Final Exam Questions

Here are the long awaited final exam questions. You must turn in a typed copy of your answers by 12 noon on Wednesday, May 2nd. Late exams will be docked one letter grade for every hour they are late; no exam will be accepted past 3 pm.

The length of your answers may vary, depending on how well you decided to answer the questions. Any quotations need to be properly cited. Do not copy the answer from the book(s). These questions are usually part think piece, part historical. If you any questions, please send me an email.

YOU MUST ANSWER ONE QUESTION FROM EACH SECTION!

1.) Medicine and Modernity

A. Discuss the rise of tropical medicine as a speciality in the 19th and 20th centuries. What were some of the problems these new specialists had to face? How did exploration and travel in various parts of the world create new challenges for western medicine, not only a 100 years ago, but today as well?

B. By the end of the 20th century, medicine had become a "proverbial Leviathan" according to Roy Porter, comparable in size to that of the military as far as government intervention was concerned, and in many cases no less business- and money oriented than today's large corporation. How and why did medicine transform itself into a proverbial "industrial-medical" complex? Is this a good thing for western society?

2) Scientific Questions Big and Small

C. John Gribbin calls the "last hurrah of classical science" the transformation of geology into geophysics. Discuss this transformation in the 19th century, not only briefly explaining the transformative process, but also what was being discussed by these new scientists. How do discussions by scientists seeking to explain the ice ages give us insight into the current debate about global warming?

D. Discuss briefly the developments in biology, from Mendel to the Human Genome Project. How do these discoveries shape how we see ourselves? How might current research into DNA, RNA and genetic material effect Darwin's ideas about natural selection?

3) Global Technology

E. How do the Internet, McDonald's and Hollywood lead to the creation of a "Global Culture" based in part on technology and the benefits of science? What is this supposed global culture argued about by pundits from all sides of the political spectrum? Is there really a global culture for the 21st century? Explain.

Ernst Ruska (1906-1988)

Ernst Ruska was born in Heidelberg to Professor Julius Ruska, the fifth of seven children. He first went to the Technical College in Munich and within two years was studying electronics at the Technical College in Berlin. While in Berlin he worked under the Brown-Boveri & Co in Mannheim and Siemens & Halske Ltd where he received his practical training. He also worked with other doctoral students under Dr. Max Knoll for the development of a high performance cathode ray oscilloscope. Although he focused on building vacuum instruments from practical designs he was also interested theoretical and practical experiments of optical electron rays.

In between 1928 and 1929 Ruska worked on proving Busch's theory of the effect of the magnetic field of a coil of wire through which an electric current is passed and which is then used as an electron lens. This led to the development of the polschuh lens that has been used in all high-resolution electron microscopes ever since. Along with Dr. Knoll’s help Ruska built the very first electron microscope in 1931. With further work Ruska managed to build and improve the electron microscope and revealed it in 1933. His new electron microscope gave better definition than any light microscope to date.

Ruska continued to work with various companies and between 1933 and 1937 developed television transmitters and photoelectric cells with secondary amplifications for Fernesh Ltd of Berlin. However, he continued with research on practical applications for applied research using electron microscopes. In 1936-37 he worked with Siemens & Halske for development of electron microscopes. His brother Dr. Med. Helmut Ruska and his members worked on applications for the new “Siemens Super Microscope.” By 1945 35 institutions were equipped with electron microscopes. However, after the bombing of Germany disbanded the Institute of Electron Optics in Berlin-Siemensstadt it would be another four years (1949) until electron microscopes were again being built. In 1954 the 'Elmiskop 1' was unveiled. Since it’s introduction over 1200 institutions have been equipped with this electron microscope.

Info:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1986/ruska-autobio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Ruska

Picture:
http://th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/gif/phys/ruska.jpg
http://www.microscopy.ethz.ch/images/ruska.jpg

Ole Kirk Christiansen

The invention of LEGO was a 1932 creation. It was a collaborate idea of two Danish men named Ole Kirk Christiansen and his father Godfred Kirk. Ole Kirk Christiansen was a master carpenter and joiner who founded his carpentry business in the village of Billund, Denmark. Here his main production consisted of stepladders, ironing boards, and wooden toys. While it was a successful business, his main source of revenue came from the wooden toys he produced. Christiansen and his father were inspired when they came across a product designed by British child psychologist Hilary (Harry) Fisher Page: small plastic blocks with interlocking studded tops and hollow bottoms. The key to Lego's success was the way the bricks fitted together. Early versions were either too hard to take apart or did not lock firmly enough. The word “LEGO” was conjured in 1934 and derives from the Danish words “LEg GOdt” with translates to “play well”, coincidently in Latin lego means “I put together”. In 1942 the LEGO company burnt down, however, due to its success, people donated money to have the factory rebuilt. By 1947 LEGO went from manufacturing its toys made of wood to making them from plastic with molding machines. The plastic bricks which he designed were an original structure and it was known as Christiansen’s Automatic Binding Bricks. By 1949, the company had produced 200 different plastic and wooden toys. At this time LEGOs were still developed in Denmark and had yet to make international news.

In 1958 the current LEGO stud-and-tube coupling system is invented and patented. The new coupling principle makes models much more stable. The possible combinations of bricks run into astronomical figures. While the initial product was invented in 1932, it took time before it gained popularity worldwide.

LEGO has been so successful because it is able to spark the imagination of children with providing them with simple shapes and giving them the freedom to create buildings and other architectural structures. One of its best contributions is the fact that it helps people at a young age develop spatial skills through play. Any architectures and engineers had their humble beginnings with LEGO where they got hands-on experience with blocks and shapes.



http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllego.htm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901061113-1549797,00.html
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/lego.htm

Erik Rotheim

Erik Rotheim was born on September 19, 1898. This Norwegian chemical engineer/inventor was not well known until he made a major breakthrough on an idea whose concepts went back to the late 1700's. On February 9th, 1926, Rotheim produced the first can to dispense liquids, with a valve and propellant systems. This later became the first aerosol can. He filed for a patent in 1926, and later modified his design patent to include a spray nozzle, and he used hydrocarbons as the propellant. He later sold this patent in the 1940's to a US based company. There, the can was modified, and different propellants, such as flourocarbons were used. As this was a very good invention that has affected many aspects of society, there is some bad associated with it. Until recently, the propellant used such as the hydrocarbons that Rotheim used and the flourocarbons used by americans was released into the atmosphere, damaging it. Recently, most of these bad Chloroflourocarbons have been replaced by propanes, butanes, methylethers, and even nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. After revising his patents and selling them to the US, Rotheim died on September 18, 1938.

Information:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1899181,00.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/1900a.shtml

Pictures:
http://www.aerosol.com.au/resource/1stspraycan.jpg
No Portraits of Erik Rotheim could be found

John Edvard Lundström (1815-1888)

John Edvard Lundström was a Swedish inventor. He was born in 1815 in Jönköping, Sweden. He attended university and worked with his brother at a local newspaper company. Gustaf Erik Pasch invented the first saftey match, by seperating the phosphorus from the other ingredients in the match tip and placing it on the box so the match would only light when struck on the box. John Lundström improved and patented the design and got an award for it at the World Exhibition in Paris. John and his brother started thair own match factory in Jönköping and at times Sweden was responsible for 75 percent of the world's match production.

Links
http://www.answers.com/topic/john-edvard-lundstr-m

http://www.sverigeturism.se/smorgasbord/smorgasbord/industry/inventions/

Sir Frank Whittle (1907 - 1996)

Sir Frank Whittle was born June 1, 1097. He was the son of a mechanic. He joined the Royal Air Force as an intern, after being rejected for being too small in height but was allowed entry on his third try in 1923. In 1928 he joined the fighter squadron and became a test pilot in 1931. He was only 22 when he started thinking about using a gas turbine engine to power an airplane. As a cadet Whittle had written a thesis arguing that planes would need to fly at high altitudes, where air resistance is much lower, in order to achieve long ranges and high speeds. Pistons engines and propellers where not going to be able to acheive this and he concluded that the only things that could handle this was going to be rocket propulsion or gas driven turbine propellers. He came to the conclusions that jet propulsion was something he didnt understand happening, and a piston engine would use to much fuel, so he went with the gas turbine. After his idea was turned down by the Air Ministry he want on to patent his idea himself. With private financial backing he was able to construct the first engine in 1935. It was successuly test in April 1937, but was only a lab test rig. It was never intended for an actual airplane, but it did demonstrate the feasibility of the engine. The modern turbojet engine used in many British and American aircraft is based on the prototype that Frank Whittle invented. In 1941 the engine was ready for a test run and was placed into aircrafts later that year. Americans were particularely interested in the idea and were able to use the technology to create their own aircraft by 1942 and became full operational by 1944.


Links:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljetengine.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Whittle.1946.arp.600pix.jpg

http://www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/125/achievements/whittle/telgraph.htm

http://www.aoxj32.dsl.pipex.com/NewFiles/FrankWhittle.html

Ludwig Prandtl

Ludwig Prandtl (1875-1953)

Born in Freising, Germany, Ludwig Prandtl started his life with much engineering exposure since his mother died early in his life; as a result he was always with his father, who was an engineering professor. Encouraged by his father and his surroundings, he was very critical and curious about nature, striving hard to learn from his observations in the real world. He attended the University of Munich in 1894, graduating in 1900 with a Ph.D. From then on, his life was nothing short of great accomplishment.

At this time, fluid mechanics was understood only to the point of describing mathematical "potential flows" - inviscid models of flow fields that did little to describe the full reality of what was going on. Potential flow also "proved" D'Alembert's Paradox, which stated that an inviscid flowfield generated no net force on the object in the field, particularly drag. This is obviously incorrect, as everyone knew that fluids generated friction on a body that is immersed in said fluid, but only the Navier-Stokes equations could really solve this kind of problem. Unfortunately, there were very few closed-form solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations at this time, and those that were discovered were only for extreme special cases.

Prandtl's 1904 paper "Fluid Flow in Very Little Friction" described a very important theory that no one had thought of to that point - how to incorporate friction (viscous effects) into a fluid flow regime while still allowing potential flowfield solutions to work with aerodynamic theory. This theory, known as Boundary Layer Theory, says that only in a very thin region around the immersed object is there the presence of a boundary layer which possesses viscous effects - everywhere outside this field, the flowfield can be assumed inviscid with reasonable accuracy. Boundary Layer Theory opened the way to explaining many physical phenomena including surface drag, pressure drag, flow separation, and stall.

After this, most of Prandtl's work was done at the University of Gottingen. In 1908, he worked with his student Theodor Meyer to describe the concept of expansion waves, which are now named in their honor. This allowed for additional analytical work in the field of supersonic flowfields. In the 1910's, he worked to create mathematical models to describe airfoil (infinite wing) and finite wing theory that incorporated viscous effects (through means of the Kutta condition) to effectively provide analytical solutions. Known as Thin Airfoil Theory and Lifting Line Theory, these two powerful mathematical conclusions allowed for analytical solutions of lift, angles of attack, aerodynamic moments, induced drag, and other very important aerodynamic values that were necessary in the design of airfoils and wings. These theories were published in 1918-1919, and are still extremely useful to this day.

Prandtl's work in aerodynamics helped push Germany at the forefront of aerospace engineering, and his and his students contributions have been extremely important for the development of aerodynamics. For this reason, Prandtl has been deemed the father of modern aerodynamics. A nondimensional coefficient which describes the ratio of viscosity to thermal diffusivity has been named the Prandtl number in his honor.

Resources
http://www.fluidmech.net/msc/prandtl.htm
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Theories_of_Flight/Prandtl/TH10.htm
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/prandtl.htm
Modern Compressible Flow (book) by John D. Anderson
Fundamentals of Aerodynamics (book) by John D. Anderson

Pictures of Prandtl
http://rclsgi.eng.ohio-state.edu/courses/Korpela/images/htransfer/prandtl.gif
http://www.mlahanas.de/Physics/Bios/images/LudwigPrandtl40s.jpg

Pictures of Prandtl's Theories
Boundary Layer: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Theories_of_Flight/Prandtl/TH10G1.jpg

Thin-Airfoil Theory:
http://www.aeromech.usyd.edu.au/aero/liftline/llt1.gif

Prandtl-Meyer Expansion Waves:
http://www.aeromech.usyd.edu.au/aero/gasdyn/pm1.gif

Hubert Cecil Booth

Hubert Cecil Booth was born in Gloucester, England in 1871. When he was 18 he moved to London to study engineering at the City and Guilds College. His first job was as a draftsman helping design engines for Royal Navy battleships.

In 1900 his life took on a new meaning. Booth witnessed a demonstration of a new cleaning machine for railway cars. This machine was like no other he had seen. It took the dust from one side of the car and sent it to a dustbox on the other side. He decided to take this idea into the home. He died in 1955)

The idea of a vacuum cleaner had been around for some time before. The first vacuum cleaner was a 2-man show. 1 person had to operate the bellows while the other moved the mouthpiece across the floor. However, this was not a vacuum cleaner as we know it today. This one actually just blew the dust into the air and scattered it about. An prayer came on Aug 30, 1901. British Engineer, Hubert Cecil Booth received a paten for a real vacuum cleaner. This vacuum was huge. It was horse-drawn, petrol-driven which sat outside. Long hoses were fed thru doors and windows and instead of blowing the dust, this one sucked it up. To add to his brilliant idea, Booth also added a filter. The filter kept the collected dust in the machine instead of releasing it. This idea is the basis of vacuum cleaners today.

Due to the high prices of electricity and this machine, in 1903 Booth opened his very own cleaning company. This publicized the machine and after a few years, a smaller more manageable version was developed.

Work Cited

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Biographies/MainBiographies/B/Booth/1.html

http://www.teasmade.com/goblin.htm

Pictures

http://www.morclean.co.uk/content.php?categoryId=510

http://www.teasmade.com/goblin.htm

Willem de Sitter (1872-1934)

Willem de Sitter was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. Willem was born in Sneek, Netherlands. De Sitter is best known for his studies of the structure of the universe. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Groningen in 1897. Later that year de Sitter went to the Royal Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa, where he made astronomical observations to gather data for his doctoral thesis. He returned to the Netherlands in 1899 to finish writing his thesis and to become an assistant to Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn in Leiden. He was awarded his doctoral degree in 1901 and continued as Kapteyn’s assistant until 1908. In 1908 de Sitter became a professor of astronomy at the Leiden University. He became the director of the university’s observatory in 1919. He held both positions until his death.

In 1919 de Sitter presented an alternate solution to Einstein’s field theory equations. His solution took advantage of the very low density of matter in the universe by creating a model of a universe with no mass. The assumption of a massless universe yielded a model that did not exactly match the observable universe. In 1932 Einstein and de Sitter collaborated and refined both men’s earlier cosmological theories to create the Einstein-de Sitter model of the universe. This model was the first prediction that dark matter, or matter that does not emit electromagnetic radiation and so had not yet been detected, should exist in the universe.


Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_de_Sitter
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Sitter.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0845418.html


Photos:
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PictDisplay/Sitter.htmlhttp://www.aip.org/history/exhibits/cosmology/ideas/images-ideas/expanding-einstein-desitter-lg.jpg

Konrad Zuse (1910-1995)

Konrad Zuse was born June 22nd, 1910 in Berlin Germany. In 1927 he attended Charlottenburg (the technical university in Berlin) and finished his civil engineering degree in 1935. His first work was as a design engineer in the aircraft engineer during the early part of his career but his focus later shifted to what we classify as computers today. He did his work on computers throughout World War II and remained in Berlin until the war was over. He moved on to become an entrepreneur and started his own company which was later sold to Siemens.

Zuse invented several inventions referred to as the Z-1, Z-3, and Z-4. The Z-1 was made in 1938 and was the first the mechanical calculator and was unfortunately destroyed during a bombing run. The Z-3 was later created in 1941 and it was the worlds first programmable, electronic calculator which was also unfortunately destroyed just before the war was over in 1944. Unable to gain support from the Nazi party for funding, Zuse continued his work and developed the Z-4 but had to keep it secret and made sure to protect it. He moved the machine from Berlin to Gottingen to be used in an aerospace factory and when it was in danger there he moved it to a mathmatics center in Zuric in 1950 where it was used until 1955. The Z-4 was advanced enough that he created an early programming language known as "Plankalkül" which was a chess playing program. Zuse clearly played a significant role in history by creating this digital, programmable computer and would be memorialized by having extensive museum displays in his name.

Sources:

http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Zuse.html

http://www.rtd-net.de/Zuse.html

Pictures
Konrad Zuse and the Z1
Z3
Z4

Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt - Aircraft Radio Methods

Sir Robert Watson-Watt was born in Brechin, Angus, Scotland. He was a decedent of the steam engine inventor. He was attended school in Damacre and Brechin School. He also attend the Dundee University College, which was apart of the University of St. Andrews in 1912. He got
his degree in engineering. After graduation he took job as an assistant for Professor William Peddie who was very interested radio waves.

In 1915, Watson-Watt worked for the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough
as a meteorologist. He wanted to apply his knowledge of radio waves to
locate thunderstorms to provide warning to airman. He saw the need for a
method for rapid recording and display radio signals. One year later, he
came up with the idea to use cathode ray oscilloscopes. Unfortunately, these
rays were not available until 1923.

In 1924, Watson-Watts moved to Slough, to the Radio Research Station, were
he became superintendent of the outstation. In 1933, he became
superintendent of the new radio department at the National Physics Lab in
Teddington.

In 1935, Watson-Watts with his assistant produced a report called, "The
Detection of Aircraft by Radio Methods." It was presented to the new
scientific survey of air defense on February 26. They ran a trial using
BBCs short-waves radio transmitter against a Heyford Bomber. It was a
success.

In 1936, he became superintendent of the new Air Ministry, Bawdsey
Research Station in Bawdsey Manor near Felixstowe. Sir Robert Watson-Watt died at Inverness on the 5th December 1973.

check out more at:
http://www.geocities.com/neveyaakov/electro_science/watson-watt.html

http://www.radarpages.co.uk/people/watson-watt/watson-watt.htm

Team 3 Budget

The following is materials needed for the model of our project.

Foam - $5
Model Plywood - $5
Wire - $2
Styrofoam - $5
Nuts and Blots - $5
Misc. (paint etc.) - $8

Total Budget = $30

Author Holmes (1890-1965)

Author Holmes was a British Geologist, and was the first person to realize that the Earth was billions of years old; before this time people believed it was just millions of years old. As an undergraduate at the Imperial College of Science in London, he studied physics and before he even earned his doctorate he proposed the first geological time scale based uranium-lead radiometric dating, which was designed to measure the age of rock. As staff at the Imperial College he earned his doctorate and soon after took up a job with an oil company in Burma, soon after it went bankrupt he returned to England and was a professor at the University of Durham. He greatly furthered the newly created discipline of geochronology and in a book called The Age of the Earth he estimated the age to be 1600 millennia, the age was based on uranium isotopes. A crater on Mars was named in his honor.

Links

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/boholm.html

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/1900a.shtml

http://gsahist.org/gsat/gt02mar17_16.pdf

Picture

http://www.dur.ac.uk/geochem.www/group/pictures/staff/holmes2.jpg

Stephen Poplawski - Blender 1922

A polish inventor in 1922 worked on his design for the automatic blender. Hired by the Arnold Electric Company to develop his idea to produce an automated malt mixer for restaurants. This invention, though usefull, was rather difficult to implement. Intitially he utilized an agitator that had a mixing impliment mounted to it. To begin it was a simple spinning blade attached to a motor. Most of the patents that he filed were for commercial blenders as was his assigned task. Stephen Poplawski created several models of blenders to be used for different tasks. Most were hand opperated mixers that utilized the top mounted motor that was hand opperated. He did patent the first mounted mixer that once modifided became the most popular commercial blender. When he retired he created the Stephen Electric Co and attempted to create personal blenders to be used at home. Though it wasnt untill 1935 when a blender was produced by the Waring company that looked anything like what we have today.

Images: Inventor
Non Available

Images: Blender
http://www.angelfire.com/ns2/mixerhistory/
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/blender.htm

Timeline of Blender History
http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Engineering_Graphics/2003/Blender/history.html

Henrik Carl Peter Dam

Henrik Carl Peter Dam, born in February 1895 in Denmark, discovered vitamin K. He won, but had to shared the Nobel Prize with American, Edward Adelbert Doisy, in 1943. Dam graduated from the chemistry department of the Polytechnic Institute, Copenhagen in 1920. After graduating he went on to teach chemistry at the School of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. Shortly after his teaching career began at the School of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, he progressed in to teaching biochemistry at the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Copenhagen, 1923. After teaching as an associate professor at the Physiological Laboratory of the University of Copenhagen, he became the head of the biochemistry department after earning his PhD in biochemistry.

Dam discovered vitamin K while studying the sterol metabolism of chicks in Copenhagen. After the initial discovery of vitamin K, he studied this vitamin further with respect to its occurrence and biological function in animals and plants, as well as its application in human medicine, its fundamental chemical and physical properties and its purification and isolation - the latter part of this research being carried out in collaboration with P. Karrer.

Dam later returned to Polytechnic Institute, Copenhagen to become the head professor of the biochemistry and nutrient department.

Dam was married with no children.

Picture of Dam:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1943/

Bio:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1943/dam-bio.html


Vitamin K:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9075561/vitamin-K

Guglielmo Marconi (April 1874- July 1937)

Guglielmo Marconi was a Italian physicits born in Bologna Italy. Marconi was educated privately at Bologna, Florence and Leghorn. He always took interest in physics and electricity and studied the works of Maxwell, Hertz, Righi, and Lodge. In 1985, he began to do experiments where he was successful at sending wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles.

In 1896 he took his work to Englnad where he met William Preece, Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office and was granted the world's first patent for his system of wireless telegraphy. He showed that his system work by establishing wireless communication in London, on the Salisbury Plain and across the Bristol Channel. In 1897, he formed the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Limited. In 1899, Marconi made communication between France and England possible across the English Channel. In 1901, he used his system to transmit across the Atlantic betwen Poldhu, Cornwall and St. John's, Newfoundland a distance of 2100 miles.

Marconi was honored and awarded for his scientific success. Among the most prestigous of awards was the Nobel Peace Prize for Physics in 1909. He died in Rome on July 20, 1937.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1909/marconi-bio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi

Laszlo Biro

Laszlo Biro was born in 1899 in Budapest Hungary. Early in his career, he worked as journalist and noticed that the ink that was being pressed onto newspaper would not smudge and dried very quickly, unlike the fountain pen he had to use. He decided to see if he could use the ink from the paper press in his pen to write but found out quickly that this would not work. He enlisted the help of his brother who was a chemist and they invented a new pen tip that rolled the ink onto the paper. He patented this idea and this is now what’s known as the ball point pen. He moved to Argentina where he began to produce these pens out of the Biro Pens of Argentina Company. This patent was eventually bought out by Marcel Bich in 1950, but is not the basis of the BIC pen company.
A picture of him can be found at:
http://www.helens.ie/classes/invent/pages/images/laszlo.gif
A picture of the pen can be found at:
http://www.mszh.hu/kiadv/ipsz/199608/biro4.gif

Henri Coanda (1886-1972)

Henri Coanda was a Romanian inventor, born in Bucharest on June 7, 1886. He attended the Military Lycee in Iasi, and also attended the School of Artillery, Military, and Naval Engineering in Bucharest. He eventually became an artillery officer in the military, but this was not his primary interest -- the technicalities of flight were. Coanda began conducting experiments to gain more knowledge about various aspects of aerodynamics.

In 1910 he built and flew the first thermojet aircraft, aptly named the Coanda-1910. He went on to build a number of other aircraft, including the Bristol-Coanda series of aircraft and the Coanda-1916. He was also a consultant on the project that developed the Caravelle transport aircraft.

Source: Henri Marie Coandă (Wikipedia)
Picture of invention: Coanda-1910 (Wikipedia)
Picture of Henri Marie Coandă

Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955)

Alexander Fleming, born in 1881, was a Scottish biologist and pharmacist. He attended medical school at St. Mary's Hospital in London beginning in 1901 after inheriting money from an uncle. He began his career with the hopes of becoming a surgeon, however, the rifle club in which he was a member convinced him to enter the research department at St. Mary's. During this time he worked under bacteriologist Sir Almroth Wright. In 1908, he earned an MS and BS from St. Mary's and was given the option to teach lectures until 1914. He then worked as a captain in the Army Medical Corps during World War I. After the war, he returned to teach at St. Mary's and, in 1928, was elected Professor of Bacteriology.

During the years he was teaching after the war, Fleming worked to find anti-bacterial agents to successfully kill infections. During his time in the war, he realized that the antiseptics used to heal infectious wounds killed more soldiers than the infections did. In 1922, Fleming finally discovered a natural antibiotic created by the human body called lysozyme. In 1928, he discovered penicillin by accident. He noticed that some of his bacterial cultures had grown mold and fungus. He threw the contaminated dishes in a disinfectant thinking they were ruined. Not long after a visitor asked to see his work so he removed a couple of dishes that had not been submerged in the disinfectant. He noticed a small area around a fungus where bacteria would not grow. He isolated and extracted part of the agent from the mold Penicillium notatum, hence he termed the agent penicillin. Fleming tested Penicillin on many bacterial organisms such as those causing scarlet fever, pneumonia, and meningitis. His work was published in 1929 in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology.

After his discovery, Fleming did not believe that this new antibiotic would be effective for infections in the human body. He continued conducting experiments with the antibiotic until 1940 when he enlisted the help of a chemist. Ernest Chain, along with Florey and Heatley, from Oxford, began experiments to purify penicillin so that it might be effective enough to treat infections in humans. After successfully doing this, penicillin was mass produced and distributed beginning in 1945.

Fleming's accidental discovery in 1928 was the beginning of modern antibiotics. He discovered during his work that bacteria can develop a resistance to antibiotics when too little penicillin was used. In 1945, Fleming, Florey, and Chain received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work with Penicillin. In 1955, Fleming died of a heart attack in London. His wife, Amalia Koutsour-Voureka, presented his Nobel Prize to the Savage Club where it remains to this day.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming
http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/Penicillin.htm

Pictures:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Alexander-fleming.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Lysozyme_crystal1.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Penicillin_3D_Model.png#file

Theodor Svedberg

Theodor Svedberg is the inventor of the analytical ultracentrifuge, capable of achieving 6 orders of magnitude of Gravitational force. A centrifuge capable of high velocity centrifugation able of density gradient sedimentation of macromolecules. - i.e. able of spinning really fast and splitting a solution of macromolecules up by molecular weight and size. While this may not sound important or interesting, it is very useful in chemistry, and extremely important in Biology. This method is used to separate DNA molecules based on molecular size so defined that it can resolve something as small as a 10 basepair difference, (about 36 angstroms (10^(-12) meters) in size.

Svedberg was born in Flerang, Sweden on August 30, 1884. He began attending Uppsala University in Jan. 1904. Here he stayed through undergraduate to Doctorate, and also took up the post of assistant in the Chemistry department in 1905. In 1907 he was given lecture status at the school. In 1909 he was given the status as lecturer and demonstrator in Physical Chemistry. And in 1912 he was appointed Professor of physical chemistry at the university. He did work on collides and macromolecules in chemistry, and here came his requirement for the creation of his ultra centrifuge. He then used this to further his research, and received the Noble Prize in Chemistry in 1926 for this research.

He also has a Standard Unit named after him,The Svedberg Unit equal to 10^(-13) seconds.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Svedberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-centrifuge
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1926/svedberg-bio.html
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-575982/Theodor-H-E-Svedberg

Igor Sikorsky

Igor Sikorsky was born on May 25, 1889 in Kiev. His father was a professor of psychology and his mother was a physician. He was home-schooled until nine years old, during which he had made a rubber-powered helicopter. From 1903-1906 and 1907-1909 Sikorsky studied at the Naval War College, in St. Petersburg. He studied engineering in Paris from 1906-1907. A turning point in his life came when he say the Wright plane in Germany he decided to study aviation.

Sikorsky returned to Paris where he studied at ESTACA, later that year he had returned to Kiev and started to experiment with aerodynamics. In 1914, Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute awarded Sikorsky an honorary degree in Engineering. He was also the chief engineer of the first four-engine plane, and his Russia ordered a small number of his S-6-B aircrafts. After WWI he became an engineer for the French in Russia. In 1919, He left Europe because of the wars and the Civil War occurring in Russia for the United States.

Not long after entering the United States he formed the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Company. After he became a naturalized citizen his company was bought by United Aircraft. Some of the best work he did was in experimenting with helicopters. His work came to a height on May 13, 1940 when his first single blade, 75 horsepower, helicopter took flight. It was called the Sikorsky 300. It helped create a world standard of using a single rotor. He died on October 26, 1972 in Connecticut.

References:

http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky

VS300:

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Sikorsky-VS300/Igor-VS300.jpg

Picture of Sikorsky:

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Sikorsky-VS300/Igor-Sikorsky.jpg

Edmund Germer (1901-1987)

Edmund Germer was a German scientist who basically made lighting more efficient by inventing the florescent lamp. He was born in Berlin 1901 and graduated from the University of Berlin in the 1920’s with a doctorate in lighting technology. What he tried to do was to create a lighting device which was more efficient in creating light and outputted less heat then the standard incandescent light. The incandescent lap converted 6% of the energy going through it into light and the other 94% was in the form of heat. In 1926 he patented, with Friedrich Meyer and Hans J. Spanner, the florescent lamp, US patent #2182732. What he did was he coated a tube of an arc lamp with UV absorbing powder that fluoresced in the visible region of the spectrum. This created a color that was comparable to an incandescent lamp, a white color. He also invented the high pressure vapor lamp and a high pressure Hg vapor lamp that emitted less heat.

General electric bought his patent for the florescent lamp for $180,000 and they also bought the rights to his pressure Hg vapor lamp. Over his life he had 22 sole US patents and 30 sole German patents and over 100 co-patents. He co-founded the Rectron Company, worked for Osram and Phillips in the 1930’s as a freelance inventor and he received the Frank P. Brown Medal from the Franklin Institute in 1954 his new lamp.

His Picture:

http://www.invent.org/images/images_hof/search/inventors/Germer_Edmund.gif

Picture of his invention:

http://z.about.com/d/inventors/1/0/w/Q/germer_patent.jpg

Resources:

http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/65.html

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_fluorescent.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0767141.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Germer

Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)

Erwin Schrodinger was born on August 12, 1887 in Erdberg, Vienna, Austria. His father was a botanist, and his grandfather had been a chemist. Schrodinger attended school at the Akademisches Gymnasium in 1898. Here, he not only studied science, but also the logic of ancient grammar and some German poetry. In 1906, after finishing at the Gymnasium, Schrodinger went to the University of Vienna where he studied under Franz Serafin Exner and Fritz Hasenöhrl. It was here that he gained his strong background and mastery of eigenvalue problems in quantum physics which he would later use and win a Nobel Prize. In 1910, he graduated from the University of Vienna and became Exner's assistant. In 1920 he took an academic position at the University of Zurich where he researched many subjects of theoretical modern physics such as problems with thermodynamics and atomic spectra.

In 1926, Schrodinger published a paper called "Quantisierung als Eigenwertproblem" (Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem). It was in this paper that Schrodinger derived his famous Schrodinger's Equation, or the wave equation for time independent systems. He showed that this derivation gave the correct energy eigenvalues for a hydrogen atom. During this same year, he submitted papers, solving the eigenvalues for a harmonic oscillator, a rigid rotator, and a diatomic molecule. In 1927, Schrodinger left Vienna to join Max Planck in Germany, but left after several years and went to England, Princeton, and back to Austria. After the Nazi occupation of Austria during World War 2, Schrodinger was asked to help establish the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin, Ireland. He became the Director of the School for Theoretical Physics for 17 years, and even became a naturalized Irish citizen. Over these 17 years, he wrote 50 papers on numerous topics, including the unified field theory. In 1955 Schrodinger retired and moved back to Vienna. Six years later, on January 4, 1961 Erwin Schrodinger died of tuberculosis.

Schrodinger's largest contribution to the physics community is actually the central theory of quantum mechanics. It is Schrodinger's Equation which gives the correct eigenvalues for certain wavefunctions. Basically solving this equation gives the probabilities of possible measurements, or where the particle could be found within the system. The Schrodinger Equation is most commonly seen as HΨ = EΨ. Another famous problem is Schrodinger's cat in which he proposed a problem of a cat in a box isolated from external interference to explain that knowing the state of the cat (dead or alive) could only be done with the observer interfering with the experiment. He used this to explain the idea of particles existing in such isolated states that the observer could not possibly know the state unless they interfered with it, so the observer was entangled with the state of the particle.

References:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1933/schrodinger-bio.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation

Photos:
http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/bond/pictures/portrait-schrodinger.jpg
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2000/plewis/schrodin.gif
http://www.nearingzero.net/screen_res/nz267.jpg

Percy Shaw (1890-1976)

Percy Shaw was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England in 1890. He was the son of a dyer’s laborer, but always had the seed of invention in him. AT the age of 14, he worked as a road mender.


In the early part of the 20th century, he noticed the increasing problem of pollution (industrial pollution) caused a problem on the roads: the tramlines would disappear when the fog from pollution came. The fog would sometimes be so thick that the tramlines could not be seen within a few feet. Recognizing the problem, Shaw used his inventive mind to find a solution.

Shaw came up with the idea of marking the road ahead to make it visible for drivers. In 1935 he invented reflective road markers he called “Catseyes”. This simple device was essentially a flexible rubber dome (which could be deformed if run over by traffic) with a four glass beads placed in two pairs facing in opposite directions. All this was set in a cast iron base, which was almost indestructible. A convenient self cleaning device was even placed on the Catseyes. The cast iron base would collect water, and whenever the top of the dome was depressed, it would wash away the water. This works along the same methodology as the human eye, which washes away excess tear with eyelids.

His invention was such a success that he was able to open up his own shop selling his invention that he named Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd in Boothtown in 1936.

Information:

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/percy-shaw
http://www.design-technology.info/inventors/page14.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_eye_(road)

Pictures:

http://www.designmuseum.org/media/item/5245/-1/150_1Lg.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/inventors/1/8/y/_/catseye.jpg
http://www.41club.org/Pages/2005/PastPresidents/thumbnails/1949-50%20Percy%20A%20Shaw_jpg.jpg
http://www.icons.org.uk/nom/nominations/cat-s-eye/image_mini

Henri Fabre (1882-1984)

Henri Fabre was a French aviator, born into a prominent family on November 29 in Marseilles, France. His interest in science led him to the Jesuit College in Marseilles, France where he studied sciences, namely airplanes and propeller designs.

He was interested in the problem of achieving powered flight from a water base, which had not been tackled yet. He began building a giant dragonfly shaped plane made of ash with cotton covering, with hollow wooden floats underneath that he started to test in La Mëde harbor, near Marseilles (France) around 1909, a convenient water source. The plane was powered by a 50-hp Gnome motor and also a Chauviere propeller at the rear.

After his testing, the plane, now known as a seaplane, made its first successful flight on March 28, 1910. It was nicknamed “Le Canard” which means bird in French, and went a total distance of 1650 feet while being 6 and a half feet above water. It was 27 feet 10 inches in length and 45 feet 11 inches in wingspan. The seaplane successfully was able to fly over the water for short distances, but unfortunately crashed in May 1910 in the Mediterranean. It was rebuilt and was soon used again in aquatic races in 1911.

Information:
http://www.earlyaviators.com/efabre.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fabre


Pictures:
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/AERO/history1c.htm
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/fabre.html
http://site.voila.fr/planetemassalia/images/henri_fabre.jpg

Henri Fabre (1882-1984)

Henri Fabre is a famous French marine and aviation engineer. Fabre was born on November 29th, 1882 in the French city of Marseilles to a wealthy family of shipowners. Fabre attended the Jesuit College of Marseilles. While attending this school he studied advanced sciences, airplane design and propeller design.

He invented and patented a new type of flotation device, made up of hollow wooden floats. Fabre used these new flotation structures to invent the first seaplane, also called a Hydravion, which he named "La Canard" (meaning duck). The first ever water take-off happened from the Etang de Berre lake in Martinque, France on March 28th, 1910. Throughout March 28th, Fabre flew three more times. The power behind this Hydravion was a 50 horsepower Gnome rotary engine, which allowed Fabre to fly over 1650 feet. This plane resembled a giant dragonfly, which flew backwards.
Fabre continued on flights for the next two months, until mid-May of 1910, when this plane nose-crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. While the entire plane was wrecked, Fabre was unhurt.

Glenn Curtiss and Gabriel Voisin (famous American aviation pioneers) later incorporated Fabre's flotation designs into their sea planes.

Later in life, during WWI Fabre owned a company that specialized in the construction of seaplanes. This company employed over 200 people at its peak.


References:
http://www.earlyaviators.com/efabre.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fabre
http://inventors.about.com/od/weirdmuseums/ig/Photos-Famous-of-Airplanes/First-Seaplane-circa-1910-.htm

Pictures:
http://inventors.about.com/od/weirdmuseums/ig/Photos-Famous-of-Airplanes/First-Seaplane-circa-1910-.htm
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/AERO/history1c.htm
www.cyprien-fabre.com/HenriFabre.html

George Constantinesco (1881-1965)

George Constantinesco was a Romanian scientist born in Craiova, Romania in1881. He would move to London in November of 1910, which is where he woulddo the majority of his work in science and engineering. During hislifetime Constantinesco would gain credit for 133 patents, the most wellknown being the torque converter and the Theory of Sonics. The Theory ofSonics is the science of dealing with power transmission by periodicforces through different types of matter. In his work with the Theory ofSonics, Constantinesco developed the sonic engine and the hydraulicmachine gun synchronizer, which allowed pilots in World War I to firetheir machine gun in the front of the plane without hitting the propeller.

After the war Constantinesco began working with torque mechanics andengine output. He made it a goal to design economically friendlyautomobiles that could be driven by the average person. In 1925 he woulddesign and present the Constantinesco, a car he would name after himself,which would initially be built in France and licensed by General Motors.His torque converter, though initially designed for automobiles, wouldbecome critical in the power behind railway locomotives. Constantinescocontinued his work even to his death. In 1962 at the age of 91,Constantinesco presented his paper on power transmission to theInstitutiom of Mechanical Engineering. Constantinesco would eventuallydie in 1965 at the age of 94.

Sources and Pictures:
http://fluid.power.net/fpn/const/
http://www.answers.com/topic/george-constantinescu

Jacques Cousteau

Jacques Cousteau was a Frenchman who lived from 1910-1997. As a child he was very privileged because his family was wealthy and he was able to develop a passion for film making as well as for the sea. He gave his contribution to both the science and engineering world through oceanic research and development. He acted as an officer in the french navy during World War II and during this time he did a lot of underwater photography. He is the inventor of the first self contained underwater breathing apparatus which he called the aqualung in 1943. It was based on the idea of compressed air stored in a cylinder. Before this invention, divers were forced to use either a diving bell or a helmeted diving suit. Both were very expensive and very burdensome, allowed little movement, and prevented the diver from reaching the depths that Cousteau's invention did. Cousteau's invention allowed him to dive freely, filming ship wrecks and other areas of interest underwater.

Since he made so much profit and fame from his innovative invention, he was able to fund his own research vessel, known as the Calypso. He invited many famous and prominent scientists on research trips with him to places like to amazon and Antartica. Because of his love in filmaking he was always taking video and pictures on these trips. He published fifty books, a handful of films, and many documentaries that were aired on television throughout his life. He was known for always wearing a red cap.


Pictures of Cousteau
http://www.divessi.com/platinumpro/images/photos/Cousteau_Jacques.JPG
http://www.pollutionissues.com/images/paz_01_img0057.jpg
http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1960/1101600328_400.jpg

Pictures of the aqualung

then: http://www.diveshopcenter.cl/images/Mesc34.jpg
http://aquadeluna.tripod.com/image029.gif
http://www.patadacobra.com.br/godive_hp/artigos/historico/foto14.jpg

now: http://img.search.com/thumb/0/02/Aqualung_old_type.jpg/180px-Aqualung_old_type.jpg
http://www.thetravelconnection.net/MiscImages/Scuba-Tank.jpg
http://stevespak.com/spak/scuba6.jpg

Georges Claude (1870 - 1960)

Georges Claude was born in Paris, France on September 4, 1870. He attended school at École de Physique et Chinie, where he graduated in 1886 with a degree in chemistry. Originally working to produce quantities of oxygen to be used in hospitals, Claude instead began working with inert gases and electricity. His initial intent was to find a use for the “waste” gases (such as neon, argon, krypton, and xenon) produced from German engineer Carl von Linde’s air separation process. Claude discovered that applying an electrical charge to a sealed tube of neon gas, the tube glowed bright red. Once he discovered this new method of producing light, he created special neon tubes that could be used like an ordinary light bulb. Claude first introduced his new invention on December 11, 1910 at the Paris Art Show. Continuing to work on his new creation, he came up with the idea of bending the tubes to make letters, thus inventing the neon sign. He patented his sign on January 19, 1915.

Claude soon started his own company, Claude Neon, and in 1923 he first introduced neon signs to the United States. A Los Angeles owner of a Packard car dealership was the first to purchase two of the signs for $1,250 each. The use of neon signs quickly caught on, with the first signs earning the nickname “liquid fire” for their bright red glow. The use of other gases, such as argon and mercury, would later produce additional colors to be used in the signs.

During World War II, Claude collaborated with the Nazi-run Vichy government in France, for which he was put in prison from 1945 to 1949.


Information was found at:
http://www.hiettweb.com/photo.html
http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/324.html
http://www.signmuseum.com/exhibits/histories/neonbirthday.html
http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/elem/ne.html

A picture of Claude can be seen at:
http://www.espci.fr/presentation/claude.jpg
http://www.vitriol.com/images/neon/cloude.jpg

A picture of the first neon sign in the US can be seen at:
http://www.signmuseum.com/exhibits/histories/images/packards.jpg

Johannes Wilhem Geiger

Johannes Wilhelm Geiger was born in Neustadt-an-der-Haardt, Germany in 1882. He was one of five children born to a family where the father was a philosophy professor. At the age of twenty he began to study physics and math at the University of Erlanger. In 1906, at the age of 24, he was awarded a doctorate degree. He began working for Ernest Rutherford, where they invented the Geiger counter. A Geiger counter is an instrument that counts particles and measures ionized radiation. It is best known for making a clicking noise when brought near a radioactive source. He also developed other theorems such as the Geiger-Nuttall law, which basically states that alpha particles (ionized Helium) are more abundantly emitted from short-lived isotopes than long-lived isotopes. His experiments helped develop the theory for Rutherford’s atomic model. He went on to be a professor in a few universities such as Kiel, Tubingen, and Berlin. Geiger died shortly after World War II ended in 1945.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Wilhelm_Geiger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter

Photos of Geiger:
http://www.nndb.com/people/123/000099823/hans-geiger-2.jpg
http://www.origin-life.gr.jp/2904/2904174/42.jpg

Photos of Geiger counter:
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/news/Sci_teachers_workshop/teachers_workshop/geiger_counter.gif
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0126323/graphics/geiger_counter.jpg

group 5 budget and design

The final budget can be found on the team blog page.

The final product is a mango based beer made with very bitter hops to make it taste bittersweet. Since there is no real "design" I don't have any sketches to post but the entire proccess of the beer brewing is also on the team blog.

John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird was born on August 13, 1888 in Helensburgh, Dunbarton, Scotland. Bairds father was a clergyman and throughout most of his life, John suffered from ill health. He attended Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College where he was aiming for a Bachelor degree in electrical engineering. His studies happened to be interrupted due to the outbreak of World War I. After the War had ended, Baird moved to England where he started his creation of the television. John Logie Baird along with Clarence W. Hansell patented the idea of using transparent rods to transmit images for a television. On January 26, 1926 John Baird gave his first world demonstration of the television infront of fifty scientists in London. Baird created the first televised pictures of objects in motion, the first televised human face, and the first moving object image. The first sound and vision telecast was broadcast in 1930. After a while, electronic systems started to develop more and more and Baird's system seemed to fade away. On June 14, 1946 John Logie Baird passed away in Bexhill-on-Sea in Sussex.
Links:
http://www.mztv.com/newframe.asp?content=http://www.mztv.com/baird.html
http://www.thocp.net/biographies/baird_john.htm
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/bairdjohnl/bairdjohnl.htm
Images:
http://www.doramusic.com/John%20Logie%20Baird.jpg
http://images.scotsman.com/2005/01/21/logiebaird1.jpg
http://davehill.typepad.com/temperama/images/baird_tv_c28.jpg

Count Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich von Zeppelin (1838-1917)

Count Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich von Zeppelin was born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany on July 8th, 1838. During his young life he was educated at the Ludwigsburg Military Academy and then at the University of Tübingen. After this he joined the Prussian army in 1858. He would stay in the Prussian army until 1863 when he would make his way to the United States. While in the USA, Ferdinand would work as an observer for the Union army. While doing this he would make his first balloon flight while staying in Minnesota. After this he would return to Germany and marry a women named Isaballa Freiin von Wolff in 1869. In 1879 Ferdinand would have a daughter named Hella. A few years later he would publish is first works on what he called “lighter than air ships.” Which would eventually be called Zeppelins. In 1891, he retired from the army and started his own airship company in Friedrichshafen. He would open this company with his own money. His first zeppelin was completed in 1900. This first zeppelin was made of a row of 17 gas cells that were all individually covered in rubberized cloth. It was about 420 ft long and 38 ft in diameter. The gas that was used in the zeppelin was hydrogen. At the time, Ferdinand was unaware of the danger of using hydrogen as the gas to float the zeppelins. Throughout the rest of his life he would make many improvements to the zeppelin and would eventually die on March 8, 1917.

Resources:
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/zeppelin.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_von_Zeppelin

Pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ferdinand_Graf_von_Zeppelin_Profil.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LTA8G10_by_centennialofflight-gov.jpg

Dennis Gabor (1900 - 1979)

Dennis Gabor had a love of physics from a young age, he could not wait to attend a university and discover more. When he was deciding what he wanted to go to school for, he opted for engineering over physics as he claimed he felt it was not large enough at the time to be considered something he would want to get into. Later in his life Gabor realized that all the work he did in college as well as after was always applied physics. Gabor attended Technische Hochschule Berlin, where he received his doctorate in 1927. Gabors love of optics lead him to look into inventions such as color photography and microscopy. This love of optics would be what would inspire him to come up with his theory holography. Before he could achieve this though, he would have to flee Britain in 1933 to escape the growing Nazi Germany. His theory was developed and published while he was in the UK. Holography is the idea that for perfect optical images all information has to be used not just the amplitude. Gabor also developed granular synthesis which has to do with how humans communicate and hear. Much of Gabor’s research could not be continues until the invention of lasers in 1962. Gabor continues research on optics and wave theory until his death in 1979. Gabor received high honors for his work including being a fellow of the royal society, as well as a Nobel Prize. Many awards are still given in his honor of his great advancements in the field.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Gabor
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1971/gabor-autobio.html

Pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gabor-magyarposta.jpg
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1971/gabor.gif

Group 1 Budget and Design

The current budget for our project is as follows:

Timers: $6.03
Aluminum: $5.82
Hardware: $6.97
Glue: $3.12
Candle Dye:$10.89
Candle Wax:$15.66 + $10.18

Total Current Budget: $48.49

We will probably be spending a little bit more to make our final models of each design.



An image of Model A can be found on our blog. Model A consists of a candle with multiple layers of wax, each layer having its own wick. The wicks are small enough so that the candle will burn out on its own over the course of a few hours. Once the top wick burns out, a new wick is exposed for the next time the candle will be used.

Model B (as seen in the picture at the beginning of this post) will enable the user to burn any candle he or she wants, not a specially made one. A kitchen timer is placed inside a box with a glass candle holder placed on top. A long wire with a metal snuffing lid attached to one end is placed through holes made in the box and the timer. Once the timer gets down to zero, a hole is exposed in a metal disc below the wire, allowing it to fall through the hole, bringing the lid down on the glass container. The candle goes out within seconds due to the lack of oxygen.

Group 4 Budget

Our Current Budget for our condiment dispenser is :

7$- caulking tubes
13$-JB Weld
$5- Metal

Total (as of now)= $25

László Bíró (1899-1985)

László Bíró was born in Budapest, Hungary. He made a living dabbling in many different occupations, including hypnosis and car racing. It wasn't until he took a job as the editor of a Hungarian journal, named "Hongrie-Magyarország-Hungary," and later a newspaper, named "Elôtte," that he had the need or desire to design one of the most practical inventions of recent history, the ballpoint pen.

Although the concept for pens that could hold their own ink had been around since the early 1800s, it took until 1884 for the invention of the workable fountain pen. However, Bíró (inspired by the ink used for the newspaper and the irritability of the smudging fountain pen) felt that a more practical, everyday writing utensil could be devised. Others had tried this before. In fact, Bíró's idea came from an 1888 patent for a product to mark leather.

He first attempted to employ the ink that newspapers use in printing, but he found that it was too viscous to flow to the pen nib naturally. So, he used the model of the newspaper printer to devise a new method for applying the ink to the paper. He designed the pen so that a slender tube filled with ink would act as a supply to a small, rotating ball bearing that would roll along the paper at the tip of the pen, providing a continuous application. Not only was it more versatile than the fountain pen, the ink didn't smudge and the pen didn't leak. He received a patent in 1938 and another in 1943. Now, ballpoint pens are an everyday necessity.

Invention: http://www.ipr-helpdesk.org/newsletter/images/issue14/Dibujo4.gif
http://www.portalplanetasedna.com.ar/invento05.gif

László Bíró: http://www.sme.sk/vydania/20030612/photo/13-3.jpg

References:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa101697.htm
http://www.budpocketguide.com/TouristInfo/famous/Famous_Hungarians17.asp

Group 2 Design and Budget

The final design of the spreading toaster is a combination of paint rollers and a toaster. Rollers are attached with brackets to the top of the toaster so as the consumer pulls the toast from the device, the appropriate condiment is spread out onto the toast. The current budget is approximately 30-40 dollars but that is likely to increase when we add a spring/clamping mechanism that pushes the toast against the roller as the toast comes out. The final budget is likely going to be below 50 dollars.

George de Mestral

George de Mestral (1907-1990) was an engineer and outdoorsman born in Switzerland who is known for the invention of Velcro. He attended the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and earned his degree in electrical engineering. In his free time, de Mestral enjoyed the outdoors and hiking, which eventually led him to the invention that made him famous.

While hiking one day with his dog, after walking through a patch of brush both his clothing and his dog’s fur were covered with burrs. When he returned home, he analyzed the burrs under a microscope and discovered several tiny hooks in each burr that would tightly fasten to the loops in his clothing and to the strands of his dog’s fur. The hooks found in the burrs were nature’s way of insuring that the seeds inside the burrs would be widely spread for a better chance of successful planting.

The simple design of the burr intrigued de Mestral and inspired the invention of a new fastener. He experimented with a fastener that had two sides: one side that consisted of several tiny hooks and the other side with several tiny loops. In his first attempt, he did not size the hooks and loops correctly and did not receive the strength of fastening he desired. He eventually found the perfect design for Velcro which involved tough hooks made of nylon and softer loops.

George de Mestral both perfected and patented his design in the early 1950s and named his invention Velcro. He established a business and sold an average of sixty million yards per year. His invention was extremely successful and has continued to be both practical and effective for several uses today.

Information Sources:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/1900a.shtml
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/demestral.html

Photo of George de Mestral:
http://www.engology.com/images/mestral.gif
Photo of Velcro under microscope:
http://www-engr.sjsu.edu/WofMatE/images/vel_mod.jpg

Laszlo Heller

Laszlo Heller was a mechanical engineer from Hungary who is famous for designing the first high-pressure industrial power station. Heller lived from 1907-1980 and was born in Nagyvarad, Hungary. Not much is written about his personal life, but he studied in Germany at the Eidgenossiche Technische Hochschule in Zurich and after he graduated, became a research engineer. In 1951, Heller became a professor at the Technical University of Budapest where he established their Department of Energetics. Heller was honored with a full membership to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Kossuth prize, a high honor bestowed by the Hungarian goverment.

Laszlo's work in energetics is best represented by his "world-famous" design of the world's first high-pressure industrial power station in the 1940s. Heller's system found a way to utilize cooling water efficiently and provide power. The system was a cycle of cooling and heating water. The Heller-Forgo system as the invention was called, was named after Heller and his collaborator, Laszlo Forgo. The principle was developed by Heller and built by Forgo, and it is still used worldwide.

Resources:
http://www.hpo.hu/English/feltalalok/heller.html
http://energyhistory.energosolar.com/en_power_station_history.htm
http://www.hungarian-history.hu/mszh/eheller.htm

Heller:
http://www.hpo.hu/English/feltalalok/pics/heller.gif
Cooling system:
http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/images/pubs/tech_papers/17th_congress/2_1_0102.gif

Jacques E. Brandenberger (Cellophane)

Unfortunately, there is no information on the Swiss chemist, Jacques E. Brandenberger, but his invention is still one that we use in our everyday lives. While dinning out one day Brendenberger came up with the idea for his invention, cellophane. When watching someone spill wine all over the table cloth and the waiter replace it with a clean one, he came up with the idea to invent a clear invisible film to apply over the cloth to make it waterproof. After doing research over different materials, he eventually tried to apply liquid viscose (rayon) to cloth but it caused the fabric to become to stiff and delicate. Even though his idea ended up failing, he did end up noticing that the unusual clear coating would peel away from the cloth and turned his focus on that. By 1908, Brandenberger was able to develop a machine that could make sheets of transparent viscose, and by 1912 he created a sealable flexible film that became used in gas masks. Brandenberger continued to patent his inventions and created his own company in1917 called La Cellophane. The actual word cellophane comes from the words cello (from cellulose) and phane (diaphane which means transparent in French). By 1919, cellophane became publicly available and with an exclusive license with the Du Pont Company in 1923, cellophane was patented and sold in North America.

Website Links:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/1900a.shtml
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcellophane.htm
http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/stories/the_second_industrial_revolution/05.ST.01/?scene=6&tv=true
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/cellophane.htm

Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

Enrico Fermi was one of the greatest minds ever and one of, if not the most, influential nuclear scientist’s ever. His work on the atomic bomb and nuclear transformations would earn him the Nobel Prize and a reputation for brilliance his whole life. Born in Rome, Italy in 1901 Fermi was a hard worker until he died in 1954. He first became interested in science after the death of his older brother Giulio. In 1933 Fermi developed the theory of Beta Decay a theory that resulted in the recognition of the weak interaction force. Fermi and his team came within the thickness of aluminum foil to discovering nuclear fission in 1934. While bombarding uranium the foil blocked the emissions that his elements would have normally picked up. It was not until later that they realized that what he had achieved was indeed nuclear fission. Instead though Fermi made the most important discovery of his career. He realized that slowing neutrons by passing them through a light-moderator would increase their effectiveness. This discovery would lead to the ability to use nuclear reactors. In 1938 Fermi received the Nobel Prize for his previously mentioned discovery of slow neutrons and his theory on Beta emissions. He received the Prize a day after Mussolini issued his anti-semantic laws.

In 1945 the scientists had created the first nuclear bomb and were ready to test it. Fermi was on hand for the test, which took place on U.S army property in Alamogordo, New Mexico, under the code name of Trinity. Fermi remarked prior to the test that the test was worthwhile even if it didn’t work because it would prove that nuclear explosion was impossible. Enrico Fermi’s discoveries and theories helped shape nuclear physics and had many lasting benefits on our world.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95sep/fermi.html

http://history.enotes.com/history-fact-finder/science-invention/what-was-enrico-fermis-contribution-understanding

http://photos.aip.org/images/catalog/fermi_enrico_c29.jsp

Wernher von Braun

Werner von Braun was born on March 23, 1912 in Wirsitz in Prussia. He was the second born of three children. His father was a conservative politician. Werner’s mother could trace her family ancestry to medieval European royalty. When Werner had his Lutheran confirmation, his mother bought his a telescope. This telescope was the start of his interest with astronomy and outer space. Before he read the book The Rocket into Interplanetary Space, von Braun was horrible in physics and mathematics. After reading this book, he started to apply himself to understand physics and mathematics. In 1930 he went to the Technical University of Berlin. At this school, he joined the spaceflight society where he did work with liquid fueled rocket motor tests. Werner had always had a strong interest with space flight. Even as a child, he would attach miniature rockets to various objects just to test them.

By the end of 1934, von Braun had successfully launched two rockets that went to 2.2 kilometers and 3.5 kilometers with the help of his group. Werner von Braun used Goddard’s designs and plans to build the A-4 series of rockets. This series is better known as the V-2. Under the Nazi regime, there were no rocket societies and all civilian rocket tests were forbidden. This meant that the military could only develop rockets. The only way that von Braun could do work with rockets was to join the Nazi party. In November of 1937, Werner joined the Nazi regime. In 1944, Hitler approved the production of the A-4 rockets. The reason for these rockets was to aim rockets at London. Werner’s interests were mostly for the application of space flight so when he heard about the London incidents, he felt like it was the darkest day for him. In order to do work with his rockets, Werner had to use slaves from the Buchenwald concentration camp.

At the end of World War II, Werner entered into the United States through Operation Paperclip. When he came to the United States, Von Braun worked for the U.S. army. While in the army, von Braun and his scientists continued to work on rocketry experiments.

In 1957, the US realized that they were behind in the space race with Russia. For this reason, von Braun and his team were transferred to NASA to work on this problem. Werner and his team were transferred to Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama where they worked on Saturn rockets to carry heavy payloads from Earth to beyond Earth orbit. It was von Braun’s dream to go to the moon and it became a reality when he developed the Saturn V rocket.

Werner von Braun is considered the father of the space program for the United States. He died on June 16, 1977

Pictures
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Wernher_von_Braun.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a1/Disneyandvonbraun.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/Kennedy_vonbraun_19may63_02.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/S-IC_engines_and_Von_Braun.jpg

Inventions/Creations
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Fus%C3%A9e_V2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/V-2_rocket_diagram_%28with_English_labels%29.svg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Rocket_engine_A4_V2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Peenemunde_August_1943.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/11/Peenemunde_August_1943_2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/V2_us.jpg

Assignment 5

This assignment is due by Wednesday, April 18th, by 8 pm. Late assignments will be docked 5 points per hour they are late. Please post early and on time. Also, where applicable, provide a link to any website or information you use--do not post images directly to the blog.

Assignment 5.

Briefly discuss an inventor/engineer (not discussed in class) who lived in Europe (NOTE: Do not use any non-European inventors) between 1900 and 1950. Give a brief synopsis of their life and the invention/design/creation they are famous for. Provide a link to any images of 1) the inventor/engineer and 2) what they invented.

Do not copy anyone from the first four assignments!

Do not simply copy and paste anything from another website. This is supposed to be in your own words and should be written as paragraphs, not just bullet points or a list. The average length should be a full paragraph or two.

Good luck!

Group 6 Budget

After some searching online and in stores for prices for different items needed we have come up with our budget! WOW exciting!

$80 is what is stands at right now, it is actually an over estimate just in case. comes out to about $13.00 per member.

here is the design.

Percy Julian

Percy Lavon Julian was a famous African-American chemist who lived from 1899-1979. Born the grandson of a slave, Julian was best known for his synthesis of cortisone from soy beans. Julian overcame significant adversity in his life due to the fact that he was born in Montgomery, Alabama, a notably prejudiced area in the 1900s. Even later in life, when he was settled in Chicago with a family, several hate-crimes were perpetrated against him and his family for being black including arson and dynamite attacks on his house. He attended DePauw University and graduated as a valedictorian. He received his masters from Harvard University and his PhD. from the University of Vienna for organic chemistry. It was during his time in Vienna that Julian noticed the soybean and took note of its properties. After teaching and researching in the academic world, Julian became the chief chemist at Glidden Corporation and was named the Director of the Soya Product Division. Later on, Julian founded Julian Laboratories, and eventually died in 1975 from liver cancer.

Julian's work with the soybean is what made him famous. He synthesized a drug called physostigmine from the versatile bean that can be used as a treatment for glaucoma. Julian developed many other soy-based products including a cold-water paint and an aero-foam used as a flame retardant which was employed significantly by the US Navy. Julian's most notable chemical contribution using soy-beans was his development of a synthetic cortisone used to treat rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. My roommate is currently reaping the benefits of synthetic cortisone and Julian's work. She has ruptured disks in her back, and part of her treatment includes the use of synthetic cortisone. Although Julian received several honors and awards throughout his life, he still struggled with acceptance because of his skin color.



Pictures:

http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/photo/pjulian.JPG
http://www.blackinventor.com/images/percyjulian2.jpg
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/julian/images/home.jpg
http://www.allaboutarthritis.com/image/stock_image/cortisone_elbow_dyn.jpg


Resources:

http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/percyjulian.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/julian/
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcortisone.htm