Power, Speed, and Form

Engineers and the Making of the Twentieth Century

David P. Billington Jr.

270 pages, parution le 26/11/2006

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Résumé

Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account of the engineering behind eight breakthrough innovations that transformed American life from 1876 to 1939--the telephone, electric power, oil refining, the automobile, the airplane, radio, the long-span steel bridge, and building with reinforced concrete. Beginning with Thomas Edison's system to generate and distribute electric power, the authors explain the Bell telephone, the oil refining processes of William Burton and Eugene Houdry, Henry Ford's Model T car and the response by General Motors, the Wright brothers' airplane, radio innovations from Marconi to Armstrong, Othmar Ammann's George Washington Bridge, the reinforced concrete structures of John Eastwood and Anton Tedesko, and in the 1930s, the Chrysler Airflow car and the Douglas DC-3 airplane.

These innovations used simple numerical ideas, which the Billingtons integrate with short narrative accounts of each breakthrough--a unique and effective way to introduce engineering and how engineers think. The book shows how the best engineering exemplifies efficiency, economy and, where possible, elegance. With Power, Speed, and Form, educators, first-year engineering students, liberal arts students, and general readers now have, for the first time in one volume, an accessible and readable history of engineering achievements that were vital to America's development and that are still the foundations of modern life.

L'auteur - David P. Billington Jr.

David P. Billington Jr. holds a Ph.D. in modern history from the University of Texas and is an independent scholar.

Sommaire

List of Sidebars
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
The World's Fairs of 1876 and 1939
Edison, Westinghouse, and Electric Power
Bell and the Telephone
Burton, Houdry, and the Refining of Oil
Ford, Sloan, and the Automobile
The Wright Brothers and the Airplane
Radio: From Hertz to Armstrong
Ammann and the George Washington Bridge
Eastwood, Tedesko, and Reinforced Concrete
Streamlining: Chrysler and Douglas
Appendix: The Edison Dynamo and the Parallel Circuit
Notes 2
Index

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Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Princeton University Press
Auteur(s)	David P. Billington Jr.
Parution	26/11/2006
Nb. de pages	270
Format	22,5 x 23,5
Couverture	Relié
Poids	869g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780691102924
ISBN13	978-0-691-10292-4