TEXT 

Л. HERO OF ALEXANDRIA
About sixty years after the death of Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria was
bom. Nobody knows the exact date of his birth, but according to the best
authorities, he lived about 150 B.C. In addition to being a great
mathematician, he invented the siphon, the gearwheel, the pump, the water
clock and the steam engine.
His book on mechanics translated into Arabic was carefully studied by
mechanics and engineers of the sixteenth century. In this remarkable book
Hero lists and describes five simple ways by which an unusually heavy
weight may be lifted and moved with minimum effort. These five principles
form the basis of all the machinery in the world today and, though described
in detail by Hero, their practical application to machinery did not come about
for more than a thousand years. They are: the lever, the wheel and axle, the
pulley, the wedge, the screw.
•While it is true that the invention of the screw is attributed to Archimedes
and the wedge and the lever were known long before Hero’s time, he was
the man, who showed for the first time that all machinery is based on these
five important principles, and how to apply these principles to machinery —
such as it was in these early times.
Neither he nor anyone else of his time realized the importance of these
inventions. Hero’s book on pneumatics, which was translated into Italian in
1549 and later into English, described more than seventy totally useless
inventions, most of which embody important basic principles. Their main
function was to entertain.

TEXT В. JAMES WATT
James Watt was born in Greenock, Scotland, and was taught at home.
Later he went to Greenock Grammar School.
His technical expertise seems to have been obtained from working in his
father’s workshop and from early in life he showed academic promise. His
early formal training was as an instrument maker in London and Glasgow.
Watt combined the expertise of a scientist with that of a practical
engineer, for later he was not only to improve the heat engine but also to
devise new mechanisms.
Watt was interested in making experimental models of steam engines and
this marks a historical milestone in engineering development, for they were
the first experimental apparatus purposely constructed for engineering
research. Watt’s early interest in steam arose from experience in repairing a
model steam engine in 1764, and in 1765 he invented the separate steam
condenser. In 1769 he took out a patent on the condenser in which steam
came into direct contact with cold water. That was a milestone by which
steam engineering reached its practical and usable form.
In 1784 he took out a patent for a reaction turbine at a time when
continental engineers were only considering similar approaches. An
improved centrifugal governor was to follow in 1788 and a design for a
pressure gauge in 1790.
In the development of the steam engine James Watt represents the
perfecting of a sequence of stages beginning with the Newcomen engine and
ending with the parallel motion and sun/planet gearing.
 The latter is said to have been invented by William Murdock but patented
by Watt.
In the scientific field Watt’s finest memorial, apart from steam engines, is
his establishment of the unit of power — the rate of doing work. He coined
the term horsepower (hp), one horse being defined as equivalent to 33,000
ft lb/min.
James Watt died in 1819 in Heathfield, after a life of incomparable
technical value. Later, a statue to Watt was placed in Westminster Abbey.

TEXT A. FARADAY PUTS ELECTRICITY ТО WORK

Michael Faraday, who was bom in 1791 and died in 1867, gathered
together and set in order all the work of the scientists who had worked on
electrical problems before him.
In 1823, he discovered how to make an electrical motor. In 1831, he built
the first generator, then called dynamo. The modern car has both a starting
motor and a generator. The starting motor draws electric current from the
car battery to start engine. The generator is driven by the engine to
recharge the battery and to furnish electric power for all the electrical
conveniences in the car.
In 1833, Faraday discovered the laws of electrolysis.
The works of many other scientists were influenced by the discoveries
made by Faraday. As a result of Faraday’s work Morse was able to invent the
electromagnetic telegraph, Bell, the telephone and Edison, the electric light.
Their inventions have profoundly changed the lives of nearly everyone in the
world. Thus, Edison’s Congressional Medal of Honor certificate declared: “He
illuminated the path of progress by his invention”.

TEXT В. THE ELECTROMAGNETIC MOTOR

Born in Croatia, the engineer Nikola Tesla had a distinguished academic
and industrial career in central and eastern Europe before coming to the
United States in 1884. Here, while working for the Edison Machine Works
and independently, Tesla created his greatest invention, the electromagnetic
motor.
A motor converts electrical energy to mechanical power by using current
to make a metallic loop (“the rotor” or “armature”) spin around a central
shaft. Tesla was convinced that DC (“direct current”) motors could be
modified to operate without commutators. In early 1888, working in his
experimental shop in New York, he proved his theory: Tesla built and
demonstrated the “induction” or “electromagnetic” motor. Tesla’s
revolutionary motor used a rotating magnetic field, rather than mechanical
switches, to spin the rotor. This made unit drives for machines possible, and
allowed the more efficient AC (“alternating current”) power to become the
standard for most office and household appliances.
Tesla was also a pioneer in the early days of radio (invented by Guglielmo
Marconi at the turn of the 20th century).
By the end of his career, Tesla had over 700 inventions and 100 patents to
his credit. Though his innovations never made him wealthy, Tesla is rightly
renowned to this day as one of the greatest electrical engineers of all time.
EXT A. THE PIONEERS
Karl Benz (1844—1929), the son of a railway engine-driver who died when
Karl was two, studied engineering at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic. After various
jobs he set up business, with successive partners in a very small way
making two-stroke gas engines of his own design in 1880. Although he is
entitled to be called the “inventor of the petrol car” he was reluctant to
depart from his original design of belt-driven horseless carriage which sold
well in 1890s. Other designers were called in, and after 1902 Benz had little
influence on the development of the motor car.
Frederick William Lanchester (1868—1946), the son of an architect, made
Britain’s first four-wheeled petrol car of wholly native design in 1895 with
the help of his brother George. A small company was formed and production
was begun late in 1899. Lanchester’s designs were always unique and ahead
of their time; he was responsible for many innovations which became
accepted some years later. Those include a vibrationless, fully balanced
engine, splined shafts, full-pressure lubrication, lightweight pistons, disk
brakes and more. “Doctor Fred” was also a pioneer authority and writer on
aerodynamics, and for many years Consultant Engineer to the Daimler Co.
Henry Ford is usually credited with “inventing” mass production, yet the
idea originated many years earlier in the Connecticut clock trade and was
developed in the America’s small-arms industry.

TEXT В. HENRY FORD (1863-1947)

Most people credit Henry Ford with inventing the automobile. The fact is
he didn’t — such a complex machine is the result of a combination of
technologies developed by many people over time. He did, however, invent
the assembly line, which revolutionized the way we make cars, and how
much they cost.
In 1908, Ford’s company began selling his famous Model T for $850 each.
The Model T was inexpensive for its day, and proved to be reliable and easy
to operate. It quickly became very popular; and soon Ford found he was
unable to meet the enormous demand for his cars.
Ford’s solution was to invent a moving industrial production line. By
installing a moving belt in his factory, employees would be able to build cars
one piece at a time, instead of one car at a time. This principle, called
“division of labor”, allowed workers to focus on doing one thing very well,
rather than being responsible for a number of tasks.
Ford found his new system produced cars quickly and efficiently; so
efficiently that it considerably lowered the cost of assembling the cars. He
decided to pass these savings along to his customers, and in 1915 dropped
the price of the Model T to $290. That year, he sold 1 million cars.

History of the Bicycle

For much of man’s history on earth, he had two choices for getting
around, either on foot or on the back of an animal (such as horses, mules,
and wooly mammoths). Bicycles were developed to add another trans-
portation option that multiplied human efficiency by a factor of appro-
ximately five.
 But the history of bicycles is very fuzzy. Sources often disagree as to the
names of the inventors and the dates of their inventions. Leonardo DaVinci
sketched a facsimile of the modern bicycle in 1490. It was way ahead of its
time and, as far as we know, never left the drawing board.
Around 1790 a French craftsman named de Sivrac developed a “Ceteritere”
running machine, which had two in-line wheels connected by a beam. The
rider straddled the beam and propelled the C616rifere by pushing his feet on
the ground, scooter fashion.
In 1817 German Baron Karl von Drais added steering. Several versions
appeared around France and England by the early 1800s. As a replacement
for the horse, these “hobby horses” became a short-lived craze. The roads of
the time were too rutted to allow for efficient wheeled transport.
Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick MacMillan developed a rear-drive bike in
1839 using a treadle and rod for the rear drive mechanism. But, he lived in
the Northern British Isles where people and ideas traveled slowly, so his
invention didn’t spread. R.W. Thompson patented a pneumatic tube in 1845.
Prior to this invention, bikes had metal wheels.
The French anointed Ernest Michaux “father of the bicycle”, as he and his
brother Pierre added cranks and pedals. Their Velocipede started a bicycle
boom. The larger front wheel made it faster but less stable. The war of 1812
brought an end to the French bicycle boom.
British engineers were next to pick up the design and improve upon it by
adding ball bearings, pneumatic (Dunlop) tires, wire-spoked wheels, chain
drive, variable gears, and cable controls. Over a twenty-year span, the
British brought the bicycle to its present form, thanks mainly to James
Starley of the Coventry Sewing Machine Company. In 1885 the Starley
Rover safety bike was born, returning wheels to a reasonable size and
improving the bike’s stability.

The Transportation Revolution

Railroads were not possible without the invention of the steam engine,
which was first developed as a source of power for boats.
Richard Trevithick, an English engineer, experimented with stationary and
moving steam engines. In 1804 he invented a steam locomotive that could
move ten tons of iron and seventy people along ten miles of cast iron track
in Wales. This marked the beginning of railways in England, a development
that spread all over the world. This invention brought together the idea of
iron rails and the steam engine. While rails had been around for a long time,
they had only been made of wood and were used only in coalmines.
Then in 1814, George Stephenson, another English engineer, built a
locomotive in the coal mine in which he worked. Eleven years later he came
up with the engine, Locomotion. This new steam locomotive pulled the first
train on a newly built line from Stockton to Darlington in the northern part of
England. This train hauled coal between the towns, but passengers still rode
in horse-drawn wagons because people were worried about the safety of
these new machines.
All of the long experimenting in transportation during the Industrial
Revolution created the basis for today’s transportation systems — fast,
efficient trains, ocean liners and super highways that transport both people
and goods. The industrial revolution and the transportation revolution
developed together.