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Productivity Improving Technologies (historical)
The productivity-improving technologies are the technological innovations that have historically increased productivity. Productivity is often measured as the ratio of (aggregate) output to (aggregate) input in the production of goods and services. Productivity is increased by lowering the amount of labor, capital, energy or materials that go into producing any given amount of economic goods and services. Increases in productivity are largely responsible for the increase in per capita living standards. History Productivity-improving technologies date back to antiquity, with rather slow progress until the late Middle Ages. Important examples of early to medieval European technology include the water wheel, the horse collar, the spinning wheel, the three-field system (after 1500 the four-field system—see crop rotation) and the blast furnace. Technological progress was aided by literacy and the diffusion of knowledge that accelerated after the spinning wheel spread to Western ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Chinese Inventions
History of Science and Technology in China, China has been the source of many innovations, scientific discovery (observation), discoveries and inventions. This includes the ''Four Great Inventions'': papermaking, the compass, gunpowder, and History of typography in East Asia, early printing (both Woodblock printing, woodblock and movable type). The list below contains these and other inventions in ancient and modern China attested by archaeological or historical evidence, including List of inventions and discoveries of Neolithic China, prehistoric inventions of Neolithic and early Bronze Age China. The historical region now known as China experienced a History of science and technology in China, history involving mechanics, hydraulics and mathematics applied to horology, metallurgy, astronomy, agriculture, engineering, music theory, Artisan, craftsmanship, Maritime history, naval architecture and warfare. Use of the plow during the List of Neolithic cultures of China, Neolithic p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Black
Joseph Black (16 April 1728 – 6 December 1799) was a British physicist and chemist, known for his discoveries of magnesium, latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was Professor of Anatomy and Chemistry at the University of Glasgow for 10 years from 1756, and then Professor of Medicine and Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 1766, teaching and lecturing there for more than 30 years. The chemistry buildings at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow are named after Black. Early life and education Black was born "on the banks of the river Garonne" in Bordeaux, France, the sixth of the 12 children of Margaret Gordon (''d''. 1747) and John Black. His mother was from an Aberdeenshire family that had connections with the wine business and his father was from Belfast, Ireland, and worked as a factor in the wine trade. He was educated at home until the age of 12, after which he attended grammar school in Belfast. In 1746, at the age of 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
École Polytechnique
(, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French Revolution and was militarized under Napoleon I in 1804. It is still supervised by the Ministry of Armed Forces (France), French Ministry of Armed Forces. Originally located in the Latin Quarter, Paris, Latin Quarter in central Paris, the institution moved to Palaiseau in 1976, in the Paris-Saclay, Paris-Saclay technology cluster. French engineering students undergo initial military training and have the status of paid Aspirant, officer cadets. The school has also been awarding doctorates since 1985, masters since 2005 and bachelors since 2017. Most Polytechnique engineering graduates go on to become top executives in companies, senior civil servants, military officers, or researchers. List of É ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by Charles II of England, King Charles II and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the society's president, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the president are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed by a connecting rod and Crank (mechanism), crank into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is most commonly applied to reciprocating engines as just described, although some authorities have also referred to the steam turbine and devices such as Hero's aeolipile as "steam engines". The essential feature of steam engines is that they are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term ''steam engine'' can refer to either complete steam plants (including Boiler (power generation), boilers etc.), such as railway steam locomot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Age Of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained through rationalism and empiricism, the Enlightenment was concerned with a wide range of social and Politics, political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity (philosophy), fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state. The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlapped the Scientific Revolution, which included the work of Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton, among others, as well as the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and John Locke. The dating of the period of the beginning of the Enlightenment can be attributed to the publication of René Descartes' ''Discourse on the Method'' in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Le Rond D'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( ; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopédie''. D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is sometimes referred to as d'Alembert's equation, and the fundamental theorem of algebra is named after d'Alembert in French. Early years Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the natural son of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth. Days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the church. According to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the church. D'Alembert was placed in an orphanage for foundling children, but his father found him and placed him with the wife of a glazier, Madame Rousseau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment. Diderot initially studied philosophy at a Society of Jesus, Jesuit college, then considered working in the church clergy before briefly studying law. When he decided to become a writer in 1734, his father disowned him. He lived a Bohemianism, bohemian existence for the next decade. In the 1740s he wrote many of his best-known works in both fiction and non-fiction, including the 1748 novel ''The Indiscreet Jewels, Les Bijoux indiscrets'' (The Indiscreet Jewels). In 1751 Diderot co-created the ''Encyclopédie'' with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. It was the first encyclopedia to include contributions from many named contributors and the first to describe the mechanical arts. Its secular tone, which included articles skepti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Encyclopédie
, better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis Diderot and, until 1759, co-edited by Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The ''Encyclopédie'' is most famous for representing the thought of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment. According to Denis Diderot in the article "Encyclopédie", the ''Encyclopédie'' aim was "to change the way people think" and for people to be able to inform themselves and to know things. He and the other contributors advocated for the secularization of learning away from the Jesuits. Diderot wanted to incorporate all of the world's knowledge into the ''Encyclopédie'' and hoped that the text could disseminate all this information to the public and future generations. Thus, it is an example of democratization of knowledge. It was also the first encyclopedia to include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hot Blast
Hot blast is the preheated air blown into a blast furnace or other metallurgical process. This technology, which considerably reduces the fuel consumed, was one of the most important technologies developed during the Industrial Revolution. Hot blast also allowed higher furnace temperatures, which increased the capacity of furnaces. As first developed, it worked by alternately storing heat from the furnace flue gas in a firebrick-lined vessel with multiple chambers, then blowing combustion air through the hot chamber. This is known as regenerative heating. Hot blast was invented and patented for iron furnaces by James Beaumont Neilson in 1828 at Wilsontown Ironworks in Scotland, but was later applied in other contexts, including late bloomeries. Later the carbon monoxide in the flue gas was burned to provide additional heat. History Invention and spread James Beaumont Neilson, previously foreman at Glasgow gas works, invented the system of preheating the blast for a furna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Countercurrent Exchange
Countercurrent exchange is a mechanism between two flowing bodies flowing in opposite directions to each other, in which there is a transfer of some property, usually heat or some chemical. The flowing bodies can be liquids, gases, or even solid powders, or any combination of those. For example, in a distillation column, the vapors bubble up through the downward flowing liquid while exchanging both heat and mass. It occurs in nature and is mimicked in industry and engineering. It is a kind of exchange using counter flow arrangement. The maximum amount of heat or mass transfer that can be obtained is higher with countercurrent than co-current (parallel) exchange because countercurrent maintains a slowly declining difference or gradient (usually temperature or concentration difference). In cocurrent exchange the initial gradient is higher but falls off quickly, leading to wasted potential. For example, in the adjacent diagram, the fluid being heated (exiting top) has a higher exiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
