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Engineering in History Part 3 (Coalbrookdale to Silicone valley…
Engineering in History Part 3
Coalbrookdale to
Silicone valley
Coalbrookdale:
• Coking: Process to eliminating sulphur from coal.
• Patent granted in 1620
• In 1707 Abraham Darby patented a method for casting iron pots in sand
• In 1708 he moved to Coalbrookdale and took over a site with an existing blast furnace
• By transferring technology from the brewing industry
• He built a blast furnace running on coke.
• The iron produced was ideal for cooking utensils and pots.
Darby developed blast furnaces ,forges,rolling mills, foundries and 32 km of wagon
Furnace site was ½ way down a slope, with coal mines at the top and
river Severn at the bottom
Furnace was powered initially by waterwheels
Silicone Valley
Industrial concentration of electronics
fundamental research into semiconductors
•Hewlett Packard Founded in 1939
• Fairchild semiconductor was founded in 1957
Beginning of transistor use in computers
Common Threads
informal channels of information exchange
community
inhibits the spread of population
Inhibits constraints and limits urban sprawl
e in touch with their basic communal feelings
valley physically locates and concentrates people
Tesla Vs Edison
Edison
• Edison – Tireless tinkering by
trial and error
Array of machinists in his lab
Lab similar to Guild system
Stressed the importance of
craftmanship
Learning from others was highly
valued
Free and easy communication in
lab
Agile businessman
Great ability to obtain financial
backing
• Founded businesses to apply his
inventions
Lab left room for tinkering but
workers were largely unskilled
Disliked mathematics and theory
Tesla
Tesla - hardly ever made
mistakes
Few workers in his lab
Well educated, replaced guess work with scientific reasoning
Amazingly vivid imagination
Media and society was unsympathetic
to Tesla
Came from Eastern Europe
Tesla worked for Edison but left after
not receiving a claimed $50 000
Tesla’s value to Edison was minimised
because his system didn’t allow
Tesla’s genius to be applied outside
Edison’s goals.