1.
Lock (water navigation)
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A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. Locks are used to make a more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a direct route to be taken. Since 2016 the largest lock worldwide is the Kieldrecht Lock in the Port of Antwerp, a pound lock is a type of lock that is used almost exclusively nowadays on canals and rivers. A pound lock has a chamber with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound, in contrast, an earlier design with a single gate was known as a flash lock. Pound locks were first used in medieval China during the Song Dynasty, having been pioneered by the government official and engineer Qiao Weiyue in 984. The gates were hanging gates, when they were closed the water accumulated like a tide until the level was reached. The water level could differ by 4 feet or 5 feet at each lock, in medieval Europe a sort of pound lock was built in 1373 at Vreeswijk, Netherlands. This pound lock serviced many ships at once in a large basin, yet the first true pound lock was built in 1396 at Damme near Bruges, Belgium. A famous civil engineer of pound locks in Europe was the Italian Bertola da Novate, who constructed 18 of them on the Naviglio di Bereguardo between the years 1452 and 1458. When a stretch of river is navigable, a lock is sometimes required to bypass an obstruction such as a rapid, dam. In large scale river navigation improvements, weirs and locks are used together, a river improved by these means is often called a Waterway or River Navigation. Sometimes a river is made entirely non-tidal by constructing a sea lock directly into the estuary, in more advanced river navigations, more locks are required. Where a longer cut bypasses a stretch of river, the upstream end of the cut will often be protected by a flood lock. The longer the cut, the greater the difference in level between start and end of the cut, so that a very long cut will need additional locks along its length. At this point, the cut is, in effect, a canal, Early completely artificial canals, across fairly flat countryside, would get round a small hill or depression by simply detouring around it. However, locks continued to be built to supplement these solutions, all pound locks have three elements, A watertight chamber connecting the upper and lower canals, and large enough to enclose one or more boats. The position of the chamber is fixed, but its level can vary
2.
Huddersfield Broad Canal
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The Huddersfield Broad Canal or Sir John Ramsdens Canal, is a wide-locked navigable canal in West Yorkshire in northern England. The waterway is 3.75 miles long and has 9 wide locks and it follows the valley of the River Colne and connects the Calder and Hebble Navigation at Cooper Bridge junction with the Huddersfield Narrow Canal near Aspley Basin in Huddersfield. Construction was authorised in 1774, and the canal opened two years later and it became part of a trans-Pennine route in 1811 when the Huddersfield Narrow Canal joined it at Aspley Basin. Traffic was hampered by the long used on the narrow canal that could not use Ramsdens Canals shorter locks. The canal passed into railway ownership in 1845, but prospered into the 20th century, Railway ownership ceased in 1945, when it was bought by the Calder and Hebble Navigation, at which point the narrow canal across the Pennines was abandoned. The broad canal carried commercial traffic, particularly coal for power stations, after the formation of British Waterways in 1962, the canal was designated a cruiseway in 1968, which meant that it was mainly for leisure traffic. Use of the canal has increased significantly since the Hudderfield Narrow Canal re-opened in 2001, many of its structures have been given listed building status, in recognition of their historic importance. In 1766, Robert Whitworth surveyed a route for such a canal, a second survey was carried out in 1773 by Luke Holt and Joseph Atkinson for the Ramsden family, who owned the whole of Huddersfield at the time and keen to develop the canal. The family also owned roughly one-third of the land along the route of the canal. Holt had worked on the construction of the Calder and Hebble above Cooper Bridge, the estimated cost of its construction was £8,000, and it was expected to take one year to complete. Profits were limited by the act, which stipulated that the tolls must be cut as the profits increased, commissioners were to be appointed, with powers to examine the canal accounts and ensure compliance. In order to prevent water drawn by the canal from interfering with the operation of local mills, although a connection to the River Colne at Huddersfield was authorised by the act, the upper terminus was a basin at Apsley, where Ramsden built wharves and warehouses. From the basin it descended 57.3 feet over a distance of 3.75 miles, to its junction with the Calder, the canal opened in 1776, having cost £11,975, although the total included some maintenance costs. Water was taken from the River Colne and fed into the canal from the tail goit of Shaw Foot Mill until it was supplied by the Huddersfield Narrow Canal after it opened in 1811. The canal prospered, and in 1788, a service transporting goods between Huddersfield and Wakefield was operating three times a week. During the 1790s, goods were carried over the Pennines by road, with one service, operated by Richard Milnes, the Rochdale Canal provided a trans-Pennine route from 1804, and Sowerby Bridge remained more important than Huddersfield, even after the Huddersfield Narrow opened throughout in 1811. It was never successful, and Ramsdens Canal was seen almost as a branch of the Calder and Hebble, with links to Yorkshire. The Calder and Hebble brought prosperity to the area, and Ramsdens Canal shared in it, the Narrow Canal was hampered by the need to tranship cargoes at Huddersfield
3.
Winch
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A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in or let out or otherwise adjust the tension of a rope or wire rope. In its simplest form it consists of a spool and attached hand crank, in larger forms, winches stand at the heart of machines as diverse as tow trucks, steam shovels and elevators. The spool can also be called the winch drum, more elaborate designs have gear assemblies and can be powered by electric, hydraulic, pneumatic or internal combustion drives. Some may include a solenoid brake and/or a mechanical brake or ratchet, the rope is usually stored on the winch. When trimming a line on a sailboat, the member turns the winch handle with one hand. Some winches have a stripper or cleat to maintain tension and these are known as self-tailing winches. Winches are frequently used as elements of mechanics to move scenery in large theatrical productions. They are often embedded in the floor and used to move large set pieces on. Winches have recently been fabricated specifically for water and snow sports and this new generation of winches is designed to pull riders swiftly across a body of water or snow, simulating a riding experience that is normally supplied by a boat, wave runner, or snow mobile. Lever winches are winches that use self-gripping jaws instead of spools to move rope or wire through the winch, powered by moving a handle back and forth, they allow one person to move objects several tons in weight. Brand names include Tirfor™ and Griphoist™ and this is a vertical spool with a ratchet mechanism similar to a conventional winch, but with no crank handle or other form of drive. The line is wrapped around the spool and can be tightened and reeled in by pulling the tail line and they also allow controlled release of the tension by the operator using the friction of the line around the ratcheted spool. They are used on small sailing boats and dinghies to control sheets and other lines, wakeskate winching is a growing hobby for many watersports enthusiasts. The winch consists of an engine, spool, rope, handle, frame, the person being towed walks away from the winch and pulls out all of the rope. When the winch is engaged, it pulls the boarder usually between 15 to 25 miles per hour, the winch may be mounted on the trailer hitch of a vehicle, set into the ground by stakes, or tied to a tree. These winches have been modified for use by skiers and snowboarders in cities, gliders are often launched using a winch mounted on a trailer or heavy vehicle. This method is used at European gliding clubs, as a cheaper alternative to aerotowing. The engine is usually a large Petrol, LPG or diesel, though hydraulic fluid engines, the winch pulls in a 1,000 to 1, 600-metre cable, made of high-tensile steel wire or a synthetic fibre, attached to the glider
4.
Wang Zhen (inventor)
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This article is about Wang Zhen, agronomist and inventor. For other historical figures with this name, see Wang Zhen, Wang Zhen was an official of the Yuan Dynasty of China. He was one of the innovators of the wooden movable type printing technology. His illustrated agricultural treatise was also one of the most advanced of its day, covering a range of equipment and technologies available in the late 13th. Wang Zhen was born in Shandong province, and spent many years as an official of both Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. From the years 1290 to 1301, he was a magistrate for Jingde, Anhui province, the wooden movable type was described in Wang Zhens publication of 1313 AD, known as the Nong Shu, or Book of Agriculture. Although the title describes the focus of the work, it incorporated much more information on a wide variety of subjects that was not limited to the scope of agriculture. Wang Zhens Nong Shu of 1313 was an important medieval treatise outlining the application and use of the various Chinese sciences, technologies. From water powered bellows to movable type printing, it is considered a masterpiece on contemporary medieval Chinese technology. Hence, a such as the Nong Shu could help rural farmers maximize efficiency of producing yields. The Nong Shu was a long book even for its own time. The Chinese during the Han Dynasty were the first to apply hydraulic power in working the bellows of the blast furnace in creating cast iron. This was recorded in the year 31 AD, an innovation of the engineer Du Shi, after Du Shi, Chinese in subsequent dynastic periods continued the use of water power to operate the bellows of the blast furnace. The 5th century text Shui Jing Zhu mentions the use of rushing water to power waterwheels, as does the Tang Dynasty geography text of the Yuan-he Jun Xian Tu Chi. Although Du Shi was the first to apply power to bellows in metallurgy. Wang Zhen is best known for his usage of wooden movable type while he was a magistrate of Jingde in Anhui province from 1290 to 1301. His main contribution was improving the speed of typesetting with simple devices, along with the complex. Wang Zhen improved the earlier experimented process by adding the methods of specific type cutting and finishing, making the type case and revolving table that made the process more efficient
5.
Vitruvius
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His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body, led to the famous Renaissance drawing by Da Vinci of Vitruvian Man. By his own description Vitruvius served as an artilleryman, the class of arms in the military offices. He probably served as a officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum. Little is known about Vitruvius life, most inferences about him are extracted from his only surviving work De Architectura. Even his first name Marcus and his cognomen Pollio are uncertain. Cetius Faventinus writes of Vitruvius Polio aliique auctores, this can be read as Vitruvius Polio, and others or, less likely, as Vitruvius, Polio, Vitruvius was a military engineer, or a praefect architectus armamentarius of the apparitor status group. He is mentioned in Pliny the Elders table of contents for Naturalis Historia, frontinus refers to Vitruvius the architect in his late 1st-century work De aquaeductu. Likely born a free Roman citizen, by his own account, Vitruvius served the Roman army under Caesar with the otherwise poorly identified Marcus Aurelius, Publius Minidius and these names vary depending on the edition of De architectura. Publius Minidius is also written as Publius Numidicus and Publius Numidius, as an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for sieges. It is speculated that Vitruvius served with Caesars chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus, the locations where he served can be reconstructed from, for example, descriptions of the building methods of various foreign tribes. Although he describes places throughout De Architectura, he not say he was present. His service likely included north Africa, Hispania, Gaul and Pontus, the position of the camp, the direction of the entrenchments, the inspection of the tents or huts of the soldiers and the baggage were comprehended in his province. His authority extended over the sick, and the physicians who had the care of them and he had the charge of providing carriages, bathhouses and the proper tools for sawing and cutting wood, digging trenches, raising parapets, sinking wells and bringing water into the camp. He likewise had the care of furnishing the troops with wood and straw, as well as the rams, onagri, balistae, at various locations described by Vitruvius, battles and sieges occurred. He is the source for the siege of Larignum in 56 BC. The broken siege at Gergovia in 52 BC, and the siege of Uxellodunum in 51 BC. These are all sieges of large Gallic oppida, a legion that fits the same sequence of locations is the Legio VI Ferrata, of which ballista would be an auxiliary unit. Mainly known for his writings, Vitruvius was himself an architect, frontinus mentions him in connection with the standard sizes of pipes
6.
Hero of Alexandria
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Hero of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. He is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition, Hero published a well recognized description of a steam-powered device called an aeolipile. Among his most famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land and he is said to have been a follower of the atomists. Some of his ideas were derived from the works of Ctesibius, much of Heros original writings and designs have been lost, but some of his works were preserved in Arabic manuscripts. Hero described the construction of the aeolipile which was a reaction engine. It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution, another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel, the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors. Some historians have conflated the two inventions to assert that the aeolipile was capable of useful work. The first vending machine was one of his constructions, when a coin was introduced via a slot on the top of the machine. This was included in his list of inventions in his book Mechanics and Optics, when the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened up a valve which let some water flow out, the pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counter-weight would snap the lever back up and turn off the valve. A windwheel operating an organ, marking the first instance of wind powering a machine in history, the sound of thunder was produced by the mechanically-timed dropping of metal balls onto a hidden drum. The force pump was used in the Roman world. A syringe-like device was described by Hero to control the delivery of air or liquids. In optics, Hero formulated the principle of the shortest path of light, If a ray of light propagates from point A to point B within the same medium, a standalone fountain that operates under self-contained hydrostatic energy A programmable cart that was powered by a falling weight. The program consisted of strings wrapped around the drive axle, Hero described a method for iteratively computing the square root of a number. Today, however, his name is most closely associated with Heros formula for finding the area of a triangle from its side lengths, the most comprehensive edition of Heros works was published in five volumes in Leipzig by the publishing house Teubner in 1903. The Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity, A Study of the Literary Sources, madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press. Greek and Roman Artillery, Technical Treatises, Schellenberg, H. M. Anmerkungen zu Hero von Alexandria und seinem Werk über den Geschützbau, in, Schellenberg, H. M. / Hirschmann, V. E. / Krieckhaus, A
7.
Simple machine
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A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force. In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage to multiply force, ignoring friction losses, the work done on the load is equal to the work done by the applied force. The machine can increase the amount of the force, at the cost of a proportional decrease in the distance moved by the load. The ratio of the output to the force is called the mechanical advantage. Simple machines can be regarded as the building blocks of which all more complicated machines are composed. For example, wheels, levers, and pulleys are all used in the mechanism of a bicycle, the mechanical advantage of a compound machine is just the product of the mechanical advantages of the simple machines of which it is composed. The great variety and sophistication of modern machine linkages, which arose during the Industrial Revolution, is described by these six simple categories. By the late 1800s, Franz Reuleaux had identified hundreds of machine elements, Models of these devices may be found at Cornell Universitys Kinematic Models for Design website. The idea of a simple machine originated with the Greek philosopher Archimedes around the 3rd century BC, who studied the Archimedean simple machines, lever, pulley and he discovered the principle of mechanical advantage in the lever. Archimedes famous remark with regard to the lever, Give me a place to stand on, expresses his realization that there was no limit to the amount of force amplification that could be achieved by using mechanical advantage. Later Greek philosophers defined the five simple machines and were able to roughly calculate their mechanical advantage. For example, Heron of Alexandria in his work Mechanics lists five mechanisms that can set a load in motion, lever, windlass, pulley, wedge, and screw, and describes their fabrication and uses. However the Greeks understanding was limited to the statics of simple machines, the balance of forces, and did not include dynamics, in 1586 Flemish engineer Simon Stevin derived the mechanical advantage of the inclined plane, and it was included with the other simple machines. The complete dynamic theory of machines was worked out by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei in 1600 in Le Meccaniche. He was the first to understand that simple machines do not create energy and they were rediscovered by Guillaume Amontons and were further developed by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb. Although each machine works differently mechanically, the way they function is similar mathematically, in each machine, a force F in is applied to the device at one point, and it does work moving a load, F out at another point. Simple machines do not contain a source of energy, so they cannot do more work than they receive from the input force, a simple machine with no friction or elasticity is called an ideal machine. Similarly the power input from the force is equal to the velocity of the input point v in multiplied by the applied force P in = F in v in
8.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
9.
Chesterfield
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Chesterfield is a market town and a borough in Derbyshire, England. It lies 24 miles north of Derby and 11 miles south of Sheffield, the borough – which includes the settlements of Whittington, Brimington and Staveley – had a population of 103,800 in 2011. Chesterfield is the second largest town in the county of Derbyshire. Archaeological examination of the town has traced its beginnings to the 1st century AD and the construction of a Roman fort, later an Anglo-Saxon village grew up on the site. The name Chesterfield derives from the Anglo-Saxon words caester and feld, Chesterfield received its market charter in 1204. It still has a moderately sized market of about 250 stalls held three days a week, the town sits on a large coalfield, which formed a major part of the areas economy until the 1980s. Little visual evidence of the remains today. The towns best known landmark is the Church of St Mary and All Saints, popularly known for its crooked spire, Chesterfield was in the Hundred of Scarsdale. The town received its charter in 1204 from King John. The charter constituted the town as a borough, granting the burgesses of Chesterfield the same privileges as those of Nottingham. In 1266, it was the site of the Battle of Chesterfield, elizabeth I granted a charter of incorporation in 1594, creating a corporation consisting of a mayor, six aldermen, six brethren, and twelve capital burgesses. This remained the governing charter until the borough was reformed under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, the borough originally consisted only of the township of Chesterfield, but it was extended in 1892 to parts of some surrounding townships. In 1920 there was an extension when the borough absorbed New Whittington. Chesterfield benefited greatly from the building of the Chesterfield Line – part of the Derby to Leeds railway, during the work, a sizeable seam of coal was discovered during the construction of the Clay Cross Tunnel. This and the local ironstone were promptly exploited by Stephenson, who set up a company in Clay Cross to trade in the minerals, during his time in Chesterfield, Stephenson lived at Tapton House, and remained there until his death in 1848. He is interred in Trinity Church, in 2006, a statue of Stephenson was erected outside Chesterfield railway station. Chesterfield is located on the confluence and valleys of the River Rother and River Hipper at the Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire Coalfield. The town also lies in the foothills of the Pennines
