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d the 1984 Stig Blomqvist drivers' titles, and brought Audi the manufacturers' title in 1982 and 1984.
In 1984, Audi launched the shortwheelbase Sport Quattro which dominated rally races in Monte Carlo and Sweden, with Audi taking all podium places, but succumbed to problems further into WRC contention. In 1985, after another season mired in mediocre finishes, Walter Rhrl finished the season in his Sport Quattro S1, and helped place Audi second in the manufacturers' points. Audi also received rally honours in the Hong Kong to Beijing rally in that same year. Michle Mouton, the only female driver to win a round of the World Rally Championship and a driver for Audi, took the Sport Quattro S1, now simply called the "S1", and raced in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The climb race pits a driver and car to drive to the summit of the Pikes Peak mountain in Colorado, and in 1985, Michle Mouton set a new record of 1125.39, and being the first woman to set a Pikes Peak record. In 1986, Audi formally left i |
nternational rally racing following an accident in Portugal involving driver Joaquim Santos in his Ford RS200. Santos swerved to avoid hitting spectators in the road, and left the track into the crowd of spectators on the side, killing three and injuring 30. Bobby Unser used an Audi in that same year to claim a new record for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb at 1109.22.
In 1987, Walter Rhrl claimed the title for Audi setting a new Pikes Peak International Hill Climb record of 1047.85 in his Audi S1, which he had retired from the WRC two years earlier. The Audi S1 employed Audi's timetested inlinefivecylinder turbocharged engine, with the final version generating . The engine was mated to a sixspeed gearbox and ran on Audi's famous fourwheel drive system. All of Audi's top drivers drove this car; Hannu Mikkola, Stig Blomqvist, Walter Rhrl and Michle Mouton. This Audi S1 started the range of Audi 'S' cars, which now represents an increased level of sportsperformance equipment within the mainstream Audi model range.
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In the United States
As Audi moved away from rallying and into circuit racing, they chose to move first into America with the TransAm in 1988.
In 1989, Audi moved to International Motor Sports Association IMSA GTO with the Audi 90, however as they avoided the two major endurance events Daytona and Sebring despite winning on a regular basis, they would lose out on the title.
Touring cars
In 1990, having completed their objective to market cars in North America, Audi returned to Europe, turning first to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft DTM series with the Audi V8, and then in 1993, being unwilling to build cars for the new formula, they turned their attention to the fastgrowing Super Touring series, which are a series of national championships. Audi first entered in the French Supertourisme and Italian Superturismo. In the following year, Audi would switch to the German Super Tourenwagen Cup known as STW, and then to British Touring Car Championship BTCC the year after that.
The Fdration International |
e de l'Automobile FIA, having difficulty regulating the quattro fourwheel drive system, and the impact it had on the competitors, would eventually ban all fourwheel drive cars from competing in the series in 1998, but by then, Audi switched all their works efforts to sports car racing.
By 2000, Audi would still compete in the US with their RS4 for the SCCA Speed World GT Challenge, through dealerteam Champion Racing competing against Corvettes, Vipers, and smaller BMWs where it is one of the few series to permit 4WD cars. In 2003, Champion Racing entered an RS6. Once again, the quattro fourwheel drive was superior, and Champion Audi won the championship. They returned in 2004 to defend their title, but a newcomer, Cadillac with the new Omega Chassis CTSV, gave them a run for their money. After four victories in a row, the Audis were sanctioned with several negative changes that deeply affected the car's performance. Namely, added ballast weights, and Champion Audi deciding to go with different tyres, and red |
ucing the boost pressure of the turbocharger.
In 2004, after years of competing with the TTR in the revitalised DTM series, with privateer team Abt RacingChristian Abt taking the 2002 title with Laurent Aello, Audi returned as a full factory effort to touring car racing by entering two factorysupported Joest Racing A4 DTM cars.
24 Hours of Le Mans
Audi began racing prototype sportscars in 1999, debuting at the Le Mans 24 hour. Two car concepts were developed and raced in their first season the Audi R8R opencockpit 'roadster' prototype and the Audi R8C closedcockpit 'coup' GTprototype. The R8R scored a credible podium on its racing debut at Le Mans and was the concept which Audi continued to develop into the 2000 season due to favourable rules for opencockpit prototypes.
However, most of the competitors such as BMW, Toyota, Mercedes and Nissan retired at the end of 1999.
The factorysupported Joest Racing team won at Le Mans three times in a row with the Audi R8 20002002, as well as winning every race in t |
he American Le Mans Series in its first year. Audi also sold the car to customer teams such as Champion Racing.
In 2003, two Bentley Speed 8s, with engines designed by Audi, and driven by Joest drivers loaned to the fellow Volkswagen Group company, competed in the GTP class, and finished the race in the top two positions, while the Champion Racing R8 finished third overall, and first in the LMP900 class. Audi returned to the winner's podium at the 2004 race, with the top three finishers all driving R8s Audi Sport Japan Team Goh finished first, Audi Sport UK Veloqx second, and Champion Racing third.
At the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans, Champion Racing entered two R8s, along with an R8 from the Audi PlayStation Team Oreca. The R8s which were built to old LMP900 regulations received a narrower air inlet restrictor, reducing power, and an additional of weight compared to the newer LMP1 chassis. On average, the R8s were about 23 seconds off pace compared to the PescaroloJudd. But with a team of excellent drivers an |
d experience, both Champion R8s were able to take first and third, while the Oreca team took fourth. The Champion team was also the first American team to win Le Mans since the Gulf Ford GTs in 1967. This also ends the long era of the R8; however, its replacement for 2006, called the Audi R10 TDI, was unveiled on 13 December 2005.
The R10 TDI employed many new and innovative features, the most notable being the twinturbocharged direct injection diesel engine. It was first raced in the 2006 12 Hours of Sebring as a racetest in preparation for the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans, which it later went on to win. Audi had a win in the first diesel sports car at 12 Hours of Sebring the car was developed with a Diesel engine due to ACO regulations that favor diesel engines. As well as winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2006, the R10 TDI beat the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP in , and in , however Peugeot won the 24h in 2009 with a podium cleansweep all four 908 entries retired while breaking a distance record set by the Porsche 917 |
K of Martini Racing in , in with the R15 TDI Plus.
Audi's sports car racing success would continue with the Audi R18's victory at the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans. Audi Sport Team Joest's Benot Trluyer earned Audi their first pole position in five years while the team's sister car locked out the front row. Early accidents eliminated two of Audi's three entries, but the sole remaining Audi R18 TDI of Trluyer, Marcel Fssler, and Andr Lotterer held off the trio of Peugeot 908s to claim victory by a margin of 13.8 seconds.
Results
American Le Mans Series
Audi entered a factory racing team run by Joest Racing into the American Le Mans Series under the Audi Sport North America name in 2000. This was a successful operation with the team winning on its debut in the series at the 2000 12 Hours of Sebring. Factorybacked Audi R8s were the dominant car in ALMS taking 25 victories between 2000 and the end of the 2002 season. In 2003, Audi sold customer cars to Champion Racing as well as continuing to race the factory Aud |
i Sport North America team. Champion Racing won many races as a private team running Audi R8s and eventually replaced Team Joest as the Audi Sport North America between 2006 and 2008. Since 2009 Audi has not taken part in full American Le Mans Series Championships, but has competed in the series opening races at Sebring, using the 12hour race as a test for Le Mans, and also as part of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship season calendar.
Results
European Le Mans Series
Audi participated in the 2003 1000km of Le Mans which was a oneoff sports car race in preparation for the 2004 European Le Mans Series. The factory team Audi Sport UK won races and the championship in the 2004 season but Audi was unable to match their sweeping success of Audi Sport North America in the American Le Mans Series, partly due to the arrival of a factory competitor in LMP1, Peugeot. The French manufacturer's 908 HDi FAP became the car to beat in the series from 2008 onwards with 20 LMP wins. However, Audi were able to secure t |
he championship in 2008 even though Peugeot scored more race victories in the season.
Results
World Endurance Championship
2012
In 2012, the FIA sanctioned a World Endurance Championship which would be organised by the ACO as a continuation of the ILMC. Audi competed won the first WEC race at Sebring and followed this up with a further three successive wins, including the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans. Audi scored a final 5th victory in the 2012 WEC in Bahrain and were able to win the inaugural WEC Manufacturers' Championship.
2013
As defending champions, Audi once again entered the Audi R18 etron quattro chassis into the 2013 WEC and the team won the first five consecutive races, including the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans. The victory at Round 5, Circuit of the Americas, was of particular significance as it marked the 100th win for Audi in Le Mans prototypes. Audi secured their second consecutive WEC Manufacturers' Championship at Round 6 after taking second place and half points in the redflagged Fuji race.
20 |
14
For the 2014 season, Audi entered a redesigned and upgraded R18 etron quattro which featured a 2 MJ energy recovery system. As defending champions, Audi would once again face a challenge in LMP1 from Toyota, and additionally from Porsche who returned to endurance racing after a 16year absence. The seasonopening 6hrs of Silverstone was a disaster for Audi who saw both cars retire from the race, marking the first time that an Audi car has failed to score a podium in a World Endurance Championship race.
Results
Formula E
Audi provide factory support to Abt Sportsline in the FIA Formula E Championship, The team competed under the title of Audi Sport Abt Formula E Team in the inaugural 201415 Formula E season. On 13 February 2014 the team announced its driver line up as Daniel Abt and World Endurance Championship driver Lucas di Grassi.
Formula One
Audi has been linked to Formula One in recent years but has always resisted due to the company's opinion that it is not relevant to road cars, but hybrid power u |
nit technology has been adopted into the sport, swaying the company's view and encouraging research into the program by former Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali.
Marketing
Branding
The Audi emblem is four overlapping rings that represent the four marques of Auto Union. The Audi emblem symbolises the amalgamation of Audi with DKW, Horch and Wanderer the first ring from the left represents Audi, the second represents DKW, third is Horch, and the fourth and last ring Wanderer.
The design is popularly believed to have been the idea of Klaus von Oertzen, the director of sales at Wanderer when Berlin was chosen as the host city for the 1936 Summer Olympics and that a form of the Olympic logo symbolized the newly established Auto Union's desire to succeed. Somewhat ironically, the International Olympic Committee later sued Audi in the International Trademark Court in 1995, where they lost.
The original "Audi" script, with the distinctive slanted tails on the "A" and "d" was created for the historic Aud |
i company in 1920 by the famous graphic designer Lucian Bernhard, and was resurrected when Volkswagen revived the brand in 1965. Following the demise of NSU in 1977, less prominence was given to the four rings, in preference to the "Audi" script encased within a black later red ellipse, and was commonly displayed next to the Volkswagen roundel when the two brands shared a dealer network under the V.A.G banner. The ellipse known as the Audi Oval was phased out after 1994, when Audi formed its own independent dealer network, and prominence was given back to the four rings at the same time Audi Sans a derivative of Univers was adopted as the font for all marketing materials, corporate communications and was also used in the vehicles themselves.
As part of Audi's centennial celebration in 2009, the company updated the logo, changing the font to leftaligned Audi Type, and altering the shading for the overlapping rings. The revised logo was designed by Rayan Abdullah.
Audi developed a Corporate Sound concept, |
with Audi Sound Studio designed for producing the Corporate Sound. The Corporate Sound project began with sound agency Klangerfinder GmbH Co KG and s12 GmbH. Audio samples were created in Klangerfinder's sound studio in Stuttgart, becoming part of Audi Sound Studio collection. Other Audi Sound Studio components include The Brand Music Pool, The Brand Voice. Audi also developed Sound Branding Toolkit including certain instruments, sound themes, rhythm and car sounds which all are supposed to reflect the AUDI sound character.
Audi started using a beating heart sound trademark beginning in 1996. An updated heartbeat sound logo, developed by agencies KLANGERFINDER GmbH Co KG of Stuttgart and S12 GmbH of Munich, was first used in 2010 in an Audi A8 commercial with the slogan The Art of Progress.
Slogans
Audi's corporate tagline is , meaning "Progress through Technology". The Germanlanguage tagline is used in many European countries, including the United Kingdom but not in Italy, where is used, and in other m |
arkets, such as Latin America, Oceania, Africa and parts of Asia including Japan. Originally, the American tagline was Innovation through technology, but in Canada Vorsprung durch Technik was used. Since 2007, Audi has used the slogan Truth in Engineering in the U.S. However, since the Audi emissions testing scandal came to light in September 2015, this slogan was lambasted for being discordant with reality. In fact, just hours after disgraced Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn admitted to cheating on emissions data, an advertisement during the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards promoted Audi's latest advances in low emissions technology with Kermit the Frog stating, "It's not that easy being green."
Vorsprung durch Technik was first used in Englishlanguage advertising after Sir John Hegarty of the Bartle Bogle Hegarty advertising agency visited the Audi factory in 1982. In the original British television commercials, the phrase was voiced by Geoffrey Palmer. After its repeated use in advertising campaigns, the phras |
e found its way into popular culture, including the British comedy Only Fools and Horses, the U2 song "Zooropa" and the Blur song "Parklife". Similarsounding phrases have also been used, including as the punchline for a joke in the movie Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and in the British TV series Peep Show.
Typography
Audi Sans based on Univers Extended was originally created in 1997 by Ole Schfer for MetaDesign. MetaDesign was later commissioned for a new corporate typeface called Audi Type, designed by Paul van der Laan and Pieter van Rosmalen of Bold Monday. The font began to appear in Audi's 2009 products and marketing materials.
Sponsorships
Audi is a strong partner of different kinds of sports. In football, long partnerships exist between Audi and domestic clubs including Bayern Munich, Hamburger SV, 1. FC Nrnberg, Hertha BSC, and Borussia Mnchengladbach and international clubs including Chelsea, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, A.C. Milan, AFC Ajax and Perspolis. Audi also sponsors winter sports The |
Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is named after the company. Additionally, Audi supports the German Ski Association DSV as well as the alpine skiing national teams of Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, France, Liechtenstein, Italy, Austria and the U.S. For almost two decades, Audi fosters golf sport for example with the Audi quattro Cup and the HypoVereinsbank Ladies German Open presented by Audi. In sailing, Audi is engaged in the Medcup regatta and supports the team Luna Rossa during the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and also is the primary sponsor of the Melges 20 sailboat. Further, Audi sponsors the regional teams ERC Ingolstadt hockey and FC Ingolstadt 04 soccer. In 2009, the year of Audi's 100th anniversary, the company organized the Audi Cup for the first time. Audi also sponsor the New York Yankees as well. In October 2010 they agreed to a three sponsorship yeardeal with Everton. Audi also sponsors the England Polo Team and holds the Audi Polo Awards.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Since the start of the Marvel C |
inematic Universe, Audi signed a deal to sponsor, promote and provide vehicles for several films. So far these have been, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Avengers Age of Ultron, Captain America Civil War, SpiderMan Homecoming, Avengers Endgame and SpiderMan Far From Home. The R8 supercar became the personal vehicle for Tony Stark played by Robert Downey Jr. for six of these films. The etron vehicles were promoted in Endgame and Far From Home. Several commercials were coproduced by Marvel and Audi to promote several new concepts and some of the latest vehicles such as the A8, SQ7 and the eTron fleet.
Multitronic campaign
In 2001, Audi promoted the new multitronic continuously variable transmission with television commercials throughout Europe, featuring an impersonator of musician and actor Elvis Presley. A prototypical dashboard figure later named "WackelElvis" "Wobble Elvis" or "Wobbly Elvis" appeared in the commercials to demonstrate the smooth ride in an Audi equipped with the multitronic transmissio |
n. The dashboard figure was originally intended for use in the commercials only, but after they aired the demand for WackelElvis fans grew among fans and the figure was massproduced in China and marketed by Audi in their factory outlet store.
Audi TDI
As part of Audi's attempt to promote its Diesel technology in 2009, the company began Audi Mileage Marathon. The driving tour featured a fleet of 23 Audi TDI vehicles from 4 models Audi Q7 3.0 TDI, Audi Q5 3.0 TDI, Audi A4 3.0 TDI, Audi A3 Sportback 2.0 TDI with S tronic transmission travelling across the American continent from New York to Los Angeles, passing major cities like Chicago, Dallas and Las Vegas during the 13 daily stages, as well as natural wonders including the Rocky Mountains, Death Valley and the Grand Canyon.
Audi etron
The next phase of technology Audi is developing is the etron electric drive powertrain system. They have shown several concept cars , each with different levels of size and performance. The original etron concept shown at the |
2009 Frankfurt motor show is based on the platform of the R8 and has been scheduled for limited production. Power is provided by electric motors at all four wheels. The second concept was shown at the 2010 Detroit Motor Show. Power is provided by two electric motors at the rear axle. This concept is also considered to be the direction for a future midengined gaspowered 2seat performance coupe. The Audi A1 etron concept, based on the Audi A1 production model, is a hybrid vehicle with a range extending Wankel rotary engine to provide power after the initial charge of the battery is depleted. It is the only concept of the three to have rangeextending capability. The car is powered through the front wheels, always using electric power.
It is all set to be displayed at the Auto Expo 2012 in New Delhi, India, from 5 January. Powered by a 1.4 litre engine, and can cover a distance up to 54 km s on a single charge. The etron was also shown in the 2013 blockbuster film Iron Man 3 and was driven by Tony Stark Iron Man |
.
In video games
Audi has supported the European version of PlayStation Home, the PlayStation 3's online communitybased service, by releasing a dedicated Home space. Audi is the first carmaker to develop such a space for Home. On 17 December 2009, Audi released two spaces; the Audi Home Terminal and the Audi Vertical Run. The Audi Home Terminal features an Audi TV channel delivering video content, an Internet Browser feature, and a view of a city. The Audi Vertical Run is where users can access the minigame Vertical Run, a futuristic minigame featuring Audi's etron concept. Players collect energy and race for the highest possible speeds and the fastest players earn a place in the Audi apartments located in a large tower in the centre of the Audi Space. In both the Home Terminal and Vertical Run spaces, there are teleports where users can teleport back and forth between the two spaces. Audi had stated that additional content would be added in 2010. On 31 March 2015 Sony shutdown the PlayStation Home service r |
endering all content for it inaccessible.
See also
DKW
Horch
Wanderer company
Notes
References
External links
Companies based in BadenWrttemberg
Car manufacturers of Germany
Companies based in Bavaria
Companies based in Ingolstadt
Companies formerly listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1909
Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1939
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1965
Reestablished companies
German brands
Luxury motor vehicle manufacturers
Companies based in Saxony
Sports car manufacturers
Volkswagen Group
Car brands
German companies established in 1909 |
An aircraft is a vehicle or machine that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships including blimps, gliders, paramotors, and hot air balloons.
The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation. The science of aviation, including designing and building aircraft, is called aeronautics. Crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or selfcontrolled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as lift type, aircraft propulsion, usage and others.
History
Flying model craft and stories of manned flight go back many centuries; however, the first manned ascent and safe descent in modern times took place by larger hotair balloons developed in the 18th century. Each of the two Wor |
ld Wars led to great technical advances. Consequently, the history of aircraft can be divided into five eras
Pioneers of flight, from the earliest experiments to 1914.
First World War, 1914 to 1918.
Aviation between the World Wars, 1918 to 1939.
Second World War, 1939 to 1945.
Postwar era, also called the Jet Age, 1945 to the present day.
Methods of lift
Lighter than air aerostats
Aerostats use buoyancy to float in the air in much the same way that ships float on the water. They are characterized by one or more large cells or canopies, filled with a relatively lowdensity gas such as helium, hydrogen, or hot air, which is less dense than the surrounding air. When the weight of this is added to the weight of the aircraft structure, it adds up to the same weight as the air that the craft displaces.
Small hotair balloons, called sky lanterns, were first invented in ancient China prior to the 3rd century BC and used primarily in cultural celebrations, and were only the second type of aircraft to fly, the |
first being kites, which were first invented in ancient China over two thousand years ago. See Han Dynasty
A balloon was originally any aerostat, while the term airship was used for large, powered aircraft designs usually fixedwing. In 1919, Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to "ships of the air," with smaller passenger types as "Air yachts." In the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as "ships of the air" or "flyingships". though none had yet been built. The advent of powered balloons, called dirigible balloons, and later of rigid hulls allowing a great increase in size, began to change the way these words were used. Huge powered aerostats, characterized by a rigid outer framework and separate aerodynamic skin surrounding the gas bags, were produced, the Zeppelins being the largest and most famous. There were still no fixedwing aircraft or nonrigid balloons large enough to be called airships, so "airship" came to be synonymous with these aircraft. The |
n several accidents, such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, led to the demise of these airships. Nowadays a "balloon" is an unpowered aerostat and an "airship" is a powered one.
A powered, steerable aerostat is called a dirigible. Sometimes this term is applied only to nonrigid balloons, and sometimes dirigible balloon is regarded as the definition of an airship which may then be rigid or nonrigid. Nonrigid dirigibles are characterized by a moderately aerodynamic gasbag with stabilizing fins at the back. These soon became known as blimps. During World War II, this shape was widely adopted for tethered balloons; in windy weather, this both reduces the strain on the tether and stabilizes the balloon. The nickname blimp was adopted along with the shape. In modern times, any small dirigible or airship is called a blimp, though a blimp may be unpowered as well as powered.
Heavierthanair aerodynes
Heavierthanair aircraft, such as airplanes, must find some way to push air or gas downwards so that a reaction o |
ccurs by Newton's laws of motion to push the aircraft upwards. This dynamic movement through the air is the origin of the term. There are two ways to produce dynamic upthrust aerodynamic lift, and powered lift in the form of engine thrust.
Aerodynamic lift involving wings is the most common, with fixedwing aircraft being kept in the air by the forward movement of wings, and rotorcraft by spinning wingshaped rotors sometimes called rotary wings. A wing is a flat, horizontal surface, usually shaped in crosssection as an aerofoil. To fly, air must flow over the wing and generate lift. A flexible wing is a wing made of fabric or thin sheet material, often stretched over a rigid frame. A kite is tethered to the ground and relies on the speed of the wind over its wings, which may be flexible or rigid, fixed, or rotary.
With powered lift, the aircraft directs its engine thrust vertically downward. VSTOL aircraft, such as the Harrier Jump Jet and Lockheed Martin F35B take off and land vertically using powered lift |
and transfer to aerodynamic lift in steady flight.
A pure rocket is not usually regarded as an aerodyne because it does not depend on the air for its lift and can even fly into space; however, many aerodynamic lift vehicles have been powered or assisted by rocket motors. Rocketpowered missiles that obtain aerodynamic lift at very high speed due to airflow over their bodies are a marginal case.
Fixedwing
The forerunner of the fixedwing aircraft is the kite. Whereas a fixedwing aircraft relies on its forward speed to create airflow over the wings, a kite is tethered to the ground and relies on the wind blowing over its wings to provide lift. Kites were the first kind of aircraft to fly and were invented in China around 500 BC. Much aerodynamic research was done with kites before test aircraft, wind tunnels, and computer modelling programs became available.
The first heavierthanair craft capable of controlled freeflight were gliders. A glider designed by George Cayley carried out the first true manned, con |
trolled flight in 1853.
The practical, powered, fixedwing aircraft the airplane or aeroplane was invented by Wilbur and Orville Wright. Besides the method of propulsion, fixedwing aircraft are in general characterized by their wing configuration. The most important wing characteristics are
Number of wings monoplane, biplane, etc.
Wing support Braced or cantilever, rigid, or flexible.
Wing planform including aspect ratio, angle of sweep, and any variations along the span including the important class of delta wings.
Location of the horizontal stabilizer, if any.
Dihedral angle positive, zero, or negative anhedral.
A variable geometry aircraft can change its wing configuration during flight.
A flying wing has no fuselage, though it may have small blisters or pods. The opposite of this is a lifting body, which has no wings, though it may have small stabilizing and control surfaces.
Wingingroundeffect vehicles are generally not considered aircraft. They "fly" efficiently close to the surface of the g |
round or water, like conventional aircraft during takeoff. An example is the Russian ekranoplan nicknamed the "Caspian Sea Monster". Manpowered aircraft also rely on ground effect to remain airborne with minimal pilot power, but this is only because they are so underpoweredin fact, the airframe is capable of flying higher.
Rotorcraft
Rotorcraft, or rotarywing aircraft, use a spinning rotor with aerofoil section blades a rotary wing to provide lift. Types include helicopters, autogyros, and various hybrids such as gyrodynes and compound rotorcraft.
Helicopters have a rotor turned by an enginedriven shaft. The rotor pushes air downward to create lift. By tilting the rotor forward, the downward flow is tilted backward, producing thrust for forward flight. Some helicopters have more than one rotor and a few have rotors turned by gas jets at the tips.
Autogyros have unpowered rotors, with a separate power plant to provide thrust. The rotor is tilted backward. As the autogyro moves forward, air blows upward ac |
ross the rotor, making it spin. This spinning increases the speed of airflow over the rotor, to provide lift. Rotor kites are unpowered autogyros, which are towed to give them forward speed or tethered to a static anchor in highwind for kited flight.
Cyclogyros rotate their wings about a horizontal axis.
Compound rotorcraft have wings that provide some or all of the lift in forward flight. They are nowadays classified as powered lift types and not as rotorcraft. Tiltrotor aircraft such as the Bell Boeing V22 Osprey, tiltwing, tailsitter, and coleopter aircraft have their rotorspropellers horizontal for vertical flight and vertical for forward flight.
Other methods of lift
A lifting body is an aircraft body shaped to produce lift. If there are any wings, they are too small to provide significant lift and are used only for stability and control. Lifting bodies are not efficient they suffer from high drag, and must also travel at high speed to generate enough lift to fly. Many of the research prototypes, s |
uch as the Martin Marietta X24, which led up to the Space Shuttle, were lifting bodies, though the Space Shuttle is not, and some supersonic missiles obtain lift from the airflow over a tubular body.
Powered lift types rely on enginederived lift for vertical takeoff and landing VTOL. Most types transition to fixedwing lift for horizontal flight. Classes of powered lift types include VTOL jet aircraft such as the Harrier Jump Jet and tiltrotors, such as the Bell Boeing V22 Osprey, among others. A few experimental designs rely entirely on engine thrust to provide lift throughout the whole flight, including personal fanlift hover platforms and jetpacks. VTOL research designs include the RollsRoyce Thrust Measuring Rig.
The Flettner airplane uses a rotating cylinder in place of a fixed wing, obtaining lift from the Magnus effect.
The ornithopter obtains thrust by flapping its wings.
Size and speed extremes
Size
The smallest aircraft are toysrecreational items, and nano aircraft.
The largest aircraft by dim |
ensions and volume as of 2016 is the long British Airlander 10, a hybrid blimp, with helicopter and fixedwing features, and reportedly capable of speeds up to , and an airborne endurance of two weeks with a payload of up to .
The largest aircraft by weight and largest regular fixedwing aircraft ever built, , is the Antonov An225 Mriya. That Ukrainianbuilt sixengine Russian transport of the 1980s is long, with an wingspan. It holds the world payload record, after transporting of goods, and has recently flown loads commercially. With a maximum loaded weight of , it is also the heaviest aircraft built to date. It can cruise at .
The largest military airplanes are the Ukrainian Antonov An124 Ruslan world's secondlargest airplane, also used as a civilian transport, and American Lockheed C5 Galaxy transport, weighing, loaded, over . The 8engine, pistonpropeller Hughes H4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" an American World War II wooden flying boat transport with a greater wingspan 94m260ft than any current aircraft a |
nd a tail height equal to the tallest Airbus A380800 at 24.1m78ft flew only one short hop in the late 1940s and never flew out of ground effect.
The largest civilian airplanes, apart from the abovenoted An225 and An124, are the Airbus Beluga cargo transport derivative of the Airbus A300 jet airliner, the Boeing Dreamlifter cargo transport derivative of the Boeing 747 jet airlinertransport the 747200B was, at its creation in the 1960s, the heaviest aircraft ever built, with a maximum weight of over , and the doubledecker Airbus A380 "superjumbo" jet airliner the world's largest passenger airliner.
Speeds
The fastest recorded powered aircraft flight and fastest recorded aircraft flight of an airbreathing powered aircraft was of the NASA X43A Pegasus, a scramjetpowered, hypersonic, lifting body experimental research aircraft, at Mach 9.6, exactly . The X43A set that new mark, and broke its own world record of Mach 6.3, exactly , set in March 2004, on its third and final flight on 16 November 2004.
Prior to |
the X43A, the fastest recorded powered airplane flight and still the record for the fastest manned, powered airplane fastest manned, nonspacecraft aircraft was of the North American X15A2, rocketpowered airplane at Mach 6.72, or , on 3 October 1967. On one flight it reached an altitude of .
The fastest known, production aircraft other than rockets and missiles currently or formerly operational as of 2016 are
The fastest fixedwing aircraft, and fastest glider, is the Space Shuttle, a rocketglider hybrid, which has reentered the atmosphere as a fixedwing glider at more than Mach 25, equal to .
The fastest military airplane ever built Lockheed SR71 Blackbird, a U.S. reconnaissance jet fixedwing aircraft, known to fly beyond Mach 3.3, equal to . On 28 July 1976, an SR71 set the record for the fastest and highestflying operational aircraft with an absolute speed record of and an absolute altitude record of . At its retirement in January 1990, it was the fastest airbreathing aircraft fastest jet aircraft in t |
he world, a record still standing .
Note Some sources refer to the abovementioned X15 as the "fastest military airplane" because it was partly a project of the U.S. Navy and Air Force; however, the X15 was not used in nonexperimental actual military operations.
The fastest current military aircraft are the SovietRussian MikoyanGurevich MiG25 capable of Mach 3.2, equal to , at the expense of engine damage, or Mach 2.83, equal to , normally and the Russian Mikoyan MiG31E also capable of Mach 2.83 normally. Both are fighterinterceptor jet airplanes, in active operations as of 2016.
The fastest civilian airplane ever built, and fastest passenger airliner ever built the briefly operated Tupolev Tu144 supersonic jet airliner Mach 2.35, 1,600 mph, 2,587 kmh, which was believed to cruise at about Mach 2.2. The Tu144 officially operated from 1968 to 1978, ending after two crashes of the small fleet was outlived by its rival, the Concorde Mach 2.23, a FrenchBritish supersonic airliner, known to cruise at Mach 2.02 |
1.450 mph, 2,333 kmh at cruising altitude, operating from 1976 until the small Concorde fleet was grounded permanently in 2003, following the crash of one in the early 2000s.
The fastest civilian airplane currently flying the Cessna Citation X, an American business jet, capable of Mach 0.935, or . Its rival, the American Gulfstream G650 business jet, can reach Mach 0.925, or
The fastest airliner currently flying is the Boeing 747, quoted as being capable of cruising over Mach 0.885, . Previously, the fastest were the troubled, shortlived Russian Soviet Union Tupolev Tu144 SST Mach 2.35; equal to and the FrenchBritish Concorde, with a maximum speed of Mach 2.23 or and a normal cruising speed of Mach 2 or . Before them, the Convair 990 Coronado jet airliner of the 1960s flew at over .
Propulsion
Unpowered aircraft
Gliders are heavierthanair aircraft that do not employ propulsion once airborne. Takeoff may be by launching forward and downward from a high location, or by pulling into the air on a towline |
, either by a groundbased winch or vehicle, or by a powered "tug" aircraft. For a glider to maintain its forward air speed and lift, it must descend in relation to the air but not necessarily in relation to the ground. Many gliders can "soar", i.e., gain height from updrafts such as thermal currents. The first practical, controllable example was designed and built by the British scientist and pioneer George Cayley, whom many recognise as the first aeronautical engineer. Common examples of gliders are sailplanes, hang gliders and paragliders.
Balloons drift with the wind, though normally the pilot can control the altitude, either by heating the air or by releasing ballast, giving some directional control since the wind direction changes with altitude. A wingshaped hybrid balloon can glide directionally when rising or falling; but a spherically shaped balloon does not have such directional control.
Kites are aircraft that are tethered to the ground or other object fixed or mobile that maintains tension in the |
tether or kite line; they rely on virtual or real wind blowing over and under them to generate lift and drag. Kytoons are balloonkite hybrids that are shaped and tethered to obtain kiting deflections, and can be lighterthanair, neutrally buoyant, or heavierthanair.
Powered aircraft
Powered aircraft have one or more onboard sources of mechanical power, typically aircraft engines although rubber and manpower have also been used. Most aircraft engines are either lightweight reciprocating engines or gas turbines. Engine fuel is stored in tanks, usually in the wings but larger aircraft also have additional fuel tanks in the fuselage.
Propeller aircraft
Propeller aircraft use one or more propellers airscrews to create thrust in a forward direction. The propeller is usually mounted in front of the power source in tractor configuration but can be mounted behind in pusher configuration. Variations of propeller layout include contrarotating propellers and ducted fans.
Many kinds of power plant have been used to |
drive propellers. Early airships used man power or steam engines. The more practical internal combustion piston engine was used for virtually all fixedwing aircraft until World War II and is still used in many smaller aircraft. Some types use turbine engines to drive a propeller in the form of a turboprop or propfan. Humanpowered flight has been achieved, but has not become a practical means of transport. Unmanned aircraft and models have also used power sources such as electric motors and rubber bands.
Jet aircraft
Jet aircraft use airbreathing jet engines, which take in air, burn fuel with it in a combustion chamber, and accelerate the exhaust rearwards to provide thrust.
Different jet engine configurations include the turbojet and turbofan, sometimes with the addition of an afterburner. Those with no rotating turbomachinery include the pulsejet and ramjet. These mechanically simple engines produce no thrust when stationary, so the aircraft must be launched to flying speed using a catapult, like the V1 |
flying bomb, or a rocket, for example. Other engine types include the motorjet and the dualcycle Pratt Whitney J58.
Compared to engines using propellers, jet engines can provide much higher thrust, higher speeds and, above about , greater efficiency. They are also much more fuelefficient than rockets. As a consequence nearly all large, highspeed or highaltitude aircraft use jet engines.
Rotorcraft
Some rotorcraft, such as helicopters, have a powered rotary wing or rotor, where the rotor disc can be angled slightly forward so that a proportion of its lift is directed forwards. The rotor may, like a propeller, be powered by a variety of methods such as a piston engine or turbine. Experiments have also used jet nozzles at the rotor blade tips.
Other types of powered aircraft
Rocketpowered aircraft have occasionally been experimented with, and the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet fighter even saw action in the Second World War. Since then, they have been restricted to research aircraft, such as the North Ameri |
can X15, which traveled up into space where airbreathing engines cannot work rockets carry their own oxidant. Rockets have more often been used as a supplement to the main power plant, typically for the rocketassisted take off of heavily loaded aircraft, but also to provide highspeed dash capability in some hybrid designs such as the SaundersRoe SR.53.
The ornithopter obtains thrust by flapping its wings. It has found practical use in a model hawk used to freeze prey animals into stillness so that they can be captured, and in toy birds.
Design and construction
Aircraft are designed according to many factors such as customer and manufacturer demand, safety protocols and physical and economic constraints. For many types of aircraft the design process is regulated by national airworthiness authorities.
The key parts of an aircraft are generally divided into three categories
The structure comprises the main loadbearing elements and associated equipment.
The propulsion system if it is powered comprises the p |
ower source and associated equipment, as described above.
The avionics comprise the control, navigation and communication systems, usually electrical in nature.
Structure
The approach to structural design varies widely between different types of aircraft. Some, such as paragliders, comprise only flexible materials that act in tension and rely on aerodynamic pressure to hold their shape. A balloon similarly relies on internal gas pressure, but may have a rigid basket or gondola slung below it to carry its payload. Early aircraft, including airships, often employed flexible doped aircraft fabric covering to give a reasonably smooth aeroshell stretched over a rigid frame. Later aircraft employed semimonocoque techniques, where the skin of the aircraft is stiff enough to share much of the flight loads. In a true monocoque design there is no internal structure left. With the recent emphasis on sustainability hemp has picked up some attention, having a way smaller carbon foot print and 10 times stronger than ste |
el, hemp could become the standard of manufacturing in the future.
The key structural parts of an aircraft depend on what type it is.
Aerostats
Lighterthanair types are characterised by one or more gasbags, typically with a supporting structure of flexible cables or a rigid framework called its hull. Other elements such as engines or a gondola may also be attached to the supporting structure.
Aerodynes
Heavierthanair types are characterised by one or more wings and a central fuselage. The fuselage typically also carries a tail or empennage for stability and control, and an undercarriage for takeoff and landing. Engines may be located on the fuselage or wings. On a fixedwing aircraft the wings are rigidly attached to the fuselage, while on a rotorcraft the wings are attached to a rotating vertical shaft. Smaller designs sometimes use flexible materials for part or all of the structure, held in place either by a rigid frame or by air pressure. The fixed parts of the structure comprise the airframe.
Avi |
onics
The avionics comprise the aircraft flight control systems and related equipment, including the cockpit instrumentation, navigation, radar, monitoring, and communications systems.
Flight characteristics
Flight envelope
The flight envelope of an aircraft refers to its approved design capabilities in terms of airspeed, load factor and altitude. The term can also refer to other assessments of aircraft performance such as maneuverability. When an aircraft is abused, for instance by diving it at toohigh a speed, it is said to be flown outside the envelope, something considered foolhardy since it has been taken beyond the design limits which have been established by the manufacturer. Going beyond the envelope may have a known outcome such as flutter or entry to a nonrecoverable spin possible reasons for the boundary.
Range
The range is the distance an aircraft can fly between takeoff and landing, as limited by the time it can remain airborne.
For a powered aircraft the time limit is determined by the |
fuel load and rate of consumption.
For an unpowered aircraft, the maximum flight time is limited by factors such as weather conditions and pilot endurance. Many aircraft types are restricted to daylight hours, while balloons are limited by their supply of lifting gas. The range can be seen as the average ground speed multiplied by the maximum time in the air.
The Airbus A350900ULR is now the longest range airliner.
Flight dynamics
Flight dynamics is the science of air vehicle orientation and control in three dimensions. The three critical flight dynamics parameters are the angles of rotation around three axes which pass through the vehicle's center of gravity, known as pitch, roll, and yaw.
Roll is a rotation about the longitudinal axis equivalent to the rolling or heeling of a ship giving an updown movement of the wing tips measured by the roll or bank angle.
Pitch is a rotation about the sideways horizontal axis giving an updown movement of the aircraft nose measured by the angle of attack.
Yaw is |
a rotation about the vertical axis giving a sidetoside movement of the nose known as sideslip.
Flight dynamics is concerned with the stability and control of an aircraft's rotation about each of these axes.
Stability
An aircraft that is unstable tends to diverge from its intended flight path and so is difficult to fly. A very stable aircraft tends to stay on its flight path and is difficult to maneuver. Therefore, it is important for any design to achieve the desired degree of stability. Since the widespread use of digital computers, it is increasingly common for designs to be inherently unstable and rely on computerised control systems to provide artificial stability.
A fixed wing is typically unstable in pitch, roll, and yaw. Pitch and yaw stabilities of conventional fixed wing designs require horizontal and vertical stabilisers, which act similarly to the feathers on an arrow. These stabilizing surfaces allow equilibrium of aerodynamic forces and to stabilise the flight dynamics of pitch and yaw. The |
y are usually mounted on the tail section empennage, although in the canard layout, the main aft wing replaces the canard foreplane as pitch stabilizer. Tandem wing and tailless aircraft rely on the same general rule to achieve stability, the aft surface being the stabilising one.
A rotary wing is typically unstable in yaw, requiring a vertical stabiliser.
A balloon is typically very stable in pitch and roll due to the way the payload is slung underneath the center of lift.
Control
Flight control surfaces enable the pilot to control an aircraft's flight attitude and are usually part of the wing or mounted on, or integral with, the associated stabilizing surface. Their development was a critical advance in the history of aircraft, which had until that point been uncontrollable in flight.
Aerospace engineers develop control systems for a vehicle's orientation attitude about its center of mass. The control systems include actuators, which exert forces in various directions, and generate rotational forces or |
moments about the aerodynamic center of the aircraft, and thus rotate the aircraft in pitch, roll, or yaw. For example, a pitching moment is a vertical force applied at a distance forward or aft from the aerodynamic center of the aircraft, causing the aircraft to pitch up or down. Control systems are also sometimes used to increase or decrease drag, for example to slow the aircraft to a safe speed for landing.
The two main aerodynamic forces acting on any aircraft are lift supporting it in the air and drag opposing its motion. Control surfaces or other techniques may also be used to affect these forces directly, without inducing any rotation.
Impacts of aircraft use
Aircraft permit long distance, high speed travel and may be a more fuel efficient mode of transportation in some circumstances. Aircraft have environmental and climate impacts beyond fuel efficiency considerations, however. They are also relatively noisy compared to other forms of travel and high altitude aircraft generate contrails, which ex |
perimental evidence suggests may alter weather patterns.
Uses for aircraft
Aircraft are produced in several different types optimized for various uses; military aircraft, which includes not just combat types but many types of supporting aircraft, and civil aircraft, which include all nonmilitary types, experimental and model.
Military
A military aircraft is any aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or noncombat
Combat aircraft are aircraft designed to destroy enemy equipment using its own armament. Combat aircraft divide broadly into fighters and bombers, with several inbetween types, such as fighterbombers and attack aircraft, including attack helicopters.
Noncombat aircraft are not designed for combat as their primary function, but may carry weapons for selfdefense. Noncombat roles include search and rescue, reconnaissance, observation, transport, training, and aerial refueling. These aircraft are often variants of ci |
vil aircraft.
Most military aircraft are powered heavierthanair types. Other types, such as gliders and balloons, have also been used as military aircraft; for example, balloons were used for observation during the American Civil War and World War I, and military gliders were used during World War II to land troops.
Civil
Civil aircraft divide into commercial and general types, however there are some overlaps.
Commercial aircraft include types designed for scheduled and charter airline flights, carrying passengers, mail and other cargo. The larger passengercarrying types are the airliners, the largest of which are widebody aircraft. Some of the smaller types are also used in general aviation, and some of the larger types are used as VIP aircraft.
General aviation is a catchall covering other kinds of private where the pilot is not paid for time or expenses and commercial use, and involving a wide range of aircraft types such as business jets bizjets, trainers, homebuilt, gliders, warbirds and hot air ba |
lloons to name a few. The vast majority of aircraft today are general aviation types.
Experimental
An experimental aircraft is one that has not been fully proven in flight, or that carries a Special Airworthiness Certificate, called an Experimental Certificate in United States parlance. This often implies that the aircraft is testing new aerospace technologies, though the term also refers to amateurbuilt and kitbuilt aircraft, many of which are based on proven designs.
Model
A model aircraft is a small unmanned type made to fly for fun, for static display, for aerodynamic research or for other purposes. A scale model is a replica of some larger design.
See also
Lists
Early flying machines
Flight altitude record
List of aircraft
List of civil aircraft
List of fighter aircraft
List of individual aircraft
List of large aircraft
List of aviation, aerospace and aeronautical terms
Topics
Aircraft hijacking
Aircraft spotting
Air traffic control
Airport
Flying car
Personal air vehicle
Powere |
d parachute
Spacecraft
Spaceplane
References
External links
History
The Evolution of Modern Aircraft NASA
Virtual Museum
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Online collection with a particular focus on history of aircraft and spacecraft
Amazing Early Flying Machines slideshow by Life magazine
Information
Airliners.net
Aviation Dictionary Free aviation terms, phrases and jargons
New Scientist's Aviation page |
Alfred Bernhard Nobel , ; 21 October 1833 10 December 1896 was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. He is best known for having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize, though he also made several important contributions to science, holding 355 patents in his lifetime. Nobel's most famous invention was dynamite, a safer and easier means of harnessing the explosive power of nitroglycerin; it was patented in 1867 and was soon used worldwide for mining and infrastructure development.
Nobel displayed an early aptitude for science and learning, particularly in chemistry and languages; he became fluent in six languages and filed his first patent at age 24. He embarked on many business ventures with his family, most notably owning Bofors, an iron and steel producer that he developed into a major manufacturer of cannons and other armaments.
After reading an erroneous obituary condemning him as a war profiteer, Nobel was inspired to bequeath his fortune to the Nobel |
Prize institution, which would annually recognize those who "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". The synthetic element nobelium was named after him, and his name and legacy also survives in companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel, which descend from mergers with companies he founded.
Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which, pursuant to his will, would be responsible for choosing the Nobel laureates in physics and in chemistry.
Personal life
Early life and education
Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway on 21 October 1833. He was the third son of Immanuel Nobel 18011872, an inventor and engineer, and Karolina Andriette Nobel ne Ahlsell 18051889. The couple married in 1827 and had eight children. The family was impoverished and only Alfred and his three brothers survived beyond childhood. Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck 16301702, and in his turn, the boy was intere |
sted in engineering, particularly explosives, learning the basic principles from his father at a young age. Alfred Nobel's interest in technology was inherited from his father, an alumnus of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.Following various business failures, Nobel's father moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia and grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. He invented the veneer lathe which made possible the production of modern plywood and started work on the torpedo. In 1842, the family joined him in the city. Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors and the boy excelled in his studies, particularly in chemistry and languages, achieving fluency in English, French, German and Russian. For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel went to the only school he ever attended as a child, in Stockholm.
Nobel gained proficiency in Swedish, French, Russian, English, German, and Italian. He also developed sufficient literary skill to write poetry in English |
. His Nemesis is a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci. It was printed while he was dying, but the entire stock was destroyed immediately after his death except for three copies, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. It was published in Sweden in 2003 and has been translated into Slovenian and French.
Religion
Nobel was Lutheran and regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad during his Paris years, led by pastor Nathan Sderblom who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. He became an agnostic in youth and was an atheist later in life, though still donated generously to the Church.
Health and relationships
Nobel travelled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in Europe and America while keeping a home in Paris from 1873 to 1891. He remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression. He remained unmarried, although his biographers note that he had at least three loves, the first in Russia with a girl named Alexandra who rejected his proposal. In 1876, Austro |
Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky became his secretary, but she left him after a brief stay to marry her previous lover Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Her contact with Nobel was brief, yet she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and probably influenced his decision to include a peace prize in his will. She was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize "for her sincere peace activities". Nobel's longestlasting relationship was with Sofija Hess from Celje whom he met in 1876. The liaison lasted for 18 years.
Residences
In the years of 1865 to 1873, Alfred Nobel had his home in Krmmel, Hamburg, he afterward moved to a house in the Avenue Malakoff in Paris that same year.In 1894, when he acquired BoforsGullspng, the Bjrkborn Manor was included, he stayed at his manor house in Sweden during the summers. The manor house became his very last residence in Sweden and has after his death functioned as a museum.
Alfred Nobel died on 10 December 1896, in Sanremo, Italy, at his very last residence, Villa Nobel, |
overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
Scientific career
As a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin; then, in 1850, went to Paris to further the work. There he met Ascanio Sobrero, who had invented nitroglycerin three years before. Sobrero strongly opposed the use of nitroglycerin because it was unpredictable, exploding when subjected to variable heat or pressure. But Nobel became interested in finding a way to control and use nitroglycerin as a commercially usable explosive; it had much more power than gunpowder. In 1851 at age 18, he went to the United States for one year to study, working for a short period under SwedishAmerican inventor John Ericsson, who designed the American Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor. Nobel filed his first patent, an English patent for a gas meter, in 1857, while his first Swedish patent, which he received in 1863, was on "ways to prepare gunpowder".The family factory produced armaments for the Crimean War 18531856, but had difficulty switching back to regular domestic |
production when the fighting ended and they filed for bankruptcy. In 1859, Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son, Ludvig Nobel 18311888, who greatly improved the business. Nobel and his parents returned to Sweden from Russia and Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerin. Nobel invented a detonator in 1863, and in 1865 designed the blasting cap.
On 3 September 1864, a shed used for preparation of nitroglycerin exploded at the factory in Heleneborg, Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people, including Nobel's younger brother Emil. Fazed by the accident, Nobel founded the company Nitroglycerin Aktiebolaget AB in Vinterviken so that he could continue to work in a more isolated area. Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin. Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively in mining and the building of transport networks internationally |
. In 1875, Nobel invented gelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887, patented ballistite, a predecessor of cordite.
Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893.
Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert founded the oil company Branobel and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions. During his life, Nobel was issued 355 patents internationally, and by his death, his business had established more than 90 armaments factories, despite his apparently pacifist character.
Inventions
Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr diatomaceous earth it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as "dynamite". Nobel demonstrated his e |
xplosive for the first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England. In order to help reestablish his name and improve the image of his business from the earlier controversies associated with dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly powerful substance "Nobel's Safety Powder", but settled with Dynamite instead, referring to the Greek word for "power" .
Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jellylike substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite. Gelignite, or blasting gelatine, as it was named, was patented in 1876; and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances. Gelignite was more stable, transportable and conveniently formed to fit into bored holes, like those used in drilling and mining, than the previously used compou |
nds. It was adopted as the standard technology for mining in the "Age of Engineering", bringing Nobel a great amount of financial success, though at a cost to his health. An offshoot of this research resulted in Nobel's invention of ballistite, the precursor of many modern smokeless powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant.
Nobel Prize
In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. One French newspaper condemned him for his invention of military explosivesnot, as is commonly quoted, dynamite, which was mainly used for civilian applicationsand is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death. The obituary stated, "The merchant of death is dead", and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday." Nobel read the obituary and was appalled at the idea that he would be remembered in this way. His decision to posthumously |
donate the majority of his wealth to found the Nobel Prize has been credited at least in part to him wanting to leave behind a better legacy.
On 27 November 1895, at the SwedishNorwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will allocated 94 of his total assets, 31,225,000 Swedish kronor, to establish the five Nobel Prizes. This converted to 1,687,837 GBP at the time. In 2012, the capital was worth around SEK 3.1 billion US472 million, EUR 337 million, which is almost twice the amount of the initial capital, taking inflation into account.
The first three of these prizes are awarded for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to |
the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.
The formulation for the literary prize being given for a work "in an ideal direction" in Swedish, is cryptic and has caused much confusion. For many years, the Swedish Academy interpreted "ideal" as "idealistic" and used it as a reason not to give the prize to important but less romantic authors, such as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy. This interpretation has since been revised, and the prize has been awarded to, for example, Dario Fo and Jos Saramago, who do not belong to the camp of literary idealism.
There was room for interpretation by the bodies he had named for deciding on the physical sciences and chemistry prizes, given that he had not consulted them before making the will. In his onepage testament, he stipulated that the money go to discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences and to discoveries or improvements in chemistry. He had opened the d |
oor to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology. Since the deciding bodies he had chosen were more concerned with the former, the prizes went to scientists more often than engineers, technicians or other inventors.
Sweden's central bank Sveriges Riksbank celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1968 by donating a large sum of money to the Nobel Foundation to be used to set up a sixth prize in the field of economics in honour of Alfred Nobel. In 2001, Alfred Nobel's greatgreatnephew, Peter Nobel born 1931, asked the Bank of Sweden to differentiate its award to economists given "in Alfred Nobel's memory" from the five other awards. This request added to the controversy over whether the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is actually a legitimate "Nobel Prize".
Death
Nobel was accused of high treason against France for selling Ballistite to Italy, so he moved from Paris to Sanremo, Italy in 1891. On 10 D |
ecember 1896, he suffered a stroke and died. He had left most of his wealth in trust, unbeknownst to his family, in order to fund the Nobel Prize awards. He is buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.
Monuments and legacy
The Monument to Alfred Nobel , in Saint Petersburg is located along the Bolshaya Nevka River on Petrogradskaya Embankment. It was dedicated in 1991 to mark the 90th anniversary of the first Nobel Prize presentation. Diplomat Thomas Bertelman and Professor Arkady Melua were initiators of the creation of the monument 1989. Professor A. Melua has provided funds for the establishment of the monument J.S.Co. "Humanistica", 19901991. The abstract metal sculpture was designed by local artists Sergey Alipov and Pavel Shevchenko, and appears to be an explosion or branches of a tree. Petrogradskaya Embankment is the street where the Nobel's family lived until 1859.
Criticism of Nobel focuses on his leading role in weapons manufacturing and sales, and some question his motives in creating h |
is prizes, suggesting they are intended to improve his reputation.
See also
Nobel Foundation
References
Further reading
Schck, H, and Sohlman, R., 1929. The Life of Alfred Nobel. London William Heineman Ltd.
Alfred Nobel US Patent No 78,317, dated 26 May 1868
Evlanoff, M. and Fluor, M. Alfred Nobel The Loneliest Millionaire. Los Angeles, Ward Ritchie Press, 1969.
Sohlman, R. The Legacy of Alfred Nobel, transl. Schubert E. London The Bodley Head, 1983 Swedish original, Ett Testamente, published in 1950.
External links
Alfred Nobel Man behind the Prizes
Biography at the Norwegian Nobel Institute
Nobelprize.org
Documents of Life and Activity of The Nobel Family. Under the editorship of Professor Arkady Melua. Series of books.
"The Nobels in Baku" in Azerbaijan International, Vol 10.2 Summer 2002, 5659.
The Nobel Prize in Postage Stamps
A German branch or followup German
Alfred Nobel and his unknown coworker
1833 births
1896 deaths
Burials at Norra begravningsplatsen
Members of the Ro |
yal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Alfred
Nobel Prize
Engineers from Stockholm
19thcentury Swedish businesspeople
19thcentury Swedish scientists
19thcentury Swedish engineers
Swedish chemists
Swedish philanthropists
Explosives engineers |
Alexander Graham Bell , born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 August 2, 1922 was a Scottishborn inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also cofounded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company ATT in 1885.
Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech and both his mother and wife were deaf; profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7, 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study.
Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. Although Bell was not one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society, he had a strong influence on the magazi |
ne while serving as the second president from January 7, 1898, until 1903.
Beyond his work in engineering, Bell had a deep interest in the emerging science of heredity.
Early life
Alexander Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. The family home was at South Charlotte Street, and has a stone inscription marking it as Alexander Graham Bell's birthplace. He had two brothers Melville James Bell 18451870 and Edward Charles Bell 18481867, both of whom would die of tuberculosis. His father was Professor Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, and his mother was Eliza Grace Bell ne Symonds. Born as just "Alexander Bell", at age 10, he made a plea to his father to have a middle name like his two brothers. For his 11th birthday, his father acquiesced and allowed him to adopt the name "Graham", chosen out of respect for Alexander Graham, a Canadian being treated by his father who had become a family friend. To close relatives and friends he remained "Aleck".
First invention
As a child, young Bell dis |
played a curiosity about his world; he gathered botanical specimens and ran experiments at an early age. His best friend was Ben Herdman, a neighbour whose family operated a flour mill. At the age of 12, Bell built a homemade device that combined rotating paddles with sets of nail brushes, creating a simple dehusking machine that was put into operation at the mill and used steadily for a number of years. In return, Ben's father John Herdman gave both boys the run of a small workshop in which to "invent".
From his early years, Bell showed a sensitive nature and a talent for art, poetry, and music that was encouraged by his mother. With no formal training, he mastered the piano and became the family's pianist. Despite being normally quiet and introspective, he revelled in mimicry and "voice tricks" akin to ventriloquism that continually entertained family guests during their occasional visits. Bell was also deeply affected by his mother's gradual deafness she began to lose her hearing when he was 12, and learn |
ed a manual finger language so he could sit at her side and tap out silently the conversations swirling around the family parlour. He also developed a technique of speaking in clear, modulated tones directly into his mother's forehead wherein she would hear him with reasonable clarity. Bell's preoccupation with his mother's deafness led him to study acoustics.
His family was long associated with the teaching of elocution his grandfather, Alexander Bell, in London, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, in Edinburgh, were all elocutionists. His father published a variety of works on the subject, several of which are still well known, especially his The Standard Elocutionist 1860, which appeared in Edinburgh in 1868. The Standard Elocutionist appeared in 168 British editions and sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States alone. In this treatise, his father explains his methods of how to instruct deafmutes as they were then known to articulate words and read other people's lip movements to decip |
her meaning. Bell's father taught him and his brothers not only to write Visible Speech but to identify any symbol and its accompanying sound. Bell became so proficient that he became a part of his father's public demonstrations and astounded audiences with his abilities. He could decipher Visible Speech representing virtually every language, including Latin, Scottish Gaelic, and even Sanskrit, accurately reciting written tracts without any prior knowledge of their pronunciation.
Education
As a young child, Bell, like his brothers, received his early schooling at home from his father. At an early age, he was enrolled at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, Scotland, which he left at the age of 15, having completed only the first four forms. His school record was undistinguished, marked by absenteeism and lacklustre grades. His main interest remained in the sciences, especially biology, while he treated other school subjects with indifference, to the dismay of his father. Upon leaving school, Bell travelled to L |
ondon to live with his grandfather, Alexander Bell, on Harrington Square. During the year he spent with his grandfather, a love of learning was born, with long hours spent in serious discussion and study. The elder Bell took great efforts to have his young pupil learn to speak clearly and with conviction, the attributes that his pupil would need to become a teacher himself. At the age of 16, Bell secured a position as a "pupilteacher" of elocution and music, in Weston House Academy at Elgin, Moray, Scotland. Although he was enrolled as a student in Latin and Greek, he instructed classes himself in return for board and 10 per session. The following year, he attended the University of Edinburgh, joining his older brother Melville who had enrolled there the previous year. In 1868, not long before he departed for Canada with his family, Bell completed his matriculation exams and was accepted for admission to University College London.
First experiments with sound
His father encouraged Bell's interest in speech a |
nd, in 1863, took his sons to see a unique automaton developed by Sir Charles Wheatstone based on the earlier work of Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. The rudimentary "mechanical man" simulated a human voice. Bell was fascinated by the machine and after he obtained a copy of von Kempelen's book, published in German, and had laboriously translated it, he and his older brother Melville built their own automaton head. Their father, highly interested in their project, offered to pay for any supplies and spurred the boys on with the enticement of a "big prize" if they were successful. While his brother constructed the throat and larynx, Bell tackled the more difficult task of recreating a realistic skull. His efforts resulted in a remarkably lifelike head that could "speak", albeit only a few words. The boys would carefully adjust the "lips" and when a bellows forced air through the windpipe, a very recognizable "Mama" ensued, to the delight of neighbours who came to see the Bell invention.
Intrigued by the results o |
f the automaton, Bell continued to experiment with a live subject, the family's Skye Terrier, "Trouve". After he taught it to growl continuously, Bell would reach into its mouth and manipulate the dog's lips and vocal cords to produce a crudesounding "Ow ah oo ga ma ma". With little convincing, visitors believed his dog could articulate "How are you, grandmama?" Indicative of his playful nature, his experiments convinced onlookers that they saw a "talking dog". These initial forays into experimentation with sound led Bell to undertake his first serious work on the transmission of sound, using tuning forks to explore resonance.
At age 19, Bell wrote a report on his work and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague of his father. Ellis immediately wrote back indicating that the experiments were similar to existing work in Germany, and also lent Bell a copy of Hermann von Helmholtz's work, The Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music.
Dismayed to find that groundbreaking w |
ork had already been undertaken by Helmholtz who had conveyed vowel sounds by means of a similar tuning fork "contraption", Bell pored over the German scientist's book. Working from his own erroneous mistranslation of a French edition, Bell fortuitously then made a deduction that would be the underpinning of all his future work on transmitting sound, reporting "Without knowing much about the subject, it seemed to me that if vowel sounds could be produced by electrical means, so could consonants, so could articulate speech." He also later remarked "I thought that Helmholtz had done it ... and that my failure was due only to my ignorance of electricity. It was a valuable blunder ... If I had been able to read German in those days, I might never have commenced my experiments!"
Family tragedy
In 1865, when the Bell family moved to London, Bell returned to Weston House as an assistant master and, in his spare hours, continued experiments on sound using a minimum of laboratory equipment. Bell concentrated on exper |
imenting with electricity to convey sound and later installed a telegraph wire from his room in Somerset College to that of a friend. Throughout late 1867, his health faltered mainly through exhaustion. His younger brother, Edward "Ted," was similarly bedridden, suffering from tuberculosis. While Bell recovered by then referring to himself in correspondence as "A. G. Bell" and served the next year as an instructor at Somerset College, Bath, England, his brother's condition deteriorated. Edward would never recover. Upon his brother's death, Bell returned home in 1867. His older brother Melville had married and moved out. With aspirations to obtain a degree at University College London, Bell considered his next years as preparation for the degree examinations, devoting his spare time at his family's residence to studying.
Helping his father in Visible Speech demonstrations and lectures brought Bell to Susanna E. Hull's private school for the deaf in South Kensington, London. His first two pupils were deafmute |
girls who made remarkable progress under his tutelage. While his older brother seemed to achieve success on many fronts including opening his own elocution school, applying for a patent on an invention, and starting a family, Bell continued as a teacher. However, in May 1870, Melville died from complications due to tuberculosis, causing a family crisis. His father had also suffered a debilitating illness earlier in life and had been restored to health by a convalescence in Newfoundland. Bell's parents embarked upon a longplanned move when they realized that their remaining son was also sickly. Acting decisively, Alexander Melville Bell asked Bell to arrange for the sale of all the family property, conclude all of his brother's affairs Bell took over his last student, curing a pronounced lisp, and join his father and mother in setting out for the "New World". Reluctantly, Bell also had to conclude a relationship with Marie Eccleston, who, as he had surmised, was not prepared to leave England with him.
Canada
|
In 1870, 23yearold Bell travelled with his parents and his brother's widow, Caroline Margaret Ottaway, to Paris, Ontario, to stay with Thomas Henderson, a Baptist minister and family friend. The Bell family soon purchased a farm of at Tutelo Heights now called Tutela Heights, near Brantford, Ontario. The property consisted of an orchard, large farmhouse, stable, pigsty, henhouse, and a carriage house, which bordered the Grand River.
At the homestead, Bell set up his own workshop in the converted carriage house near to what he called his "dreaming place", a large hollow nestled in trees at the back of the property above the river. Despite his frail condition upon arriving in Canada, Bell found the climate and environs to his liking, and rapidly improved. He continued his interest in the study of the human voice and when he discovered the Six Nations Reserve across the river at Onondaga, he learned the Mohawk language and translated its unwritten vocabulary into Visible Speech symbols. For his work, Bell was |
awarded the title of Honorary Chief and participated in a ceremony where he donned a Mohawk headdress and danced traditional dances.
After setting up his workshop, Bell continued experiments based on Helmholtz's work with electricity and sound. He also modified a melodeon a type of pump organ so that it could transmit its music electrically over a distance. Once the family was settled in, both Bell and his father made plans to establish a teaching practice and in 1871, he accompanied his father to Montreal, where Melville was offered a position to teach his System of Visible Speech.
Work with the deaf
Bell's father was invited by Sarah Fuller, principal of the Boston School for Deaf Mutes which continues today as the public Horace Mann School for the Deaf, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, to introduce the Visible Speech System by providing training for Fuller's instructors, but he declined the post in favour of his son. Travelling to Boston in April 1871, Bell proved successful in training the sch |
ool's instructors. He was subsequently asked to repeat the programme at the American Asylum for Deafmutes in Hartford, Connecticut, and the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Returning home to Brantford after six months abroad, Bell continued his experiments with his "harmonic telegraph". The basic concept behind his device was that messages could be sent through a single wire if each message was transmitted at a different pitch, but work on both the transmitter and receiver was needed.
Unsure of his future, he first contemplated returning to London to complete his studies, but decided to return to Boston as a teacher. His father helped him set up his private practice by contacting Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the president of the Clarke School for the Deaf for a recommendation. Teaching his father's system, in October 1872, Alexander Bell opened his "School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech" in Boston, which attracted a large number of deaf pupils, with his first class numberin |
g 30 students. While he was working as a private tutor, one of his pupils was Helen Keller, who came to him as a young child unable to see, hear, or speak. She was later to say that Bell dedicated his life to the penetration of that "inhuman silence which separates and estranges". In 1893, Keller performed the sodbreaking ceremony for the construction of Bell's new Volta Bureau, dedicated to "the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf".
Throughout his lifetime, Bell sought to integrate the deaf and hard of hearing with the hearing world. To achieve complete assimilation in society, Bell encouraged speech therapy and lip reading as well as sign language. He outlined this in a 1898 paper detailing his belief that with resources and effort, the deaf could be taught to read lips and speak known as oralism thus enabling their integration within the wider society from which many were often being excluded. Owing to his efforts to balance oralism with the teaching of sign language, Bell is often v |
iewed negatively by those embracing Deaf culture. Ironically, Bell's last words to his deaf wife, Mabell, were signed.
Continuing experimentation
In 1872, Bell became professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the Boston University School of Oratory. During this period, he alternated between Boston and Brantford, spending summers in his Canadian home. At Boston University, Bell was "swept up" by the excitement engendered by the many scientists and inventors residing in the city. He continued his research in sound and endeavored to find a way to transmit musical notes and articulate speech, but although absorbed by his experiments, he found it difficult to devote enough time to experimentation. While days and evenings were occupied by his teaching and private classes, Bell began to stay awake late into the night, running experiment after experiment in rented facilities at his boarding house. Keeping "night owl" hours, he worried that his work would be discovered and took great pains to lock up his notebo |
oks and laboratory equipment. Bell had a specially made table where he could place his notes and equipment inside a locking cover. Worse still, his health deteriorated as he suffered severe headaches. Returning to Boston in fall 1873, Bell made a farreaching decision to concentrate on his experiments in sound.
Deciding to give up his lucrative private Boston practice, Bell retained only two students, sixyearold "Georgie" Sanders, deaf from birth, and 15yearold Mabel Hubbard. Each pupil would play an important role in the next developments. George's father, Thomas Sanders, a wealthy businessman, offered Bell a place to stay in nearby Salem with Georgie's grandmother, complete with a room to "experiment". Although the offer was made by George's mother and followed the yearlong arrangement in 1872 where her son and his nurse had moved to quarters next to Bell's boarding house, it was clear that Mr. Sanders was backing the proposal. The arrangement was for teacher and student to continue their work together, wit |
h free room and board thrown in. Mabel was a bright, attractive girl who was ten years Bell's junior but became the object of his affection. Having lost her hearing after a nearfatal bout of scarlet fever close to her fifth birthday, she had learned to read lips but her father, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell's benefactor and personal friend, wanted her to work directly with her teacher.
The telephone
By 1874, Bell's initial work on the harmonic telegraph had entered a formative stage, with progress made both at his new Boston "laboratory" a rented facility and at his family home in Canada a big success. While working that summer in Brantford, Bell experimented with a "phonautograph", a penlike machine that could draw shapes of sound waves on smoked glass by tracing their vibrations. Bell thought it might be possible to generate undulating electrical currents that corresponded to sound waves. Bell also thought that multiple metal reeds tuned to different frequencies like a harp would be able to convert the un |
dulating currents back into sound. But he had no working model to demonstrate the feasibility of these ideas.
In 1874, telegraph message traffic was rapidly expanding and in the words of Western Union President William Orton, had become "the nervous system of commerce". Orton had contracted with inventors Thomas Edison and Elisha Gray to find a way to send multiple telegraph messages on each telegraph line to avoid the great cost of constructing new lines. When Bell mentioned to Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders that he was working on a method of sending multiple tones on a telegraph wire using a multireed device, the two wealthy patrons began to financially support Bell's experiments. Patent matters would be handled by Hubbard's patent attorney, Anthony Pollok.
In March 1875, Bell and Pollok visited the scientist Joseph Henry, who was then director of the Smithsonian Institution, and asked Henry's advice on the electrical multireed apparatus that Bell hoped would transmit the human voice by telegraph. H |
enry replied that Bell had "the germ of a great invention". When Bell said that he did not have the necessary knowledge, Henry replied, "Get it!" That declaration greatly encouraged Bell to keep trying, even though he did not have the equipment needed to continue his experiments, nor the ability to create a working model of his ideas. However, a chance meeting in 1874 between Bell and Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical designer and mechanic at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams, changed all that.
With financial support from Sanders and Hubbard, Bell hired Thomas Watson as his assistant, and the two of them experimented with acoustic telegraphy. On June 2, 1875, Watson accidentally plucked one of the reeds and Bell, at the receiving end of the wire, heard the overtones of the reed; overtones that would be necessary for transmitting speech. That demonstrated to Bell that only one reed or armature was necessary, not multiple reeds. This led to the "gallows" soundpowered telephone, which co |
uld transmit indistinct, voicelike sounds, but not clear speech.
The race to the patent office
In 1875, Bell developed an acoustic telegraph and drew up a patent application for it. Since he had agreed to share U.S. profits with his investors Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, Bell requested that an associate in Ontario, George Brown, attempt to patent it in Britain, instructing his lawyers to apply for a patent in the U.S. only after they received word from Britain Britain would issue patents only for discoveries not previously patented elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Elisha Gray was also experimenting with acoustic telegraphy and thought of a way to transmit speech using a water transmitter. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed a caveat with the U.S. Patent Office for a telephone design that used a water transmitter. That same morning, Bell's lawyer filed Bell's application with the patent office. There is considerable debate about who arrived first and Gray later challenged the primacy of Bell's patent. Bell was in |
Boston on February 14 and did not arrive in Washington until February 26.
Bell's patent 174,465, was issued to Bell on March 7, 1876, by the U.S. Patent Office. Bell's patent covered "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound" Bell returned to Boston the same day and the next day resumed work, drawing in his notebook a diagram similar to that in Gray's patent caveat.
On March 10, 1876, three days after his patent was issued, Bell succeeded in getting his telephone to work, using a liquid transmitter similar to Gray's design. Vibration of the diaphragm caused a needle to vibrate in the water, varying the electrical resistance in the circuit. When Bell spoke the sentence "Mr. WatsonCome hereI want to see you" into the liquid transmitter, Watson, listening at the receiving end in an adjoining room, heard the words clearly.
Although Bell was, |
and still is, accused of stealing the telephone from Gray, Bell used Gray's water transmitter design only after Bell's patent had been granted, and only as a proof of concept scientific experiment, to prove to his own satisfaction that intelligible "articulate speech" Bell's words could be electrically transmitted. After March 1876, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone and never used Gray's liquid transmitter in public demonstrations or commercial use.
The question of priority for the variable resistance feature of the telephone was raised by the examiner before he approved Bell's patent application. He told Bell that his claim for the variable resistance feature was also described in Gray's caveat. Bell pointed to a variable resistance device in his previous application in which he described a cup of mercury, not water. He had filed the mercury application at the patent office a year earlier on February 25, 1875, long before Elisha Gray described the water device. In addition, Gray aband |
oned his caveat, and because he did not contest Bell's priority, the examiner approved Bell's patent on March 3, 1876. Gray had reinvented the variable resistance telephone, but Bell was the first to write down the idea and the first to test it in a telephone.
The patent examiner, Zenas Fisk Wilber, later stated in an affidavit that he was an alcoholic who was much in debt to Bell's lawyer, Marcellus Bailey, with whom he had served in the Civil War. He claimed he showed Gray's patent caveat to Bailey. Wilber also claimed after Bell arrived in Washington D.C. from Boston that he showed Gray's caveat to Bell and that Bell paid him 100 . Bell claimed they discussed the patent only in general terms, although in a letter to Gray, Bell admitted that he learned some of the technical details. Bell denied in an affidavit that he ever gave Wilber any money.
Later developments
On March 10, 1876, Bell used "the instrument" in Boston to call Thomas Watson who was in another room but out of earshot. He said, "Mr. Watso |
n, come here I want to see you" and Watson soon appeared at his side.
Continuing his experiments in Brantford, Bell brought home a working model of his telephone. On August 3, 1876, from the telegraph office in Brantford, Ontario, Bell sent a tentative telegram to the village of Mount Pleasant distant, indicating that he was ready. He made a telephone call via telegraph wires and faint voices were heard replying. The following night, he amazed guests as well as his family with a call between the Bell Homestead and the office of the Dominion Telegraph Company in Brantford along an improvised wire strung up along telegraph lines and fences, and laid through a tunnel. This time, guests at the household distinctly heard people in Brantford reading and singing. The third test on August 10, 1876, was made via the telegraph line between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, distant. This test was said by many sources to be the "world's first longdistance call". The final test certainly proved that the telephone could wo |
rk over long distances, at least as a oneway call.
The first twoway reciprocal conversation over a line occurred between Cambridge and Boston roughly 2.5 miles on October 9, 1876. During that conversation, Bell was on Kilby Street in Boston and Watson was at the offices of the Walworth Manufacturing Company.
Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for 100,000. The president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy. Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for 25 million he would consider it a bargain. By then, the Bell company no longer wanted to sell the patent. Bell's investors would become millionaires while he fared well from residuals and at one point had assets of nearly one million dollars.
Bell began a series of public demonstrations and lectures to introduce the new invention to the scientific community as well as the general public. A short time later, his demonstration of an ea |
rly telephone prototype at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia brought the telephone to international attention. Influential visitors to the exhibition included Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. One of the judges at the Exhibition, Sir William Thomson later, Lord Kelvin, a renowned Scottish scientist, described the telephone as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".
On January 14, 1878, at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, Bell demonstrated the device to Queen Victoria, placing calls to Cowes, Southampton and London. These were the first publicly witnessed longdistance telephone calls in the UK. The queen considered the process to be "quite extraordinary" although the sound was "rather faint". She later asked to buy the equipment that was used, but Bell offered to make "a set of telephones" specifically for her.
The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877, and by 1886, more than 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. Bell Company engineers made numerous other im |
provements to the telephone, which emerged as one of the most successful products ever. In 1879, the Bell company acquired Edison's patents for the carbon microphone from Western Union. This made the telephone practical for longer distances, and it was no longer necessary to shout to be heard at the receiving telephone.
Emperor Pedro II of Brazil was the first person to buy stock in Bell's company, the Bell Telephone Company. One of the first telephones in a private residence was installed in his palace in Petrpolis, his summer retreat from Rio de Janeiro.
In January 1915, Bell made the first ceremonial transcontinental telephone call. Calling from the ATT head office at 15 Dey Street in New York City, Bell was heard by Thomas Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. The New York Times reported
Competitors
As is sometimes common in scientific discoveries, simultaneous developments can occur, as evidenced by a number of inventors who were at work on the telephone. Over a period of 18 years, the Bell Te |
lephone Company faced 587 court challenges to its patents, including five that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but none was successful in establishing priority over the original Bell patent and the Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage. Bell's laboratory notes and family letters were the key to establishing a long lineage to his experiments. The Bell company lawyers successfully fought off myriad lawsuits generated initially around the challenges by Elisha Gray and Amos Dolbear. In personal correspondence to Bell, both Gray and Dolbear had acknowledged his prior work, which considerably weakened their later claims.
On January 13, 1887, the U.S. Government moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. After a series of decisions and reversals, the Bell company won a decision in the Supreme Court, though a couple of the original claims from the lower court cases were left undecided. By the time that the trial wound its way t |
hrough nine years of legal battles, the U.S. prosecuting attorney had died and the two Bell patents No. 174,465 dated March 7, 1876, and No. 186,787 dated January 30, 1877 were no longer in effect, although the presiding judges agreed to continue the proceedings due to the case's importance as a precedent. With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest on both sides arising from the original trial, the US Attorney General dropped the lawsuit on November 30, 1897, leaving several issues undecided on the merits.
During a deposition filed for the 1887 trial, Italian inventor Antonio Meucci also claimed to have created the first working model of a telephone in Italy in 1834. In 1886, in the first of three cases in which he was involved, Meucci took the stand as a witness in the hope of establishing his invention's priority. Meucci's testimony in this case was disputed due to a lack of material evidence for his inventions, as his working models were purportedly lost at the laboratory of Ameri |
can District Telegraph ADT of New York, which was later incorporated as a subsidiary of Western Union in 1901. Meucci's work, like many other inventors of the period, was based on earlier acoustic principles and despite evidence of earlier experiments, the final case involving Meucci was eventually dropped upon Meucci's death. However, due to the efforts of Congressman Vito Fossella, the U.S. House of Representatives on June 11, 2002, stated that Meucci's "work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged". This did not put an end to the stillcontentious issue. Some modern scholars do not agree with the claims that Bell's work on the telephone was influenced by Meucci's inventions.
The value of the Bell patent was acknowledged throughout the world, and patent applications were made in most major countries, but when Bell delayed the German patent application, the electrical firm of Siemens Halske set up a rival manufacturer of Bell telephones under their own patent. The Siemens company produced n |
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