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Alexander Bain (inventor)
Alexander Bain (12 October 1810 – 2 January 1877) was a Scottish inventor and engineer who was first to invent and patent the electric clock. He created the first fax machine, known as Bain's facsimile. Bain also installed the railway telegraph lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Early life Bain was born in Leanmore, near Watten, Caithness, Scotland. He was baptised in the local kirk on 22 November 1810. His father was a crofter. He had a twin sister, Margaret, and, in total, he had six sisters and six brothers. Bain did not excel in school and was apprenticed to a clockmaker in Wick. Career Having learned the art of clockmaking, he went to Edinburgh, and in 1837 to London, where he obtained work as a journeyman in Clerkenwell. Bain frequented the lectures at the Polytechnic Institution and the Adelaide Gallery and later constructed his own workshop in Hanover Street. Electric clocks and Railway Telegraphs In 1840, desperate for money to develop his inventions, Bain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watten, Highland
Watten () is a small village in Caithness, in the Highland (council area), Highland area of Scotland, on the main road (A882 road, A882-A9 road (Great Britain), A9) between the burgh of Wick, Caithness, Wick and the town of Thurso, about twelve kilometres (eight miles) west of Wick and close to Wick River and to Loch Watten. The village is on The Far North Line, Far North railway line but trains stopped calling at the village in 1960. watten railway station, The railway station is now a private house. The village is within the parish of Watten, which has the parish of Bower, Highland, Bower to the north, that of Wick to the east, that of Latheron to the south and that of Halkirk to the west. Loch Watten is the largest body of water in Caithness. The name of the village and loch appear to come from the Old Norse ''Vatn'', meaning water or lake, and the loch is famous for its brown trout fishing. The local public house is also named "The Brown Trout" after the local produce. P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth Battery
An earth battery is a pair of electrodes made of two dissimilar metals, such as iron and copper, which are buried in the soil or immersed in the sea. Earth batteries act as water-activated batteries. If the plates are sufficiently far apart, they can tap telluric currents . Earth batteries are sometimes referred to as telluric power sources and telluric generators. History One of the earliest examples of an earth battery was built by Alexander Bain in 1841 in order to drive a ''prime mover''—a device that transforms the flow or changes in pressure of a fluid into mechanical energy. Bain buried plates of zinc and copper in the ground about one meter apart and used the resulting voltage, of about one volt, to operate a clock. Carl Friedrich Gauss, who had researched Earth's magnetic field, and Carl August von Steinheil, who built one of the first electric clocks and developed the idea of an " Earth return" (or "ground return"), had previously investigated such devices. Daniel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthäus Hipp
Matthäus Hipp also spelled Matthias or Mathias (Blaubeuren, 25 October 1813 – 3 May 1893 in Fluntern) was a German clockmaker and inventor who lived from 1852 on in Switzerland. His most important, lastingly significant inventions were electrical looms, traffic signals, pendulum clocks, and the Experimental psychology#Hipp chronoscope / chronograph, Hipp chronoscope. Biography The son of Grain Miller at a monastery, Hipp was born 25 October 1813 in Blaubeuren, Württemberg. At the age of eight, he had an accident climbing on one of the many rocks there, and was lame for the rest of his life. At the age of sixteen, he became apprenticed to the clockmaker Johan Eichelhofer in his hometown of Blaubeuren. At the conclusion of his apprenticeship he began his Wanderjahre. In 1832 after working in Ulm for clockmaker Valentin Stoß, in 1834 he worked in the Swiss town of St. Gallen, afterwards between 1835 and 1837 in the ''clock factory Savoie'' in Saint Aubin Sauges, St. Aubin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deutsches Uhrenmuseum
The German Clock Museum () is situated near the centre of the Black Forest town of Furtwangen im Schwarzwald (Germany), a historical centre of clockmaking. It features permanent and temporary exhibits on the history of timekeeping. The museum is part of the local technical college ('' Hochschule Furtwangen''). About the museum The German Clock Museum is devoted to the history of timekeeping devices. A major focus is on clockmaking in the Black Forest, both as a cottage industry and on an industrial scale. The museum has an extensive collection of clocks and other artefacts relating to horology, not just those from the Black Forest, but also clocks and watches from around the world and spanning from prehistoric times to the present. The collection includes early cuckoo clocks from the 18th century as well as the prototypes of the modern Black Forest souvenir. The work of Robert Gerwig formed a primary basis of the museum. Chronology 1852: Robert Gerwig, Director of the ''Grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Science Museum
The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are requested to make a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee. It is one of the five museums in the Science Museum Group. Founding and history The museum was founded in 1857 under Bennet Woodcroft from the collection of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition as part of the South Kensington Museum, together with what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum. It included a collection of machinery which became the ''Museum of Patents'' in 1858, and the ''Patent Office Museum'' in 1863. This collection contained many of the most famous exhibits of what is now ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, it has no general admission charge; there are admission charges for most side-gallery temporary exhibitions, usually supplemented by many loaned works from other museums. Creation and official opening The museum was created by the National Maritime Museum Act 1934 under a Board of Trustees, appointed by HM Treasury. It is based on the generous donations of Sir James Caird (1864–1954). King George VI formally opened the museum on 27 April 1937 when his daughter Princess Elizabeth accompanied him for the journey along the Thames from London. The first director was Sir Geoffrey Callender. Collection Since the earliest times Greenwich has had associations with the sea and navigation. It was a landing place for the Romans, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Museum Of Scotland
The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a museum of Scottish history and culture. It was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in 1866 as the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, renamed in 1904, and for the period between 1985 and the merger named the Royal Museum of Scotland or simply the Royal Museum), with international collections covering science and technology, natural history, and world cultures. The two connected buildings stand beside each other on Chambers Street, by the junction with the George IV Bridge, in central Edinburgh. The museum is part of National Museums Scotland and admission is free. The two buildings retain distinctive characters: the Museum of Scotland is housed in a modern building opened in 1998, while the former Royal Museum building was begun in 1861 and partially opened in 1866, wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Michael Ekling
Johann Michael Ekling (also spelt Eckling) (8 August 1795, Vienna – 30 March 1876, Vienna) was an Austrian mechanic and inventor of scientific apparatuses and instruments. Life Johann Michael Ekling was the posthumous son of the army surgeon Joseph Ekling. His mother was Anna Maria Euphrosina Ekling née Spitzbarth. He was born in the suburb of Wieden (then a part of Vienna). At the age of 32 he married Theresia Schwarz, with whom he had five sons and a daughter. In the years to follow, he cooperated closely with mathematics and physics professors Andreas von Baumgartner (German Wikipedia) and Andreas von Ettingshausen of the University of Vienna. He produced artificial magnets on behalf of Baumgartner and one of the first photographic apparatuses in Austria (1839) following instructions by Ettingshausen, who had worked with Daguerre. By 1844 he is referred to as a "university mechanic". An announcement in a paper describes his range of products as follows: " klingmakes all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shildon Tunnel
Shildon Tunnel is a railway tunnel on the Tees Valley line between , and in County Durham, England. Although designed to have two tracks, the line is single-track through the tunnel and on to Bishop Auckland. It was opened out in 1842 by the Shildon Tunnel Company to avoid a railway incline over the hill that the tunnel bores through, and later sold outright to the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR). By at least 1880 rolling stock was wider and the tunnel could not accommodate two trains passing through at the same time; the two tracks were reduced to a single track in 1967 after many years of single-train occupancy. History Work on Shildon Tunnel which is long, was started in April 1839 and the tunnel was opened out in January 1842. The tunnel route afforded the railway company an alternative route north through the magnesian limestone ridge to the north of Shildon, and meant that traffic did not need to traverse the inclines on the Black Boy Colliery branch which reache ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stockton And Darlington Railway
The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected coal mining, collieries near with and in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833. The S&DR was involved in building the East Coast Main Line between and Darlington, but its main expansion was at Middlesbrough Docks and west into Weardale and east to Redcar. It suffered severe financial difficulties at the end of the 1840s and was nearly taken over by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, before the discovery of iron ore in Cleveland, Yorkshi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh And Glasgow Railway
The Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway was authorised by act of Parliament on 4 July 1838. It was opened to passenger traffic on 21 February 1842, between its Glasgow Queen Street railway station (sometimes referred to at first as Dundas Street) and Haymarket railway station in Edinburgh. Construction cost £1,200,000 for 46 miles (74 km). The intermediate stations were at Corstorphine (later Saughton), Gogar, Ratho, Winchburgh, Linlithgow, Polmont, Falkirk, Castlecary, Croy, Kirkintilloch (later Lenzie) and Bishopbriggs. There was a ticket platform at Cowlairs. The line was extended eastwards from Haymarket to North Bridge in 1846, and a joint station for connection with the North British Railway was opened on what is now Edinburgh Waverley railway station in 1847. Patronage on the line quickly reached double the railway's initial estimates, and by 1850 58 locomotives and 216 coaches were needed to handle the traffic. Goods traffic started in March 1842 and slo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir William Thomson
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (26 June 182417 December 1907), was a British mathematician, Mathematical physics, mathematical physicist and engineer. Born in Belfast, he was the Professor of Natural Philosophy (Glasgow), professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, where he undertook significant research on the mathematical analysis of electricity, was instrumental in the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and contributed significantly to unifying physics, which was then in its infancy of development as an emerging academic discipline. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883 and served as its President of the Royal Society, president from 1890 to 1895. In 1892, he became the first scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. Absolute temperatures are stated in units of kelvin in Lord Kelvin's honour. While the existence of a coldest possible temperature, absolute zero, was known before his work, Kelvin d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
