Technology & Engineering Books

CHAPTER I. Man's Duel with Nature Of all man's great achievements none is, perhaps, more full of human interest than are those concerned with flight. We regard ourselves as remarkable beings, and our wonderful discoveries in science and invention induce us to believe we are far and away the cleverest of all the living creatures in the great scheme of Creation. And yet in the matter of flight... more...

Introduction This report has been undertaken for a special reason. It is to explain to the taxpayer just why so many of his dollars are going into the American effort to explore space, and to indicate what he can expect in return which is of value to him. Such an explanation, even after 2 years of relatively high-geared activity in the space exploration field, appears to be warranted. There is still a... more...

Robert Fulton. This story is about a giant. Do you believe in them? He peeps out of your coffee cup in the morning. He cheers you upon a cold day in winter. But the boys and girls were not so well acquainted with him a hundred years ago. About that long ago, far to the north and east, a queer boy lived. He sat in his grandmother's kitchen many an hour, watching the tea-kettle. He seemed to be... more...

CHAPTER I. THE INTRODUCTION OF AIRCRAFT INTO MILITARY OPERATIONS It is a curious circumstance that an invention, which is hailed as being one of the greatest achievements ever recorded in the march of civilisation, should be devoted essentially to the maiming of humanity and the destruction of property. In no other trend of human endeavour is this factor so potently demonstrated as in connection with... more...

CHAPTER I. "That's it, Jack. Let her out!" "Suffering speed laws of Squantum, but she can travel!" exclaimed Dick Donovan, redheaded and voluble. "I tell you, electricity is the thing. Beats gasoline a million ways," chimed in Tom Jesson. Tom sat beside his cousin, Jack Chadwick, on the driver's seat of a curious-looking automobile which was whizzing down the smooth,... more...

CHAPTER I ESSENTIALS OF SUCCESS Columella, the much traveled Spanish-Roman writer of the first century A. D., said that for successful farming three things are essential: knowledge, capital and love for the calling. This statement is just as true today as it was when written 1900 years ago by this early writer on European agriculture. Every man who loves the calling and has an ambition to become a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. "He that would learn to fly must be brought up to the constant practice of it from his youth, trying first only to use his wings as a tame goose will do, so by degrees learning to rise higher till he attain unto skill and confidence." So wrote Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, who was reckoned a man of genius and learning in the days of the Commonwealth. But so... more...

Advantages of Common-Battery Operation. The advantages of the common-battery system of operation, alluded to in Chapter XIII, may be briefly summarized here. The main gain in the common-battery system of supply is the simplification of the subscribers' instruments, doing away with the local batteries and the magneto generators, and the concentration of all these many sources of current into one... more...

HOW NEWSPAPERS ARE MADE. We will suppose that it is a great newspaper, in a great city, printing daily 25,000, or more, copies. Here it is, with wide columns, with small, compact type, with very little space wasted in head lines, eight large pages of it, something like 100,000 words printed upon it, and sold for four cents—25,000 words for a cent. It is a great institution—a power greater than a... more...