CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Inventors and discoverers are justly among the most honored of men. It is they who add to knowledge, who bring matter under subjection both in form and substance, who teach us how to perform an old task, as lighting, with new economy, or hand us gifts wholly new, as the spectroscope and the wireless telegraph. It is they who tell us how to shape an oar into a rudder, and direct a task with our brains instead of tugging at it with our muscles. They enable us to replace loss with gain, waste with thrift, weariness with comfort, hazard with safety. And, chief service of all, they bring us to understand more and more of that involved drama of which this planet is by turns the stage and the spectator’s gallery. The main difference between humanity to-day and its lowly ancestry of the tree-top and the cave has been worked out by the inventors and discoverers who have steadily lifted the plane of life, made it broader and better with every passing year.
On a theme so vast as the labors of these men a threshold book can offer but a few glances at principles of moment, to which the reader may add as he pleases from observations and experiments of his own. At the outset Form will engage our regard: first, as bestowed so as to be retained by girders, trusses and bridges; next, as embodied in structures which minimize friction, such as well designed ships; or as conducing to the efficiency of tools and machines; or deciding how best heat may be radiated or light diffused. A word will follow as to modes of conferring form, the influence on form of the materials employed, and the undue vitality of old forms that should long ago have bidden us good-by. Structures alike in shape may differ in size. Bigness has its economies, and so has smallness. Both will have brief attention, with a rapid survey of new materials which enable a builder to rear towers or engines bolder in dimensions than were hitherto possible.
Substance, as important as form, will next receive a glance. First a word will be said about the properties of food, raiment, shelter, weapons and tools. Then, the properties of fuels and light-givers will be considered, as steadily improved in their effectiveness. How properties are modified by heat and electricity will be remarked, with illustrations from steels of new and astonishing qualities, and from notable varieties of glass produced at Jena. A few pages will recount some of the striking phenomena of radio-activity displayed by radium, thorium and kindred substances, phenomena which are remolding the fundamental conceptions of physics and chemistry.
A survey of form and properties, however cursory, must involve measurement, otherwise an inventor cannot with accuracy embody a plan in a working machine, or know exactly how strong, elastic, or conducting a rod, a wire, or a frame is. Measuring instruments will be sketched, their use delineated, and the results of precise measurement noted as an aid to the construction of modern mechanism, the interchangeability of its parts, the economy of materials and of energy in every branch of industry. Next will follow a chapter noting tasks which Nature has long accomplished, and which Art has still to perform, as in converting at ordinary temperatures within the human body fuel energy into work. Plainly, a broad field opens to future invention as it copies the function of plants and animals; functions to be first carefully observed, then explained and at last imitated with the least possible waste of effort.
The equipment and the talents for invention and discovery are now touched upon. First, knowledge, especially as the fruit of disinterested inquiry; Observation, as exercised by trained intelligence calling to its aid the best modern instruments; Experiment, as an educated passion for building on original lines. Then, in the mechanical field, we bestow a few glances at self-acting machines, at the simplicity of design which makes for economy not only in building, but in operation and maintenance. Either in designing a new machine, or in reaching a great truth, such as Universal Development, there is scope for Imagination upon which we next pause for a moment. A succeeding chapter outlines how theories may be launched and tested, how analogy may yield a golden hint, the profit in rules that work both ways, or even in doing just the opposite of what has been done without question for ages past.
Copyright, 1906, by Park & Co., Brantford, Ontario, Canada
BELL HOMESTEAD, BRANTFORD, ONTARIO, CANADA.
Alexander Graham Bell and his Daughter in the Foreground.
Here the Telephone was Perfected in 1874.
Now the Home of the Bell Telephone Memorial Association.
From this brief consideration of method we now pass to a few men who have exemplified method on the loftiest plane; we come into the presence of Newton, the supreme generalizer, and observe his patience and conscientiousness, as remarkable as his resourcefulness in experiment, in mathematical analysis. Even greater in experiment, while lacking mathematical power, is Faraday, who next enlists our regard. This great man, more than any other investigator, laid the foundations of modern electrical science and art. Moreover he distinctly saw how matter might reveal itself in the ‘radiant’ condition now engaging the study of the foremost inquirers in physics.