An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology part 43. This one of a kind encyclopedia presents the entire field of technology from rudimentary agricultural tools to communication satellites in this first of its kind reference source. Following an introduction that discusses basic tools, devices, and mechanisms, the chapters are grouped into five parts that provide detailed information on materials, power and engineering, transportation, communication and calculation, and technology and society, revealing how different technologies have together evolved to produce enormous changes in the course of history | PART TWO POWER AND ENGINEERING Figure A model ofJames Nasmyth s original steam hammer of 1839. threads. His paper On a uniform system of Screw Threads read to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1841 was the beginning of rationalization in the manufacture of screwed fastenings. A compromise system was eventually worked out based on the average pitch and depth of thread in use by leading engineers and a table was produced giving the pitches of screws of different 402 ENGINEERING AND PRODUCTION diameters and a constant proportion between depth and pitch by adopting an angle of 55 for the V profile. By 1858 Whitworth could claim that his standardization of screw threads had been implemented although his advocated decimal scale was not accepted except where it coincided with fractional sizes and in Europe where it competed with the metric thread. A similar fate greeted his decimal Standard Wire Gauge which was never adopted as a national standard. In 1853 Whitworthjoined a Royal Commission visiting the New York Exhibition and reported that American machine tools were generally inferior to English although their eagerness to use machinery whenever possible to replace manual labour appealed to him. A request by the Board of Ordnance to make machinery for manufacturing the Enfield rifle in 1854 turned his interest towards the manufacture of firearms. He produced his own rifle and later cannon which were superior to their competitors in performance but they were rejected by the official committees although he obtained large orders from abroad. His visit to America also confirmed his belief in the value of technical education first shown in his support for the Mechanics Institutes and Manchester School of Design in the late 1830s and led to the launch of Whitworth Scholarships in 1868-9. Unfortunately he was a supreme egotist which led to conflict with authority and his rigorous authoritarian control of the details of his manufactures stultified later development. The
