Showing posts with label First Inventions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Inventions. Show all posts

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Mercedes First Electric Car Information & Pictures

Not too long ago, Mercedes announced that the Mercedes-Benz S400 BlueHybrid, pictured, would be the (likely) first production hybrid that uses lithium-ion batteries. The li-ion steak may be juicier that we expected, if this post over at Benz Insider is on target. BI is saying that a source within MB's Stuttgart Research Center has revealed that Daimler AG is developing a mid- or large-size electric-powered luxury vehicle. While a plug will certainly charge the battery packs, a "small dynamo like device" in the vehicle can also provide energy to - but not fully recharge - the battery. Sounds like a range extender to us, but with a rumored battery-only range of 105 miles, who will need it? We've put in a request to Daimler for more info, because, um, I think we're pretty interested in a car like this.
[Source: Benz Insider]
We have recently learned, from a source close to Mercedes Benz and its Research Center in Stuttgart, that the Daimler AG is working on a vehicle “which will revolutionize the luxury auto market,” as they put it. The “revolutionary” vehicle will be an all electric mid-size to large luxury vehicle, and will feature alithium-ion battery that can be recharged two ways. The first option will be with a direct plug-in, and the other option will be a small dynamo like device that will charge the battery while the car is driving. In current tests, the battery was able to get 170 km (approx 105 miles) before it had to be charged again, which means that the dynamo itself can only partially recharge the battery.
Read 
It’s still not fully know which vehicle might get this technology, but if we look at some of the most recent developments, we can probably find the one that will most like be released with a electric motor. In a post we wrote in late February, we reported that Mercedes has acquired 25 patents for a lithium-ion technology to be used in the S 400 BlueHYBRID beginning next year. We also reported a couple of time on the GLK and its Hybrid intentions. If we were to throw out a educated guess here, we would probably say that the S-Class and the GLK, maybe even ML, will be the first “luxury’ all electric powered vehicles in the market.

Here is the most important questions for consumers. When will it come out? According to our source, a fully electric powered vehicle from Mercedes will come in the form of a new model/generation vehicle. If our prediction is right, and it is the S-Class, then we can expect the EV sometime in 2011 or possibly even as early as 2010, as that is when a new model is scheduled.
According To( telegraph.co.uk)
The zero-emission SLS AMG E-Cell boasts a power output of 535hp and 868lbs of torque, giving it a 0-62mph time of four seconds - that's almost as fast as its 6.2-litre V8-powered SLS AMG sibling, which makes the same dash in 3.8 seconds.
Aimed at proving that the firm is looking forward to the "challenges of motoring of the future", the high-voltage Gullwing offers what Mercedes calls "the prospect of a possible small series production run" at the same time as reflecting the firm's "innovative strength".
"We take social responsibility very seriously and with the SLS AMG E-Cell we are demonstrating a further milestone in our "AMG Performance 2015" strategy," said Ola Källenius, chairman of the board of Mercedes-AMG GmbH.
"It is our goal to continually reduce the fuel consumption and emissions of new models in the coming years, while at the same time enhancing the core brand value of performance."
The E-Cell features four electric motors - one for each wheel - each capable of maximum engine speeds of 12,000rpm, with maximum torque available from "virtually a standstill", says Mercedes-Benz.

History of Computing Hardware


The history of computing hardware is the record of the ongoing effort to make computer hardware faster, cheaper, and capable of storing more data.
Computing hardware evolved from machines that needed separate manual action to perform each arithmetic operation, to punched card machines, and then to stored-program computers. The history of stored-program computers relates first to computer architecture, that is, the organization of the units to perform input and output, to store data and to operate as an integrated mechanism . Secondly, this is a history of the electronic components and mechanical devices that comprise these units. Finally, we describe the continuing integration of 21st-century supercomputers, networks, personal devices, and integrated computers/communicators into many aspects of today's society. Increases in speed and memory capacity, and decreases in cost and size in relation to compute power, are major features of the history. As all computers rely on digital storage, and tend to be limited by the size and speed of memory, the history of computer data storage is tied to the development of computers.

Overview

Before the development of the general-purpose computer, most calculations were done by humans. Mechanical tools to help humans with digital calculations were then called "calculating machines", by proprietary names, or even as they are now, calculators. It was those humans who used the machines who were then called computers; there are pictures of enormous rooms filled with desks at which computers (often young women) used their machines to jointly perform calculations, as for instance, aerodynamic ones required for in aircraft design.
Calculators have continued to develop, but computers add the critical element of conditional response and larger memory, allowing automation of both numerical calculation and in general, automation of many symbol-manipulation tasks. Computer technology has undergone profound changes every decade since the 1940s.
Computing hardware has become a platform for uses other than mere computation, such as process automation, electronic communications, equipment control, entertainment, education, etc. Each field in turn has imposed its own requirements on the hardware, which has evolved in response to those requirements, such as the role of the touch screen to create a more intuitive and natural user interface.
Aside from written numerals, the first aids to computation were purely mechanical devices which required the operator to set up the initial values of an elementary arithmetic operation, then manipulate the device to obtain the result. A sophisticated (and comparatively recent) example is the slide rule in which numbers are represented as lengths on a logarithmic scale and computation is performed by setting a cursor and aligning sliding scales, thus adding those lengths. Numbers could be represented in a continuous "analog" form, for instance a voltage or some other physical property was set to be proportional to the number. Analog computers, like those designed and built byVannevar Bush before World War II were of this type. Numbers could be represented in the form of digits, automatically manipulated by a mechanical mechanism. Although this last approach required more complex mechanisms in many cases, it made for greater precision of results.
Both analog and digital mechanical techniques continued to be developed, producing many practical computing machines. Electrical methods rapidly improved the speed and precision of calculating machines, at first by providing motive power for mechanical calculating devices, and later directly as the medium for representation of numbers. Numbers could be represented by voltages or currents and manipulated by linear electronic amplifiers. Or, numbers could be represented as discrete binary or decimal digits, and electrically controlled switches and combinational circuits could perform mathematical operations.
The invention of electronic amplifiers made calculating machines much faster than their mechanical or electromechanical predecessors.Vacuum tube (thermionic valve) amplifiers gave way to solid state transistors, and then rapidly to integrated circuits which continue to improve, placing millions of electrical switches (typically transistors) on a single elaborately manufactured piece of semi-conductor the size of a fingernail. By defeating the tyranny of numbers, integrated circuits made high-speed and low-cost digital computers a widespread commodity.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Louis Daguerre Daguerreotype Ten Steps Process


Louis Jacques Mande DAGUERRE (1787-1851)
The daguerreotype process was the first practicable method of obtaining permanent images with a camera. The man who gave his name to the process and perfected the method of producing direct positive images on a silver-coated copper plate was Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, a French artist and scenic painter. Daguerre had began experimenting with ways of fixing the images formed by thecamera obscura around 1824, but in 1829 he entered into partnership with Joseph Nicephore Niepce(1765-1833), a French amateur scientist and inventor who, in 1826, had succeeded in securing a picture of the view from his window by using a a camera obscura and a pewter plate coated with bitumen. Niepce called his picture-making process heliography ("sun drawing"), but although he had managed to produce a permanent image using a camera, the exposure time was around 8 hours. Niepce later abandoned pewter plates in favour of silver-plated sheets of copper and discovered that the vapour from iodine reacted with the silver coating to produce silver iodide, a light sensitive compound.
After the death of Niepce in 1833, Daguerre continued to experiment with copper plates coated with silver iodide to produce direct positive pictures. Daguerre discovered that the latent image on an exposed plate could be brought out or "developed" with the fumes from warmed mercury. The use ofmercury vapour meant that photographic images could be produced in twenty to thirty minutes rather than hours. In 1837, Daguerre found a way of "fixing" the photographic images with a solution of common salt. Two years later, he followed the suggestion of Sir John Herschel (1792-1871) and adopted hyposulphate of soda (now thiosulphate of soda ) as the fixing agent.
Daguerre began making successful pictures using his improved process from 1837. On 19th August,1839, at a meeting in Paris, the Daguerreotype Process was revealed to the world.
In England, Richard Beard (1801-1885), a former coal merchant and patent speculator, bought the patent to Alexander Wolcott's mirror camera and employed the services of John Frederick Goddard (1795-1866), a chemist, to find a way of reducing exposure times to less than a few minutes, thereby making it possible to take daguerreotype portraits. On 23rd March 1841, Richard Beard opened England’s first daguerreotype portrait studio in London's Regent Street. In June 1841, Beard purchased from Daguerre the patent rights to the daguerreotype process in England.
Ten Steps in Making a Daguerreotype Process
1. Polishing and Buffing the Photographic Plate
A plate of silver-coated copper is cleaned and highly polished with a soft cloth, using pumice powder and oil. The plate is continually polished and buffed until the silvered surface has a mirror-like brilliance.
2. Sensitizing the Photographic Plate
The polished plate is sensitized by exposing it to iodine and bromine fumes. The plate is first suspended in an air tight compartment containing chloride of iodine until the surface of the silvered plate turns yellow. The iodized plate is then suspended face down over chloride of bromine fumes. The two chemicals combine with the silver coating of the plate to form a light sensitive surface. ( Some daguerreotype artists used a combination of chlorine and iodinevapours ).
3. Loading the Camera
The sensitized plate is inserted into alight-proof holder with a protective slide and placed inside the camera.
4. Taking the Likeness
The subject is placed in front of the camera. If necessary, the pose is held with the assistance of adjustable head rests, clamps and posing stands.
The protective slide is removed and, when the photographer is satisfied with the pose and expression of the sitter, the lens cap is removed for a period of time until the image is captured on the sensitized surface of the plate.
5. Developing the Image
The image is "brought out" by suspending the photographic plate over a dish of mercury inside afuming box. The mercury is heated by a spirit lamp and the fumes from the mercury combine with the silver salts to produce a clear image on the plate.
6. Fixing the Image
Fixing the image with hyposulphate of soda
The photographic image is made permanent by bathing the photographic plate in hyposulphate of soda ( or sodium thiosulphite ).

7. Gold Toning or Gilding ( optional )
The image on the the photographic plate can also be toned and strengthened by treating the plate with gold chloride
8. Washing the Photographic Plate
Finally, the photographic plate is washed in distilled water and dried.

9. Colouring ( optional )
The portrait could be coloured by hand. The surface of the plate was coated with a thin film of gum arabic and left to dry. The colourist would then breathe on the treated plate to make it sticky and with a fine paintbrush applied dry powdered pigment to the image.
A hand-coloured daguerreotype portrait of a woman by William Edward Kilburn, who opened a studio in Regent Street, London in 1846. William Kilburn was famous for his hand-coloured daguerreotype portraits, which were compared to painted portrait miniatures.

10. Mounting and Presenting the Finished Daguerreotype Portrait
The finished daguerreotype portrait was surrounded by a gilt or brass mat, covered with a sheet of protective glass, and bound in a metal frame. The daguerreotype portrait was presented in a velvet or plush-lined, leather case, or mounted in a decorative frame.


Louis Daguerre Daguerreotype


History and Development of Forensic Science up to the 20th Century

Key People

  • Fortunatus Fidelis- first person to practice forensic medicine
  • Sir Francis Galton- developed first basic system for classifying fingerprints based on grouping the patterns into arches, loops, and whorls
  • Alphonse Bertillion- French criminologist who applied techniques of human body measurement used in anthropological classification to the identification of criminals
  • Zacharias Janssen- Dutch lens-maker who invented first compound microscope



    1850_Daguerreotype_Camera.jpg
  • Louis Daguerre- first photograph- "daguerreotype"
  • Mathieu Orfila- “Father of Toxicology,” wrote Traite des Poisons
  • William Talbot- invented the photographic negative
  • Henry Goddard- first to trace bullet back to gun successfully
  • Cesare Lombroso- said criminals had certain physical features
  • Francesco Patrizi- made early type of lie detector that failed


Key Terms


  1. Forensic medicine- application of medical knowledge to legal questions


  1. Compound microscope- microscope with more than one lensi1.gif
  2. Forensic science- scientific method of collecting and gathering evidence.
Mathieu Orfila

Case Study

France, 1840: A 24-year-old woman named Marie Lafarge was charged with poisoning her husband. She had been seen buying arsenic "to kill her rats" and it was also rumored that she was unhappy with her marriage. Lawyers on both sides were arguing and the methods scientists used to prove that Lafarge had killed her husband kept being doubted or disproved. Both sides agreed to consult Mathieu Orfila, "Father of Toxicology." Orfila took samples from the husband's body and the soil that he was buried in. Orfila found traces of arsenic in the body and proved that it did not come from the surrounding soil, making the jury decide that Lafarge was guilty and she was sentenced to life in jail.
Source; northcrossschoolforensics.wikispaces.com

Louis Daguerre Daguerreotype Process

1840-1841 Camerae obscurae and plates for Daguerreotype called "Grand Photographe" produced by Charles Chevalier (Musée des Arts et Métiers).
Daguerreotype Process  The daguerreotype, along with the Tintype, is a photographic image allowing no direct transfer of the image onto another light-sensitive medium, as opposed to glass plate or paper negatives. Preparation of the copper plate prior to image exposure resulted in the formation of a layer of photo-sensitive silver halide, and exposure to a scene or image through a lens formed a latent image. The latent image was made visible, or "developed", by placing the exposed plate over a slightly heated (about 30°C / 90°F) cup of mercury. Daguerre was first to discover and publish (in the publication of the process and the English patent of 1839) the principle of latent image development.
The mercury vapour condensed on those places on the plate where the exposure light was most intense (highlights), and less so in darker areas of the image (shadows). This produced a picture in an amalgam, the mercury washing the silver out of the halides, solubilizing and amalgamating it into free silver particles which adhered to the exposed areas of the plate, leaving the unexposed silver halide ready to be removed by the fixing process. This resulted in the final unfixed image, which consisted of light and dark areas of grey amalgam on the plate. The developing box was constructed to allow inspection of the image through a yellow glass window to allow the photographer to determine when to stop development.
The next operation was to "fix" the photographic image permanently on the plate by dipping in a solution of hyposulphite of soda, often called "fixer" or "hypo", to dissolve the unexposed halides. Initially, Daguerre's process was to use a saturated salt solution for this step, but later adopted Herschel's suggestion of sodium thiosulphate, as did W. H. F. Talbot.
The image produced by this method is extremely fragile and susceptible to damage when handled. Practically all daguerreotypes are protected from accidental damage by a glass-fronted enclosure. It was discovered by experiment that treating the plate with heated gold chloride both tones and strengthens the image, although it remains quite delicate and requires a well-sealed enclosure to protect against touch as well as oxidation of the fine silver deposits forming the blacks in the image. The best-preserved daguerreotypes dating from the 19th century are sealed in robust glass cases evacuated of air and filled with a chemically inert gas, typically nitrogen.

Daguerreotype Proliferation

André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri and Jules Itier in France, and Johann Baptist Isenring in Switzerland, became prominent daguerreotypists. In the United Kingdom, however, Richard Beard bought the British daguerreotype patent from Miles Berry in 1841 and closely controlled his investment, selling licenses throughout the country and prosecuting infringers.Among others, Antoine Claudet andThomas Richard Williamsproduced daguerreotypes in the U.K.

Advertisement for a traveling Daguerreotype photographer, with location left blank
Daguerreotype photography spread rapidly across the United States. In the early 1840s, the invention was introduced in a period of months to practitioners in the United States by Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph code. One of these original Morse Daguerreotype cameras is currently on display at the National Museum of American History, a branch of the Smithsonian, in Washington, DC. A flourishing market in portraiture sprang up, predominantly the work of itinerant practitioners who traveled from town to town. For the first time in history, people could obtain an exact likeness of themselves or their loved ones for a modest cost, making portrait photographs extremely popular with those of modest means. Notable U.S. daguerreotypists of the mid-19th century included James Presley Ball,Samuel Bemis,Abraham Bogardus,Mathew Brady,Thomas Martin Easterly,François FleischbeinJeremiah GurneyJohn Plumbe, Jr.,Albert Southworth, Augustus WashingtonEzra Greenleaf Weld,] and John Adams Whipple.
This method spread to other parts of the world as well. In 1857, Ichiki Shirō created the first knownJapanese photograph, a portrait of his daimyo Shimazu Nariakira. This photograph was designated anImportant Cultural Property by the government of Japan.
The daguerreotype is commonly, erroneously, believed to have been the dominant photographic process into the late part of the 19th century in Europe. Evidence from the period shows that it was in widespread use for less than twenty years before being superseded by other processes:
  • The calotype, introduced in 1841; a negative-positive process using a paper negative.
  • The collodion wet plate process, introduced in 1851; a negative-positive process using halide-impregnated collodion poured from a bottle onto a glass plate and sensitized by immersion in a silver nitrate bath.
The collodion wet plate process was used to produce ambrotypes on glass and tintypes or ferrotypes on a coated iron plate.
  • The ambrotype, introduced in 1854; a negative image on glass which appeared positive when on dark "ruby" glass or backed with a black varnish or cloth.
  • The tintype or ferrotype, introduced in 1856; an image like the ambrotype, but on a thin blackened iron plate instead of glass.

Daguerreotype Demise

The intricate, complex, labor-intensive daguerreotype process itself helped contribute to the rapid move to theambrotype and tintype. The proliferation of these simpler and much less expensive photographic processes made the costly daguerreotypes less appealing to the average person (although it remained very popular inastronomical observatories until the invention of glass plate cameras). According to Mace (1999), the rigidity of these images stems more from the seriousness of the activity than a long exposure time, which he says was actually only a few seconds (Early Photographs, p. 21). The daguerreotype's lack of a negative image from which multiple positive "prints" could be made was a limitation also shared by the tintype, but was not a factor in the daguerreotype's demise until the introduction of the calotype. The fact that many of those to use the process suffered severe health problems or even death from mercury poisoning after inhaling toxic vapors created during the heating process also contributed to its falling out of favor with photographers. Unlike film and paper photography however, a properly sealed daguerreotype can potentially last indefinitely.
The daguerreotype's popularity was not threatened until photography was used to make imitation daguerreotypes on glass positives called ambrotypes, meaning "imperishable picture" (Newhall, 107).

Boulevard du Temple by Daguerre

 Boulevard du TempleParis, 3rd arrondissement, Daguerreotype. The purportedly first picture of a living person. The image shows a busy street, but due to exposure time of more than ten minutes, the traffic was moving too much to appear. The exceptions are the two people at the bottom left, one who stood still getting his boots polished by the other long enough to show. Look closely and you will also see another man sitting on a bench to the right reading a newspaper. Also in the upper left hand side you can also see another man standing under the awning of the 3rd building from the left. What looks to be a woman standing under the street lantern at 10 o'clock from the man getting his shoes shined and another one in the big white building,1st row 3rd window down. Notice the child in the top floor window of the white building in front. Note that the image is a mirror image.
The first authenticated image ofAbraham Lincoln was this daguerreotype of him as U.S.Congressman-elect in 1846, attributed to Nicholas H. Shepard of Springfield, Illinois.

Andrew Jackson-1844

Daguerreotype of Andrew Jackson at age 77 or 78 (1844 or 1845).
A daguerreotype of Shimazu Nariakira, taken by Ichiki Shiro (1828 - 1903)
Photo panorama of San Francisco, 1853

Susse Frére Daguerreotype camera 1839

First Daguerreotype Invention and Photographs


The daguerreotype  (French: daguerréotype) was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate. The raw material for plates was called Sheffield plate, plating by fusion or cold-rolled cladding and was a standard hardware item produced by heating and rolling silver foil in contact with a copper support.  The surface of a daguerreotype is like a mirror, with the image made directly on the silvered surface; it is very fragile and can be rubbed off with a finger, and the finished plate has to be angled so as to reflect some dark surface in order to view the image properly. Depending on the angle viewed, and the color of the surface reflected into it, the image can change from a positive to a negative.

First Daguerreotype Invention Invention

Since the late Renaissance, artists and inventors had been looking for a mechanical method of capturing visual scenes.Previously, using the camera obscura, artists would manually trace what they saw, or use the optical image in the camera as a basis for solving the problems of perspective and parallax, and deciding colour values. The camera obscura's optical reduction of a real scene in three-dimensional space to a flat rendition in two dimensions influenced western art, so that at one point, it was thought that images based on optical geometry (perspective) belonged to a more advanced civilization. Later, with the advent of Modernism, the absence of perspective in oriental art from China, Japan and in Persian miniatures was revalued.
Previous discoveries of photosensitive methods and substances—including silver nitrate by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century, a silver and chalk mixture by Johann Heinrich Schulze in 1724, and Joseph Niépce's bitumen-based heliography in 1822 —contributed to development of the daguerreotype. In 1829 French artist and chemist Louis J.M. Daguerre, contributing a cutting edge camera design, partnered with Niépce, a leader in photochemistry, to further develop their technologies.
After Niépce's 1833 death, Daguerre continued to research the chemistry and mechanics of recording images by coating copper plates with iodized silver.Early experiments required hours of exposure in the camera to produce visible results. In 1835 Daguerre discovered—after accidentally breaking a mercury thermometer, according to traditional accounts—a method of developing the faint or invisible images on plates that had been exposed for only 20 to 30 minutes. Further refinement of his process would allow him to fix the image—preventing further darkening of the silver—using a strong solution of common salt. The 1837 still life of plaster casts, a wicker-covered bottle, a framed drawing and a curtain—titled L'Atelier de l'artiste—was his first daguerreotype to successfully undergo the full process of exposure, development and fixation.
The French Academy of Sciences announced the daguerreotype process on January 9, 1839. Later that year William Fox Talbot announced his silver chloride "sensitive paper" process. Together, these announcements mark 1839 as the year photography was born.
Daguerre did not patent and profit from his invention in the usual way. Instead, it was arranged that the French government would acquire the rights in exchange for a lifetime pension. The government would then present the daguerreotype process "free to the world" as a gift to mankind, which it did on August 19, 1839. However, on August 14, 1839, Miles Berry, acting on Daguerre's behalf, filed for a patent in England, which consequently became the only place on Earth where the purchase of a license was legally required.
1840-1841 Camerae obscurae and plates for Daguerreotype called "Grand Photographe" produced by Charles Chevalier (Musée des Arts et Métiers).

Daguerreotype Daguerre Atelier 1837

L'Atelier de l'artiste. An 1837 daguerreotype by Daguerre, the first to complete the full process.
The solar eclipse of July 28, 1851 is the first correctly exposed photograph of a solar eclipse, using the daguerreotype process.
 Description ;Berkowski made the first solar eclipse photograph on July 28, 1851, also using the daguerrotype process, at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kalinigrad in Russia). Berkowski, a local daguerrotypist whose first name was never published, observed at the Royal Observatory. A small 6-cm refracting telescope was attached to the 15.8-cm Fraunhofer heliometer and a 84-second exposure was taken shortly after the beginning of totality.