Feature Post

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist, known for his pioneering work in electricity. Volta was born in Como and educated in public schools there. In 1800, he developed the battery is called Upper Volta, a pioneer of the electric battery, which produces a constant flow of electricity. In honor of his work in the field of electricity, the electrical unit known as the volt was named in his honor.

Milestones: 
1775 Volta invented the electrophorus, a device that produces a static charge.
1777, he studied the chemistry of gases, discovered methane
1779 he became professor of physics at the University of Pavia
1794 Volta Peregrini married Teresa, daughter of Count Peregrini, the couple had three children.
1800 developed the so-called voltaic pile, the predecessor of electric batteries
1810 in connection with his work in electricity, Napoleon made a count
1815, the Emperor of Austria was appointed professor of philosophy at Padua.
1816 The works of Volta was published in five volumes in Florence
1881 an important electrical unit, volt, was named in his honor.

Volta, Alessandro Volta, Count Alessamdro Volta, the battery, electric battery, battery voltic, wet-volt battery, inventor, biography, profile, history, inventor of the story, who invented, invention of, fascinating facts.

HISTORY:

Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist, known for his pioneering work in electricity. Volta was born in Como and educated in public schools there. In 1774 he was appointed professor of physics at the Royal School of Como, and the following year he invented the electrophorus, an instrument that produced charges of static electricity.

In 1776-1777, he devoted himself to chemistry, studying atmospheric electricity and the design of experiments such as the ignition of gases by an electric spark in a closed container. In 1779 he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Pavia, a chair he held for 25 years. In 1800, he developed the battery is called Upper Volta, a pioneer of the electric battery, which produces a constant flow of electricity.

In honor of his work on electricity, Napoleon made him a count in 1810. The Museum of Como, Volta temple was erected in his honor and exhibits some of the original instruments he uses to perform the experiments. Lake Como is located near the Villa Olmo, which houses Volta Foundation, an organization that promotes scientific activities. Once young people engaged in their studies and made his first inventions in Como.


Inventor       :     Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta    
Criteria        :     First to invent.
Birth            :     February 18, 1745.in Como, Lombardy, Italy
Death          :     March 5, 1827.near Como, Lombardy, Italy
Nationality  :     Italian
Invention     :     electric battery in 1800    
Function       :     noun / electric bat·tery / voltic pile
Definition    :     In science and technology, a battery is a device that stores energy and makes it available in    an electrical form. A battery converts chemical energy into electric energy. It is a connected bunch (or “battery”) of electro-chemical devices.








Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The North River Steam Ship


Fulton, Robert (1765-1815), one of the most obscure of famous men in American history, was an inventor and mechanical engineer, and artist. He is best known for the design and construction of Clermont, the first commercially successful steamboat. The Clermont inaugurated a new era in the history of transportation. Besides his work with steamboats, Fulton made numerous important contributions to the development of naval warfare, the submarine, the technology of mine warfare, design and construction of the first steam warship and that the transport channel.

In the early years. 
Fulton was born November 14, 1765, a farm near Little Britain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He spent his childhood in Lancaster, and showed inventive talent at an early age. He turned out to be lead pens, household goods, his mother, and salt to the stars for the celebration of the city. Fulton has developed a manual for use in a rowboat. He also built a rifle that had the vision and the hole in the original model.

Fulton went to Philadelphia at the age of 17 years, and became an apprentice goldsmith. It was not long to shine as a painter of portraits and miniatures. He saved enough money to buy a farm of his mother. At 21, Fulton went to England to study with the way the American artist Benjamin West. In London, Fulton made a modest living as an artist. But he became increasingly interested in the scientific and technical progress. After 1793, he gave all his attention in this area, and painted just for fun.

Inventor. 
Fulton first enthusiasm was for the development of the canal. He designed new types of river boats, and a system of inclined planes to replace the locks of the canal. Other mechanical problems have defied. He invented a machine for making ropes and one for spinning flax. It was a labor saving device for marble cutting, and invented a dredging machine to cut the strings channel. In 1796, Fulton published a treatise on the improvement of the navigation channel. Around 1797, Fulton turned his attention to the submarine. In 1801 he built a dive boat, the Nautilus, which could drop to 25 feet (7.6 meters) underwater. Fulton's work with submarines continued until 1806. He realized the dangers that submarines would bring to the battle, but he believes they could be used to reduce the sea of ​​war and piracy, just that reason. Experimental submarine Fulton was able to dive and surface, and he managed to jump craft anchored test.

However, the problem of underwater propulsion will never be resolved satisfactorily. Fulton interested in the ideas of Napoleon Bonaparte and the British Admiralty, but none of them has ever given them completely.

In 1802, Robert R. Livingston, U.S. minister to France, Fulton interested in directing his attention to steamboats. Fulton had been interested for many years in the idea of ​​steam propulsion for a boat. A boat experiment, launched on the Seine in Paris in 1803, sank because the engine was too heavy. However, a second ship, which was built in the same year, operated successfully. Fulton returned to America in 1806.

To build in Clermont. 
Fulton directed the construction of the ship in New York in 1807. Registered with the North River Steam Boat, the ship was usually called the Clermont after the Hudson River home, Robert Livingston. '17 And in August 1807, the ship began its first successful trip 150 miles (241 km) along the Hudson River in New York at Albany, about 30 hours, including nights. After restoration, the boat began to provide scheduled passenger service, the Hudson. Clermont was not the first steamboat was built, but it was the first to become a practical, economical and commercially successful steamboat. Fulton did not try to build the engine yourself, as inventors had previously done. Instead, he ordered a watt, and adapt it to his boat.

The Clermont was long and thin. The Hudson River, the public witnesses a shocking scene. There, in the river was a mechanical monster spewing flames and smoke. He was "Mr. Fulton madness! Most people thought that the engine would break out full steam and the high heavens explode or turn like a log rapidly flowing, people were wrong. Part of the success of Fulton was due to his concern for the comfort of the passengers. announced their brochures: Dinner will be served at exactly two o'clock tea with meat ... ... Dinner at 8 pm and a shelf was added to each pier, to which lords for Please put your boots, shoes and clothes, the car was not crowded. Following the success of Clermont, Fulton is responsible for the construction and operation of other vessels. He also defended the monopolies that state legislatures had granted to him and Robert Livingston. Fulton designed and built a steam warship, Fulton First of all, to defend the port of New York in 1812, the war, but died before the end of this remarkable craft. The statues statue in Fulton Hall, Washington, DC, honoring his accomplishments.

Invented the first motorcycle


Motorcycles are descended from the "safety" bicycle, bicycles with front and rear wheels of the same size, with a crank mechanism to drive the rear wheel. The bikes were in turn descended from the high-wheel bicycle. The wheels came from a high early form of push bike without pedals, propelled by the rider's feet pushing against the ground. These appeared around 1800, used wagon wheels iron beds, and are called "bone-crushers," both for their behavior shocking, and their tendency to throw their riders.

Gottlieb Daimler (who later team Daimler timber frame "Bone Crusher" d with Karl Benz to form Daimler-Benz Corporation) is credited with building the first motorcycle in 1885, one wheel in front and one in back, even if it was a little topping up to each side. It was built mainly of wood, the wheels are iron beds wooden spoked wagon-type, really a "bone crusher" chassis.

It was powered by an act of a single cylinder Otto cycle engine, and may have had a type of jet the carburetor. (Assistant Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach was working on the invention of the spray carburetor at the time).

With the inclusion of two wheels with steam propulsion as a motorcycle, the first may have been American. A machine as it was introduced at fairs and circuses in the eastern United States, built in 1867, Sylvester Howard Roper is a Roxbury, Massachusetts. There are examples Roper machine, dated 1869. And 'powered by a coal-fired two-cylinder, whose connecting rods directly drive a crank on the rear wheel. This machine has been preceded by an invention of the bicycle safety for many years, so its chassis is also based on fly "bone-crusher".

Most of the developments in this first of eras concentrated on three and four-wheel models, because it was complex enough to get the machines operate without the worry of them falling. Next was a remarkable two-wheeled Millet in 1892. Use a 5-cylinder engine built in the center of the rear wheel. The cylinders rotated with the wheel, and its crankshaft constituted the rear axle.

The first really successful production two-wheeler, however, was the Hildebrand & Wolfmueller, patented in Munich in 1894. He had a step-through frame, with its fuel tank mounted on the down tube. The engine was a parallel twin, mounted low in the chassis, with its cylinders going fore and aft. The connecting rods connected directly to a crank on the rear axle, and instead of using heavy flywheels for energy storage between cylinder firing, used a pair of large rubber bands, one on each outer side of the cylinders, to attend the compression stroke. Was cooled, the mother of all motorcycle engines andTHE - the DeDion-Buton had a water tank / radiator built into the upper rear spoiler.

In 1895, the French company DeDion-Buton built an engine that was to make mass production and common use of motorcycles possible. It 'was a small, lightweight, high-revving four-stroke single, and used battery-and-coil ignition, eliminating the troublesome hot-tube. Cylinder 50 mm for 70 mm figures gave the transition 138cc. The total loss lubrication system was taken with a crankcase oil to drip from the valve measurement, which is then drunk around to lubricate and cool components before downloading them to the ground via a breather. DeDion-Buton used electric power in the central half Trikes road going, but the engine was copied and used for all, including Indian and Harley-Davidson motorcycle USFirst American series - 1898 Orient-Aster

Although a gentleman named Pennington built some machines around 1895 (do not know if they actually ran), the first U.S. production motorcycle was the Orient-Aster, built by the Metz Company in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1898. Use the Aster engine that was built in the French copy of DeDion-Buton, and before that the Indian (1901) for three years, and Harley-Davidson (1902), four of them.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Christopher Columbus in the History of America

American national memory is full of symbols and icons, avatars, and deeply rooted out yet, I think. Role in the history of iconography in the United States is widespread, but the facts behind the fiction are somehow lost in a fog of amorphous patriotism and perceived national identity. Christopher Columbus, when the hero and symbol of the first order in America, is an important figure in the pantheon of American myth. His position, not unlike most American icons, representing not his accomplishments, but the idea of ​​society that led him to a pedestal-American gallery of heroism.

This gallery was not present at the birth of the political nation. America as a young republic, found themselves immediately in the midst of an identity crisis. Completing a violent separation from England and its cultural and political icons, America was left with no history - or heroes. Michael Kammen, in Mystic Chords of Memory explains that "repudiation of Americans moved to the left of the young republic, not a sound basis on which to base a common sense of their social self." (65) A new national history was necessary, but the revolutionary leaders, obvious choices for mythical transformation, were loath to be raised to their pedestals. "While all nations need a mythical explanation of his own creation, the process was paradoxically produced by the reluctance of revolutionary state to get their story told prematurely." (Kammen, 27) To be above others would be undemocratic, they thought.

The human need to explain the origin, to create its own identity through national identity, was thwarted by this reluctance. A vacuum was created, and was slowly filled with the image of Christopher Columbus.

"The partnership between Columbus and America took root in the imagination" in the eighteenth century. "People had more reason to think of themselves in terms of the hallmarks of America." (Noble, 250) of Americans in search of a story and a hero, discovered Columbus. A series of short stories and poetry references to Columbus arise in the years after the Revolution, Philip Freneau Photos of Columbus, Joel Barlow Vision of Columbus 1787, 1775 and Phillis Wheatley innovation, poetic device "Columbia" as a symbol of Columbus and America. Kings College of New York changed its name in 1792 in Columbia, and the new Capitol in Washington DC was called out of respect for those who want the country name after Columbus. Noble notes that

It is not difficult to understand the appeal of Columbus as a totem of the new Republic and the former subjects of George III. Columbus had found a way to escape the tyranny of the Old World. He was the solitary person who challenged the unknown sea, as triumphant Americans contemplated the dangers and promises of their own wild frontier ... as a consequence of his vision and daring, there was now a free land of kings, a vast continent for new beginnings. At Columbus the new nation has its own history and mythology found a hero from the distant past, one seemingly free of any taint of association with European colonial powers. The Columbus symbolism gave America an instant mythology and a unique place in history, and their adoption of Columbus magnified his own place in history. (252)

If the revolutionary generation was inspired by Christopher Columbus, consider the reaction of the nineteenth century: Christopher Columbus was an incarnation of the faith of this century - the search for new lands, an intrepid explorer. However, the discovery of America the nineteenth century, Columbus was not as simple as that of the late eighteenth century. The United States, and certainly in the 1830's, was in the middle of a love affair with the new. America was seen as the "land of the future" (Emerson "Young American," 1844), the most important new "old" history. Formal education for most of the nineteenth century, "has given little in the past in American history has remained largely a matter of minor -.. schools rarely form part of the program" (Kammen, 51) Americans had a duration of "too little attention to history, even the history of their own heroes.

"(Kammen, 49) The important thing was that his hero was bold, adventurous, and has represented innovation: who better than Christopher Columbus to represent bold new Americans in the United States still has a hero pantheon, the facts behind the faces were of little importance.

Again, as in the late eighteenth century, Columbus was a reflection of the company that created and recreated it. The comb reminds us that "societies in fact reconstruct their pasts rather than faithfully record them" do "with the needs of contemporary culture clearly in mind." (3) The culture of the early nineteenth century was one of increasing fragmentation and the "obstacles to achieving a viable, coherent sense of national tradition were many: separate sections, and value systems conflict with self-image of each other and themselves "as well as various factions and political parties. (Kammen, 50) Columbus was a perfect icon for the day confused in the early nineteenth century, through social, political and regional boundaries, giving a kind of superficial unity of the American national identity, created a decontextualized and increasingly one-dimensional hero level in the image of age.

Like Columbus to achieve this status? Once again, through the enhancement of its authors. Washington Irving was part of a "small but vocal group of Americans Antebellum," which "seemed deeply concerned about the irrelevance of the memory of their contemporaries," and in 1819 he expressed a desire to "'I lose myself between the magnitudes of shadow of the past. "(Kammen, 60), did just that recently found in manuscripts Navarrete (the work of one of Columbus's life of his contemporaries), which were published in 1825, using the documents to create a romantic hero the nineteenth century. His version of Columbus's life was published in 1829, was incredibly popular, "read with enthusiasm in the United States and participated in a Discoverer idealized image, which has dominated the literature over a century and has not been completely erased. The His surge produced some great love story, a biography more than reasonable. "(Noble 39)

Irving was not only, or in the early Revolutionary Columbus boosters, who created an idealized version of life Explorer. His contemporaries did not agree on the facts of Columbus's life, either. The researchers, however, to discuss issues that may seem to the public in some way already set in stone - what looked like, if you come from the idea of ​​sailing west to reach the east, although what he landed the first time on the island. The confusion began in the first "official" biography "Admiral" to his son, Don Fernando, who was curiously vague in several key areas - such as those mentioned above. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, Anghiera of Peter Martyr, and Bartolomé de la Casas, all the different points of view of man had become an American hero. Humphrey Gilbert, a citizen of the first British colony in the New World (Sant. John's, Newfoundland, 1583), said Colombo, "by Christopher Columbus famous memory, not only mocked and jeered in general, even here in England, but later became the laughingstock of the Spaniards themselves." (Qtd. noble, 248), and again in 1614, Lope de Vega, Columbus describes the more familiar light. His game El Nuevo Mundo por descubierto Cristobal Colon, Columbus is a "dreamer against the stolid forces rooted in tradition, the man who won the unity of being, the embodiment of that spirit forces to explore and discover. " (Noble, 249), conflicting information, ambiguous disclosure of the biography, and prejudices of the early writers was facilitated by the Americans early to take Columbus and mold for their intended purpose.

"Columbus Irving was a figure of heroic stature, eminently useful to the Americans who tried the first democratic experiment in modern times. Irving was presented to the youth of America as a culture hero inspired by God and sent by God .. . "(Shurr, 237) The view of Columbus as a favorite, overcoming their circumstances and" superior "was particularly resonant of the new republic, and its image as the great explorer, a symbol" of the mind and adventure human avatar western faith "(Noble, 48-9), his reputation seemed to have been guaranteed by the mid-nineteenth century, when the sculptor of the doors of the Capitol in Columbus, Randolph Rogers, said:" Maybe it is that a man [ie, George Washington] whose name is most closely linked to the history of this country deserves better, or a lasting monument to the memory of Christopher Columbus.

Since 1893, the year (a delay) American honor 400 years of Columbus landing (West Indies), Columbus came to the minds of Americans, the first true "father" without problems or conflicts (especially in its treatment of indigenous people he encountered) was dissolved. "Most people live in America, four centuries after the discovery of Travel was established in Columbus, wanted to believe, and were quite satisfied with the invention." (Noble, 258), Amy Leslie, a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, World's Columbian Exposition, nominally anniversary of Columbus' "discovery" of America. He stressed that he was surprised to see a statue of George Washington's, "which, until Columbus had discovered America, why something happens vehemently held in the hearts of his countrymen.

"(Buck 93) in the United States, because the country was fully embraced the ideals that Columbus was that it was" a symbol of success America ... It 'clear that the show was over the memory of the past, it was also a cry to the future, confident Americans were eager to share and enjoy. "(Noble, 256)

For the fifth centenary of 1992, Christopher Columbus was practically devoid of any positive symbolic meaning. The pendulum has swung, and now "is demystified post-colonial and Columbus. He was stripped of his coat, a symbol of optimism and is exposed as a man whose faults echoes many of the consequences." (Noble, 260) In our multicultural society, and often cynical society, we have created in our image of Columbus. As noted by Noble, "Each generation is back in the past and, based on their own experiences, it means finding models that illuminate the past and present." (XII)


Christopher Columbus was literally in the right place (Spain), at the right time (the dawn of the Age of Discovery) to define its place in history. America was the right place at the right time if necessary, simplify and mold Columbus to reflect the image of an independent and growing in America. Columbus found throughout American popular culture, national commemorations and memory, and clear in the Rotunda of the US Capitol. Roger Randolph massive bronze doors Columbus express this vision of Columbus, the ultimate visual expression of the American self-identity, as expressed in the explorer. He "came from the shadows, reincarnated not so much as a man and a historical figure, it was a myth and symbol. He came to the realization of explorers and discovers the man of vision and daring, the hero who overcame opposition and adversity to change history. "(Noble 249)

"(Fifth Centenary, 10) base its work on the romantic stories of Irving, Rogers depicts a heroic underdog, bold and ingenious explorer, a perfect figure for this age - and to engage in the pantheon of heroes of the America in the temple of legitimacy. Rotonde "Daniel Boorstin noted that people" once believed that their hero "and quoting James Russell Lowell". idol is the measure of worship "Therefore, writers and orators of the nineteenth century ascribed to Columbus all the human virtues that were most popular in the era of geographical and industrial expansion, heady optimism, and an unconditional belief in progress as the dynamics of history. "(Noble, 253)