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John Robison (inventor)
Sir John Robison Royal Guelphic Order, KH FRSE FRSSA (11 June 1778 – 7 March 1843) was a Scottish inventor and writer on scientific subjects. He was the son of the physicist and mathematician, John Robison (physicist), Professor John Robison. Life He was born in Edinburgh on 11 June 1778, the son of Rachel Wright and John Robison (physicist), John Robison. Education and first job Robison was educated at the Royal High School (Edinburgh), High School in Edinburgh and then studied at the University of Edinburgh. Around 1795 he entered the Cotton-spinning machinery, cotton-spinning industry, first in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Paisley and then moving south to Manchester. Hyderabad, India In 1802 he entered the service of Nizam of Hyderabad as a contractor for the establishment and maintenance of military service. He left India a wealthy man, in 1815. Edinburgh In 1816 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and served as its General Secretary from 1828 to 1840. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
9 Atholl Crescent In Edinburgh
9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Hindu–Arabic digit Circa 300 BC, as part of the Brahmi numerals, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and Gupta started curving the bottom vertical line coming up with a -look-alike. How the numbers got to their Gupta form is open to considerable debate. The Nagari continued the bottom stroke to make a circle and enclose the 3-look-alike, in much the same way that the sign @ encircles a lowercase ''a''. As time went on, the enclosing circle became bigger and its line continued beyond the circle downwards, as the 3-look-alike became smaller. Soon, all that was left of the 3-look-alike was a squiggle. The Arabs simply connected that squiggle to the downward stroke at the middle and subsequent European change was purely cosmetic. While the shape of the glyph for the digit 9 has an Ascender (typography), ascender ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Society Of Arts
The Royal Scottish Society of Arts is a learned society in Scotland, dedicated to the study of science and technology. It was founded as The Society for the Encouragement of the Useful Arts in Scotland by Sir David Brewster in 1821 and dedicated to ''"the promotion of invention and enterprise"''. The Society was granted a Royal Charter in 1841. Background For many years the promotion of invention and improvements of all sorts was the main business of the Society, and its meetings were the focus of a large and active cross-section of Edinburgh society - academics, gentry, professionals such as civil engineers and lawyers, and skilled craftsmen such as instrument makers, engravers and printers. The Society's published Transactions provide a record of changes in technology, and the Society's archive is held by the National Library of Scotland, and is a valuable resource to researchers. In more recent times, the Society's meeting programme has been based on lectures given by ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Engineers From Edinburgh
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost. "Science is knowledge based on our observed facts and tested truths arranged in an orderly system that can be validated and communicated to other people. Engineering is the creative application of scientific principles used to plan, build, direct, guide, manage, or work on systems to maintain and improve our daily lives." The word ''engineer'' (Latin , the origin of the Ir. in the title of engineer in countries like Belgium, The Netherlands, and Indonesia) is derived from the Latin words ("to contrive, devise") and ("cleverness"). The foundational qualifications of a licensed professional engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
19th-century Scottish Scientists
The 19th century began on 1 January 1801 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 (MCM). It was the 9th century of the 2nd millennium. It was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanded beyond its British homeland for the first time during the 19th century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, France, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Catholic Church, in response to the growing influence and power of modernism, secularism and materialism, formed the First Vatican Council in the late 19th century to deal with such problems and confirm ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1843 Deaths
Events January–March * January 3 – The '' Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms'' (海國圖志, ''Hǎiguó Túzhì'') compiled by Wei Yuan and others, the first significant Chinese work on the West, is published in China. * January 6 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island. * January 20 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná is appointed by the Emperor, Dom Pedro, as the leader of the Brazilian Council of Ministers, although the office of Prime Minister of Brazil will not be officially created until 1847. * January ** Serial publication of Charles Dickens's novel ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' begins in London; in the July chapters, he lands his hero in the United States. ** Edgar Allan Poe's short story " The Tell-Tale Heart" is published in ''The Pioneer'', a Boston magazine. ** The Quaker magazine '' The Friend'' is first published in London. * February 3 – Uruguayan Civil War: Argentina supports Oribe of Uruguay, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1778 Births
Events January–March * January 18 – Third voyage of James Cook: Captain James Cook, with ships HMS ''Resolution'' and HMS ''Discovery'', first views Oʻahu then Kauaʻi in the Hawaiian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, which he names the ''Sandwich Islands''. * February 5 – In the United States: **South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation. **General John Cadwalader shoots and seriously wounds Major General Thomas Conway in a duel after a dispute between the two officers over Conway's continued criticism of General George Washington's leadership of the Continental Army.''Harper's Encyclopaedia of United States History from 458 A. D. to 1909'', ed. by Benson John Lossing and, Woodrow Wilson (Harper & Brothers, 1910) p166 * February 6 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France, signaling official French re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothea Gerard
Dorothea Mary Stanislaus Gerard (Mme Longard de Longgarde, 9 August 1855 – 29 September 1915) was a Scottish-born novelist and romance-writer who often wrote about controversial and unconventional subjects and "whose general conservatism co-existed with a piercing eye for relations across national and ethnic divides, for antisemitism and other forms of prejudice." At first she wrote for pleasure with her less prolific older sister Emily Gerard but later carved an independent career publishing about forty books between 1890 and 1916 mostly for Tauchnitz editions signifying her target audience was mainly English-speaking visitors travelling in Europe.John Sutherland''The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction'' Stanford University Press (1989) - Google Books pgs. 242-243 Early life Dorothea Gerard was born in 1855 at Rochsoles House in New Monkland, Lanark, Scotland, the youngest daughter of Colonel Archibald Gerard (1812–1880) of Rochsoles, Lanarkshire, and Euphemia Ersk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emily Gerard
Emily Gerard (7 May 1849 – 11 January 1905), later Emily Laszowska, was a 19th-century Scottish author best known for the influence her collections of Transylvanian folklore had on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel ''Dracula''. Life Early life Emily Gerard was born on 7 May 1849 at Chesters, Jedburgh, Scotland, the oldest daughter of Colonel Archibald Gerard (1812–80) of Rochsoles, Lanarkshire and Euphemia Erskine (1818–70), daughter of the inventor Sir John Robison (1778–1843). She had three sisters and three brothers including General Sir Montagu Gilbert Gerard (1842–1905). She was descended from Alexander Gerard (1728–95) a philosophical writer, Archibald Alison (1757–1839) a Scottish Episcopalian minister and writer, and Gilbert Gerard (1760–1815) a minister of the Church of Scotland and theological writer. Her sister Dorothea, born on 9 August 1855 at New Monkland, Lanarkshire, was also a novelist. In the 1861 Scotland Census, Gerard is recorded as living ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camera Lucida
A ''camera lucida'' is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists and microscopy, microscopists. It projects an optics, optical superimposition of the subject being viewed onto the surface upon which the artist is drawing. The artist sees both scene and drawing surface simultaneously, as in a photographic double exposure. This allows the artist to duplicate key points of the scene on the drawing surface, thus aiding in the accurate rendering of perspective. History The ''camera lucida'' was patented in 1806 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. The basic optics were described 200 years earlier by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his ''Dioptrice'' (1611), but there is no evidence he constructed a working ''camera lucida''. There is also evidence to suggest that the Elizabethan spy Arthur Gregory's 1596 "perspective box" operated on at least highly similar principles to the later ''camera lucida'', but the secretive nature of his work and fear of rivals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gas Lighting
Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a fuel gas such as methane, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directly by the flame, generally by using special mixes (typically propane or butane) of illuminating gas to increase brightness, or indirectly with other components such as the gas mantle or the limelight, with the gas primarily functioning to heat the mantle or the lime to incandescence. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas lighting was prevalent for outdoor and indoor use in cities and suburbs where the infrastructure for distribution of gas was practical. At that time, the most common fuels for gas lighting were wood gas, coal gas and, in limited cases, water gas. Early gas lights were ignited manually by lamplighters, although many later designs are self-igniting. Gas light ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gas Cooker
A gas stove is a stove that is fuelled by flammable gas such as natural gas, propane, butane, liquefied petroleum gas or syngas. Before the advent of gas, cooking stoves relied on solid fuels, such as coal or wood. The first gas stoves were developed in the 1820s and a gas stove factory was established in England in 1836. This new cooking technology had the advantage of being easily adjustable and could be turned off when not in use. The gas stove, however, did not become a commercial success until the 1880s, by which time supplies of piped gas were available in cities and large towns in Britain. The stoves became widespread in Continental Europe and in the United States in the early 20th century. Gas stoves became more common when the oven was integrated into the base and resized to fit in with the rest of the kitchen furniture. By the 1910s, producers started to enamel their gas stoves for easier cleaning. Early models used match ignition, later replaced by pilot lights — mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casters
A caster (or castor) is an undriven wheel that is designed to be attached to the bottom of a larger object (the "vehicle") to enable that object to be moved. Casters are used in numerous applications, including shopping carts, office chairs, toy wagons, hospital beds, and material handling equipment. High capacity, heavy duty casters are used in many industrial applications, such as platform trucks, carts, assemblies, and tow lines in plants. Types Casters may be fixed to roll along a straight line path, or mounted on a wiktionary:Pivot, pivot or pintle such that the wheel will automatically align itself to the direction of travel. Rigid casters A basic, rigid caster consists of a wheel mounted to a stationary fork. The orientation of the fork, which is fixed relative to the vehicle, is determined when the caster is mounted to the vehicle. An example of this is the wheels found at the rear of a shopping cart in North America. Rigid casters tend to restrict vehicle motion so th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
