The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
Page 39
remontoir, in Harrison’s sea watch, 35
rifles:
breech-loaded single-shot, 97–98
Victoria’s opening shot in 1860 Grand Rifle Match, 107–10
Whitworth, 108, 109
Robbins and Lawrence Co., 94n
robots, 166
Rolls, Charles, 135, 140–41, 142
automotive mishap of, 144–45
on reasons for Rolls-Royce’s success, 154–55
Royce’s first meeting with, 143–44
Rolls-Royce jet engines, 196–213, 205
Advanced Blade Casting Facility for, 207
Avon, 196n, 199
Blade Cooling Research Group for, 199, 201
Comet, 196n, 198, 200
Quantas Flight 32 and, 174–78, 178, 196, 207–12, 208, 229
RB211, 203n
Trent 900-series, 174–78, 178, 205, 212
Trent XWB, 206
Rolls-Royce Motors, 6, 129–55
aircraft engine manufacture begun by, 196n
author’s own experiences with vehicles, 129–30, 131–35
Camargue, 134–35
clandestine repair procedures for, 132
Decauville as basis for early models, 138–39, 145–46, 158
demise of, 130, 134–35
English lexicon and, 155
founding of, 131, 143
name of company, 135, 143, 155
precision’s role at Ford vs., 131, 166–67
promoted as motoring world’s finest example of precision engineering, 130
Royce Ten, Twenty, and Thirty models, 138–43, 144–45
Silver Ghost, see Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost
Silver Seraph, 129–30
Silver Spirit, 133–34
see also Royce, Henry
Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, 146–55, 147
American factory and buyers of, 152
demonstration car’s tests and long-distance expedition, 148–52
indestructibly well made, 151–52
manufacturing process for, 152–54, 166
originally called Rolls-Royce 40/50, 147–48
penny and glassware stunts performed on, 150
produced at rate of two cars a day, 154–55
quiet engine of, 150
Royal Air Force (RAF), 196n
Whittle in employ of, 182, 183–84, 192
Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC), 8–11
Royal Automobile Club (RAC), 148n, 149, 150, 151, 152
Royal Navy, 59, 66–73
cannon making for, 39, 41–44
Harrison’s early sea clock trials and, 34, 35–36, 39
pulley blocks built for, 65–66, 67–71
sailing vessels of, 66–67
Royal Society of Arts (RSA), 55–56, 112, 113n, 195
Royce, Henry, 131, 135–55, 137, 276
as apprentice in Great Northern Railway workshop, 135–36
birth and early years of, 135
crane market and, 136–37
electrical devices manufactured and sold by, 136
Ford compared to, 131, 155–56, 158–59, 165–66
French cars as starting point for, 137–39, 145–46, 158
Rolls’s overtures to, 140–41, 142, 143
Royce Ten engineering and, 138–43
see also Rolls-Royce Motors
Royce Limited, 136–37
Russell, Bertrand, 343
samurai swords, 308
satellites, 293, 350
GPS and, 37, 267, 268–69, 270–72, 274
intelligence-gathering, 236–37, 271, 345n
“space fence” for detection of, 266
Sputnik, 259–61, 262, 285
U.S. Navy Transit navigation system and, 262–64, 263
see also Hubble Space Telescope
Sayer, Gerry, 191, 192–94
Sayers, Dorothy L., Gaudy Night, 255
Schriever Air Force Base (Colo.), GPS run from, 270–72, 271, 353
science fiction, 181
Science Museum (London), 60, 78
Scott, Walter, 58
screw making, 63–64
screws, standardized, 120, 121, 123
sea watches, made by Harrison (H4 and K1), 31–32, 34–36
second, defining, 334, 349–50, 352
Sedgwick, John, 124
Seiko, 308, 309, 310–22, 316, 351
all components also made by, 312, 319
building of, in Ginza district of Tokyo, 312, 313, 313
first quartz watch made by (Astron), 314, 315–16, 318
Grand Seiko mechanical watch, 318–19, 319
name of, 311–12, 313
principal factory of, in Morioka, 309, 310, 316–22, 319
reverence for watchmaker’s craft at, 316, 319–22
Selden (litigant in patent case against Ford), 159–60
semiconductors, 281, 282, 283, 288
see also integrated circuitry; microprocessor chips; transistors
Setright, L. J. K., Drive On!, 129
sewing machines, 102, 105, 161n
sextants, 37, 38, 259n
Shaw, Bernard, 58
Sheldon, John, 56n
shilling coin, 22, 51
shipping industry, timekeeping and, 29–37
ships:
powered by turbines, 186
see also navigation
Shockley, William, 281–82, 282, 283–84, 287
Shockley Transistors, 283–84
shoe, as thing of low tolerance, 18–19
shoe last lathe, Blanchard’s design for, 19n, 101
Shovell, Sir Cloudesley, 31
shrapnel, invention of, 87n
Shrapnel, Sir Henry, 87n
silica, LIGO test mass made of, 305, 305–6
Silicon Valley, 283
silicon wafers, for microprocessor chips, 283, 292–93, 298
Singapore Airlines, 211
Singer, Isaac, 102
SKF, 33, 170
Skylake chips, 291, 297–98
slide rest, invention of, 62–63, 64–65
smartphones, 228, 276
Smith, James, Panorama of Science and Art, 75
Smith and Wesson, 102
Soviet Union:
global navigation system of (GLONASS), 270
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shot down by, 269
“space fence,” 266
spectacles, 221–23
bifocal lenses in, 222–23
speed of light, 298
GPS and, 265, 266, 267, 272
kilogram defined in terms of, 348
spherical aberration, 224, 235
in Hubble’s main mirror, 233, 235, 240–43, 241
reduced by aspherical lens, 220, 228
Spitzer Space Telescope, 232n
Spottsylvania, Battle of (1864), 124
Springfield, Mass., Rolls-Royce factory in, 152
Springfield Armory (Mass.), 84, 98, 98, 101, 102, 161n
Sputnik, 259–61, 262, 285
plotting location from radio signals of, 260–61
standardization, 86
French weaponry and, 86–93
see also interchangeable parts
start-ups, invention of term, 284n
steam, figurative use of word, 74n
steam engines, 39, 44–52, 304
Boulton and Watt, 46, 48, 71
first factory run entirely from output of, 71–72
invention of precision and, 22, 51–52
leaking of steam from, 48–49
Newcomen’s “fire-engine,” 44–45, 46
principle of, 44
Watt’s improvements to design of, 45–47
Watt’s passion for exactitude and, 47–48
Watt’s patent for, 46, 47
Wilkinson’s cylinder-boring technique applied to, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49–52, 304, 306
steam-powered machines, in Crystal Palace exhibition, 116, 117–18
steel, Whitworth, 124
Summilux lenses, 220, 224–25, 227,
228
supersonic passenger planes, 195
surveying:
GPS used in, 270
Great Trigonometric Survey of India, 273n
Switzerland, watch making in, 315, 316
Talleyrand, Prince of, 333–34, 348
target, shooting with precision vs. accuracy, 14–16, 15
taxation of vehicles, 147–48
telescopes, 222
James Webb Space Telescope, 231n, 294, 295, 299
see also Hubble Space Telescope
temperature:
bimetallic strips and changes in, 33–34
kelvin as unit of, 346
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 107
Terror, 92, 335, 336
Tesla, Nikola, 347n
tetsubin (hammered-iron teakettle), 309–10
Texas Instruments, 288
textile industry, mechanization of, 74
Thorne, Kip, 303–4
three surfaces, grinding and planing to flatness, 75–76
threshing engines, Westinghouse, 156–58
time, 28, 347–55
decimal, 349n
ephemeris, 350
human constructs for, 28, 348–50; see also specific units of time
length of pendulum and, 332–33, 349
link between gravity and, 354–55
local, determining from sun and stars, 30n
longitude meridians as markers of, 30n
postrevolutionary Republican Calendar and, 333–34
units of measurement defined in terms of, 347–48
timekeepers, 28–37
Ancient Greek predecessor of (Antikythera mechanism), 24–27, 36
in monasteries, 28–29
Nature’s offerings of dawn, midday, and dusk and, 28
navigation across oceans and, 29–37
railways and, 29, 313–14
see also clocks; watches
Times (London), 194
Timken, 33
Tizard, Henry, 185n, 189
tolerances, 16–19
automation necessitated by shrinkage of, to none whatsover, 206–7
of camera and lens makers, 227–28
first formal definition of, 18n
gauge blocks and, 171
of gun makers, 89, 100
and inherently imprecise nature of wood, 17
low, of shoes, 18–19
of manufactured metal, glass, or ceramic, 17–18
of Maudsley’s bench micrometer, 78
for microprocessor chips, 278, 280
quantum mechanics and, 212–13
of screws made with Maudsley and Bramah’s slide rest, 64
for smartphones, 228
to which Wilkinson ground out his first cylinder, 51–52
Whitworth’s measuring device and, 122
traceability, 104n
Trailblazer, oil rig location system used by, 255–59, 262
transistor radios, 282
transistors, 278, 279, 280
first working device, 281–82, 283
integrated circuitry and, 286–91
Lilienfeld’s concept for, 281
mesa, 285, 288n
miniaturization of, 282–83, 284–85, 287–91, 294–98
Moore’s law and, 279–80, 289, 290–91, 292, 295–96, 297
planar, invention of, 283, 284–85, 286n, 287, 288n
reliability issues and, 285
silicon oxide coating on, 285, 286
silicon wafer–based, introduction of, 283
term coined for, 282
see also microprocessor chips
Transit navigation system, 262–63, 263
Treaty of the Metre (1875), 338
Truman, Harry, 281
Tuillaume, Maxime, 179
turbine engines:
for aircraft, see jet engines
before jet propulsion, 186
typewriters, 161n
United Technologies, 237n
universe, expansion of, 231
Ur-Leica, 220, 221, 227
urushi (Japanese handmade lacquerware), 326–28, 327
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (Washington, D.C.), 260
Vaucanson, Jacques de, 65
Verne, Jules, 181
Vernier, Pierre, 120–21
Vickers Viscount, 198, 200
Victoria, Queen, 107–11
opening shot in 1860 Grand Rifle Match fired by, 107–10, 118
Vivian Grey (Disraeli), 74n
Voigtländer, 219
Volkswagen, 130, 135
volume, standard unit of, 333, 336–37
wabi-sabi, 314
Wagner, Herbert, 184
War of 1812, shortcomings of U.S. Army’s muskets in, 81–85, 86–87
washing machines, 105
watches:
quartz, 314–16, 316, 351
railways and, 29, 313–14
sea, made by Harrison (H4 and K1), 31–32, 34–36
Seiko and, 311–13
wristwatches, 290, 308
Watt, James, 45–52, 111, 117
Newcomen’s engine design improved by, 45–47, 46
patent awarded to, 46, 47
personality and demeanor of, 47–48
Wilkinson’s cylinder-boring technique applied to steam engine of, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49–52, 304, 306
weaponry:
handmade, physical shortcomings of, 84
with inbuilt GPS systems, 269
nuclear strategic arsenal, 262, 264, 269
Whitworth’s designs for, 123–24
see also cannon making; guns; muskets, flintlock
week, defining, 333–34, 349
Weiffenbach, George, 259–62
Weiler, Edward, 234–35, 251
Wellington, Duke, 58
Wells, H. G., 181
Westinghouse threshing engines, 156–58
Whitney, Eli:
cotton gin introduced by, 94, 96
muskets made for U.S. government by, 94–97, 98
Whittle, Frank, 173, 178, 179, 180–96
financial backing for, 184–85, 189
first flight of experimental aircraft fitted with his jet engine, 190, 191–94
future aircraft envisioned by, 181–82
honors bestowed on, 194–95
jet engine designed by, 180, 182–87, 191, 200
jet engine tested by, 187–90
patent granted to, 183–84
in postwar years, 194–96
as student at Cranwell (Royal Air Force academy), 180–82
Whittle, Ian, 195–96
Whitworth, Joseph, 108, 109, 110–11, 112, 118–25
on American engineering and labor market, 122–23
apprenticed to Maudslay, 119–20
armaments produced by, 123–24
billiard table designed by, 124–25
flatness of surface plates and, 119–20
measuring machine created by, 118–19, 120–23
physical appearance and demeanor of, 118
rifle made by, used in American Civil War, 123–24
screw-measuring notation and (BSW), 123
standardized screws invented by, 120, 121, 123
steel alloy produced by, 124
Victoria’s firing of rifle made by, 107–10, 118, 123
Whitworth Scholarship, Cambridge University, 185n
Whyte, Lancelot Law, 173, 184–85
wide-angle lenses, 220, 226, 228
Wilkins, John, 332–33, 348
Wilkinson, Isaac, 40
Wilkinson, John, 23, 38–44, 40, 45, 55, 122, 304–6
cannon making improved by, 41–44, 87
cylinder-boring technique of, applied to steam engines, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49–52, 304, 306
Gainsborough’s portraits of, 38–39
iron smelting and forging and, 40–41, 43, 49
obsessed with iron, 23, 47
patent awarded to, 43, 47, 87
personality and demeanor of, 47
Wi
lliams, Tennessee, The Glass Menagerie, 255
Wimperis, Harry, 185n
Winchester, 102
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 345
W1X engine, 190
wood, as inherently imprecise material, 17
Woolwich Royal Arsenal (East London), 59
Works (Hall), 331
World War II, 184, 190
wringing apart metal tiles, 3
wristwatches, 290, 308
WU (Whittle Unit), 185
Yale, Linus, 127
year, defining, 349, 350
ytterbium clock, 353
A Note on the Type
The typeface mostly employed in this book is a modern interpretation of the classic eighteenth-century Didone serif face Bodoni, and known as Filosofia. This was created in 1996 by the Bratislava-born type designer Zuzana Licko, who, with her Dutch-born husband, Rudy Vanderlans, delighted the typographic world during the closing decades of the twentieth century with a whirlwind of type design, largely occasioned by the invention of the Macintosh computer in 1984. Filosofia, with its slightly bulging serifs and lighter-than-classical-Bodoni vertical lines, and easily recognizable with its below-the-baseline numbers 3,4,5,7, and 9, clearly owes much to one of the most beloved of all Italian faces, but is more amiable and less wearing to the eyes when ranged over texts as lengthy and complex as that of The Perfectionists. I am proud that this book’s designer felt once again able to employ this wonderful typeface, and applaud with gratitude its most gifted creator.
SW
About the Author
SIMON WINCHESTER is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, Atlantic, Pacific, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best-of and notable lists. In 2006, Mr. Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He lives in western Massachusetts.
www.simonwinchester.com
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