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Babbage, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Babbage, Charles băbˈĭj [key], 1792–1871, English mathematician and inventor. He devoted most of his life and expended much of his private fortune and a government subsidy in an attempt to perfec...

Archimedes' screw

(Encyclopedia)Archimedes' screw, a simple mechanical device believed to have been invented by Archimedes in the 3d cent. b.c. It consists of a cylinder inside of which a continuous screw, extending the length of th...

embossing

(Encyclopedia)embossing, process of producing upon various materials designs or patterns in relief by mechanical means. The material is pressed between a pair of dies especially adapted to its hardness and the dept...

Vesoul

(Encyclopedia)Vesoul vəzo͞olˈ [key], town (1990 est. pop. 19,404), capital of Haute-Saône dept., E France, in Franche-Comté. Agricultural and mechanical equipment and metal products are the chief manufactures....

descriptive geometry

(Encyclopedia)descriptive geometry, branch of geometry concerned with the two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional objects; it was introduced in 1795 by Gaspard Monge. By means of such representations, g...

Savery, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Savery, Thomas, c.1650–1715, English engineer. He became a military engineer, rising to the rank of captain by 1702. He spent his free time performing experiments in mechanics, inventing such device...

Rowland, Henry Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Rowland, Henry Augustus rōˈlənd [key], 1848–1901, American physicist, b. Honesdale, Pa., grad. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1870. He was professor of physics at Johns Hopkins from 1875. Rowl...

robot

(Encyclopedia)robot or automaton ôtämˈətänˌ [key] mechanical device designed to perform the work generally done by a human being. The Czech dramatist Karel Čapek popularized the expression [Czech,=compulsory...

Rogers, William Barton

(Encyclopedia)Rogers, William Barton, 1804–82, American geologist and educator, b. Philadelphia, grad. William and Mary, 1822. He was professor of geology at William and Mary (1828–35) and at the Univ. of Virgi...

hydrophone

(Encyclopedia)hydrophone hīˈdrəfōnˌ [key], device that receives underwater sound waves and converts them to electrical energy; the voltage generated can then be read on a meter or played through a loudspeaker....