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Remarkable Engineers: from Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More Information Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information Remarkable Engineers Engineering transformed the world completely between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries. Remarkable Engineers tells the stories of 51 of the key pioneers in this transformation, from the designers and builders of the world’s railways, bridges and aeroplanes, to the founders of the modern electronics and communications revolutions. The focus throughout is on their varied life stories, and engineering and scientific detail is kept to a minimum. Engineer profiles are organized chronologically, inviting readers with an interest in engineering to follow the path by which these remarkable engineers utterly changed our lives. ioan james is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and has had a distinguished career as a research mathematician. In recent years he has become interested in the history and development of scientific disciplines and the scientists involved. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1968. He is also the author of Remarkable Mathematicians, Remarkable Physicists and Remarkable Biologists, all published by Cambridge University Press. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information Remarkable Engineers From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James University of Oxford © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao˜ Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB28RU,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521516211 c I. James 2010 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2010 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-521-51621-1 Hardback ISBN 978-0-521-73165-2 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information Contents Preface page ix Prologue xi 1FromRiquettoWatt 1 Pierre-Paul Riquet (1604–1680) 1 Sebastien´ le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707) 4 James Brindley (1716–1772) 6 John Smeaton (1724–1792) 9 James Watt (1736–1819) 12 2 From Jessop to Marc Isambard Brunel 16 William Jessop (1745–1814) 16 Lazare Carnot (1753–1823) 18 Thomas Telford (1757–1834) 20 John Rennie (1761–1821) 23 Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769–1849) 27 3 From Trevithick to Sadi Carnot 33 Richard Trevithick (1771–1833) 33 Sir George Cayley (1773–1857) 37 George Stephenson (1781–1848) 40 Charles Babbage (1791–1871) 44 Charles Blacker Vignoles (1793–1875) 50 Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) 54 4 From Henry to Bazalgette 57 Joseph Henry (1797–1878) 57 John Ericsson (1803–1889) 62 Robert Stephenson (1803–1859) 64 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859) 67 John Augustus Roebling (1806–1869) 71 Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819–1891) 74 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information vi Contents 5 From Eads to Bell 78 James Buchanan Eads (1820–1887) 78 William Thomson (Lord Kelvin of Largs) (1824–1907) 80 Gustave Eiffel (1832–1923) 86 George Westinghouse (1846–1914) 90 Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) 92 Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) 98 6 From Braun to Hertz 103 Ferdinand Braun (1850–1918) 103 Hertha Ayrton (1854–1923) 105 Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) 108 Granville Woods (1856–1910) 112 Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) 115 Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) 120 7 From Diesel to Marconi 127 Rudolf Diesel (1858–1913) 127 Elmer A Sperry (1860–1930) 130 Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) and Orville Wright (1871–1948) 133 Frederick Lanchester (1868–1946) 137 Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) 140 8 From Pal’chinskii to Zworykin 145 Peter Akimovich Pal’chinskii (1875–1929) 145 Edith Clarke (1883–1959) 149 Andrei Tupolev (1888–1972) 152 John Logie Baird (1888–1946) 155 Vladimir Kosma Zworykin (1889–1982) 159 9 From Gabor to Shannon 163 Dennis Gabor (1900–1979) 163 Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (1907–1966) 168 Sir Frank Whittle (1907–1996) 170 William Shockley (1910–1989) 173 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information Contents vii Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) 178 Claude Shannon (1916–2001) 182 Epilogue 188 Bibliography 191 Credits 200 Image credits 202 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information Preface This work is intended for those who would like to read something, but not too much, about the life stories of some of the most remarkable engi- neers born since the Renaissance. There are five or six profiles in each of nine chapters, making 51 engineers altogether. The emphasis is mainly on their varied life stories, not so much on the details of their achievements. Although I knew none of them personally – most of them died long before I was born – I know something of their works. In France I have sailed along Riquet’s Grand Canal de Languedoc, been impressed by the fortifications of Vauban and ascended the Eiffel tower. In England, I have seen mighty beam engines at work, and in museums. I have ridden on the footplates of steam engines, and I have frequently used Brunel’s Great Western Railway. In the United States, I have walked across Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge and have inspected the Wrights’ biplane in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. In the Second World War, I had first-hand experience of the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 ballistic missile. In Russia, I have flown in one of Tupolev’s aircraft. My house is full of electrical appliances, as is the car I drive. I write this book on a laptop computer, the descendant of Babbage’s analytical engine, which was to be powered by steam. Nowadays we live in a world dependent on the work of generations of engineers. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information Prologue Most people know what an engineer is without being able to produce a definition. We say that someone has engineered the solution to a problem, and the dictionary allows this by defining an engineer as someone who contrives, designs or invents, with the same root as genius, a word whose meaning has varied much over the years. This covers not only traditional types of engineering, building bridges or railways, for example, or cars or aeroplanes, but also modern types, such as software engineering. Engineer- ing overlaps with science, on the one hand, and with technology, on the other. There are many specialities: civil (as opposed to military) engineer- ing, mechanical, electrical, medical, sanitary, computer, etc., are in com- mon use. Feibleman (1961) has attempted to distinguish between these, but the distinctions matter little for my purposes. I give several examples of people who might be classified as applied physicists, others who might be regarded as electrical technologists, but they are still engineers. Although I have written about some of these engineers before (James, 2004; 2009a; b), the profiles here are not the same. The profiles that follow are arranged chronologically by date of birth, so that when read in sequence they convey in human terms something of the way in which engineering developed. In writing this book, I had in mind the reader who, like myself, is interested in engineering but is not necessarily familiar with the history of the subject. To avoid being too discursive, I have focused in this book on certain themes. At first the emphasis is on civil engineering, the building of fortifications, canals, bridges, tunnels and so on. Then comes the development of the steam engine and the railway age. Electrical engineering became increasingly important, leading to the development of radio and television. The automobile dates from the early twentieth century, as does aviation. Finally, there is information technology and space research. Even so, certain forms of engineering had to be left out if this book was to be of a reasonable length. Some profiles are much shorter than others, mainly due to the lack of suitable biographical material. Although I begin with two examples from the seventeenth century, most of my remarkable engineers date from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth. It is hard to identify engineers, however remarkable, before the time of the Renaissance. We know the names of the architects of some of the outstanding buildings of the Middle Ages, but not much else. Bridges, fortifications, docks and canals were built, major drainage schemes were © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-73165-2 - Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon Ioan James Frontmatter More information xii Prologue successfully completed, but we know little about the people who were responsible.
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