Mechanical Engineers

"The greatest real thrill that life offers is to create, to construct, to develop something useful. Too often we fail to recognize and pay tribute to the creative spirit. It is that spirit that creates our jobs. There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different."

"It looks as if the war in Europe is rapidly moving towards a conclusion. Probably I am wrong about that but I can't see how it can be otherwise. It seems clear that the Allies are outclassed on mechanical equipment, and it is foolish to talk about modernizing their Armies in times like these, they ought to have thought of that five years ago. There is no excuse for them not thinking of that except for the unintelligent, in fact, stupid, narrow-minded and selfish leadership which the democracies of the world are cursed with."

"There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different."

"Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here. Then, I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until the next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement, and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about."

"Let me tell you about what we call our field trips. It may surprise you to know, that I have personally visited, with many of my associates, practically every city in the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico. If any of you has done this, you realize what big a country it is. It has taken me weeks and weeks of the hardest kind of work and continual travel to accomplish this. I which that my duties were such that I could do more of it; and I am trying to arrange my affairs so that I can. On these trips I visit from five to ten dealers a day. I meet them in their own places of business, talk with them across their own desks and solicit from them suggestions and criticisms as to their relations with the Corporation; the character of the product; the Corporation's policies; the trend of consumer demand; their viewpoint as to the future, and many other things that such contact makes possible. I solicit criticism of anything and everything."

"Some have an idea that the reason we in this country discard things so readily is because we have so much. The facts are exactly opposite-the reason we have so much is simply because we discard things so readily. We replace the old in return for something that will serve us better."

"We must move toward a soundly based and widely distributed economic well-being. This is the 'theory of plenty' as distinguished from the 'theory of scarcity' which has dominated our recent economic thinking and politics. Our yardstick, according to my thinking, I consists of the most effective balance between the following: First, the reduction in the real costs and selling! prices of goods and services; second, a more economic balance of national income through policies affecting wages, hours, prices and profits."

"In the spring of 1920, found itself, as it appeared at the moment, in a good position. On account of the limitation of automotive production during the war there was a great shortage of cars. Every car that could be produced was produced and could be sold at almost any price. So far as any one could see, there was no reason why that prosperity should not continue for a time at least. I liken our position then to a big ship in the ocean. We were sailing along at full speed, the sun was shining, and there was no cloud in the sky that would indicate an approaching storm. Many of you have, of course, crossed the ocean and you can visualize just that sort of a picture yet what happened? In September of that year, almost over night, values commenced to fall. The liquidation from the inflated prices resulting from the war had set in. Practically all schedules or a large part of them were cancelled. Inventory commenced to roll in, and, before it was realized what was happening, this great ship of ours was in the midst of a terrific storm. As a matter of fact, before control could be obtained General Motors found itself in a position of having to go to its bankers for loans aggregating $80,000,000 and although, as we look at things from today's standpoint, that isn't such a very large amount of money, yet when you must have $80,000,000 and haven't got it, it becomes an enormous sum of money, and if we had not had the confidence and support of the strongest banking interests our ship could never have weathered the storm."

"The arrangement we greatly preferred was to employ intelligent, well-conducted young lads, the sons of labourers or mechanics, and advance them by degrees according to their merits."

"Among the many things that I showed Sir John while at Hammerfield, was a piece of white calico on which I had got printed one million spots. This was for the purpose of exhibiting one million in visible form. In astronomical subjects a million is a sort of unit, and it occurred to me to show what a million really is. Sir John was delighted and astonished at the sight. He went carefully over the outstretched piece with his rule, measured its length and breadth, and verified its correctness."

"So long ago as 1856 James Nasmyth told the British Association for the Advancement of Science that the thunderbolt's course was not zigzagged, as artists for centuries had represented, but sinuous like a river."

"In all well-conducted concerns the law of "selection of the fittest" sooner or later comes into happy action, when a loyal and attached set of men work together harmoniously for their own advantage as well as for that of their employers."

"The success of the trade unions stimulated technical change, by giving employers and incentive to introduce labour-saving machinery. James Nasmyth told the Royal Commission on Trade Unions of 1867 how the engineering dispute of 1852 had led him to introduce self-acting machine tools, thereby halving his adult labour force and increasing his profits."

"Everything connected with war and warlike exploits is interesting to a boy."

"Time passed by. I had furnished steam hammers to the principal foundries in England. I had sent them abroad, even to Russia. At length it became known to the Lords of the Admiralty that a new power in forging had been introduced."

"Our history begins before we are born. We represent the hereditary influences of our race, and our ancestors virtually live in us. The sentiment of ancestry seems to be inherent in human nature, especially in the more civilised races. At all events, we cannot help having a due regard for the history of our forefathers. Our curiosity is stimulated by their immediate or indirect influence upon ourselves. It may be a generous enthusiasm, or, as some might say, a harmless vanity, to take pride in the honour of their name. The gifts of nature, however, are more valuable than those of fortune; and no line of ancestry, however honourable, can absolve us from the duty of diligent application and perseverance, or from the practice of the virtues of self-control and self-help."

"We may fill our purses, but we pay a heavy price for it in the loss of picturesqueness and beauty."

"Students are here not for service or for culture, but for the selfish end of preparing for salary to come. Constantly I hear them asking, 'If I change over to your course, what kind of a job will it help me to get when I graduate?' Students are weighing every subject they take on the scales of jobs to come."

"Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest."

"The first machine of Papin was very similar to the gunpowder-engine... of Huyghens. In place of gunpowder, a small quantity of water is placed at the bottom of the cylinder, A; a fire is built beneath it, "the bottom being made of very thin metal," and the steam formed soon raises the piston, B, to the top where a latch, E, engaging a notch in latch engaging the piston rod, H, holds it up until it is desired that it shall drop. The fire being removed, the steam condenses, and a vacuum is formed below the piston, and the latch, E, being disengaged, the piston is driven down by the superincumbent atmosphere and raises the weight which has been, meantime, attached to a rope... passing from the piston rod over pulleys... The machine had a cylinder two and a half inches in diameter, and raised 60 pounds once a minute; and Papin calculated that a machine of a little more than two feet diameter of cylinder and of four feet stroke would raise 8,000 pounds four feet per minute—i.e., that it would yield about one horse-power."

"The wonderful progress of the present century is, in very great degree, due to the invention and improvement of the steam-engine."

"The following is a description of the engine, as far as it was improved by Newcomen. B represents the boiler with its furnace for producing steam, and at a small height above the boiler is a steam cylinder, C, of metal, bored to a regular diameter, and closed at the bottom; the top remaining open. A communication is formed, between the boiler and the bottom of the cylinder, by means of a short steam pipe S. The lower aperture of this pipe is shut by the plate p, which is ground flat, so as to apply very accurately to the whole circumference of the orifice. This plate is called the regulator or steam cock, and it turns horizontally on an axis a, which passes through the top of the boiler, and is fitted steam-tight; and has a handle.. to open and shut it.frameless|right|upright=2.0|Newcomen Engine, Fig. 4 Thomas Tredgold's "The Steam Engine... Invention & Progressive Improvement" A piston P is fitted to the cylinder, and rendered air-tight by a packing round its edge of soft rope, well filled with tallow, to reduce the friction, and its upper surface is kept covered with water to render it steam-tight. The piston is connected to a rod PA, which is suspended by a chain from the upper extremity D of the arched head of the lever, or working beam, which turns on the gudgeon G. This beam has a similar arched head EF, at its other end, for the pump rod H, which receives the water from the mine. The end of the beam to which the pump rod is attached, is made to exceed the weight and friction of the piston in the steam cylinder; and when the water is drawn from such a depth, that the pump piston is too heavy for this purpose, counterpoise weights must be added at I, till the piston will rise in the steam cylinder at the proper speed. At some height above the top of the cylinder is a cistern L, called the injection cistern, supplied with water from the forcing pump [through pipe] R. From this [cistern] descends the injection pipe M, which enters the cylinder through its bottom, and terminates in one or more small holes at N. This pipe has at O a cock, called the injection cock, fitted with a handle. At the opposite side of the cylinder, a little above its bottom, there is a lateral pipe, turning upwards at the extremity, and provided with a valve at V, called the snifting valve, which has a little dish round it to hold water for keeping it air-tight. There proceeds also from the bottom of the cylinder a pipe Q, of which the lower end is turned upwards, and is covered with a valve v; this part is immersed in a cistern of water called the hot well, and the pipe itself is called the eduction pipe. To regulate the strength of the steam in the boiler it is furnished with a safety valve [ sV ]...but not loaded with more than one or two pounds on the square inch. The mode of operation... Let the piston be pulled down to the bottom of the steam cylinder, and shut the regulator or steam valve p. ...Apply the fire to the boiler till the steam escapes from the safety valve, and then on opening the steam regulator, the piston will rise by the joint effect of the strength of the steam, and action of the excess of weight on the other end of the beam. When it arrives at the top of the cylinder, close the regulator p, and by turning the injection cock O, admit a jet of cold water, which condenses the steam in the cylinder, forming a partial vacuum, and the piston descends by the pressure of the atmosphere, raising water by the pump rod H from the mine. The air which the steam and the injection water contain is impelled out of the snifting valve V, by the force of descent, and the injection water flows out at the eduction pipe Q; and by repetition of the operations, of alternately admitting steam and injecting water, the work of raising water is effected."

"My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained obscure."

"Thomas Tredgold... began to practice as a civil engineer on his own account in 1823, but much of his time was devoted to the preparation of his engineering text-books, which gained a wide reputation. They included Elementary Principles of Carpentry (1820), almost the first book of its kind in English; Practical Treatise on the Strength of Cast Iron and other Metals (1824) ; Principles of Warm- ing and Ventilating Public Buildings (1824); Practical Treatise on Railroads and Carriages (1825); and The Steam Engine (1827)."

"In June, 1699, Captain Savery exhibited a model of his engine before the Royal Society, and the experiments he made with it succeeded to their satisfaction. It consisted of a furnace and boiler B: from the latter, two pipes, provided with cocks C, proceeded to two steam vessels S, which had branch pipes from a descending main D, and also to a rising main pipe A: each pair of branch pipes had check] valves a, b to prevent the descent of the water raised by the condensation or by the force of steam. Only one vessel, S, is shown, the other being immediately behind it. One of the steam vessels being filled with steam, condensation was produced by projecting cold water, from a small cistern E, against the vessel; and into the partial vacuum made by that means, the water, by the pressure of the atmosphere, was forced up the descending main D, from a depth of about twenty feet; and on the steam being let into the vessels again, the valve b closed, and prevented the descent of the water, while the steam having acquired force in the boiler, its pressure caused the water to raise the valve a, and ascend to a height proportional to the excess of the elastic force of the steam above the pressure of the air."

"The regulative principles of management along scientific lines include four important elements:"

"The prominent element in present-day industrial management to be: the mental attitude that consciously applies the transference of skill to all the activities of industry."

"Besides being in the forefront of the movement to add managerial training to the engineering curriculum, Diemer was among the first American educators to propose that manual technical skills (carpentry, metalworking, and the like) be taught in high schools and in special secondary institutions comparable to modern vocational-technical schools. He recognized that Penn State, with its long-standing two-year course in mechanic arts and its well-equipped shops, was in an ideal position to produce teachers for these manual training classes. With Dean Jackson's blessing, the Department of Industrial Engineering took over supervision of mechanic arts and renamed it the industrial education course. Seniors had the opportunity to do practice teaching in those few Pennsylvania high schools already equipped for shop instruction."

"The characteristic feature of our modern mechanical improvements, is the introduction of self-acting tool machinery. What every mechanical workman has now to do, and what every boy can do, is not to work himself, but to superintend the beautiful labor of the machine. The whole class of workmen that depend exclusively on their skill is now done away with. Formerly I employed four boys to every mechanic. Thanks to these new mechanical combinations, I have reduced the number of grown-up men from 1.500 to 750. The result was a considerable increase in my profits."

"A manufacturing organization being a live, human thing, is like a municipality. Many of our shops are as fruitful fields for riddance of graft as are many of our cities. The graft in the shop consists mostly in the distortion of the managing and planning body into a wire-pulling and influence machine with easy berths filled by incompetents or idlers. This condition often exists not because of any intentional desire to be disloyal on the part of the employees, but simply on account of the work being allowed to drift without systematic attention to departmental organization."

"It is the business of the production engineer to know every single item that constitutes his finished product, and every step involved in the handling of every piece. He must know what is the most advantageous manufacturing quantity of every single item so as to secure uniformity of flow as well as economy of manufacture. He must know how long each step ought to take under the best attainable working conditions. He must be able to tell at any time the exact condition as regards quantity and state of finishedness of every part involved in his manufacturing process."

"The engineer must be able not only to design, but to execute. A draftsman may be able to design, but unless he is able to execute his designs to successful operation he cannot be classed as an engineer. The production engineer must be able to execute his work as he has planned it. This requires two qualifications in addition to technical engineering ability: He must know men, and he must have creative ability in applying good statistical, accounting, and " system" methods to any particular production work he may undertake."

"With regard to men, he must know how to stimulate ambition, how to exercise discipline with firmness, and at the same time with sufficient kindness to insure the good-will and cooperation of all. The more thoroughly he is versed in questions of economics and sociology, the better prepared will he be to meet the problems that will daily confront him. As economic production depends not only on equipment and plant, but on the psychological effect of wage systems, he must be able to discriminate in regard to which wage system is best applicable to certain classes of product."

"The Methods of Industrial Management. — A committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers made an extensive canvass in the fall of 1912 to determine what were the new elements in modern management as well as what the committee designated as the regulative principles of industrial management. The committee confirmed Adam Smith's statement made in 1776 in his Wealth of Nations, in which he held that the application of the principle of division of labor was the basis of manufacture. The committee also agreed with Charles Babbage, who in his work entitled Economy of Machinery and Manufacture written in 1832, added another principle, namely the transference of skill."

"Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man."

"When I looked at the science of engineering and saw that it had disappeared after its ancient heritage, that its masters have perished, and that their memories are now forgotten, I worked my wits and thoughts in secrecy about philosophical shapes and figures, which could move the mind, with effort, from nothingness to being and from idleness to motion. And I arranged these shapes one by one in drawings and explained them."

"Among Islamic books studied or translated in Toledo, there were several which discussed mechanical devices, including astronomical instruments and several types of water clock. One author who wrote on this subject was al-Muradi, and he illustrated elaborate gear trains, some with epicyclic and segmental gears."

"The manuscript (of The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas) was copied in 1266 from the original text written by Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in the eleventh century. The only copy is in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy. A unique source of medieval Arabic technology, it presents designs for more than 30 devices, including water clocks, calendars, and war machines."

"It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of al-Jazari's work in the history of engineering. Until modern times there is no other document from any cultural area that provides a comparable wealth of instructions for the design, manufacture and assembly of machines… Al-Jazari did not only assimilate the techniques of his non-Arab and Arab predecessors, he was also creative. He added several mechanical and hydraulic devices. The impact of these inventions can be seen in the later designing of steam engines and internal combustion engines, paving the way for automatic control and other modern machinery. The impact of al-Jazari's inventions is still felt in modern contemporary mechanical engineering [2].""

"We have overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. That you cannot tie any one event to that is not the same as doubt about the whole thing. There is no debate in the scientific community."

""The problem is we have this thin atmosphere and a lot of people trying to breathe it. It's this thinness of the atmosphere that has allowed humankind to accidentally change the climate of the planet."

"I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem. Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It’s not that we need more food. It’s that we need to manage our food system better. So when corporations seek government funding for genetic modification of food sources, I stroke my chin."

"What we want to do is not just less, but do more for less. I want the United States to lead the world in this. The more we mess around with this denial, the more we lose.""

"Nature is bottom up. It's compelling and complex, and it fills me with joy and it's inconsistent with the top down view."

"You don’t need a PhD in climate science to understand what’s going on, that we have overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing. That you cannot tie any one event to that is not the same as doubt about the whole thing."

"I went to Monsanto, and I spent a lot of time with the scientists there, and I have revised my outlook, and I'm very excited about telling the world. When you’re in love, you want to tell the world."

"Look at the facts. We need you to change things, not deny what's happening."

"How could there be billions of stars more distant than 6,000 years, if the world is only 6,000 years old?"

"I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion. But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old."

"If we continue to eschew science ... we are not going to move forward. We will not embrace natural laws. We will not make discoveries. We will not invent and innovate and stay ahead."