Hiya Ifoggy

yes it's a great book, I borrowed this from the listening library a while ago, not just about engineering though.

well worth a read

regards

Paul

If it were not for Engineers, particularly British ones, the world, as we know it today, would not exist.

Among the things that British Engineers and inventors gave the world are;

Textile machinery (Hargreaves etc ); Steam engines (Savery, Watt, etc ), and if you include Steam Turbines, Parsons.

Rail traction and railways (Trevithick, Stephensons etc

Radar, (Watson Watt )

Gas Turbines (Whittle and those who followed on, such as Rolls Royce with the single crystal turbine blade )

Tarmac Roads (MacAdam )

The list goes on and on!

As a nation, we are superb at inventing things, but for mass production we have to turn to other nations, sadly.

Howard

Why "particularly British" ?

Do you seriously believe that Britain (Gt), is the only country to have contributed to the technological evolution of the human race ?

Do I really need to give you examples, Howard ?

GRRrrrr ……..

Edited By Daniel on 09/10/2019 22:33:26

Edited By Daniel on 09/10/2019 22:47:39

Edited By Daniel on 09/10/2019 22:52:19

Edited By Daniel on 09/10/2019 23:00:27

But don't forget they also invented Lucas electrics and the oil leak.

More seriously, all those things would have been invented by someone else if the Brits had not done it first. Most were a product of their times: the need or want for the invention was there, the materials needed to make it were recently available, the base technology was there (eg stationary steam engine preceded Stephenson and Trevethick's efforts) and the money to do the development was around.

Often simultaneous "inventions" happened in several places within short time of each other with the inventors not knowing of each others' work. Just they were working towards the same goals with the same base technology and materials available to them. EG powered aircraft. A german guy in Pittsburgh was airborne a couple years before the Wrights. And guys in Europe and Australia were making tentative hops, skips and jumps about the same time. So had the Yanks not taken out the "first" trophy, someone else would have done so shortly after.

And the Brits at one stage excelled at mass production, eg late 19th century through to the 1970s. But they never seemed to have the working capital for new and huge machinery and the "think big" the Yanks had. Was interesting to read in Exactly/Perfection that it was actually the Yanks at Springfield Armory who pioneered mass production techniques.Their inventions were soon embraced and even improved upon in UK and Europe though.

I thouroughly enjoyed the book. Highly recommend it.

And were it not for Ingineers (particularly British ones), any sort of C*** we produced had a ready export market to the far flung limits of the "British Empire". Until the late nineties, many of the British companies we supplied to had the "You should be honoured to supply to us" mindset.

Regards Ian.

 Edit, we have NEVER excelled at mass production. WE have the unfortunate habit of constantly trying to improve products whilst in manufacture.

Edited By Circlip on 10/10/2019 12:59:18

Fluoride waste from fertilizer manufacturing used to fluoridate drinking water to reduce dental cavities.

Solid waste from sewage treatment plants sold as fertilizer.

Peanut shells from food processing and bark chips from lumber mills sold as garden mulch.

And sausages… let's not even go there.

If an engineer had invented Brexit, would we be out with a deal by now?

According to Wikipedia:-

'The first gas turbine to successfully run self-sustainingly was built in 1903 by Norwegian engineer Ægidius Elling.'

and:

'it was German inventor Christian Hülsmeyer who first used them to build a simple ship detection device'

Many so-called' inventions are developed simultaneously by different people, who build on ideas which existed long before the invention, and either the technology was not available to make them work, or the idea was not taken up in the first instance.

As a counterpoint to a list of successful "Brit" inventions, I am sure all of you can think of British inventions and developments which went nowhere – the aviation industry has many examples.