Device

“ And the more complicated the mechanism or process, the more necessary will be the discovery of the root principle—a printing machine, for instance, with its amazing complexity, will be helped wonderfully by such a device, and the reader will welcome the device even more than he would in an explanation of how, for example, a fountain pen works—though he will be glad for it in any case. ”

“ For example, in the human body, a nerve is the physical device that carries information from one part of the body to another. In the Harvard machine, an insulated wire is the physical device that carries information from one part of the machine to another. One side of every panel in the Harvard machine is heavily laden with a great network of wires. Between the panels, you can see in many places cables as thick as your arm and containing hundreds of wires. ”

“ Operation.—The considerations relating to the operation of a machine involve an examination of the details of its construction, in order to determine the amount of attention it will require, the character of its regulating device, its capacity, form, and weight. ”

“ After the knife has made the complete journey over the surface, a device attached to the machine pushes the object from the fork so that a new one may be put in its place. Parers are quite complicated devices, but they have been perfected so that they are not clumsy, and some can core apples, stone peaches and slice the fruit. ”

“ Nor is it safe to give much heed to the fact that the corresponding device in two machines organized to accomplish the same result is different in shape or form the one from the other, as it is necessary in every such investigation to look at the mode of operation or the way the device works, and at the result, as well as at the means by which the result is attained. ”

“ Examine at random any one of half a dozen lines of mechanical invention, one characteristic common to them all will instantly arrest attention—they present nothing more than a mere outgrowth of the manual processes and machines of earlier times. Some operation, once performed by hand tools, is expedited by a device which enables the foot as well as the hand to be employed. ”

“ It is sufficient to constitute a known mechanical substitute that, when a skillful mechanic sees one device doing a particular thing, he knows the other device, whose uses he is acquainted with, will do the same thing. ”

“ It is a simple electric device which will enable you, wherever you may be, to converse with people in any part of the world, without the use of such crude connections as wires. In fact, you may—"
"Stop!" cried Rob. ”

“ Now while all of the above devices have been invented and patented the point is that every one of them has a bug, that is a flaw in it somewhere; by which I mean that in each and every case, except the toys and amusements, the device is too hard to work, costs too much, takes too much time, is too troublesome, is too poorly made or is not as comfortable as the old-fashioned thing. ”

“ The work-holding device consists of a compound rest and a vise capable of being swiveled to any angle or of being revolved to feed the work to the cutter, hence the work may be moved in any required direction, in either a straight line, in a circle, or in any irregular manner to suit the shape of the work. ”

“ For a writer familiar with electricity and its application in the telephone, the problem of explaining in an interesting manner a new device for wireless telephony is less difficult than for one who knows little about the subject. ”

“ In the Emery system of machines, consisting of scales, gages, and dynamometers, the power exerted on the material tested is transmitted from the load to an indicating device by means of liquid acting on diaphragms. ”

“ I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. ”

“ To the right you will see some inventions of a more complex kind such as the check protector, mimeograph, time stamp, combination lock, fountain pen, computing scale, compressed air rock drill, cash register, the comptometer and a thousand other devices we see in use or use ourselves every day. ”

“ Then power is applied; the hand or foot operation, or both, are made automatic, and possibly, as a still further improvement, several of these automatic devices are combined into one. All the while the fundamental basis is the old, original hand process ”

“ Beyond doubt, it is established in these cases that all the elements or ingredients of the patented apparatus are old, and that the invention consists in the combination or arrangement of the several devices of which the apparatus is composed. ”

“ In order that the reader may fully appreciate the beauty and value of the latest and most improved devices, we will run lightly over the gamut of the various instruments which have been introduced from time to time. ”

“ These analogies in nature are particularly fitting, since the analog computer is at its best in representing a physical system. While we do not generally recognize such homely examples as computers, automatic record-changers, washing machines, electric watt-hour meters, and similar devices are true analogs. ”

“ We have, therefore, drawn as much of our illustrative material as possible from the common devices in modern life. We see no reason why this should detract in the least from the educational value of the study of physics, for one can learn to think straight just as well by thinking about an electrical generator, as by thinking about a Geissler tube.... ”

“ While they have a liberal supply of excellent illustrative material and teaching apparatus and the best of facilities for storing it, mechanical appliances for its display and devices for its convenient use are woefully lacking. ”

“ As this fact has only been developed by persistent progressive research, it is quite easy to comprehend the nature of the difficulties that lie in the way of perfecting devices for the guidance of artificers and mechanics, whereby they can bring a proper vibratory action into play to induce positive sympathetic transmission. In order to transmit my knowledge by demonstration it will be necessary to have much more perfect instruments than those crude devices which I first constructed for my researches. ”

“ In all cases where it is practicable some device151 for preventing the nuts from coming loose, or being entirely lost, is a great boon; this point will have to be looked after now since complicated machines are becoming more popular. ”

“ In shops where small work is made to standard gauge, and on the interchangeable system, devices are employed, by means of [I-111] which a piece that has been threaded will screw firmly home to its place, and come to some definite position, as in the following examples. In Fig. 364 let it be required that the stud a shall screw in the slide s; the arm a to stand vertical when collar b is firmly home, and a device such as in Fig. 365 may be employed. p is a plate on which is fixed a chuck c to receive the slide s. ”

“ In the laboratories working on new mechanical and electronic brains, scientists are doing a lot of thinking about new devices for handling information. Research into devices for storing information shows that magnetic wire as used in sound recording is a rather good storage medium. ”

“ He had enormous and poetic admiration, though very little understanding, of all mechanical devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding each new intricate mechanism—metal lathe, two-jet carburetor, machine gun, oxyacetylene welder—he learned one good realistic-sounding phrase, and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of being technical and initiated. ”

“ Small machines using a few electronic tubes—much like a radio set, for example—and containing spools of magnetic wire or magnetic tape will doubtless be available to us. We shall be able to use them to keep addresses and telephone numbers, to figure out the income tax we should pay, to help us keep accounts and make ends meet, to remember many things we need to know, and perhaps even to give us more information. For there are a great many things that all of us could do much better if we could only apply what the wisest of us knows. ”

“ When you think of an outfit retailing for 50c. and covering the whole subject of "Static Electricity," giving 60 scientific experiments upon its production, conduction and induction, with a 55–page book of instructions with 38 drawings, and a complete set of apparatus of 20 articles for performing these 60 experiments, you will understand why the sales of this outfit have been enormous. As the subject is presented in a fascinating way—and not as mere dry science—every one likes to do the experiments. ”

“ As the nerves reaching from your finger-tips, from your ears, your eyes, and every portion of your body come to a focus in your brain and carry information to it about the things you taste, see, hear, feel, and smell, so the wires of a telephone system come together at the central station. And as it is necessary for your right hand to communicate with your left through your brain, so it is necessary for one telephone subscriber to connect through the central station with another subscriber. ”

“ An apparatus for dispelling fogs by electricity, television, or transmitting sight by electricity, cheap electric lights, see Fig. 113, a simple telautograph, or writing telegraph, a means for directing wireless telegraph and telephone messages, automatic block signals which [192] operate in the engine driver’s cab and are positive in action, transmitting pictures by wireless and a cheap and powerful generator of sustained electric oscillations by a battery or other low voltage current, all these needs show that there is still plenty of room for improvement. ”

“ All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly into commonplaces contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle. Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton-gins, sewing- machines, Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone and far in the land of human inventions.
In one paragraph of Orion's letter he refers to the machine as a "cunning devil, knowing more than any man that ever lived." ”

“ I also claim, as my invention and improvement, the combination of machinery herein described, consisting of the generation of electricity, the circuit of conductors, the contrivance for closing and breaking the circuit, the electro-magnet, the pen or contribance for marking, and the machinery for sustaining and moving the paper, altogether constituting one apparatus of telegraphic machinery, which I denominate the American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. ”

“ The first question suggested that we might draw, a complete diagram of a ship’s radio equipment, showing the complete transmitting equipment, receiving equipment, auxiliary emergency equipment,explain the object of all parts, give their names, and use symbols to your heart’s content. We had heard of this question, and we had crammed up on motor generators and storage batteries and wave meters, and decrement dingbobs, but when we came face to face with this diagram business, it seemed like quite a contract. ”

“ To it may be added the Morse system of telegraphy, the telephone and phonograph, the electric light and electric motor, and all that wonderful series of inventions in electrical science which has been due to American genius.
We cannot begin to name the multitude of inventions in the mechanical industries which have raised manufacture from an art to a science and filled the world with the multitude of its products. ”

“ For instance, every piece of wood used in a machine must be tested with the greatest care. A chap can't do that himself. [Pg 96] Every piece of wire used has got to be stretched in a machine specially invented for the purpose. For instance, to find the breaking strain of a piece of wire, a piece fifteen inches long is placed between the jaws of a standard testing machine, so that a length of ten inches of the wire is clear between the two ends. ”

“ Choose, if possible, some machine which makes little whirr, bustle, or dust; which causes no vicious tremor to eyes or nerves; and in which the large amount of work got through in proportion to the amount of force exerted by the operator is due not to any piece of the machine moving quickly, but to the fact that every touch of the operator's finger sets a great variety of parts moving, each one at a moderate pace but exactly in harmony with all the rest. ”

“ Discovery and invention may be, and often are, united as the soul is to the body. The union of the two produces one or more inventions. Thus the invented electro-telegraph consists of the combination of discoveries of certain laws of electricity with an apparatus, by which signs are communicated to distances by electrical influence. ”

“ Surveying the whole field, we are struck by two features in this evolution, the combination of which includes the sum of the advance. Not less wonderful than the succession of power-machines for the automatic handling of the fiber in the several stages of its manipulation, is the series of mechanical contrivances for the automatic delivery of the material from machine to machine without the touching of human hand. ”

“ The objects of our invention are to provide means for maintaining or restoring the equilibrium, or lateral balance of the apparatus, to provide means for guiding the machine both vertically and horizontally, and to provide a structure combining lightness, strength, convenience of construction, and certain other advantages which will hereinafter appear. ”