Airplane, invention

Although, in theory, testing is required only in cases where those skilled in the art would require it to be reasonably sure of success for the intended use, certain subject matter almost always must be tested. A leading example of this is airplane inventions. Actual flight tests are generally required (6). Complex mechanical structures are another example. Common sense brings others to mind. For example, an invention intended as a foolproof safety device would probably always require testing under actual use conditions. 

Today the airplane is part of eveityday life, whether we see one gi acefully winging overhead, fly in one, or receive someone or something (package, letter, etc.) that was delivered by one. The invention and develop-... 

Before the Wright brothers first successful flight, there were plenty of attempts by others. Indeed, the Wrights did not invent the first airplane. They inherited a bulk of aeronautical data and experience achieved by numerous would-be inventors of the airplanes over the previous centuries. In many respects, when the Wright brothers began to work on the... 

As the twentieth centui y began, two new prime movers were greatly extending the power of fossil-fueled civilization. Internal-combustion engines (Otto and Diesel varieties), developed and perfected by a number of French and German engineers between 1860 and 1900, opened the possibilities of unprecedented personal mobility, first when installed in cars, trucks, and buses, and later when used to propel the first airplanes. The steam turbine, invented by Charles Parsons, patented in 1884 and then rapidly... 

The rabies virus has been under human consideration for more than 2000 years due to rabies lethality. The devastating experience of humans dying of rabies even left traces in our language for example, the adjective rabid. Therefore, in the last quarter of the 20th century global efforts resulted in the invention of an orally admin-istrable vaccine that is distributed via baits (Baer et al. 1971). Since then millions of baits were distributed from airplanes over virtually all of Central Europe. This campaign removed the virus from the Central European fox population. 

The invention of new and better explosives toward the end of the nineteenth century was chemistry s first important contribution to warfare since the invention of gunpowder, over five centuries earlier, but the development of poison gases in World War I made it quite plain that mankind, in future wars, was going to pervert science to the work of destruction. The invention of the airplane and, eventually, of nuclear bombs (see page 252) made the lesson even plainer. Science, which up to the end of the nineteenth century had seemed an instrument for creating Utopia on earth, came to wear a mask of horrid doom to many men. 

Thermoplastic-based blends are widely used in military applications for various reasons. One of the reasons is the need to have the best technology to win a battle. During World War I when aerial combat first took place, canvas and dope (shellac) covering for airplane wings and fuselages was used, and that is one of the earliest uses of composite materials. By the time the war ended, BaekeUte (invented in 1907) was in commercial production. A canvas and phenolic resin composite was being widely used for airplane and marine components when World War n started. 

Communication has greatly accelerated and expanded during the last two hundred years as it became a scientific study. The nineteenth century witnessed the development of inventions such as railroads, the telegraph, postal systems, the typewriter and phonograph, automobiles, and telephones. The twentieth century ushered in movies, airplanes, radio and television, audio and video recorders, communication satellites, photocopiers, and fecsimile machines. Since the 1980 s personal computers, cellular phones, fiber optics, the Internet, and a variety of mobile, handheld devices have widened and sped human integration into the information age. 

Alvarez, Lius W. (1911-1988) A physicist and inventor bom in San Francisco, Alvarez was associated with the University of California, Berkeley, for many years. He explored cosmic rays, fusion, and other aspects of nuclear reaction. He invented time-of-flight techniques and conducted research into nuclear magnetic resonance for which he was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics. He contributed to radar research and particle accelerators, worked on the Manhattan Project, developed the ground-controlled approach for landing airplanes, and proposed the theory that dinosaurs were rendered extinct by a massive meteor impacting Earth. 

That s 2000 ponnds—one ton—of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year by an average car. Now, how many cars are there in yonr city, yonr state, or in the entire world How many exceed our 50-miles-per-week estimate What about all of the trucks, buses, airplanes, ships, and other forms of mass transportation There s no doubt that industrialization is putting a great deal more COj into the atmosphere today than before the internal combustion engine was invented. 

Billington, D. P. 2006. Power, Speed, and Form Engineers and the Making of the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press. Inventions covered include the telephone, oil refining, airplane, radio, automobile, electric power, and more within the perspective of their role in transforming our world. 

The steam engine was truly an astounding machine. Initially using heat from the combustion of wood, and later from the combustion of coal, machines could do work and convey people across the land without an expenditure of human or animal muscle. Steam boats were invented, along with locomotives, factory machinery, electrical power plants, and in the twentieth century, automobiles, airplanes, and spaceships. 

In China, artisans learned how to craft bamboo—an exceedingly Ught, hollow wood— in ways that are stiU poorly understood in most of the world. Mass production of paper made from bamboo fibers enabled the development of paper currency and, of course, accessible and cheaply made tablets for writing. The Chinese also invented paper kites, then around 600 AD combined flexible bamboo with silk for the fabric and twine, and sometimes equipped these kites with strings and whistles for musical quality. Kites and other flyers were not just for entertainment, but became useful for miUtary communication, and provided the basis for the science of aerodynamics [15]. Much later, wood was even used to build the first airplane. 

Josephson, M. 1959. Edison A Biography. New York McGraw-Hill Wright, O. 1953. Flow We Invented the Airplane. New York David McKay. 

What has been the most important technical invention of the twentieth century Airplanes, nuclear energy, space flight, television, and computers are the most common answers. Yet none of these inventions has been as fundamentally important as the industrial synthesis of ammonia from its elements. Lives of the world s 6 billion people might be actually better without Microsoft Windows and 600 TV channels, and neither nuclear reactors nor space shuttles are critical determinants of human well-being. But the single most important change affecting the world s population— its expansion from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to today s 6 billion—would not have been possible without the synthesis of ammonia. 

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