he borrowed from the store). He attached a leather belt from the motor shaft to the wood cylinder brush roll and a broom stick supplied the handle. In his next attempt he used a wooden soap box as the main body. He used his invention successfully in cleaning the Folwell Building. Bringing his ingenuity to bear on the problem, Spangler fashioned a tin box, a pillowcase, an electric fan, and a broom handle into something we might recognize today as a crude vacuum cleaner. Spangler called it a "suction sweeper."

Despite being primitive and unwieldy, it worked—Spangler's asthma abated, and he received a patent for his troubles. He also realized that he might finally have a salable invention. Spangler first tested his invention in 1907. During the next year, he refined the vacuum numerous times, and on June 2, 1908, he received a patent for his sweeper.

Spangler, with $5000.00 invested by a friend, formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. Ray Harned, nephew and financial representative of F.G. and W.H. Folwell, formed a partnership with Spangler in the fall of 1907. The Folwells had financed Zollingers and were financing Spangler who had filed an application for a patent in September 1907. However, in just a few months, finances were gone. Spangler didn't have the capital to mass-produce his gadget. So he showed the suction sweeper to his cousin Susan Hoover, who tried it, liked it, and extolled its virtues to her husband, William Hoover, a leather-goods manufacturer.

The timing was fortuitous: With the automobile gaining popularity, William Hoover was concerned about the market for his horse collars and harnesses, and was eager to diversify. In 1908 he bought Spangler's patent, and he soon had a small staff toiling in the corner of his leather shop, turning out six suction sweepers a day. William Hoover made further improvements to the vacuum cleaner that resembled a bagpipe attached to a cake box, a novel look that was very functional. Sluggish sales of the Hoover vacuum cleaner were given a kick by Hoover’s ten-day, free home trial. Hoover came up with the idea of door-to-door salesmen who gave home demonstrations of the new vacuum cleaners. Hoover's success means that most people today associate the vacuum cleaner with him, rather than with Spangler.

Later years

After Spangler sold the patents to William Hoover, he stayed on with the Hoover Company as the superintendent. Spangler's wife and daughter (Jennie Spangler Painter) made all the bags for the sweepers until 1914 when the bag making was taken to New Berlin. His son, Clarence, worked for about a year with The Electric Suction Sweeper Co. in New Berlin. He became very ill and died in December 1911.

Spangler was planning the first vacation of his life, a trip to Florida. He died on January 22, 1915, the night before he was expected to leave for the trip at the age of 66. Spangler's family continued to receive royalties until his patent expired June 2, 1925.

james_murray_spangler_canton_janitor_cleveland_inventors_ohio_inventions855128b5-f1af-40cd-a568-6d8036fccb49.jpg

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-19 00:29:18

1006) Captain Tom Moore

Captain Sir Thomas Moore (30 April 1920 – 2 February 2021), more popularly known as Captain Tom, was a British Army officer and fundraiser who made international headlines in 2020 when he raised money for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday during the COVID-19 pandemic. He served in India and the Burma campaign during the Second World War, and later became an instructor in armoured warfare. After the war, he worked as managing director of a concrete company and was an avid motorcycle racer.

On 6 April 2020, at the age of 99, Moore began to walk 100 lengths of his garden in aid of NHS Charities Together, with the goal of raising £1,000 by his 100th birthday on 30 April. In the 24-day course of his fundraising, he made many media appearances and became a popular household name in the UK, earning a number of accolades and attracting over 1.5 million individual donations. In recognition of his efforts, he received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award at the 2020 ceremony. He performed in a cover version of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" sung by Michael Ball, with proceeds going to the same charity. The single topped the UK music charts, making him the oldest person to achieve a UK number one.

On the morning of Moore's 100th birthday, the total raised by his walk passed £30 million, and by the time the campaign closed at the end of that day had increased to over £32.79 million (worth almost £39 million with expected tax rebates). His birthday was marked in a number of ways, including flypasts by the Royal Air Force and the British Army. He received over 150,000 cards, and was appointed as honorary colonel of the Army Foundation College. On 17 July 2020, he was personally knighted by the Queen at Windsor Castle. He died on 2 February 2021 at Bedford Hospital where he was taken after being treated for pneumonia and then testing positive for COVID-19.

(The Association of NHS Charities, operating as NHS Charities Together, is a federation of over 250 charitable organisations that supports all the devolved National Health Service (NHS), their staff, volunteers and patients, in the United Kingdom. The organisation acts as collective voice for NHS charities as well as coordinating national fundraising efforts.

The charity came to increased prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, when 99-year old Captain Tom Moore raised over £30 million for them, by walking laps of his garden, and releasing a single with Michael Ball, which went to number 1 in the UK charts. In December 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge became joint patrons of the organisation.)

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-21 00:01:26

1007) Otto Lilienthal

Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the "flying man". He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with gliders. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favourably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical. On 9 August 1896, his glider stalled and he was unable to regain control. Falling from about 15 m (50 ft), he broke his neck and died the next day.

Early life

Lilienthal was born on 23 May 1848 in Anklam, Pomerania Province, German kingdom of Prussia. His parents were Gustav and Caroline, née Pohle. He was baptised in the evangelical-lutheran St. Nicholas church and confirmed in St. Mary's church in Anklam. Lilienthal's middle-class parents had eight children, but only three survived infancy: Otto, Gustav, and Marie. The brothers worked together all their lives on technical, social, and cultural projects. Lilienthal attended grammar school and studied the flight of birds with his brother Gustav (1849–1933). Fascinated by the idea of manned flight, Lilienthal and his brother made strap-on wings, but failed in their attempts to fly. He attended the regional technical school in Potsdam for two years and trained at the Schwarzkopf Company before becoming a professional design engineer. He later attended the Royal Technical Academy in Berlin.

In 1867, Lilienthal began experiments in earnest on the force of air, but interrupted the work to serve in the Franco-Prussian War. Returning to civilian life, he was a staff engineer with several engineering companies and received a patent, his first, for a mining machine. He founded his own company to make boilers and steam engines.

On 6 June 1878, Lilienthal married Agnes Fischer, daughter of a deputy. Music brought them together; she was trained in piano and voice while Lilienthal played the French horn and had a good tenor voice. After marriage, they took up residence in Berlin and had four children: Otto, Anna, Fritz, and Frida. Lilienthal published his famous book Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation in 1889.

Experiments in flight

Lilienthal's greatest contribution was in the development of heavier-than-air flight. He made his flights from an artificial hill he built near Berlin and from natural hills, especially in the Rhinow region.

The filing of a U.S. Patent in 1894 by Lilienthal directed pilots to grip the "bar" for carrying and flying the hang glider. The A-frame of Percy Pilcher and Lilienthal echoes in today's control frame for hang gliders and ultralight aircraft. Working in conjunction with his brother Gustav, Lilienthal made over 2,000 flights in gliders of his design starting in 1891 with his first glider version, the Derwitzer, until his death in a gliding crash in 1896. His total flying time was five hours.

At the beginning, in 1891, Lilienthal succeeded with jumps and flights covering a distance of about 25 metres (82 ft). He could use the updraft of a 10 m/s wind against a hill to remain stationary with respect to the ground, shouting to a photographer on the ground to manoeuvre into the best position for a photo. In 1893, in the Rhinow Hills, he was able to achieve flight distances as long as 250 metres (820 ft). This record remained unbeaten for him or anyone else at the time of his death.

Lilienthal did research in accurately describing the flight of birds, especially storks, and used polar diagrams for describing the aerodynamics of their wings. He made many experiments in an attempt to gather reliable aeronautical data.

Projects

During his short flying career, Lilienthal developed a dozen models of monoplanes, wing flapping aircraft and two biplanes. His gliders were carefully designed to distribute weight as evenly as possible to ensure a stable flight. Lilienthal controlled them by changing the center of gravity by shifting his body, much like modern hang gliders. However they were difficult to manoeuvre and had a tendency to pitch down, from which it was difficult to recover. One reason for this was that he held the glider by his shoulders, rather than hanging from it like a modern hang glider. Only his legs and lower body could be moved, which limited the amount of weight shift he could achieve.

Lilienthal made many attempts to improve stability with varying degrees of success. These included making a biplane which halved the wing span for a given wing area, and by having a hinged tailplane that could move upwards to make the flare at the end of a flight easier. He speculated that flapping wings of birds might be necessary and had begun work on such a powered aircraft.

While his lifelong pursuit was flight, Lilienthal was also an inventor and devised a small engine that worked on a system of tubular boilers. His engine was much safer than the other small engines of the time. This invention gave him the financial freedom to focus on aviation. His brother Gustav (1849–1933) was living in Australia at the time, and Lilienthal did not engage in aviation experiments until his brother's return in 1885.

There are 25 known Lilienthal patents.

Test locations

Lilienthal performed his first gliding attempts in mid-1891 at the so-called "Windmühlenberg" near to the villages of Krielow and Derwitz which are located west of Potsdam.

In 1892, Lilienthal's training area was a hill formation called "Maihöhe" in Steglitz, Berlin. He built a 4 metres (13 ft) high shed, in the shape of a tower, on top of it. This way, he obtained a "jumping off" place 10 metres (33 ft) high. The shed served also for storing his apparatus.

In 1893, Lilienthal also started to perform gliding attempts in the "Rhinower Berge", at the "Hauptmannsberg" near to Rhinow and later, 1896, at the "Gollenberg" near to Stölln.

In 1894, Lilienthal built an artificial conical hill near his home in Lichterfelde, called Fliegeberg (lit. "Fly Hill"). It allowed him to launch his gliders into the wind no matter which direction it was coming from.[13] The hill was 15 metres (49 ft) high. There was a regular crowd of people that were interested in seeing his gliding experiments.

In 1932, the Fliegeberg was redesigned by a Berlin architect Fritz Freymüller as a memorial to Lilienthal. On top of the hill was built a small temple-like construction, consisting of pillars supporting a slightly sloping round roof. Inside is placed a silver globe inscribed with particulars of famous flights. Lilienthal's brother Gustav and the old mechanic and assistant Paul Baylich attended the unveiling ceremony on 10 August 1932 (36 years after Otto's death).

Worldwide notice

Reports of Lilienthal's flights spread in Germany and elsewhere, with photographs appearing in scientific and popular publications. Among those who photographed him were pioneers such as Ottomar Anschütz and American physicist Robert Williams Wood. He soon became known as the "father of flight" as he had successfully controlled a heavier-than-air aircraft in sustained flight.

Lilienthal was a member of the Verein zur Förderung der Luftschifffahrt, and regularly detailed his experiences in articles in its journal, the Zeitschrift für Luftschifffahrt und Physik der Atmosphäre, and in the popular weekly publication Prometheus. These were translated in the United States, France and Russia. Many people from around the world came to visit him, including Samuel Pierpont Langley from the United States, Russian Nikolai Zhukovsky, Englishman Percy Pilcher and Austrian Wilhelm Kress. Zhukovsky wrote that Lilienthal's flying machine was the most important invention in the aviation field. Lilienthal corresponded with many people, among them Octave Chanute, James Means, Alois Wolfmüller and other flight pioneers.

Final flight

On 9 August 1896, Lilienthal went, as on previous weekends, to the Rhinow Hills. The day was very sunny and not too hot (about 20 °C, or 68 °F). The first flights were successful, reaching a distance of 250 metres (820 ft) in his normal glider. During the fourth flight Lilienthal's glide pitched forward, heading down quickly. Lilienthal had previously had difficulty in recovering from this position because the glider relied on weight shift which was difficult to achieve when pointed at the ground. His attempts failed and he fell from a height of about 15 metres (49 ft), while still in the glider.

Paul Beylich, Lilienthal's glider mechanic, transported him by horse-drawn carriage to Stölln, where he was examined by a physician. Lilienthal had a fracture of the third cervical vertebra and soon became unconscious. Later that day he was transported in a cargo train to Lehrter train station in Berlin, and the next morning to the clinic of Ernst von Bergmann, one of the most famous and successful surgeons in Europe at the time. Lilienthal died there a few hours later (about 36 hours after the crash).

There are differing accounts of Lilienthal's last words. A popular account, inscribed on his tombstone, is "Opfer müssen gebracht werden!" ("Sacrifices must be made!"). The director of the Otto Lilienthal Museum doubts that these were his last words. Otto Lilienthal was buried at Lankwitz public cemetery in Berlin.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-24 00:44:51

1008) Charles Ginsberg

Charles Paulson Ginsburg (July 27, 1920 – April 9, 1992) was an American engineer and the leader of a research team at Ampex which developed one of the first practical videotape recorders.

Biography

Ginsburg was born on July 27, 1920 in San Francisco, California. At age four, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He attended Lowell High School in San Francisco.

Ginsburg earned a bachelor's degree from San Jose State University in 1948. He worked as an engineer at AM-radio station KQW (now KCBS). He joined Ampex in 1951, and remained there until his retirement in 1986, holding the title Vice President of Advanced Technology. The engineering team that helped create the videotape recorder while working for Ampex under his direction in early 1956 were Charles Andersen, Ray Dolby, Shelby Henderson, Fred Pfost, and Alex Maxey.

Ginsburg was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1973, being cited for invention and pioneering development of video magnetic tape recording for instant playback.

He died on April 9, 1992 in Eugene, Oregon of pneumonia.

(Charles Ginsburg led the research team at Ampex Corporation in developing the first practical videotape recorder (VTR). The system used a rapidly rotating recording head to apply high-frequency signals onto a reel of magnetic tape. The VTR revolutionized television broadcasting.

Born in San Francisco, California, Ginsburg graduated with a B.A. from San Jose State in 1948 then worked as a studio and transmitter engineer at a radio station in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1952 he joined the Ampex Corporation. He held the position of vice president of Advance Development at Ampex from 1975 until his retirement in 1986. Tape recording of television signals dates to just after World War II, when audio tape recorders were pushed to record the very high frequency signals needed for television. These early machines ran the tape at very high speeds 240 inches per second to achieve high-frequency response.

Ginsburg led the Ampex research team that developed a new machine that could run the tape at a much slower rate because the recording heads rotated at high speed, allowing the necessary high-frequency response. Recorded programs that could be edited replaced most live broadcasts. In 1956, CBS became the first network to employ VTR technology.)

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-26 00:19:39

1009) Chuck Yeager

Summary

Chuck Yeager, by name of Charles Elwood Yeager, (born February 13, 1923, Myra, West Virginia, U.S.—died December 7, 2020, Los Angeles, California), was an American test pilot and U.S. Air Force officer who was the first man to exceed the speed of sound in flight.

Yeager enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 1941, shortly after graduating from high school, and was assigned to the Army Air Corps. He was commissioned a reserve flight officer in 1943 and became a pilot in the fighter command of the Eighth Air Force stationed in England. He flew 64 missions over Europe during World War II, shot down 13 German aircraft, and was himself shot down over France (he escaped capture with the help of the French underground). After the war he became a flight instructor and then a test pilot, securing a regular commission as a captain in 1947.

Yeager was chosen from several volunteers to test-fly the secret experimental X-1 aircraft, built by the Bell Aircraft Company to test the capabilities of the human pilot and a fixed-wing aircraft against the severe aerodynamic stresses of sonic flight. On October 14, 1947, over Rogers Dry Lake in southern California, he rode the X-1, attached to a B-29 mother ship, to an altitude of 25,000 feet (7,600 metres). The X-1 then rocketed separately to 40,000 feet (12,000 metres), and Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, which was approximately 662 miles (1,066 km) per hour at that altitude. The feat was not announced publicly until June 1948. Yeager continued to make test flights, and on December 12, 1953, he established a world speed record of 1,650 miles (2,660 km) per hour in an X-1A rocket plane.

In 1954 Yeager left his post as assistant chief of test-flight operations at Edwards Air Force Base in California to join the staff of the Twelfth Air Force in West Germany. Following other routine assignments, he returned to Edwards in 1962 as commandant of the Aerospace Research Pilot School with the rank of colonel. In 1968 he took command of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing. He retired from the air force with the rank of brigadier general in 1975. His autobiography, Yeager, was published in 1985.

Details

Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager (February 13, 1923 – December 7, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in 1947 became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound in level flight.

Yeager was raised in Hamlin, West Virginia. His career began in World War II as a private in the United States Army, assigned to the Army Air Forces in 1941.[a] After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in September 1942, he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted to the rank of flight officer (the World War II Army Air Force version of the Army's warrant officer), later achieving most of his aerial victories as a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot on the Western Front, where he was credited with shooting down 11.5 enemy aircraft (the half credit is from a second pilot assisting him in a single shootdown). On October 12, 1944, he attained "ace in a day" status, shooting down five enemy aircraft in one mission.

After the war, Yeager became a test pilot and flew many types of aircraft, including experimental rocket-powered aircraft for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Through the NACA program, he became the first human to officially break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, when he flew the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m), for which he won both the Collier and Mackay trophies in 1948. He then went on to break several other speed and altitude records in the following years. In 1962, he became the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, which trained and produced astronauts for NASA and the Air Force.

Yeager later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. In recognition of his achievements and the outstanding performance ratings of those units, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1969 and inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973, retiring on March 1, 1975. His three-war active-duty flying career spanned more than 30 years and took him to many parts of the world, including the Korean War zone and the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Yeager is referred to by many as one of the greatest pilots of all time, and was ranked fifth on Flying's list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation in 2013. Throughout his life, he flew more than 360 different types of aircraft over a 70-year period, and continued to fly for two decades after retirement as a consultant pilot for the United States Air Force.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-28 00:16:53

1010) Barry Lopez

Barry Holstun Lopez (January 6, 1945 – December 25, 2020) was an American author, essayist, nature writer, and fiction writer whose work is known for its humanitarian and environmental concerns. In a career spanning over 50 years, he visited over 80 countries, and wrote extensively about distant and exotic landscapes including the Arctic wilderness, exploring the relationship between human cultures and nature. He won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for Arctic Dreams (1986) and his Of Wolves and Men (1978) was a National Book Award finalist. He was a contributor to magazines including Harper's Magazine, National Geographic, and The Paris Review.

Early life

Lopez was born Barry Holstun Brennan on January 6, 1945, in Port Chester, New York, to Mary Frances (née Holstun) and John Brennan. His family moved to Reseda, California after the birth of his brother, Dennis, in 1948. He attended grade school at Our Lady of Grace during this time. His parents divorced in 1950, after which his mother married Adrian Bernard Lopez, a businessman, in 1955. Adrian Lopez adopted Barry and his brother, and they both took his surname.

When Lopez was 11, his family relocated to Manhattan, where he attended the Loyola School, graduating in 1962. As a young man, Lopez considered becoming a Catholic priest or a Trappist monk before attending the University of Notre Dame, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees there in 1966 and 1968. He also attended New York University and the University of Oregon.

Career and works

Lopez's essays, short stories, reviews and opinion pieces began to appear in 1966. In his career of over 50 years, he traveled to over 80 countries, writing extensively about distant and exotic landscapes including the Arctic wilderness, exploring the relationships between human cultures and wild nature. Through his works, he also highlighted the harm caused by human actions on nature. He was a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine and a contributor to many magazines including National Geographic, The Paris Review, and Outside. Until 1981, he was also a landscape photographer. In 2002, he was elected a fellow of The Explorers Club.

Arctic Dreams (1986) describes five years in the Canadian Arctic, where Lopez worked as a biologist. Robert Macfarlane, reviewing the book in The Guardian, describes him as "the most important living writer about wilderness".

A number of Lopez's works, including Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter (1978), make use of Native American legends, including characters such as Coyote. Crow and Weasel (1990) thematizes the importance of metaphor, which Lopez described in an interview as one of the definitive "passions" of humanity.

James I. McClintock describes Lopez as an admirer of Wendell Berry. McClintock further observes, referring to Arctic Dreams, that Lopez "conjoins ecological science and romantic insight". Slovic identifies "careful structure, euphony, and an abundance of particular details" as central characteristics of Lopez's work.

His final work published during his lifetime was Horizon (2019), an autobiographical telling of his travels over his lifetime. The Guardian describes the book as "a contemporary epic, at once pained and urgent, personal and oracular".

An archive of Lopez's manuscripts and other work has been established at Texas Tech University, where he was the university's Visiting Distinguished Scholar. He also taught at universities including Columbia University, Eastern Washington University, University of Iowa, and Carleton College, Minnesota.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-01-30 00:02:52

1011) G.H. Hardy

Godfrey Harold Hardy (7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947) was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. In biology, he is known for the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of population genetics.

G. H. Hardy is usually known by those outside the field of mathematics for his 1940 essay A Mathematician's Apology, often considered one of the best insights into the mind of a working mathematician written for the layperson.

Starting in 1914, Hardy was the mentor of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, a relationship that has become celebrated. Hardy almost immediately recognised Ramanujan's extraordinary albeit untutored brilliance, and Hardy and Ramanujan became close collaborators. In an interview by Paul Erdős, when Hardy was asked what his greatest contribution to mathematics was, Hardy unhesitatingly replied that it was the discovery of Ramanujan. In a lecture on Ramanujan, Hardy said that "my association with him is the one romantic incident in my life".

Early life and career

G. H. Hardy was born on 7 February 1877, in Cranleigh, Surrey, England, into a teaching family. His father was Bursar and Art Master at Cranleigh School; his mother had been a senior mistress at Lincoln Training College for teachers. Both of his parents were mathematically inclined, though neither had a university education.

Hardy's own natural affinity for mathematics was perceptible at an early age. When just two years old, he wrote numbers up to millions, and when taken to church he amused himself by factorising the numbers of the hymns.

After schooling at Cranleigh, Hardy was awarded a scholarship to Winchester College for his mathematical work. In 1896, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. After only two years of preparation under his coach, Robert Alfred Herman, Hardy was fourth in the Mathematics Tripos examination. Years later, he sought to abolish the Tripos system, as he felt that it was becoming more an end in itself than a means to an end. While at university, Hardy joined the Cambridge Apostles, an elite, intellectual secret society.

Hardy cited as his most important influence his independent study of Cours d'analyse de l'École Polytechnique by the French mathematician Camille Jordan, through which he became acquainted with the more precise mathematics tradition in continental Europe. In 1900 he passed part II of the Tripos, and in the same year he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College. In 1903 he earned his M.A., which was the highest academic degree at English universities at that time. When his Prize Fellowship expired in 1906 he was appointed to the Trinity staff as a lecturer in mathematics, where teaching six hours per week left him time for research. In 1919 he left Cambridge to take the Savilian Chair of Geometry (and thus become a Fellow of New College) at Oxford in the aftermath of the Bertrand Russell affair during World War I. Hardy spent the academic year 1928–1929 at Princeton in an academic exchange with Oswald Veblen, who spent the year at Oxford. Hardy gave the Josiah Willards Gibbs lecture for 1928. Hardy left Oxford and returned to Cambridge in 1931, becoming again a fellow of Trinity College and holding the Sadleirian Professorship until 1942.

He was on the governing body of Abingdon School from 1922 to 1935.

Work

Hardy is credited with reforming British mathematics by bringing rigour into it, which was previously a characteristic of French, Swiss and German mathematics. British mathematicians had remained largely in the tradition of applied mathematics, in thrall to the reputation of Isaac Newton. Hardy was more in tune with the cours d'analyse methods dominant in France, and aggressively promoted his conception of pure mathematics, in particular against the hydrodynamics that was an important part of Cambridge mathematics.

From 1911, he collaborated with John Edensor Littlewood, in extensive work in mathematical analysis and analytic number theory. This (along with much else) led to quantitative progress on Waring's problem, as part of the Hardy–Littlewood circle method, as it became known. In prime number theory, they proved results and some notable conditional results. This was a major factor in the development of number theory as a system of conjectures; examples are the first and second Hardy–Littlewood conjectures. Hardy's collaboration with Littlewood is among the most successful and famous collaborations in mathematical history. In a 1947 lecture, the Danish mathematician Harald Bohr reported a colleague as saying, "Nowadays, there are only three really great English mathematicians: Hardy, Littlewood, and Hardy–Littlewood."

Hardy is also known for formulating the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of population genetics, independently from Wilhelm Weinberg in 1908. He played cricket with the geneticist Reginald Punnett, who introduced the problem to him in purely mathematical terms. Hardy, who had no interest in genetics and described the mathematical argument as "very simple", may never have realised how important the result became.

Hardy's collected papers have been published in seven volumes by Oxford University Press.

Pure mathematics

Hardy preferred his work to be considered pure mathematics, perhaps because of his detestation of war and the military uses to which mathematics had been applied. He made several statements similar to that in his Apology:

I have never done anything "useful". No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.

However, aside from formulating the Hardy–Weinberg principle in population genetics, his famous work on integer partitions with his collaborator Ramanujan, known as the Hardy–Ramanujan asymptotic formula, has been widely applied in physics to find quantum partition functions of atomic nuclei (first used by Niels Bohr) and to derive thermodynamic functions of non-interacting Bose–Einstein systems. Though Hardy wanted his maths to be "pure" and devoid of any application, much of his work has found applications in other branches of science.

Moreover, Hardy deliberately pointed out in his Apology that mathematicians generally do not "glory in the uselessness of their work," but rather – because science can be used for evil ends as well as good – "mathematicians may be justified in rejoicing that there is one science at any rate, and that their own, whose very remoteness from ordinary human activities should keep it gentle and clean." Hardy also rejected as a "delusion" the belief that the difference between pure and applied mathematics had anything to do with their utility. Hardy regards as "pure" the kinds of mathematics that are independent of the physical world, but also considers some "applied" mathematicians, such as the physicists Maxwell and Einstein, to be among the "real" mathematicians, whose work "has permanent aesthetic value" and "is eternal because the best of it may, like the best literature, continue to cause intense emotional satisfaction to thousands of people after thousands of years." Although he admitted that what he called "real" mathematics may someday become useful, he asserted that, at the time in which the Apology was written, only the "dull and elementary parts" of either pure or applied mathematics could "work for good or ill."

Attitudes and personality

Socially, Hardy was associated with the Bloomsbury group and the Cambridge Apostles; G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and J. M. Keynes were friends. He was an avid cricket fan. Maynard Keynes observed that if Hardy had read the stock exchange for half an hour every day with as much interest and attention as he did the day's cricket scores, he would have become a rich man.

He was at times politically involved, if not an activist. He took part in the Union of Democratic Control during World War I, and For Intellectual Liberty in the late 1930s.

Hardy was an atheist. Apart from close friendships, he had a few platonic relationships with young men who shared his sensibilities, and often his love of cricket. A mutual interest in cricket led him to befriend the young C. P. Snow. Hardy was a lifelong bachelor and in his final years he was cared for by his sister.

Hardy was extremely shy as a child, and was socially awkward, cold and eccentric throughout his life. During his school years he was top of his class in most subjects, and won many prizes and awards but hated having to receive them in front of the entire school. He was uncomfortable being introduced to new people, and could not bear to look at his own reflection in a mirror. It is said that, when staying in hotels, he would cover all the mirrors with towels.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-02-01 00:11:42

1012) Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Summary

Venki Ramakrishnan, byname of Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, (April 1, 1952 Birth, Chidambaram (India): born 1952, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India; died 3 March 2011), was an Indian-born physicist and molecular biologist who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with American biophysicist and biochemist Thomas Steitz and Israeli protein crystallographer Ada Yonath, for his research into the atomic structure and function of cellular particles called ribosomes. (Ribosomes are tiny particles made up of RNA and proteins that specialize in protein synthesis and are found free or bound to the endoplasmic reticulum within cells.) Ramakrishnan held dual citizenship in the United States and Great Britain.

In 1971 Ramakrishnan earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Baroda University in Gujarat, India, and in 1976 he received a doctoral degree in physics from Ohio University in the United States. From 1976 to 1978 he took classes as a graduate student in biology at the University of California, San Diego, and worked with Mexican American biochemist Mauricio Montal, studying a molecule called rhodopsin, which forms channels in cell membranes. Thus, although Ramakrishnan’s initial academic background prepared him for a career in theoretical physics, his interests later shifted toward molecular biology. He conducted his postdoctoral research from 1978 to 1982 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. At Yale he worked in the laboratory of American molecular biophysicist and biochemist Peter Moore and learned to use a technique known as neutron scattering to investigate the structure of the small subunit of ribosomes in the bacterium Escherichia coli (ribosomes are composed of two distinct subunits, one large and one small).

From 1983 to 1995 Ramakrishnan was a biophysicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. There he continued to utilize neutron scattering, as well as another technique called X-ray crystallography, to elucidate the structure of ribosomes and other molecules, including chromatin and proteins known as histones. In 1999 Ramakrishnan took a position in the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge in England. The following year he published a series of groundbreaking scientific papers in which he presented data on the RNA structure and organization of the small ribosomal subunit of Thermus thermophilus (a bacterium that is commonly used in genetics research) and revealed the structures of antibiotics bound to small subunits of ribosomes at a resolution of just 3 angstroms (Å; 1 Å is equivalent to {10}^{-10} metre, or 0.1 nanometre). Ramakrishnan later wrote Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome (2018).

Ramakrishnan was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2004 and a foreign member of the Indian National Science Academy in 2008. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2003 and later became the society’s first Indian-born president (2015–20). Ramakrishnan received the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 2007 and the Heatley Medal, awarded by the British Biochemical Society, in 2008. He was included in the United Kingdom’s New Year Honours List for 2012 as a knight bachelor.

Details

Venki Ramakrishnan (Venkatraman Ramakrishnan) (born 1952) is an Indian-born British and American structural biologist who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath, "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

Since 1999, he has worked as a group leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, UK and is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He served as President of the Royal Society from 2015-2020.

Education and early life

Ramakrishnan was born in a Tamil Brahmin family of Chidambaram in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, India to C. V. Ramakrishnan and Rajalakshmi Ramakrishnan. Both his parents were scientists, and his father was head of the Department of Biochemistry at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. At the time of his birth, Ramakrishnan's father was away from India doing postdoctoral research with David E. Green at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the US.

His mother obtained a PhD in psychology from McGill University in 1959. completing it in only 18 months, and was mentored by Donald O. Hebb. Lalita Ramakrishnan, his younger sister, is professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ramakrishnan moved to Vadodara (previously also known as Baroda) in Gujarat at the age of three, where he had his schooling at Convent of Jesus and Mary, except for spending 1960–61 in Adelaide, Australia. Following his pre-science at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, he did his undergraduate studies in the same university on a National Science Talent Scholarship, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1971. At the time, the physics course at Baroda was new, and based in part on the Berkeley Physics Course and The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

Immediately after graduation he moved to the US, where he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in physics from Ohio University in 1976 for research into the ferroelectric phase transition of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) supervised by Tomoyasu Tanaka. Then he spent two years studying biology as a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego while making a transition from theoretical physics to biology.

Career and research

Ramakrishnan began work on ribosomes as a postdoctoral fellow with Peter Moore at Yale University. After his post-doctoral fellowship, he initially could not find a faculty position even though he had applied to about 50 universities in the U.S.

He continued to work on ribosomes from 1983–95 as a staff scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 1995 he moved to the University of Utah as a Professor of Biochemistry, and in 1999, he moved to his current position at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where he had also been a sabbatical visitor during 1991–92 on a Guggenheim Fellowship.

In 1999, Ramakrishnan's laboratory published a 5.5 angstrom resolution structure of the 30S subunit. The following year, his laboratory determined the complete molecular structure of the 30S subunit of the ribosome and its complexes with several antibiotics. This was followed by studies that provided structural insights into the mechanism that ensures the fidelity of protein biosynthesis. In 2007, his laboratory determined the atomic structure of the whole ribosome in complex with its tRNA and mRNA ligands. Since 2013, he has used cryo-EM to work primarily on eukaryotic and mitochondrial translation. Ramakrishnan is also known for his past work on histone and chromatin structure.

As of 2019 his most cited papers (according to Google Scholar) have been published in Nature, Science, and Cell.

Views as President of the Royal Society (2015-2020)

Ramakrishnan's term was dominated by Brexit and, in his final year, the COVID-19 pandemic and its response.[39] In an interview in July 2018, he said that Britain's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) was hurting Britain's reputation as a good place to work in science, commenting "It's very hard for the science community to see any advantages in Brexit. They are pretty blunt about that." He saw advantages to both the UK and the EU for Britain to continue to be engaged in Galileo and Euratom, which, unlike the European Medicines Agency, are not EU agencies.

Ramakrishnan argued that a no deal Brexit would harm science. Ramakrishnan wrote, "A deal on science is in the best interests of Europe as a whole and should not be sacrificed as collateral damage over disagreements on other issues. If we are going to successfully tackle global problems like climate change, human disease and food security, we can't do so in isolation. There is no scenario where trashing our relationships with our closest scientific collaborators in the EU gets us closer to these goals."

Awards and honours

Ramakrishnan was elected a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2002, a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2003, and a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2004. In 2007, Ramakrishnan was awarded the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine and the Datta Lectureship and Medal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS). In 2008, he won the Heatley Medal of the British Biochemical Society. Since 2008, he is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and a foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy. In 2010 he became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2010, and has received honorary degrees from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, University of Utah and University of Cambridge. He is also an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Also in 2020, he became a board member of The British Library.

In 2009, Ramakrishnan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath. He received India's second highest civilian honor, the Padma Vibhushan, in 2010. Ramakrishnan was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to Molecular Biology, but does not generally use the title "Sir".[50] In the same year, he was awarded the Sir Hans Krebs Medal by the FEBS. In 2014, he was awarded the XLVI Jiménez-Díaz Prize by the Fundación Conchita Rábago (Spain). In 2017, Ramakrishnan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Ramakrishnan was included as one of 25 Greatest Global Living Indians by NDTV Channel, India on 14 December 2013. His certificate of election to the Royal Society reads:

Ramakrishnan is internationally recognised for determination of the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit. Earlier he mapped the arrangement of proteins in the 30S subunit by neutron diffraction and solved X-ray structures of individual components and their RNA complexes. Fundamental insights came from his crystallographic studies of the complete 30S subunit. The atomic model included over 1500 bases of RNA and 20 associated proteins. The RNA interactions representing the P-site tRNA and the mRNA binding site were identified and the likely modes of action of many clinically important antibiotics determined. His most recent work goes to the heart of the decoding mechanism showing the 30S subunit complexed with poly-U mRNA and the stem-loop of the cognate phenylalanine tRNA. Anti-codon recognition leaves the "wobble" base free to accommodate certain non-Watson/Crick basepairs, thus providing an atomic description of both codon:anti-codon recognition and "wobble". He has also made substantial contributions to understanding how chromatin is organised, particularly the structure of linker histones and their role in higher order folding.

While he prefers not to use titles and post-nominals in reference, Ramakrishnan is entitled to use the title of "Sir" and post-nominals of "Kt" and FRS in Commonwealth countries.

Personal life

Ramakrishnan married Vera Rosenberry, an author and illustrator of children's books, in 1975. His stepdaughter, Tanya Kapka, is a doctor in Oregon, and his son, Raman Ramakrishnan, is a cellist based in New York.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-02-03 00:05:43

1013) Steven Weinberg

Summary

Steven Weinberg (May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles.

He held the Josey Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a member of the Physics and Astronomy Departments. His research on elementary particles and physical cosmology was honored with numerous prizes and awards, including the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics and the 1991 National Medal of Science. In 2004, he received the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society, with a citation that said he was "considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive in the world today." He was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, Britain's Royal Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Weinberg's articles on various subjects occasionally appeared in The New York Review of Books and other periodicals. He served as a consultant at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, president of the Philosophical Society of Texas, and member of the Board of Editors of Daedalus magazine, the Council of Scholars of the Library of Congress, the JASON group of defense consultants, and many other boards and committees.

Details

Steven Weinberg, (born May 3, 1933, New York City, New York, U.S.—died July 23, 2021, Austin, Texas), was an American nuclear physicist who in 1979 shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Sheldon Lee Glashow and Abdus Salam for work in formulating the electroweak theory, which explains the unity of electromagnetism with the weak nuclear force.

Weinberg and Glashow were members of the same classes at the Bronx High School of Science, New York City (1950), and Cornell University (1954). Weinberg went from Cornell to the Institute for Theoretical Physics (later known as the Niels Bohr Institute) at the University of Copenhagen for a year. He then obtained his doctorate at Princeton University in 1957.

Weinberg proposed his version of the electroweak theory in 1967. Electromagnetism and the weak force were both known to operate by the interchange of subatomic particles. Electromagnetism can operate at potentially infinite distances by means of massless particles called photons, while the weak force operates only at subatomic distances by means of massive particles called bosons. Weinberg was able to show that despite their apparent dissimilarities, photons and bosons are actually members of the same family of particles. His work, along with that of Glashow and Salam, made it possible to predict the outcome of new experiments in which elementary particles are made to impinge on one another. An important series of experiments in 1982–83 found strong evidence for the W and Z particles predicted by these scientists’ electroweak theory.

Weinberg conducted research at Columbia University and at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory before joining the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley (1960–69). During his last years there, he also was a Morris Loeb Lecturer (1966–67) at Harvard—a post he held on several subsequent occasions as well—and a visiting professor (1968–69) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; he joined the latter faculty in 1969 and moved to Harvard University in 1973 and to the University of Texas at Austin in 1983.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-02-05 00:01:34

1014) Fernando Alonso

Summary

Fernando Alonso Díaz (born 29 July 1981) is a Spanish racing driver currently competing for Alpine in Formula One. He won the series' World Drivers' Championship in 2005 and 2006 with Renault, having also driven for McLaren, Ferrari, and Minardi. With Toyota, Alonso has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice, in 2018 and 2019, and the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2018–19, whilst winning the 24 Hours of Daytona with Wayne Taylor Racing in 2019.

Born in Oviedo, Asturias to a working-class family, Alonso began kart racing at the age of three and achieved success in local, national, and world championships. He progressed to car racing at the age of 17, winning the Euro Open by Nissan in 1999 and was fourth in the International Formula 3000 Championship of 2000. He debuted in Formula One with Minardi in 2001 before joining Renault as a test driver for 2002. Promoted to a race seat in 2003, Alonso won two drivers' championships in 2005 and 2006, becoming the youngest pole-sitter, youngest race winner, youngest world champion, and youngest two-time champion in the sport's history at the time. After finishing just one point behind eventual champion Kimi Räikkönen with McLaren in 2007, he returned to Renault for 2008 and 2009 and won two races in the former year for fifth overall. Alonso drove for Ferrari from 2010 to 2014, finishing runner-up to Sebastian Vettel in 2010, 2012, and 2013 with the title battles in 2010 and 2012 going down to the last race of the season. A second stint with McLaren from 2015 to 2018 resulted in no further success. After a two-year sabbatical, Alonso returned to Formula One in 2021 with Alpine. At the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix, Alonso scored his first podium in seven years.

At the time of his sabbatical, Alonso had won 32 Grands Prix, 22 pole positions, and 1,899 points from 311 starts. He is currently the only Spanish Formula One driver to have won either a Grand Prix or the World Championship. Alonso won the 2001 Race of Champions Nations Cup with the rally driver Jesús Puras and the motorcyclist Rubén Xaus for Team Spain and thrice entered the Indianapolis 500 in 2017, 2019 and 2020. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports, the Premios Nacionales del Deporte Sportsman of the Year Award and the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit and has twice been inducted into the FIA Hall of Fame. Alonso runs an eSports and junior racing team and is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Details

Fernando Alonso Diaz (his full name includes his mother's maiden name, according to the Spanish custom) was born on 29 July, 1981, in Oviedo, a city in the Asturias region of northern Spain, where his mother worked in a department store and his father was employed in the mining industry as an explosive expert. The Alonsos and their two children lived comfortably but were by no means a wealthy family. Luis Alonso, a keen amateur kart racer, wished to share his passion with his children and built them a pedal kart in the form of a realistic-looking miniature F1 car. It was originally intended for eight-year-old Lorena but she soon grew tired of it, whereupon her three-year-old brother eagerly climbed into the tiny math and immediately felt at home. From the beginning little Fernando was not content to simply pedal around. He wanted to compete and to win.

Shortly after his seventh birthday he entered his first proper kart race and won, and before he was ten Fernando Alonso's name was engraved on several kart championship trophies. However, further progress would require more funding than his family's limited resources could provide. While his parents fully supported their son's increasingly successful pastime - with his father acting as his mechanic at the races and his mother making sure he also got good marks at school - Fernando knew the only way forward was to get sponsored drives by winning races - which he continued to do. Age proved to be no barrier - he was invariably the youngest driver in every category, and more often than not, the best. By his mid-teens his collection of kart titles included a world championship.

Onward and upward he sped, easily winning a 1999 Spanish-based championship for single seater racing cars, parlaying his prize of a tryout in a Minardi Formula 1 car into a drive in 2000 with a Minardi-backed F3000 team and a testing contract with Minardi's Formula 1 team, in which he made an impressive debut the following season. His obvious potential prompted Renault (formerly Benetton) to sign him as a test driver for 2002, a valuable experience that would enable him to immediately establish himself as a frontrunner when he joined the French automaker's team in 2003. In Malaysia, only his second race for Renault, the 21-year-old became the youngest ever pole winner. Starting from pole again in Hungary, less than a month after his 22nd birthday, he became the youngest Grand Prix winner in history.

In 2004 the difficult-to-drive Renault R24 kept him out of the winner's circle and he finished fourth in the championship. By now, having slotted seamlessly into the team, further polished his driving skills and honed his racecraft, Alonso was ready to take full advantage of Renault's excellent R25 car, in which he would really come of age.

From the beginning of the 2005 season the man to beat was the upstart Spaniard. Equipment variances were a factor, with Michael Schumacher's Ferrari off the pace for the first time in six years and Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren Mercedes proving to be fast but fragile. Meanwhile, the Alonso-driven Renault swept serenely through the longest ever Formula 1 season, scoring points in all but two of the 19 races, finishing in the top three 14 times and winning on seven occasions.

Alonso's nearly flawless performance (his only driving error came in Canada where he crashed while leading) was highlighted by a symbolic defeat of Schumacher at Imola, where he brilliantly fended off the best efforts of the seven-time champion. Schumacher's successor knew when to attack, how to defend, how to control a race - how to win the championship in a car that was usually not as fast as Raikkonen's McLaren. Both drivers had six poles and seven wins, and though the raw racer Raikkonen's challenge was undermined by mechanical misfortune, Alonso's adaptability served him best. His aptitude for adjusting quickly to changing circumstances, his competence at conserving his equipment, his capability of responding immediately to the invariably wise tactical instructions issued by the Renault team, all contributed to his success.

"I'm just a normal guy," insisted Alonso, whose swift ascendancy to superstardom left him somewhat embarrassed. Softly spoken, though fluent and articulate in English, his second language, he eschewed the usual trappings of success, choosing to live quietly in Oxford to be near the British-based Renault team that was totally devoted to their boy wonder. "My record is going to be in good hands," said Emerson Fittipaldi, who won the 1972 championship when he was 25. In his 25th year Alonso held onto his title even more firmly, securing second successive championships for himself and Renault after an epic duel with a resurgent Michael Schumacher.

Faced with a formidable opponent still at the peak of his powers, the cleverly quick Alonso's focus never wavered in the intensity of battle - the scenario that most appealed to his real racer's instincts. Fiercely determined and eagerly aggressive, he relished the cut and thrust, revelled in the thrill of the chase - all the while remaining supernaturally calm with a maturity that belied his youth and would serve him well in defending his title against the sport's most successful exponent.

Alonso began 2006 with a string of wins and podiums that by mid-season gave him a substantial lead over Schumacher, whose faltering Ferrari was subsequently improved to overcome Renault's initial performance advantage. Thus empowered, the German staged a brilliant comeback that made the Spaniard's eventual title triumph all the more memorable. The fact that they were so evenly matched, with seven wins each, substantiated Alonso's status as a worthy successor to the retiring Schumacher.

In pursuit of a new challenge Alonso left Renault at the end of the year and moved to McLaren, where a fractious relationship with the team and Lewis Hamilton ended with the Spaniard returning to Renault for two more seasons where inferior equipment restricted his results. In 2010 he realised every driver's dream when he was hired to become team leader at Ferrari where he immediately resumed his winning ways (he won five races) and finished second in the championship. In 2011 Ferrari's fluctuating fortunes restricted him to a single victory and fourth in the standings.

In an epic 2012 season he came within three points of winning the driving title for a third time, an achievement that ultimately went to his title rival Sebastian Vettel. But Fernando Alonso distinguished himself in what he called "my best ever season" by consistently flogging his far from fastest Ferrari for all it was worth, and more. His championship challenge was the product of a fighting spirit, clever racecraft and mistake-free driving that never waned.

His 2013 season was equally impressive, when he was again second overall in a year of even greater domination by Vettel. Flattering a Ferrari that was never more than the third best car (which is where the team finished), Alonso won twice, was second five times, consistently collected high points and failed to score in only two races.

In 2014 his car’s serious limitations left the proud Spaniard winless for the first time in his five years with an increasingly floundering Ferrari team. Yet his reputation as the best of the current drivers remained intact as did his determination to demonstrate his superiority by winning another championship. In pursuit of this goal Alonso chose to disregard their previously acrimonious relationship and rejoin a similarly ambitious McLaren team, for whom 2014 was only their second winless season since 1980. For 2015 McLaren announced it was ‘laying the foundations for future domination’ by renewing a formerly all-powerful alliance with engine supplier Honda and appointing a new team leader in superstar Fernando Alonso.

His 13th year in Formula 1 was the worst by far for the two-time world champion, whose 2015 McLaren-Honda was embarrassingly uncompetitive. Alonso was classified 17th in the drivers’ standings, while his team finished ninth among the ten entrants. Unreliable in the extreme, hopelessly slow when it ran, his car’s consistently poor performance provoked an increasingly frustrated Alonso, whose public criticism of his employer contravened the adage that a team loses and wins together.

The Spanish charger’s 2016 season (his 14th in the sport) began with a massive accident in Australia, after which he endured yet another year of inferior McLaren-Honda equipment. Flattering his car by far, he finished 10th overall in the standings. While he occasionally complained publicly, his warrior mentality never faltered, nor did his reputation suffer as he raced as hard as ever in a losing cause.

The previous successes of the two-time Drivers’ Champion faded further into the distance in 2017 as his floundering McLaren-Honda team finished a humiliating second last in the Constructors’ Championship. Alonso, his Spanish conquistador mindset undimmed, drove as hard as ever for scant reward. He managed to salvage points in only five races, leaving him a lowly 15th overall among the drivers.

Increasingly exasperated by the severe handicaps of a F1 engine that was notoriously unreliable as well as embarrassingly slow, he distracted himself by skipping the Monaco Grand Prix and racing a Honda-powered IndyCar in America’s Indianapolis 500. There, he started fifth then led for a while before retiring with an engine failure.

At the end of the season McLaren ended its F1 partnership with Honda and announced a switch to Renault power for 2018, a move that helped convince Fernando Alonso to stay in the sport he once upon a time dominated.

In 2018 he aggressively manhandled the maximum from still poorly performing equipment to haul himself up to 11th in the drivers’ standings. Sharing the winning sportscar in World Endurance Championship racing at the 6 Hours of Spa and the 24 Hours of Le Mans confirmed his talent was still there. He also made plans for another attempt at winning the Indianapolis 500 in 2019.

But being reduced to an embarrassed also-ran in F1 no longer appealed to the proud 37-year-old Spaniard. He decided to leave that branch of the sport where he had been competing for nearly half his life. After 18 seasons and over 300 Grands Prix Fernando Alonso's record of success stood at 32 wins, 22 poles and 97 podiums. It could have been much more had he made better career choices and avoided episodes of political strife, though he preferred to be remembered for his fighting spirit.

Then after two years away from Formula 1 the Spanish warrior who wanted to be known as the guy that never gives up returned in 2021, driving for the Alpine F1 Team – the rebranded French squad formerly known as Renault where he won his two driving titles in 2005 and 2006.

During his hiatus Alonso won the 2018-2019 FIA World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice – all with the Toyota sportscar team. While his F1 record remains intact it will be a tall order for the 39-year-old veteran to win again. His last F1 victory was at his home race in Spain in 2013 (with Ferrari) and he left the sport with his reputation as a team player somewhat diminished. Perhaps his successes with Toyota – where he equally shared the laurels with other drivers - have given him a deeper understanding of what a driver’s contribution entails beyond being a fiercely competitive individual in the math.

A successful champion should know when it’s time to go – then stay away. This adage refers to the several champions whose ill-advised comebacks tarnished their reputations. Notable exceptions include Niki Lauda and Alain Prost who returned from sabbaticals to win another driving title. Time will tell how Fernando Alonso fares in this regard.

Math Is Fun Forum

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