‘Discovery, Invention and Exploration’ Archives
History of Electricity
History of Electricity This concept emerged during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, closely associated with magnetism. It soon became important within the development of matter theory and the treatment of occult qualities. William Gilbert (1544–1603) is often credited as the founder of the science of electricity. He was the first [...]
Bathyscaph
Bathyscaph The bathyscaph (also spelled bathyscaphe) was the first successful deepwater diving vessel, an early SUBMERSIBLE with its own pressurized oxygen supply and not tethered to a ship on the water’s surface. The name is derived from Greek and means “deep boat.” The fourth-generation bathyscaph, Trieste II, was the first manned [...]
Carl Peters
Carl Peters (1856–1918) Explorer, adventurer, and colonial enthusiast behind the colonization of German East Africa. Convinced that Germany’s economic survival depended on the acquisition of colonies, in March 1884 Peters helped found the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation (Society for German Colonization), a colonial lobby that was [...]
Alidade
Alidade The term alidade is derived from an Arabic phrase meaning “the revolving radius of a circle.” First appearing in English in the 1400s, the term came to be applied to specific surveying and navigational instruments. One early device known as an alidade consisted of a surveying rule equipped with simple or telescopic sights; it was [...]
Surveyors
Surveyors Despite their generally poor training, colonial surveyors played an important role in shaping the early American landscape. Their primary instrument was the Gunter’s Chain, which helped minimize the errors made by surveyors with limited mathematical skills. The chain contained one hundred links and measured sixty-six feet. A [...]
Machine Gun
Machine Gun A generic term for an automatic weapon capable of fi ring small-arms ammunition continuously and rapidly. The first cyclic firing weapon constructed was probably James Puckle’s Defence gun from 1718. The Gatling gun, constructed by Richard Jordan Gatling in 1861, was the first to see action, notably in the American Civil War at [...]
David Livingstone
David Livingstone (1813–1873) Scottish explorer, missionary, and philanthropist, David Livingstone was born in Blantyre Works, Lanarkshire. Of humble origins, he was nonetheless able to save suffi cient money to attend medical school in Glasgow and win a degree in 1840. In 1841, the London Missionary Society assigned Livingstone to [...]
Gyroscopes
Gyroscopes Most of you have probably played with a spinning top. A gyroscope is based on this same principle. An eighteenth-century English scientist, John Serson, noticed that a spinning top had a tendency to remain level even when the surface upon which it was spinning was tilting. He suggested that sailors could use it as an artificial [...]
Deep-Sea Exploration
Deep-Sea Exploration I INTRODUCTION Deep-Sea Exploration, investigation of physical, chemical, and biological conditions at the bottom of the ocean, for scientific and commercial purposes. The depths of the sea have been investigated with precision only during comparatively recent years; compared to the other areas of geological research, [...]
John Presper Jr. Eckert
John Presper Jr. Eckert American electrical engineer and co-inventor of one of the first digital electronic computers. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Eckert attended the University of Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1941 and a master’s degree in 1943, both in the field of electrical engineering. While there, he met John W. [...]
