Inventors at Work, with Chapters on Discovery

Why cities gain at the expense of the country . . . The factory system . . . Small shops multiplied . . . Subdivided labor has passed due bounds and is being modified . . . Tend...

Newton, Watt, Ericsson, Rowland, as boys were constructive . . . The passion for making new things . . . Aid from imagination and trained dexterity . . . Edison tells how he inv...

Weight, Time, Heat, Light, Electricity measured with new precision . . . Exact measurement means interchangeable designs, and points the way to utmost economies . . . The Bureau...

What to look for . . . We may not see what we do not expect to see . . . Lenses reveal worlds great and small otherwise unseen . . . Observers of the heavens and of seashore lif...

Analogies have value . . . Many principles may be reversed with profit . . . The contrary of an old method may be gainful . . . Judgment gives place to measurement, and then pas...

Producer gas . . . Mond gas . . . Blast furnace gases . . . Gas engines . . . Steam and gas engines compared . . . Diesel oil engine best of all . . . Gasoline motors . . . Alco...

Food nourishes . . . Weapons and tools are strong and lasting . . . Clothing adorns and protects . . . Shelter must be durable . . . Properties modified by art . . . High utilit...

Forces take paths of least resistance . . . Accessibility decides where cities shall arise . . . Plants display engineering principles in structure. Lessons from the human heart...

Bessemer a man of golden ignorances . . . His boldness and versatility . . . The story of his steel process told by himself . . . Nobel’s heroic courage in failure and adversity...

From a brief consideration of illuminants let us pass to a rapid survey of a most important group of structural materials, the steels. Here, as always, we shall find how abundan...

As in the case of the aluminium bronzes and nickel steels, alloys of the utmost value have been formed by introducing new ingredients, often in little more than traces, or by mo...

Heavenly bodies large and small . . . The earth as sculptured a little at a time . . . The farmer as a divider . . . Dust and its dangers . . . Models may mislead . . . Big stru...

Having now taken a rapid general view of observation and experiment, of the faculty of sound theorizing, let us enter the presence of two great masters of research and invention...

“After a trial of a multitude of implements and machines, we fall back on those of the most simple form, other things being equal. The crow-bar has been employed from time immem...

We have now taken a rapid survey of invention and discovery in the fields of Form, Size, Properties, Measurement, and the Teachings of Nature. We will here somewhat change our p...

Edge tools old and new . . . Cutting a ring is easier than cutting away a whole circle . . . Lathes, planers, shapers, and milling machines far outspeed the hand . . . Abrasive...

As far back as the first man with brains in his head, there was an ache to know why the sun shone, the stars twinkled, the winds blew, why harvests here were plentiful and there...

Roofs and small bridges may be built much alike . . . The queen-post truss, adapted for bridges in the sixteenth century, was neglected for two hundred years and more . . . A tr...

Methods beginning in rule-of-thumb proceed to the utmost refinement . . . The foot and cubit . . . The metric system . . . Refined measurement a means of discovery . . . The int...

Pouring and ramming are easier and cheaper than cutting and carving . . . Concrete for dwellings ensures comfort and safety from fire . . . Strengthened with steel it builds war...

Properties most evident are studied first . . . Then those hidden from cursory view . . . Radio-activity revealed by the electrician . . . A property which may be universal and...

Why rough glass may be better than smooth . . . Light is directed in useful paths by prisms . . . The magic of total reflection is turned to account . . . Holophane globes . . ....

Some recent noteworthy advances of invention have been due to co-operation by many workers, not however on such lines of definite group attack as have just been remarked. Among...

In every industry a threshold question is how motive power may be had at the lowest cost. In this field within twenty years wholly new methods have been introduced, while old pr...

So multiplied are the resources of modern industry that desired forms are created at will, almost without regard to the material employed. It is not so in primitive art, to whic...

Form as important as substance . . . Why a joist is stiffer than a plank . . . The girder is developed from a joist . . . Railroad rails are girders of great efficiency as desig...

Ships have their resistances separately studied . . . This leads to improvements of form either for speed or for carrying capacity . . . Experiments with models in basins . . ....

At this place we may for a little while consider a few fundamental principles of construction whereby inventors have economized material, labor and energy by making their device...

Having glanced at methods by which forms, judiciously chosen, economize the materials of buildings and rails, of bridges diverse in type, we pass to further consideration of the...

Producing more and better light from both gas and electricity . . . The Drummond light . . . The Welsbach mantle . . . Many rivals of carbon filaments and pencils . . . Flaming...

Shot formed to move swiftly through the air . . . Railroad trains and automobiles of somewhat similar shape . . . Toothed wheels, conveyors, propellers and turbines all so curve...

Inventors and discoverers are justly among the most honored of men. It is they who add to knowledge, who bring matter under subjection both in form and substance, who teach us h...

A classic. Like “Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting,” by the same author, now out of print and rare, it will never be replaced by a new book in the metallurgist’s library, alth...