Archives June 2013

Power steering reduces the effort required to steer a car by using an external power source to assist in turning the wheels. The system was developed in the 1920s by Francis W. Davis and George Jessup in Waltham, Massachusetts. Davis was the chief engineer of the truck division of the Pierce Arrow Motor Car Company, and saw first hand how hard it was to steer heavy vehicles. He quit his Job and got work developing the hydraulic steering system that led to power steering. Chrysler introduced the first commercially available power steering system on its 1951 Imperial, under the name "Hydraguide." Most power-steering systems work by using a belt- driven pump to provide hydraulic pressure to the system. This pressure is generated by a rotary-vane pump driven by the vehicle's engine. As the speed of the engine increases, the pressure in the hydraulic fluid also increases, so a relief valve more...

Cotton is a white fluffy substance like fibre. It is a product of the cotton plant and cotton herb. Cotton requires a warm climate and a rich soil to grow in. It grows in North America, China, Egypt and in some parts of India. American and Egyptian cotton is better than Indian cotton because the former has long strands of fibre. In India, cotton grows plentifully in the Deccan. There are two kinds of cotton. One is got from the cotton herb. The other is got from the cotton plant. The cotton herb grows from one to two feet in height. When the fruit ripens, it bursts. From it comes out the soft white thing. This is cotton. The seeds of cotton are separated from cotton in mills with the help of machines. This is called 'ginning'. This cotton then goes to spinning mills. There it is drawn into cotton more...

A butterfly is a very beautiful insect. It is a small creature. Its body is divided into three parts—head, thorax and abdomen. The three pairs  of legs come out from the thorax. The most attractive part in the body of a butterfly is its wings. The body of a butterfly is a combination of different charming colours like yellow, red, blue, white, green etc. The beauty of a butterfly gives us great pleasure. A butterfly has a strange life-cycle. The female butterfly lays eggs on leaves. These eggs are hatched and little worms called caterpillars are born. They live on green leaves. Then the caterpillars make coverings round their bodies and sleep inside them in winter. Ultimately when the warm weather comes, they come out of their covering in the form of beautiful butterflies. 

Of all outdoor games, football attracts me the most. Even in this age of cricket fever, I remain a football fan. I prefer football to other games for more than one reason. First of all, it is purely a team game. It is played between two teams. Each team has eleven players. There are two goal posts at both ends of a big rectangular ground. Here united effort of eleven players decides the destiny of the team. Secondly, football is not at all time- consuming. It is usually a play of one and a half hour. Thirdly, the game of football provides the players with ample physical exercise. Next comes the simple technicalities of the game which make it so popular among the people. Again the game is not at all expensive. Just a football and a field are all which we need to play the game. The game impresses more...

Illiteracy is the main cause of superstitions, ignorance and backwardness. Such persons can easily be misled by politicians, who are cunning and selfish, for their personal interests. Even after 53 years of independence a majority of our population is illiterate. They always remain poor and backward because of their inability about been its of the modern technology Now the question is what the adult education is? It is a programme to teach grown up people, who could not take education at the proper time. They should at least have some knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic. It also aims that they should be given some knowledge about the society in which they are dwelling. But due to poverty people's first preference is to earn bread. They have no time for education. It is humble duty of every citizen of India to spare some time or this noble cause, as only more...

A bee is one of the few insects that do maximum good to man. If is a very small insect. It has six legs and four wings. It has a sharp sting. It produces a buzzing sound. Bees are of three kinds—the queen bee, the female or worker bees and the male or drone bees. The mother of a swarm of bees is called the queen bee. It is the largest of all bees. Its only duty is to lay eggs. The female bees are called the workers. They collect nectar flying from flower to flower to make honey from it. The worker bees look after the eggs and the hive. They are busy throughout the day. The male bees are called the drones. They are very lazy and do not do any work. They only eat honey in the hive. The queen bee lives for two or three years. more...

"The lever tumbler lock... could still be picked. It merely required more skill and time." Jock Dempsey, blacksmith People depend on their locks and keys a lot more than they would like to admit. Without having to stand guard over their possessions from morning to night, they are free to pursue their lives away from their homes and businesses. Locks and keys existed before Robert Barren patented his tumbler lock in 1778, but the sheer number of people now carrying keys to tumbler locks testifies to the success of his invention. Barren's lock, which offered considerably improved security over any previous locks, was called a double- acting tumbler and was very similar to many modern models. A tumbler, essentially a lever inside the lock, prevents the bolt of the lock from being opened unless it is raised to a certain height. Barren's lock employed two tumblers and these needed to more...

The use of flowing water as a source of energy has been exploited for hundreds of years, with traditional water mills powering early industrial processes. Turbines are the modern equivalent of a water mill but run at much higher energy efficiency due to the efforts of engineer James Francis (1815-1892), who invented the Francis turbine, and whose calculations enabled modern, super-efficient turbines to be built, allowing clean, renewable energy production. The first large-scale turbine for power generation was built by Benott Fourneyron in 1827. His invention was an out-flow design, but it took another ten years for him to stabilize the turbine, at which point he managed 80 percent efficiency—that is, the turbine could usefully extract 80 percent of the kinetic energy theoretically contained within the running water. Francis, an English engineer, moved to the United States to work for the proprietors of Locks and Canals Company in Lowell, Massachusetts. more...

“[The parking meter is] just another way of getting money out of people…” Sugar Ray Robinson, on New York’s first meter In 1932, Carl Magee, lawyer, newspaper publisher, and newly appointed chair of the Oklahoma traffic committee, was asked to develop a solution to the problem of traffic congestion in the city. He observed that many people were driving into town and parking their cars all day, blocking up the streets. This slowed trade in shops, because people could not park nearby, and there was no turnover of custom. As a solution to this problem, Magee struck upon the idea of the parking meter. He designed a crude prototype and then joined with the Oklahoma State University to develop the idea. The result of this was the first coin-operated parking meter, dubbed the "Black Maria," and it was installed on July 16,1935. The Reverend C. H. North was the first more...

If they ever create a hall of fame for materials, epoxy resin would be a shoe-in. This exceptional substance is the adhesive of choice when you really do not want two surfaces to come unstuck; holding bits of an aircraft together, for example, or the rotor blades of wind turbines. Epoxy resin is also resistant to heat and chemicals, while some epoxies are waterproof and even capable of curing underwater. They are also excellent electrical insulators.   Epoxy is a thermosetting plastic. That is to say, when it is mixed with a "hardener" or catalyst, it forms crosslinks with itself, curing into a robust material with the properties mentioned above. The raw compound comes in many forms, including a low-viscosity liquid and a powder. Because the hardener is also highly variable, a broad suite of cured polymers can be created with differing properties. Swiss chemist Pierre Castan (1899-1985) and the more...