Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century Welcome! How many of the 20th century's greatest engineering achievements will you use today? A car? Computer? Telephone? Explore our list of the top 20 achievements, and learn how engineering shaped a century and changed the world. Click here for a printer-friendly version of this page. 1. Electrification 2. Automobile 3. Airplane 4. Water Supply and Distribution 5. Electronics 6. Radio and Television 7. Agricultural Mechanization 8. Computers 9. Telephone 10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration 11. Highways 12. Spacecraft 13. Internet 14. Imaging 15. Household Appliances 16. Health Technologies 17. Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies 18. Laser and Fiber Optics 19. Nuclear Technologies 20. High-performance Materials Copyright © 2000 by National Academy of Engineering. All rights reserved. Contact Us http://www.greatachievements.org/ [12/3/2004 9:31:11 AM]

Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

Welcome!

How many of the 20th century's greatest engineering achievements will you

use today? A car? Computer? Telephone? Explore our list of the top 20

achievements, and learn how engineering shaped a century and changed the

world. Click here for a printer-friendly version of this page.

1. Electrification

2. Automobile

3. Airplane

4. Water Supply and Distribution

5. Electronics

6. Radio and Television

7. Agricultural Mechanization

8. Computers

9. Telephone

10. Air Conditioning

and Refrigeration

11. Highways

12. Spacecraft

13. Internet

14. Imaging

15. Household Appliances

16. Health Technologies

17. Petroleum and

Petrochemical Technologies

18. Laser and Fiber Optics

19. Nuclear Technologies

20. High-performance Materials

http://www.greatachievements.org/ [12/3/2004 9:31:11 AM]

Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

The goal of the Greatest Achievements project is to celebrate a remarkable century of

technological achievement. Initiated by the National Academy of Engineering, this project is

a collaboration with the American Association of Engineering Societies, National Engineers

Week, and 27 other professional engineering societies.

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

The three key partners in the Greatest Achievements project are the National

Academy of Engineering, the American Association of Engineering

Societies, and National Engineers Week. Additional partners include 27

professional engineering societies.

Additional Partners

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

In August 1999, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) invited 60 professional

engineering societies to solicit nominations from their members for the greatest engineering

achievements of the 20th century. From the assembled nominations, the societies then

submitted their top five to the NAE in October. A total of 27 societies submitted nominations.

The chief criteria for nominations was the significance that each engineering achievement

had in terms of its impact on the quality of life during the 20th century.

The NAE formed a selection committee made up of leading engineering experts from

academia, industry, and a wide range of engineering disciplines. To avoid undue influence

on the process, the names of the committee members were not released until after the final

selections were made.

From the initial 105 nominations, the committee selected 48 nominations for final

consideration. These 48 were grouped into larger categories. For example, specific

innovations in building bridges and roads were combined under "highways," and the tractor,

combine, and chisel plow were combined under "agricultural mechanization." This reduced

the number of nominations to 28, and the committee met in December 1999 to select and

rank the top 20.

Selection Committee Members

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

Selection Committee

Harold M. Agnew

Retired President, General Atomics; Past Director, Los Alamos National

Laboratory; Member of team that developed the first nuclear fission chain

reaction

Frances E. Allen

IBM Fellow; Contributor to the development of computer compilers

Neil A. Armstrong

Commander, Gemini 8 and Apollo 11 missions; First person to walk on the

moon

Norman R. Augustine

Chairman, Executive Committee, and Former President and CEO, Lockheed

Martin Corporation

William F. Ballhaus, Sr.

Former President, Beckman Instruments, Inc.

David P. Billington

Professor of Civil Engineering and Operations Research, Princeton

University; Author

Frederick H. Dill

Senior Technical Officer, IBM Research Center; Pioneer in microelectronics

technology

Essex E. Finney, Jr.

Retired, Agriculture Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture;

Expert on management and policy issues related to agricultural research and

development

George M. C. Fisher

Chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak Company; Former Chairman and CEO,

Motorola, Inc.

John H. Gibbons

Former Assistant to President Clinton for Science and Technology; Former

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy

Daniel S. Goldin

Director, NASA; Pioneer in advanced space communications and electronics

Ronald E. Goldsberry

Vice President, Global Service Business Strategies, Ford Motor Company

Mary L. Good

Former Under Secretary for Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce;

Venture capitalist

Irwin M. Jacobs

Chairman and CEO, QUALCOMM, Inc.

Jack E. Little

Former President and CEO, Shell Oil Company

Robert W. Lucky

Inventor of the adaptive equalizer, a technique for correcting distortion in

telephone signals used in high-speed data transmission

Rear Admiral John B. Mooney, Jr.

U.S. Navy, Retired; Former Chief, Office of Naval Research; Consultant

William J. Perry

Former Secretary of Defense

Henry Petroski

Professor of Civil Engineering, Duke University; Author of several books,

including To Engineer is Human, The Evolution of Useful Things, and

Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders

Alan Schriesheim

Former Director and CEO, Argonne National Laboratory

William E. Splinter

Inventor and developer of agricutural technologies, including safer aerial

spray systems and improved harvesting systems

H. Guyford Stever (Committee Chair)

Former Science Advisor to President Ford; Former President, Carnegie

Mellon University; Former Director, National Science Foundation

Ivan E. Sutherland

Vice President and Sun Fellow, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Paul E. Torgersen

President, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

Charles H. Townes

Inventor of maser and laser; Nobel Laureate

Charles M. Vest

President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

John T. Watson

Deputy Director, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of

Health

James C. Williams

Honda Professor of Materials, Ohio State University; Pioneer in materials

research and aerospace alloys

Wm. A. Wulf

President, National Academy of Engineering

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

In addition to support from participating project partners, the Greatest Achievements project

is sponsored by the United Engineering Foundation.

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

Welcome!

How many of the 20th century's greatest engineering achievements will you

use today? A car? Computer? Telephone? Explore our list of the top 20

achievements, and learn how engineering shaped a century and changed the

world. Click here for a printer-friendly version of this page.

1. Electrification

2. Automobile

3. Airplane

4. Water Supply and Distribution

5. Electronics

6. Radio and Television

7. Agricultural Mechanization

8. Computers

9. Telephone

10. Air Conditioning

and Refrigeration

11. Highways

12. Spacecraft

13. Internet

14. Imaging

15. Household Appliances

16. Health Technologies

17. Petroleum and

Petrochemical Technologies

18. Laser and Fiber Optics

19. Nuclear Technologies

20. High-performance Materials

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Greatest Achievements - 1. Electrification

In the 20th century, widespread electrification gave us power

for our cities, factories, farms, and homes - and forever

changed our lives. Thousands of engineers made it happen,

with innovative work in fuel sources, power generating

techniques, and transmission grids. From street lights to

supercomputers, electric power makes our lives safer,

healthier, and more convenient.

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Greatest Achievements - 1. Electrification

Widespread use of electric power has been one of the greatest sources of social

change in the 20th century. It influenced the course of industrialization by allowing us

to build factories farther from the sources of power, making large-scale

manufacturing possible. It changed the face of cities in terms of growth and

population, helped farmers increase production through labor-saving machinery, and

contributed to a more highly educated populace, liberated from the drudgery of

manual chores and labor.

Mass electrification in the United States required the expertise of thousands of

engineers. Among them were pioneers who recognized that the natural resources of

fossil fuels, water, and sunlight could be turned into electric power; and others who

learned how to build the machinery to convert those resources to electric power. Still

others learned how to transmit that power over wires and into our houses, barns,

offices and factories. Their efforts allow us to awaken to an electric alarm, turn on the

lights, toast bread, and use any number of electrical appliances or devices to prepare

for the day.

In contrast, the average person in 1900 awoke to a hand-wound clock, often well

before sunrise. In an era of kerosene lamps and lanterns, there was no electric light

switch; in an era of outhouses and manual water pumps, no tap to turn for running

water. There was no radio or TV for local or world news, and preparing for the day

took a long time — getting coal or wood for the kitchen stove, using hand-tools to

prepare food. Farmers had no electric motors or machinery to milk cows or process

grain. Household chores were grueling: scrubbing laundry on washboards, heating

heavy irons on the stove, or hauling cumbersome rugs to a clothesline to be

pounded with a carpet beater.

At the start of the 20th Century, electric power was young but growing rapidly.

Thomas Edison's work had led to the first commercial power plant for incandescent

lighting and power in 1882. However, Edison's system used direct current (DC),

which could only be profitably distributed in a limited area around the generating

station. The work of engineers such as Nikola Tesla and Charles Steinmetz led to

the successful commercialization of alternating current (AC), which enabled

transmission of high-voltage power over large distances.

Prime movers in power stations evolved from water wheels to dams with a variety of

turbines: reaction and hydraulic, fixed and variable blade, turbines that could be

reversed to pump water into elevated storage wells, then reversed back to generate

power. Each design innovation met the burgeoning needs of an increasingly

industrial society.

Benchmarks along the way included the steam turbine generator in 1903, pioneered

by Charles Curtis. It generated 5,000 kilowatts and was then the most powerful plant

in the world. It marked a transition to turbine generators that required one-tenth the

space and weighed one-eighth as much as reciprocating engines of comparable

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Greatest Achievements - 1. Electrification

output. The next breakthrough was the world's first high-pressure steam plant, which

further increased efficiency and brought substantial savings in fuel. The Edgar

Station in Boston (1925) became a model for high-pressure power plants worldwide.

Adapting fuels to power generation was, and still is, an ongoing process. One early

milestone was the use of pulverized coal, demonstrated in 1918 at the Oneida Street

plant in Milwaukee. As steam pressures inched up in the increasing quest for more

power, new materials such as chrome-molybdenum steel offered superior heat

resistance in turbines.

But even as power plants and fuel resources became more developed, bringing

electricity to the rural world was a low priority for power companies. The monetary

return was minimal due to the small numbers of customers per mile versus the high

cost of constructing a distribution line. Of the potential 5 million customers early in

the century, only some 247,000 had electricity.

In spite of growing awareness that the country's economic development depended

on a rural population with the same opportunities and amenities as people in the

cities, a major push for this did not happen until the Depression. In 1935 the Rural

Electric Administration (REA) was established, and President Roosevelt chose

Morris Llewellyn Cooke — an engineer — to head it. He was charged with the

following task: Electrify the majority of the continent. Quickly.

To make electricity affordable, Cooke instituted innovations that included

standardized designs for distribution lines, mass production and construction

techniques, system protection, and wide area distributed power planning. It was a

remarkable undertaking. Construction costs plummeted from $2,000 per line mile at

the beginning of the project to less than $600 by 1939.

The impact of electric power on agriculture became as significant to the farmer as

steam or gasoline had previously. Electric motors drove barn machinery, grain

crushers, and water pumps. Eventually, the electric motor began to replace the

mobile steam engine in equipment for threshing, winnowing, and other cropprocessing.

Early public works projects built during the Depression are still major providers of

electricity today. The hydroelectric generators of the Hoover Dam, built between

1932 and 1935, supply nearly 1.5 million kilowatts-hours of electrical power per year

to people in Arizona, Nevada, and southern California. In 1933, the Tennessee

Valley Authority (TVA) was launched to bring power and flood relief to the

Tennessee River basin. It currently operates numerous dams, 11 large coal-burning

steam plants, and two nuclear plants in Alabama and Tennessee. They produce

more than 125 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually — almost 90 times that

generated in the same region in 1933.

Since the early days of power generation and distribution, the use of various fuel

sources has resulted in environmental consequences. As knowledge and experience

with fuel sources has grown, new technologies have emerged to address these

problems. The growing field of environmental engineering focuses on techniques for

measuring pollutants, the development of clean fuel technologies, and other

initiatives.

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Greatest Achievements - 1. Electrification

The electric power grid system continues to develop with a movement to

interconnect grids into huge national or international networks. For example, in the

United States, the whole country was linked into two giant grid systems by the

1990s, one serving each half of the country. This allows power produced in one state

to be used thousands of miles away. Practical transmission voltages have increased

steadily from 220 volts in the 1880s to 765,000 volts in 1999. Indeed, transmission

techniques have now come full circle, with a return to DC transmission at high

voltage. Made possible with semiconductor switches, the use of long-range DC

transmission is just beginning — one of many technologies that hold promise in

bringing further advantages in economy and reliability.

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Greatest Achievements - 1. Electrification

Timeline

1903 Charles Curtis, steam turbine generator.

1903 William Le Roy Emmet, steam turbine.

1920s Charles L. Edgar designs the first high-pressure steam plant.

1927 Single-core paper-insulated cables designed to carry 132,000 volts are

laid in the United States.

1932 Construction begins on Hoover Dam.

1933 Tennessee Valley Authority is established.

1934 First coiled-coil electric light bulb is introduced; increases the amount of

light radiated.

1935 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issues executive order to create

the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), which formed

cooperatives that brought electricity to millions of rural Americans.

1942 Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River is completed.

1942 There were 800 rural electric cooperatives with 350,000 miles of lines.

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Greatest Achievements - 2. Automobile

The automobile may be the ultimate symbol of personal

freedom. It's also the world's major transporter of people and

goods, and a strong source of economic growth and stability.

From early Tin Lizzies to today's sleek sedans, the automobile

is a showcase of 20th century engineering ingenuity, with

countless innovations made in design, production, and safety.

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Greatest Achievements - 2. Automobile

In 1900 the average American traveled about 1200 miles in a lifetime, mostly on foot,

and mostly within his or her own village or town. By the end of the century, the typical

American adult would travel some 12,000 miles by automobile alone, in just one

year.

About 8,000 cars were registered in the America at the start of the 20th century.

There are now some half billion in the world, with one-third in the United States,

where more than 1.5 trillion miles are traveled each year. How the auto industry grew

from a few thousand Tin Lizzies to the modern, aerodynamic and multipurpose

vehicles of today is a chronicle of engineering at its most resourceful - from materials

development to mass production techniques.

For hundreds of years, humans have attempted to develop means for faster, more

economical travel. Vehicles have been powered by humans, animals, springs,

clockwork, and wind. In 1769, Frenchman Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first

automobile, which was actually a steam-powered tricycle. For much of the 19th

century, steam power prevailed, despite the danger of boiler explosions and

unpleasant odors left by exhaust fumes.

Electric cars made their appearance in the late 1800s. Cleaner than steam-powered

cars, they had a large bank of storage batteries under the hood. They could travel at

10 to 20 miles per hour for a distance of 50 miles before the batteries needed

recharging. In the second half of the 19th century, Siegfried Marcus of Austria

created the forerunner of the modern automobile, German engineer Gottlieb Daimler

put a gasoline-powered engine on a bicycle, and Karl Benz followed with the first

gasoline car.

By 1900 a typical automobile in the United States looked something like this: It was

shaped like a box, much like a horseless carriage, with little protection from rain,

dust, or other hazards. It was started by a hand-crank - a dangerous undertaking

since a backfiring engine could turn the crank into a whirling weapon known to

shatter bones. Engines were mounted haphazardly under the body, and steering was

often by tiller. All of the parts including the gears and drive systems were exposed to

the elements. Early tires were solid rubber, and did not cushion bumps. The arrival of

pneumatic tires made the ride more comfortable, but punctures every 10 or 20 miles

were the norm. Kerosene side lamps and smelly acetylene head lamps lit the

traveler's way. There were no shock absorbers or heating systems.

People who drove autos in the early days were seen as heroic adventurers.

Backyard tinkers and bicycle makers were the auto repairmen of the day, and

owners were encouraged to carry repair kits that listed at least 60 things one should

not be without on the road - mastic to seal leaks in the gas line, extra hoses, wire,

spark plugs, towing cable, oil, grease, and a can of gasoline with funnel and chamois

for straining.

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Greatest Achievements - 2. Automobile

By 1900 there were 50 automobile-manufacturing companies and some 8,000 cars

registered in the United States. Each car was hand-made and cost about $1,550.

With an average wage of $12.74 per week, only the wealthy could afford cars. The

masses rode horses, hopped trains, or walked. It was 20th century engineering,

through the advent of mass production, that opened the door to mass car ownership.

The first to originate this key industrial innovation was Ransom E. Olds in 1901, who

had his workers wheel carts of car parts to each car frame during production. This

method boosted factory output from 425 cars a year to 2500 in 1907. In 1908, Henry

Ford - Olds' great rival - improved the system by adding a conveyor belt that brought

the car frame to the workers. This cut production time for one Model T from a day

and a half to an unbelievable 93 minutes. Ford was able to reduce its cost from $850

in 1906, to $400 in 1916, and $290 by 1924. Ford's mantra was "fast and cheap" -

and that did not leave any room for variety. All his cars were painted black, because

it was the color of enamel that dried the fastest. He sold 1 million cars by 1921 and

15 million between 1908 and 1927 - 50 percent of the market. His operation made

him the pacesetter of the industry, and it made the industry the paragon of

technological progress.

Engineering milestones began to enhance the popularity of the car and improve its

safety. They included the electric starter in 1911, introduced by Charles Kettering;

the synchronized transmission for easier gear shifting; improved carburetors;

heaters; mechanically operated windshield wipers; and interchangeable parts. Henry

Leland, president of Cadillac Automobile Co., believed that car parts should be the

same for similar models. Skeptics disagreed, so to prove his point, he shipped three

cars to England, had them disassembled, their parts all mixed together, and then

reassembled. This successful innovation increased production efficiency and

reduced costs, adding to the affordability of the auto.

By the mid-1920s, other innovators were changing the industry. William Durant

surpassed Ford in sales by offering variety. He began buying different car firms that

built to different tastes - luxury, speed, comfort, and utility. The first were Olds,

Oakland (later the Pontiac), and Cadillac. Then he bought out makers of motors,

spark plugs, and other components and accessories. His acquisitive nature and

vision resulted in the General Motors Company, the forerunner of the modern

automotive operation.

The 1930s saw more reliable braking, higher-compression engines, and the world's

first diesel engine by Mercedes. Automobile engines were becoming larger, and

many had 12 and 16 cylinders. Independent front suspension was added to make

larger cars more comfortable. Design-wise, automobiles on both sides of the Atlantic

were styled with gracious proportions, long hoods, and pontoon-shaped fenders.

In 1941, the brilliant engineering that had built the automotive industry was directed

toward other activities that would help win the war. Auto companies used their

production machinery, leadership, and experience to build 4 million engines of all

types, 6 million guns, 3 million tanks and trucks, and 27,000 aircraft - plus an

amazing assortment of miscellaneous military hardware. After the war, they returned

to the business of building automobiles.

Large-scale production began in the early 1950s. New automotive features included

air conditioning, electrically operated car windows, seat adjusters, and a change from

a 6-volt to a 12-volt ignition system which improved engine performance. American

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Greatest Achievements - 2. Automobile

cars tended to borrow design features normally found on aircraft and ships, including

tailfins and portholes. Cars increased in size and weight, but power steering and

brakes made them easier to handle. Across the Atlantic, Europeans were making

smaller and lighter cars that weighed less than 2800 lb. Their sports cars had handfashioned

aluminum bodies over a steel chassis and framework.

In the early days of the car, the biggest worry was keeping it running. Today we are

concerned with aerodynamic designs for speed and fuel efficiency, passenger safety

issues, and pollution control systems. In 1900 a car might have a total of 100 parts,

while today it has some 14,000. Design innovations incorporate breakthroughs in

computerization, high-strength plastics, and alloys of steel and nonferrous metals.

Accessories can include CD players, tape decks, television and phone installations,

and separate sound and temperature controls in the front and back of a vehicle.

Some cars come equipped with satellite-aided global positioning system (GPS)

locator beacons, enabling a remote operator to locate a vehicle, map its location,

and, if necessary, direct repair or emergency workers to the scene.

In one form or another, the vehicle has become the major transporter of people and

goods in the world, whether designed for urban use or rough terrain, one passenger

or a dozen. Its basic design and power systems have been widely adapted to

vehicles such as the ambulance, jeep, police car, minivan, limousine, pickup truck,

and tractor trailer.

Today's automobile industry has helped to shape the financial world, from banks to

the stock market, and is a major barometer of the economic health of a nation.

Automobile sales represent more than one-fifth of U.S. wholesale business, and

more than one-fourth of its retail trade. Japan and Western Europe are rapidly

approaching these levels.

Massive and internationally competitive, the automobile industry is the largest single

manufacturing enterprise in the United States in terms of total value of products and

number of employees. One out of every six U.S. businesses depends on the

manufacture, distribution, servicing, or use of motor vehicles. The industry is

primarily responsible for the growth of steel and rubber production, and is the largest

user of machine tools. Specialized manufacturing requirements have driven

advances in petroleum refining, paint and plate-glass manufacturing, and other

industrial processes. Gasoline, once a waste product to be burned off, is now one of

the most valuable commodities in the world.

As for changing social patterns, a historian has said that Henry Ford freed common

people from the limitations of geography, creating social mobility on a scale

previously unknown. Few, if any, other machines have been as widely adopted or

used as an agent of change in so many societal institutions and practices.

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Greatest Achievements - 2. Automobile

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Greatest Achievements - 2. Automobile

Timeline

1900 Packard is the first U.S. car to feature three-speed and reverse gear box.

1901 Ransom E. Olds originates mass production techniques.

1901 British designer Frederick William Lanchester patents disc brakes.

1901 Frederick Simms invents first car fender, based on railway engine

buffers.

1906 Rolls and Royce form company.

1908 Henry Ford begins mass production of the Model T.

1908 William Durant forms General Motors, forerunner of modern automotive

plants.

1908 Henry Ford adds conveyor belt to improve mass production system for

Model T.

1911 Charles Kettering invents the electric starter.

1911 Synchronized transmission for easier gear shifting, improved

carburetors, heaters, and mechanically operated windshield wipers.

1911 Interchangeable parts are introduced by Henry M. Leland.

1915 Cadillac introduces the V-8 engine.

1916 Dodge mass-produces first car body made entirely of steel.

1919 The Hispano-Suiza H6B demonstrates first single foot pedal to operate

first coupled four-wheel brakes.

1919 Dussenberg demonstrates first use of hydraulic brake fluid as a link

between pedal and mechanism.

1926 Francis Wright Davis installs first power steering system in the Pierce-

Arrow.

1927 Ford introduces the 3-geared Model A.

1929 Cooperative Fuel Research Engine, Waukesha, Wisconsin, measures

detonation, or knock limit, of a given fuel, determines octane rating, and

becomes the standard test engine of the industry.

1934 Chrysler Airflow becomes the first mass-produced streamlined car.

1934 Chrysler adds fifth gear (overdrive).

1940 Karl Pabst designs the Jeep, workhorse of WWII.

1947 B. F. Goodrich Co. introduces the first tubeless tire.

1948 Disc brakes are introduced by Chrysler.

1953 Corvette becomes the first car whose body is made of fiberglassreinforced

plastic.

1955 French Citroen introduces revolutionary gas suspension system. Its

brakes, transmission, and steering are all power-assisted.

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Greatest Achievements - 2. Automobile

1960 Private car ownership reaches 1 car for every 31 people in the world; 1

for every 22 in Europe, and 1 for every 3 in the United States, where

15% of families have more than one car.

1966 Electronic fuel injection system is developed in Britain.

1967 Pontiac develops safer car bumpers that absorb some of the energy of

an impact or collision.

1979 Direct-Injected Stratified Charge (DISC) engine is developed.

1980 Voice prompts are first used in the Datsun 810.

1980-90s Continuing research and experimental work with alternative fuels,

electric and solar-powered vehicles, seat belts, airbags, mapping

systems, etc.

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Greatest Achievements - 3. Airplane

Today you can go from Europe to America in 4 hours on the

Concorde. In 1900, the same trip took 7 to 10 days by boat.

Modern air travel transports goods and people quickly around

the globe, facilitating our personal, cultural, and commercial

interaction. Engineering innovation - from the Wright brothers to

supersonic jets - have made it all possible.

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Greatest Achievements - 3. Airplane

At the beginning of the 20th century, travel from Europe to America took 7 to 10 days

by boat. By the end of the century, the same trip took 4 hours on the Concorde. The

speed and efficiency of air travel have made personal and cultural exchange

possible on a global scale. And the extraordinary engineering developments that

shaped the airplane's evolution weave one of the most dramatic stories of the 20th

century.

In 1903, the first powered, sustained, and human-piloted flight carried Wilbur Wright

120 feet in 12 seconds. Later that day Orville Wright flew 852 feet for 59 seconds.

Today, people worldwide commonly fly thousands of miles each year for business

and pleasure.

Perhaps the most amazing achievements in aviation were at the beginning of the

century, when little was known about flight. This was a time of intuitive creation and

experimentation - with wing size and shape, with materials, and with power systems.

Early flight was a risky and daring undertaking. Fliers were called "aeronauts," a title

that reflected the dangers they faced. Planes were noisy and low-flying craft made of

cloth or wood. The cockpit was completely open, leaving the pilot unprotected from

weather and other hazards. Fuel was still unrefined and therefore not always reliable,

and crash landings were not uncommon. There were no guidance systems or

satellites to warn of storms or other weather hazards. The first "road maps" for pilots

were directional signals painted on barn roofs. Flying at night was not a good idea,

although in the 1920s a series of rotating beacons were set up every 50 miles or so

across the country to guide planes — a far cry from the sophisticated air traffic

control systems of today.

The Wright brothers' success was built on the pioneering work of German engineer

Otto Lilienthal with gliders, and Octave Chanute, an American who worked on

multiplane gliders. The race to be the first to fly successfully was a worldwide

competition, and pioneers like Samuel Pierpont Langley and Gustave Whitehead

were serious contenders. Though the Wright brothers' historic flight in 1903 is now

recognized as the true beginning of aviation, the feat was largely ignored at the time.

It wasn't until 1908, when Orville successfully flew for an hour, that the world began

to take flight seriously. From then on, excitement for this new enterprise inspired a

flurry of refinements in Europe and the United States. A myriad of odd-looking crafts

of every configuration began to appear, powered by everything from catapults to

steam and gas engines.

The Wright brothers did not want to compete in this field - they wanted to dominate it,

and so fought many patent wars with early experimenters, most especially with

Glenn Curtiss, who claimed that he had completed the first successful flight in 1901.

These patent conflicts limited the development of aviation technology in the United

States, until a different kind of conflict - World War I - finally put an end to them. The

U.S. government declared it a patriotic necessity for cross-licensing agreements

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between the Wright and Curtiss companies, and this opened the door for many other

innovators.

Only 11 years after Kitty Hawk, the war ignited a race to bring combat to the skies,

with the hope of early victory. This gave great impetus to technological development

and transformed small-scale aircraft manufacture into a unified national concern.

Numerous innovations in materials and design were needed quickly just for planes to

survive the rigors of combat. Flammable plywood and fabric were soon replaced with

metals like iron and welded steel tubing (as in German Junkers), and wings were

streamlined (as in the German Albatross). Anthony Fokker refined the design of

maneuverable triplanes and developed the interrupter gear that synchronized

machine gun fire with the spinning propeller, thus giving Germans air superiority in

1916.

The Allies countered with more powerful engines and shifted manufacturing

techniques in other industries to the production of aircraft. During this period,

thousands of aircraft were produced by both sides. Many were untested planes,

quickly and prematurely pressed into service, which often broke apart in the air.

Given the short history of aviation, most pilots were grossly inexperienced. Both

factors left a legacy of fatal mishaps, and a resolve to explore more sophisticated

aviation techniques.

The war proved that airplanes could be easily adapted for civilian uses, transporting

mail, passengers, and cargo. The DC-3 made its first appearance in 1935 and

represented a major leap forward in airplane development, proving airline travel

economically practical. It incorporated the technical advances of the day, including

metal skin; an internally instead of externally braced design; an almost completely

enclosed engine that reduced drag; the addition of wing flaps, and variable-pitch

propellers. By 1941, the DC-3 provided 80 percent of scheduled domestic service.

In 1939 the gas turbine was introduced, signaling the beginning of jet transport.

Working independently, Sir Frank Whittle in England and Hans von Ohain in

Germany both developed this technology, though von Ohain's was the first to

successfully power an aircraft. French engineer Rene Lorin visualized the concept of

jet propulsion more than 25 years earlier, but it took improved materials and the

genius of Whittle and von Ohain to recognize the advantages that a gas turbine

offered over a piston engine, including speeds in excess of 350 miles per hour.

World War II saw another period of rapid innovation, as the race to early victory

forced advances in engines, fuel, materials, and testing, giving way to more powerful

engines, new methods of construction, and navigational and bombing systems. After

the war, a return to building passenger and cargo planes continued on a worldwide

scale. By 1957, airplanes would surpass trains as the preferred mode of travel for

Americans. "Bigger, better, faster" was the slogan that drove production. Today's

modern jetliners can carry hundreds of passengers, and the Concorde offers

supersonic transport between the United States and Europe in four hours.

In addition to commercial aviation, general aviation has also become a burgeoning

field for business and pleasure, and today it accounts for some 600,000 pilots in the

United States. General aviation makes thousands of small airports and landing strips

accessible to air travel, freight, and ambulance service. Pioneers in the field include

Clyde Cessna, Walter Beach, and William Piper. Thousands of people build and fly

their own planes, and are the real innovators in aviation today. Outstanding among

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Greatest Achievements - 3. Airplane

them are Burt Rutan, who designed the first plane to circle the globe nonstop, and

Paul McCready, who designed human-powered planes (the Gossamer Albatross and

Gossamer Condor). Both have made important contributions to the aviation industry

in terms of materials, fuels, and design.

The development of rotary-wing aircraft came into its own in the postwar era. More

powerful engines and improved transmissions helped spur a frenzy of

experimentation. One aircraft, the Bell XV-15, combined elements of the helicopter

and fixed-wing craft. After vertical takeoff, the plane could tilt its rotors forward and fly

like an airplane. Since Leonardo da Vinci's designs for an "airscrew," humans have

been intrigued by ways to achieve vertical flight. The Wright brothers recognized that

a propeller was actually a rotating wing. They and others applied the principle to

autogyros, which achieved short flights, but, because they had no power systems,

couldn't climb, descend, or fly sideways or backwards. The first public demonstration

of a fully controllable rotary-wing aircraft, the helicopter, was Germany's Focke-

Achgelis Fa-61 in 1936. In the United States, Igor Sikorsky made his first successful

flight with the VS-300 in the summer of 1939, launching a dynasty that dominated the

helicopter industry for most of the century.

Airports - once grassy fields with wooden shacks for terminals - are now major

architectural statements. Beyond providing a safe surface for takeoff and landing,

airports now host shops, restaurants, and service establishments. Air traffic control

systems keeps the world's pilots connected, guiding them safely to and from their

destinations. In the United States, airports employ more than a half million people,

and related services and aviation activities account for more than 6 percent of the

nation's gross domestic product.

Perhaps the greatest outcome of this technology has been the expansion of our

personal horizons. As we contemplate what the next century of flight will bring,

Orville Wright's early prediction seems appropriate. He said, "I cannot answer except

to assure you it will be spectacular."

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Timeline

1901 Samuel Pierpont Langley builds a gasoline-powered version of his

tandem-winged model, the first to propel an aircraft, and launches large

unmanned steam-powered models on many successful flights.

1903 The Wright Brothers Flyer makes the first successful manned and

powered flight.

1914-18 World War I encourages rapid development in aviation.

1927 Charles Lindbergh becomes first person to cross the Atlantic solo and

nonstop.

1930s As the aviation industry begins to mature, planes such as the B-17

Flying Fortress and DC-3 appear on the scene.

1936 German Focke-Achgelis Fa-61 rotary-winged aircraft demonstrated.

1937 Sir Frank Whittle in England and Hans von Ohain in Germany construct

the first turbojet propulsion engines.

1939 The Heinkel He-178 experimental aircraft, powered by Hans von Ohain's

centrifugal-flow HeS-3b engine, makes the world's first turbo-jet powered

flight.

1939 Igor Sikorsky invents the VS-300 helicopter, the first single-rotor

helicopter.

1940s WWII aircraft - Messerschmitt, B29

1940s Rolls Royce engines - many materials new to the aircraft industry in

WWII are used in automobile making.

1947 On December 17, the XB-47 stratojet lifts from the runway on its first

flight.

1950s-

60s

New aircraft are introduced during this time period, including Boeing's

707, 727, and 747, the DC-8 and DC-9, and McDonnell's F-4 Phantom

II.

1970s McDonnell Douglas F-15.

1980s Commercial airplanes introduced include the Concord, Airbus, and

Boeing 757 and 767.

1990s Military aircraft (Lockheed) and McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.

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Greatest Achievements - 4. Water Supply and Distribution

Today, a simple turn of the tap provides clean water - a

precious resource. Engineering advances in managing this

resource - with water treatment, supply, and distribution

systems - changed life profoundly in the 20th century, virtually

eliminating waterborne diseases in developed nations, and

providing clean and abundant water for communities, farms,

and industries.

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Greatest Achievements - 4. Water Supply and Distribution

At the outset of the century, waterborne diseases like typhoid fever and cholera were

scourges across America. Typhoid alone killed more than 150 per 100,000 people

annually. (Wilbur Wright was one.) Dysentery and diarrhea - the most common

waterborne diseases - were the third largest cause of death in the nation. Given the

conditions of streets and waterways, it is not hard to understand how these diseases

spread so widely.

In 1900, it was common practice to dispose of garbage and raw sewage by dumping

it into streets, alleys and waterways. Industrial waste was also dumped into the

nation's waterways. Few municipalities treated wastewater, because it was widely

believed that running water purified itself. Cisterns, which held a family's water

supply, were breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carried yellow fever. Indoor

plumbing was rare. In rural areas, outhouses were common place, along with wells.

Pumping water for cooking was an early morning chore for most families. In urban

areas, an average tenement housed two thousand people, but not one bathtub. To

promote cleanliness, most large cities built public baths - the only place a person

could wash his entire body.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the main goal was to eliminate deadly

waterborne diseases by purifying drinking water. A second goal was to build

distribution systems that would bring clean water to rural areas as well as urban. A

century of engineering dramatically and significantly reduced death rates from

waterborne diseases. In addition, engineers developed innovative water supply and

distribution systems that now bring water to areas where it is most needed - whether

arid, rural, or urban. All of these efforts have led to an increase in life expectancy, a

reduction in infant mortality and morbidity, and improvements in the environmental

quality of life around the world.

Disinfection with chlorine was underway in 1908 in Chicago and Jersey City and by

1910 was being used in several major U.S. and Canadian cities. By 1913 there were

significant decreases in typhoid, and by 1918 over 1000 cities treating 3 billion

gallons of water a day were enjoying the increased health benefits of chlorine

disinfection. As a result, the major water-borne diseases ceased to exist in the

United States by World War II.

Early in the century, engineers developed techniques to treat municipal and industrial

waste water that included chemical coagulation, better sedimentation, and sand

filtration. As new chemicals and other pollutants find their way into the water system,

new ways to treat water are continually being developed. They include methods such

as carbon absorption, enhanced coagulation, membrane filtration, alternative

disinfection (ultraviolet, ozone, chlorine dioxide) and others. Microorganism systems

reduce nitrogen, phosphorous, heavy metal concentration, eliminate sludge and

offensive odors, and return water to its clear, clean, and healthy state.

Engineers have also developed sensitive and accurate instrumentation that can

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Greatest Achievements - 4. Water Supply and Distribution

analyze water for carcinogens at parts per trillion levels. As a result, the EPA has

greatly lowered the levels of allowable chemicals in wastewater.

Safeguarding the public water system means continually monitoring waterborne

diseases caused by disinfection by-products and protozoan pathogens, carried by

animals. Engineers have radically improved the filtration process at water treatment

plants to successfully elimate these dangers to human health. They continue to

revolutionize water treatment by developing numerous state-of-the-art technolgies.

An adequate supply of water often depends on the building of dams, reservoirs, and

aqueducts. Today, storage and distribution systems enable semi-arid and arid

regions to store water for later use during periods of high precipitation. They have

also enabled people to move from large cities to suburban communities and helped

those dependent on wells.

Milestones along the way include the Hoover Dam, which regulates the flow of the

Colorado River. Completed in 1935, it provided work during the Depression and a

range of benefits, including electricity for more than 1.3 million people, and irrigation

for 1.5 million acres of land in the United States and Mexico. The 726-foot high

structure was the highest in the world by 300 feet at the time.

The 242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct made the large-scale population and

economic growth of southern California possible in 1933-39. Clean potable water

piped from sources miles away led to the development of such large cities as Las

Vegas, Nevada and suburban areas around Chicago and Los Angeles.

The Aswan Dam on the Nile River transformed Egypt into a self-sustaining

agricultural economy by providing irrigation for more than one million acres of arid

land and more than 2,100 megawatts of hydroelectric power.

In 1998 the Los Vaqueros aqueduct, forty miles east of San Francisco, began

providing more than 400,000 residents and 28 industrial consumers with safe

drinking water. Before the reservoir and dam, people endured drinking water with an

exceedingly high salt-content.

Quantity and quality are the ongoing challenges for engineers. The World Bank

estimates that currently more than a billion people — 1/6 of the world's population —

do not have access to an adequate supply of water, and of those that do, access is

often limited in time or quality. It is estimated that in the year 2000, millions of people

in developing countries will die due to the lack of safe drinking water. Another

concern for the future is the increase in global desertification. The world's drylands

already make up about 40 percent of Earth's land surface. Expansion can lead to

loss of farmlands, mass migrations, loss of economic activities, and disaster for

many.

The transfer of engineering knowledge to ensure safe water supplies through the

collection, treatment and distribution of surface, ground and wastewater is imperative

for the continued economic growth and development of nations in the 21st century.

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Greatest Achievements - 4. Water Supply and Distribution

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Greatest Achievements - 4. Water Supply and Distribution

Timeline

1900 Reversal of Chicago River completed, improving saftey of Lake

Michigan's drinking water supply

1913 Los Angeles city engineer William Mulholland opens the Owens River

Aqueduct.

1915 Abel Wolman joins the Maryland Department of Health, where he later

perfects a formula for purifying water with chlorine.

1915 Boston engineers Leonard Metcalf and Harrison P. Eddy publish

American Sewerage Practice, a standard reference for decades

1915 A. B. Wood invents low-lift screw pump to rid New Orleans of drainage

problems

1918 Catskill Aqueduct completed; supplies water for New York City.

1918 First large-scale wastewater treatment plant to use activated sludge

method built in Houston.

1935 Hoover Dam construction completed.

1937 Construction begins on Delaware Acqueduct to supply New York City;

completed in 1962.

1954 James S. Robbins built first tunnel-boring machine.

1962 Mechanical raise-borer enabled engineers to significantly decrease the

amount of time to bore through 200 feet of earth.

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Greatest Achievements - 5. Electronics

Electronics provide the basis for countless innovations - CD

players, TVs, and computers, to name a few. From vacuum

tubes to transistors to integrated circuits, engineers have made

electronics smaller, more powerful, and more efficient, paving

the way for products that have improved the quality and

convenience of modern life.

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Greatest Achievements - 5. Electronics

In 1955, an early high-speed commercial computer weighed 3 tons, consumed 50

kilowatts of power, and cost $200,000. But it could perform 50 multiplications per

second, a feat unmatchable by either a human or the latest adding machine. In 1977,

a handheld calculator weighed under a pound, consumed less than half a watt of

power, could perform 250 multiplications per second, and cost $300. Today, you can

buy palm-sized organizers for $250 that link to computers, transmit data, and store

thousands of addresses, appointments, memos, lists, and e-mails. The keys to this

stunning revolution in personal power are the transistor and the integrated circuit --

the centerpieces of the modern electronics systems that swept the world in the last

half of the 20th century. Brilliant engineering and innovation lie behind these unseen

elements that operate wireless communications, satellite broadcasts, air traffic

control systems, microwave ovens, video cameras, touch-tone phones, computers,

and many other products that have improved the quality, safety, and convenience of

modern life.

The ancestor of these miniature electronic devices is the vacuum tube. Sealed inside

a glass tube, a stream of electrons carried a current through a vacuum between

electrodes. Vacuum tubes were crucial to the development of radio, television, and

sound recording, and an essential component in early telephone equipment and

computers. They were also fragile, bulky, and produced a considerable amount of

waste heat. The first commercial computer, ENIAC, incorporated 18,000 vacuum

tubes, weighed 30 tons, filled several large rooms, and consumed enough power to

light 10 homes. Its cathode ray tubes required large amounts of heat in order to boil

out electrons, needed time to warm up, and often burned out. A universal search to

find a more compact and reliable device dominated engineering after World War II,

and these efforts laid the groundwork for what followed.

What followed was the transistor, invented in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter H.

Brattain, and William B. Shockley, engineers and scientists at Bell Telephone

Laboratories. The transistor's shape and size were strikingly different from the huge

arrangement of the bulky vacuum tubes. A small metal cylinder about half an inch

long contained two fine wires that ran down to a pinhead of solid semiconductive

material soldered to a metal base. The current to the crystal on one wire controlled a

larger current between the crystal and the second wire. It contained no vacuum, grid,

plate, or glass envelope to keep the air away. It produced instantaneous action, with

no need to warm up. The New York Times reported its debut with only slight interest.

Little did anyone realize this tiny device would launch the "smaller, faster, more

powerful" digital age.

By the early 1950s, the transistor had captured the world's imagination, first in the

transistorized radio - the fastest selling retail object of the time. Early applications

included telephone oscillators, hearing aids, automatic telephone routing devices,

and other audio and communications devices. Computers were not yet considered a

key application. IBM could not find anyone interested in selling transistors that were

tailored to computers, so they contracted with Texas Instruments to develop

transistors specifically designed for digital applications.

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Greatest Achievements - 5. Electronics

The transistor held great promise, but it would take several years before engineers

worked out designs and manufacturing techniques. Semiconductor material was

costly and required complex contacting methods. To help speed progress, Bell Labs

licensed its transistor patent rights freely to other companies. The rapid advance

made in transistor manufacturing from 1952 to 1960 has been attributed to this open

sharing of technology, and the subsequent developments made at various industry

and university laboratories and presented at open symposiums.

These advances undoubtedly led to Jack Kilby's invention of the integrated circuit

(IC) at Texas Instruments in 1958. At the time, miniaturization was driven by the

Soviet's success with the Sputnik program, and was a major objective of governmentfunded

electronics research programs. Kilby came up with the idea of organizing

numerous transistors and other electronic components on a silicon wafer, complete

with wiring. It would take much ingenuity and effort, and the adaptation of techniques

learned from earlier transistor fabrication, such as crystal growing, epitaxy, and

lithography.

Early transistors were made by hand. Eventually, sophisticated production

techniques took hold. The real breakthrough in production was the use of oxide on

silicon wafers, which allowed selective doping by diffusion of impurities through

openings in the oxide. This process allowed contacts to the silicon to be made

through other holes in the oxide. Photographic techniques were used to pattern the

openings in the silicon oxide. With these techniques, hundreds of chips could be cut

from a single slice of silicon and multiple transistors could be placed on each chip.

Early chips were about three-fourths of a millimeter on a side. Today chips are

several centimeters on a side, and can accommodate millions of transistors.

In the early 1950s, a transistor cost between $5 and $45 to make. As the

semiconductor technology improved, the transistor became faster, cheaper, and

more reliable. Now the transistors on a microchip cost less than a hundredthousandth

of a cent - so they are virtually free.

At first integrated circuits were produced by the hundreds. Then engineers

developed ways to add other components - resistors and capacitors -- to produce a

microchip. As the technology developed, more and more components could be

crammed into smaller and smaller dimensions. Gordon Moore, chairman of Intel,

recognized a trend: the number of transistors per unit was doubling every year, and

later, every 18 months. This insight became known as Moore's Law, one of the

driving principles of the semiconductor industry, and Moore's vision helped Intel

become one of the world's major corporations.

Part of the magic of electronics is adding millions of transistors to a tiny silicon chip.

The rest of the magic is performed by engineers who determine their use through the

development of microprocessors - the control center imbedded in refrigerators,

automobiles, airplanes, computers, and thousands of other products.

Microchips took the transistor to an exciting new level. One microchip can operate an

automobile's electrical system or launch an air force. It made thousands of new

products possible, from heart pacemakers and hearing aids to efficient aircraft.

Medical instruments, automobiles, cellular phones, CD players, and watches all

operate because of microchips.

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Greatest Achievements - 5. Electronics

Until microprocessors appeared on the scene, computers were essentially discrete

pieces of equipment used primarily for data processing and scientific calculations.

From microprocessors engineers developed microcomputers -- systems about the

size of a lunch box or smaller, but with enough computing power to perform many

kinds of business, industrial, and scientific tasks.

The race continues to add more and more information on a microchip. By 2010,

advanced microprocessors are expected to contain more than 800 million transistors.

Where will microchips appear next? They might appear on the front of refrigerators to

monitor food supplies and send grocery lists to the store, automatically charging

credit cards or bank accounts. Or they could be implanted in children to prevent

kidnapping, or inside the human brain to cure blindness or other medical conditions.

The technology is limitless. Only imagination will govern its potential.

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Greatest Achievements - 5. Electronics

Timeline

1904 Sir John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube and diode.

1906 Lee De Forest develops the triode.

1934 Electronic hearing aid invented

1947 John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley of Bell

Telephone Laboratories invent the transistor.

1950s Germanium is used to make semiconductors in transistors. Late in the

1950s, silicon begins to replace germanium as a semiconductor

material.

1954 The transistor radio is introduced and becomes the largest selling item of

the time

1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments invents the integrated circuit (IC).

1958 Robert Noyce develops an integrated circuit that can be miniaturized and

reliably manufactured

1958 Seymour Cray at Control Data Corp. develops a transistorized computer

1961 Silicon chips first appear

1967 First handheld calculator using an integrated circuit is made by Texas

Instruments.

1968 Robert Noyce cofounds Intel.

1970 The bar code system is created.

1971 Intel introduces its popular 4004 4-bit microprocessor, starting the

evolution of Intel's famous line of 386, 486, and Pentium processors

1971 First video game and video disc introduced.

1979 Mattel Toy Company receives 1 millionth chip for electronic games

1980s Integrated circuits applied to computers

1981 32-bit silicon chips developed.

1984 Compact disc (CD) player introduced.

1984 CD-ROM (compact-disc read-only memory) is available

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Greatest Achievements - 6. Radio and Television

Radio and television were major agents of social change in the

20th century, opening windows to other lives, to remote areas

of the world, and to history in the making. From the wireless

telegraph to today's advanced satellite systems, engineers

have developed remarkable technologies that inform and

entertain millions every day.

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Greatest Achievements - 6. Radio and Television

Radio and television were major agents of social change in the 20th century. Radio

was once the center for family entertainment and news. Television enhanced this

revolution by adding sight to sound. Both opened the windows to other lives, to

remote areas of the world, and to history in the making. News coverage changed

from early and late editions of newspapers to broadcast coverage from the scene.

Play-by-play sports broadcasts and live concerts enhanced entertainment coverage.

For many, the only cultural performances or sports events they would ever hear or

see would emanate from the speakers or the screens in their living rooms. Each has

engaged millions of people in the major historical events that have shaped the world.

If people could look at the sky and see how it is organized into frequency bands used

for different purposes, they would be amazed. Radio waves crisscross the

atmosphere at the speed of light, relaying incredible amounts of information -

navigational data, radio signals, television pictures - using devices for transmission

and reception designed, built, and refined by a century of engineers.

Key figures in the late 1800s included Nikola Tesla, who developed the Tesla coil,

and James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz, who proved mathematically the

possibility of transmitting electromagnetic signals between widely separated points. It

was Guglielmo Marconi who was most responsible for taking the theories of radio

waves out of the laboratory and applying them to practical devices. His "wireless"

telegraph demonstrated its great potential for worldwide communication in 1901 by

sending a signal — the letter "s" — in Morse code a distance of 2,000 miles across

the Atlantic Ocean. Radio technology was just around the corner.

Immediate engineering challenges addressed the means of transmitting and

receiving coded messages, and developing a device that could convert a highfrequency

oscillating signal into an electric current capable of registering as sound.

The first significant development was "the Edison effect," the discovery that the

carbon filament in the electric light bulb could radiate a stream of electrons to a

nearby test electrode if it had a positive charge. In 1904, Sir John Ambrose Fleming

of Britain took this one step further by developing the diode which allowed electric

current to be detected by a telephone receiver. Two years later, American Lee De

Forest developed the triode, introducing a third electrode (the grid) between the

filament and the plate. It could amplify a signal to make live voice broadcasting

possible, and was quickly added to Marconi's wireless telegraph to produce the

radio.

Radio development was hampered by restrictions placed on airwaves during World

War I. Technical limitations were also a problem. Few people had receivers, and

those that did had to wear headsets. Radio was seen by many as a hobby for

telegraphy buffs. It would take a great deal of engineering before the radio would

become the unifying symbol of family entertainment and the medium for news that

was its destiny.

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Greatest Achievements - 6. Radio and Television

In the mid-1920s, technical developments expanded transmission distances, radio

stations were built across the country, and the performance and appearance of the

radio were improved. With tuning circuits, capacitors, microphones, oscillators, and

loudspeakers, the industry blossomed in just a decade. By the mid-1930s almost

every American household had a radio. The advent of the transistor in the 1950s

completely transformed its size, style, and portability.

Both television and radar were logical spin-offs of the radio. Almost 50 years before

television became a reality, its fundamental principles had been independently

developed in Europe, Russia, and the United States. John Baird in England and

Charles Jenkins in the United States worked independently to combine modulated

light and a scanning wheel to reconstruct a scene in line-by-line sweeps. In 1925,

Baird succeeded in transmitting a recognizable image.

Philo T. Farnsworth, a 21-year-old inventor from Utah, patented a scanning cathode

ray tube, and Vladimir Zworykin of RCA devised a superior television camera in

1930. Regularly scheduled broadcasts started shortly thereafter, and by the early

1940s there were 23 television stations in operation throughout the United States.

Shortly after World War II, televisions began to appear on the market. The first

pictures were faded and flickering, but more than a million sets were sold before the

end of the decade. An average set cost $500 at a time when the average salary was

less than $3,000 a year. In 1950 engineers perfected the rectangular cathode-ray

tube and prices dropped to $200 per set. Within 10 years 45 million units were sold.

A study of how human vision works enabled engineers to develop television

technology. Images are retained on the retina of a viewer's eye for a fraction of a

second after they strike it. By displaying images piece by piece at sufficient speed,

the illusion of a complete picture can be created. By changing the image on the

screen 25 to 30 times per second, movement can be realistically represented. Early

scanning wheels slowly built a picture line by line. In contrast, each image on a

modern color television screen is comprised of more than 100,000 picture elements

(pixels), arranged in several hundred lines. The image displayed changes every few

hundredths of a second. For a 15-minute newscast, the television must accurately

process more than 1 billion units of information. Technical innovations that made this

possible included a screen coated with millions of tiny dots of fluorescent compounds

that emit light when struck by high-speed electrons.

Today this technology is in transition again, moving away from conventional

television waves and on to discrete digital signals carried by fiber optics. This holds

the potential for making television interactive - allowing a viewer to play a game or

order action replays. Cathode ray tubes with power-hungry electron guns are giving

way to liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. Movie-style wide screens and flat screens

are readily available. Digital signals enable High Definition Television (HDTV) to

have almost double the usual number of pixels, giving a much sharper picture. The

advent of cable television and advances in fiber-optic technology will also help lift the

present bandwidth restrictions and increase image quality.

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Greatest Achievements - 6. Radio and Television

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Greatest Achievements - 6. Radio and Television

Timeline

1901 Guglielmo Marconi's "wireless" telegraph sends a signal in Morse code a

distance of 2,000 miles.

1904 Sir John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube and diode.

1906 Lee De Forest develops the triode.

1912 Edwin Howard Armstrong devised one of the first effective amplitude

modulation (AM) radio receivers.

1920 The first modern commercial radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, begins

broadcasting.

1925 John Baird succeeds in transmitting a recognizable image.

1926 Charles Jenkins set up the first intercity television transmission in the

United States by wire.

1927 Philo T. Farnsworth transmits first television image.

1928 Color television.

1930 Vladimir Zworykin of RCA devises superior television camera.

1933 Edwin Howard Armstrong invents frequency modulation (FM).

1947 John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley of Bell

Telephone Laboratories invent the transistor.

1950s Rectangular cathode-ray tube perfected.

1954 Regular broadcasts of color television.

1954 Transistor radio introduced.

1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments invents the integrated circuit (IC).

1960s Solid state imaging devices first demonstrated.

1968 200 million televisions worldwide.

1980s Miniaturized televisions.

1990s Liquid crystal display panels (LCD), high definition television (HDTV).

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Greatest Achievements - 7. Agricultural Mechanization

The machinery of farms - tractors, cultivators, combines, and

hundreds of others - dramatically increased farm efficiency and

productivity in the 20th century. At the start of the century, four

U.S. farmers could feed about 10 people. By the end, with the

help of engineering innovation, a single farmer could feed more

than 100.

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Greatest Achievements - 7. Agricultural Mechanization

At the beginning of the 20th century it took a large team of farmers and field hands

weeks to plant and harvest one crop, and it took four farmers to feed 10 people.

Today, machinery allows the entire midwestern corn crop to be planted in 10 days

and harvested in 20; and one U.S. farmer can produce enough food to feed 97

Americans and 32 people in other countries.

Twentieth century engineering has made the difference. The tractor, the reaper, the

combine, and hundreds of other machines gave farmers the mechanical advantage

they had long needed to ease their burdens and make their lands truly profitable.

Agricultural mechanization enormously increased farm efficiency and productivity.

Engineering began to affect the farmer late in the 19th century, with steam-powered

tractors and various tools for drilling seed holes and planting. Still, most field work

was done with hand tools like the spade, hoe, and scythe, or with hand- or animaldriven

plows. A farmer's day was labor-intensive, beginning well before sunrise and

ending at sunset.

Mechanization did not advance rapidly until the 20th century, with the advent of the

internal combustion engine. As the chief power source for vehicles, it began

replacing both horses and steam for planting, cultivating, and harvesting equipment.

It made the evolution of the tractor possible, and led to sweeping changes in

agriculture.

The number of tractors in developed countries increased dramatically, especially in

the United States. In 1907, some 600 tractors were in use; by 1950, the figure had

grown to almost 3,400,000. Major changes in tractor design include the power

takeoff, the all-purpose or tricycle-type tractor, which enabled farmers to cultivate

planted crops mechanically; rubber tires, which facilitated faster operating speeds;

treads that could negotiate soft soil without getting stuck; and the switch to fourwheel

drive and diesel power in the 1950s and 1960s, which greatly increased the

tractor's pulling power. More recent innovations have led to the development of

enormous tractors that can pull several gangs of plows while electronic systems

monitor or control almost all of the power functions.

A large number of fatal injuries from tractors tipping over led to the design of rollover

bars. They became commercially available in 1956 and later evolved into cabs,

which provide a protective zone for operators, noise control, and a comfortable

environment.

Engineering design for planting and harvesting was hampered by the wide variety of

crops, all with different shapes and consistencies (e.g., corn, soybeans, wheat,

cotton, and tomatoes). Nevertheless, an amazing array of innovations peppered the

century, such as tractor-attachable cultivators and harvesters. Self-tying hay and

straw balers arrived in 1940 along with a spindle cotton picker. Shielded corn-

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Greatest Achievements - 7. Agricultural Mechanization

snapping rolls were developed in 1952, and rotary and tine separator combines were

introduced in 1976, each reducing labor significantly.

A major necessity on many farms is a way to control soil erosion and reduce the time

and energy to prepare seedbeds. The development of chisel and disc tillage tools

and no-till planters in the 1970s and 1980s solved these problems. Even in the

1940s, sweep plows undercut wheat stubble to reduce wind and water erosion and

conserve water.

At the turn of the century there were about 16 million acres of irrigated land in the

United States. Today there are over 62 million acres, made possible by various types

of mechanized irrigation, such as gated-pipe, side-roll, big-gun, or center-pivot

machines. These machines can automatically irrigate areas from 150 to 600 acres,

and can also apply some fertilizers and pesticides.

Over the century, the average amount of labor required per hectare to produce and

harvest corn, hay, and cereal crops gradually fell more than 75 percent. In the

process, a massive shift from rural to urban life took place. This shift began to have a

lasting impact on the nature of work, the consumer economy, women's roles in

society, and even the size and nature of families. For women, farm mechanization

freed them from many of the time-consuming household chores required to support a

large family and any helpers hired to work the farm. They no longer had to grow,

prepare, preserve and cook the massive quantities of food needed on a daily basis.

Mechanization meant empowerment for women, who soon became major

consumers as the American economy gradually changed from the barter system to

cash.

Mechanization also meant empowerment for men. Traditionally, farm ownership and

responsibility shifted from generation to generation; roles were set at birth, and

choosing a career was not an option. Mechanized farms meant less people were

needed to work them, and that brought a different kind of personal freedom for many.

Farm mechanization has almost entirely replaced human and animal power in

developed nations, and is now transforming agriculture in many developing areas. In

combination with other improvements in crop techniques and food processing, it has

significantly altered food production and distribution throughout the world.

Bringing this standard to all the countries of the world is a major goal of the next

century, and an attainable goal, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization

(FAO) of the United Nations. In a recent report, the FAO noted that world agricultural

production, stimulated by improving technology, reached a record high in the mid-

1990s - good news for the 6 billion people who inhabit the planet.

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Greatest Achievements - 7. Agricultural Mechanization

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Greatest Achievements - 7. Agricultural Mechanization

Timeline

1904 Benjamin Holt develops the gas-powered tractor.

1905 J. B. Davidson, the "father of agricultural engineering," develops first

professional agricultural curriculum at Iowa State University.

1907 Henry Ford built his first experimental tractor

1911 Case's steam-engine production peaked when the company also

produced its first gasoline-powered tractor

1915 Fenno-Ronning invents the corn silage harvester

1916 Ford Motor Company began production of the Fordson tractor

1925 Benjamin Holt merges with Best Tractor to form Caterpillar Tractor

Company

1935 Harry Ferguson develops the hydraulic draft control system for

agricultural tractors, greatly improving the operator's ability to control

implements, a system that is adopted worldwide

1935 Agronomists Frank Duley and Jouette Russel conduct the first research

on conservation tillage using the sweep plow

1940 Self-tying hay baler

1940s Arthur Farrall becomes a leader in the food processing industry,

especially in dairy equipment manufacturing, and authors several

foundation texts in processing

1943 E. W. Rowland-Hill develops the rotary threshing concept

1948 Frank Zybach invents the center-pivot irrigation machine, revolutionizing

irrigation technology

1949 John and Mack Rust develop the mechanical cotton picker

1950s Walter Sohne develops the theoretical basis for soil traction mechanics,

important in the design of tractors and tillage implements

1950-60s Eugene McKibben conducts theoretical and applied research in the soil

dynamics of plows and other tillage equipment, and directs the USDA

research programs in mechanization

1976 Rotary and tine separator combines.

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Greatest Achievements - 7. Agricultural Mechanization

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Greatest Achievements - 8. Computers

The computer is a defining symbol of 20th century technology -

a tool that has transformed businesses and lives around the

world, increased productivity, and opened access to vast

amounts of knowledge. Computers relieved the drudgery of

simple tasks, and brought new capabilities to complex ones.

Engineering ingenuity fueled this revolution, and continues to

make computers faster, more powerful, and more affordable.

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Greatest Achievements - 8. Computers

In the first half of the 20th century, a steady stream of technical innovation

transformed people's lives -- the automobile, the airplane, farm machinery, the

washing machine. Drudgery and limitations were fast giving way to freedom and

possibilities. In many ways, new technologies were no longer a surprise. Then came

a new machine - the computer - which astonished the world and promised to remove

other forms of drudgery from life, such as tedious calculations or assembly line tasks.

The computer would soon evolve from an elaborate calculator to a complex system

of enormous capability. The computer's impact would prove to be immense, a fact

recognized by the magazine Time in 1982, when it dubbed the computer "Man of the

Year." Before the century was over, the computer had become an integral part of

every major industry, and had begun to open new worlds through the Internet.

The history of the computer has been one of dazzling feats. Early groundwork

included Blaise Pascal's adding machines (1600s); Marie Jacquard's weaving looms

(1801); Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine (1840s); and Herman Hollerith's punchcard

program (1880s). In 1943, the British logic calculator, Colossus, cracked

complex Nazi codes in hours, and turned the tide in favor of the Allies. In 1946,

America's ENIAC performed 5000 additions and subtractions per second. In the

1980s supercomputers performed 10 trillion calculations per second - what would

take 10 million years on a handheld calculator.

Among the more dazzling feats were those that enabled these machines to store

information and read programs. The first hurdle in this transformation was accepting

the concept of a universal machine, as outlined in a 1945 paper by Alan Turing. He

laid out the principles for a machine that could store programs as well as data, and

quickly switch to perform tasks as diverse as arithmetic, data processing, and chess

playing. Independently, building on the work of ENIAC engineers John Eckert and

John Mauchly, John von Neumann's EDVAC report came to the same conclusion.

The idea of one machine that could be applied to many tasks was foreign to the

scientific world of 1945. Even in 1956, Howard Aiken of Harvard University wrote "If it

should turn out that the basic logics of a machine designed for the numerical solution

of differential equations coincide with the logics of a machine intended to make bills

for a department store, I would regard this as the most amazing coincidence that I

have ever encountered." Indeed, this "coincidence" came to pass, and it has been

amazing.

The earliest digital machines, beginning with ENIAC and continuing into the late

1950s, were based on vacuum tubes. They were unreliable and difficult to program,

used lots of power, required very large rooms, and were constantly in need of

maintenance. Storing information was difficult, and the machines could only solve

one problem at a time.

Two key engineering developments in the late 1940s would have a dramatic impact

on what future generations of computers -- the development of the transistor, by

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Greatest Achievements - 8. Computers

John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley in 1947, and the

invention of ferrite core memories by An Wang. The transistor would eventually

replace the vacuum tube, and become the de facto technology for building

computers. MIT's Whirlwind project expanded on Wang's basic patent and

developed random access memory (RAM), which would make information retrieval

quick and easy.

By the late 1950s, many believed the first generation of computers had come to an

end. The next phase would require the development of a whole range of components

used in computers today: a central processing unit (CPU); memory; input/output

devices (printers, terminals, scanners); bulk storage; communication channels;

operating systems; programming languages; and applications software.

In 1952, Admiral Grace Hopper introduced the concept of reusable code, and laid out

the general concepts of language translation and compilers. This led to the creation

of computer languages and opened the door to a significantly larger universe of

computer users and applications. Building on Admiral Hopper's work, John Backus of

IBM proposed FORTRAN in 1954, a programming language that allowed people to

express their problems in the terms of mathematical formulas. Other early languages

included COBOL and BASIC. In 1979, Dan Bricklin's introduction of VISICALC

defined the modern software industry as we know it today.

In 1958, Jack S. Kilby and Robert N. Noyce independently developed the monolithic

integrated circuit, which would forever change the way systems were built. The

integrated circuit is responsible for many modern conveniences we now take for

granted. Even more fundamentally, integrated circuits have made the information

age a reality, creating a revolution in all major industries from banking to

transportation to communications. Initially, the most dramatic effects of integrated

circuits were on central processors and memory devices. The 1970s and 1980s saw

the concepts of increased integration - placing more transistors on single integrated

circuits - and the numbers grew from hundreds of thousands to millions, and then to

hundreds of millions. The microprocessor, unveiled by Intel in 1971, led to a

proliferation of computers in various forms.

In the 1950s and 1960s, only a handful of companies developed computer hardware

and software, and the environment was very proprietary. It was rare for one vendor's

product to work with another vendor's, and most applications were written in-house.

As systems evolved, each new generation of hardware involved a new operating

system, which usually rendered the user's current (and expensive) software useless.

In 1964, IBM introduced the System 360 "family" of computers, and changed these

practices. The 360's operating system was designed with a compiler that would not

change from model to model, so that old software would run on any computer in the

family.

These early systems used batch processing to accomplish work. There was no

graphical user interface, no mouse, no e-mail -- just a large proprietary system that

ran jobs submitted to it by trained operators. Commercially viable time-sharing was

introduced by IBM in 1961 under the control of a system known as CTSS

(Compatible Time Sharing System). Time sharing would be the forerunner of

technologies that would allow higher degrees of interaction between the system and

the end user.

The first of these technologies was introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation

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Greatest Achievements - 8. Computers

(DEC) in 1965. DEC's PDP-8 was the first true "minicomputer" and presented

exciting possibilities. It gave engineers the ability to have their "own" machine - one

they could program and use for various purposes. Followed by the PDP-11, these

machines changed the way engineers worked, and would eventually lead to

computers that operators of all levels could use.

Making operating systems compatible was another dramatic development. Efforts to

develop software that would operate on any hardware platform took the concept of

IBM's family of computers to another level. Pioneers of early systems included

Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, who developed UNIX, a system that would soon

be ubiquitous, with many vendors developing their own proprietary versions.

In 1981 IBM introduced the PC, a key event in the development of the consumer

computer industry. It was based on an Intel microprocessor and the operating

system DOS, licensed from Microsoft. In 1983 Apple Computers introduced the

Macintosh and started a revolution in making computers easy to use.

From these beginnings, the computer has forever changed how we live and work.

Graphically driven software makes computers easy to use and has begun to open

new worlds through the Internet. People now have access to unprecedented

amounts of knowledge, and can communicate freely in a world forum. In this respect,

the real computer revolution is not one of numbers and bytes, but one in which

people, regardless of geography and politics, can share information and learn from

each other.

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Greatest Achievements - 8. Computers

Timeline

1904 Sir John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube and diode.

1939 John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry invent the first electronic computer at

Iowa State University. In 1973 a judge in a patent infringement suit

would rule that this research was the idea source for the modern

computer.

1940 Konrad Zuse in Germany develops the first programmable calculator

using binary numbers and Boolean logic. His program runs on a paper

tape.

1943 The world's first electronic valve programmable logic calculator, the

Colossus, is built in Britain for the purpose of breaking Nazis codes. On

average, Colossus deciphers a coded message in two hours.

1945 Alan Turing publishes his paper on the Universal Machine, laying out the

principles of the modern computer.

1945 John Von Neumann, working independently of Turing, writes a document

describing the stored-program computer, the basis for the computer

industry.

1946 ENIAC, the first electronic digital computer put into operation.

1947 John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley of Bell

Telephone Laboratories invent the transistor.

1949 Bell Labs publishes Shannon's theory of relay logic.

1951 UNIVAC becomes the first commercial computer.

1952 The first database is implemented on RCA's Bizmac computer.

1952 Admiral Grace Hopper develops the first computer compiler, leading to

the creation of user-friendly languages and opening the door to a larger

universe of computer applications and users.

1954 Gene Amdahl develops the first computer operating system for the IBM

704.

1955 Reynold Johnson develops the first disk drive.

1957 FORTRAN becomes commercially available.

1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild

Semiconductor independently develop the integrated circuit (IC).

1958 Seymour Cray of Control Data Corp. develops the first transistorized

computer.

1958 ALGOL computer language, a high-level language designed specifically

for programming scientific computations, comes into use.

1959 COBOL computer language is created.

1961 Silicon chips first appear.

1962 First minicomputer comes into use.

1963 Douglas Englebart, SRI, patents the idea of the computer mouse.

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1964 IBM releases its Model 360 computer, which will result in $100 billion in

sales over its life cycle.

1964 John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop the BASIC computer

language. Intel Chairman Gordon Moore suggests that integrated circuits

would double in complexity every 18 months. This later becomes known

as Moore's Law and is applied to microprocessor speed.

1965 Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) introduces PDP-8 minicomputer.

1969 PASCAL computer language.

1971 Intel introduces its popular 4004 4-bit microprocessor, starting the

evolution of Intel's famous line of 386, 486, and Pentium processors.

1973 Xerox develops first Ethernet Local Area Network (LAN) technology.

1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft.

1976 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak form the Apple Computer Company.

1976 Alan Shugart, IBM, invents the 5.25-inch floppy.

1979 Dan Bricklin introduces the Visicalc spreadsheet.

1980 Philip Estridge, IBM, develops the first hard drive for PCs. It holds 10MB.

1981 IBM introduces the PC.

1982 First IBM-compatible PC clone is introduced by Columbia Data Systems.

1983 Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh computer. Microsoft releases

Microsoft Windows 1.0.

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Greatest Achievements - 9. Telephone

The telephone is a cornerstone of modern life. Nearly instant

connections - between friends, families, businesses, and

nations - enable communications that enhance our lives,

industries, and economies. With remarkable innovations,

engineers have brought us from copper wire to fiber optics,

from switchboards to satellites, and from party lines to the

Internet. Truly, the telephone has brought the human family

together.

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Greatest Achievements - 9. Telephone

Before the turn of the century, news-bearing messengers traveled by horse,

stagecoach, or foot. Even the telegraph, which could transmit information long

distances "instantly," still relied on people to decode and hand-deliver the message.

Depending on where the recipient was located, an "urgent" message could take five

minutes or weeks to arrive. Telephoning was not much faster. People had to wait for

open lines, there was no long-distance service, and transmission was poor and

unreliable.

In the 20th century, engineers began transforming a fledgling technology of copper

wire, wooden poles, and primitive transmitters into a complex system of fiber optics,

satellites, and digital technology. With astonishing persistence and unparalleled

innovation, they transformed the heart of this system - the telephone - into the

cornerstone of a communications revolution.

Today's messengers are electricity, laser-produced light beams, and microwaves.

They carry images, computer data, and conversations with unprecedented accuracy

and reliability at lightning speed. The telephone is now the gateway to the fax

machine and the Internet for millions, and the tool that connects friends and family

conveniently and economically, no matter where in the world they may be. The

technical challenges faced and met by engineers to achieve these feats have been

formidable, and they weave an interesting story of trial and error.

Long-distance technology had arrived in 1892 with the invention of a signal amplifier,

but many innovations were necessary before telephoning would truly cover long

distances. The triode vacuum tube, invented in 1906 by American Lee De Forest,

further amplified electrical signals to make long distance feasible, and the use of the

loading coil, which connected to the cable every mile or so, increased speaking

ranges to approximately 1,000 miles. Plans to connect the east and west coasts of

the United States began in 1914 and the job was completed a year later.

The technical focus for the next several decades was on improving transmission

quality and expanding automatic switching systems. Innovations included high

quality insulated wire and coaxial cable technology. High-reliability vacuum-tube

circuits and coaxial cable vastly improved the transmission quality in an undersea

cable that linked North America and Europe. Improved automatic-switching systems

included direct distance dialing, which further reduced the need for operators.

From the 1970s on, as computer and electronics technology developed, engineers

began transforming the telephone into an invaluable multifunctional tool. They added

features like call forwarding and call waiting, caller ID, automatic answering and

message-recording, stored numbers, and others.

Most recently, laser and fiber optic technology has made a dramatic difference in the

efficiency of the telephone system. In 1975 engineers developed the first commercial

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Greatest Achievements - 9. Telephone

continuous-wave semiconductor laser. Smaller than a grain of sand, this remarkable

device made it possible to transmit optically encoded telephone conversations over

fiber-optic cables. Today, a single optical fiber combined with amplifiers can carry

tens of millions of phone conversations in one thousandth of a second.

Other new technologies are transforming the global telephone system. New digital

exchanges route some 1.5 million calls per hour through a vast array of cables,

optical fibers, and radio and microwave links. The switch from analog systems to

digital has overcome many of the problems associated with sending electrical signals

over long distances, such as noise, distortion, and weakening of signals.

In remote places in India and Africa, the use of solar cells is now making it possible

to introduce phones without a large-scale electrical distribution system. As the

developing world becomes more technologically advanced, these countries will be

able to leapfrog early technologies and take immediate advantage of the new

systems. Indeed, many nations are already doing so with digital satellite

downloading.

Mobile phones were introduced in St. Louis in 1945, but the technology wasn't fully

developed until recently. Today, hexagonal base stations are central to cellular

phones. Every 15 minutes each base station beams out a message asking all the

activated handsets within its cell to report in. This enables the central computers to

know where to route a call when a handset is phoned. Systems that use radio waves

for transmission via a network of satellites and terrestrial-based antennas allow

people to use a digital telephone anywhere on Earth.

By 1915, it had taken 39 years to go from a single telephone in Boston to 11 million

nationwide. Today, estimates put that number closer to 200 million, plus an

additional 80 million cell phones. Thomas Edison noted then that the invention had

"annihilated time and space, and brought the human family in closer touch." The

most dramatic changes in access time, distance, line capacity, and clarity have

occurred in the last quarter of this century. What would Edison think of human

potential now?

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Greatest Achievements - 9. Telephone

Timeline

1900 John J. Carty of New York Telephone installs loading coils, invented by

Michael Pupin, to extend range and reduce crosstalk.

1904 Sir John Ambrose Fleming invents the vacuum tube and diode

1906 Lee De Forest invents the triode

1914 Underground cables link Boston, New York, and Washington

1915 Vacuum tube amplifiers used for the first time in coast-to-coast

telephone circuits

1920 AT&T develops the time domain multiplexing concept

1930 AT&T introduces higher-quality insulated wire.

1935 First telephone call around the world.

1939 Western Union introduces coast-to-coast fax service.

1945 AT&T lays 2000 miles of coaxial cable.

1945 Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke proposes communications

satellites.

1946 Telcos install nationwide numbering plan.

1946 Bell introduces the germanium point contact transistor

1949 AT&T introduces the famous black rotary Model 500 telephone.

1950 Party lines make up 75 percent of all telephone lines.

1955 Modem first described by Ken Krechmer, A. W. Morten, and H. E.

Vaughn.

1958 AT&T introduces datasets (modems) for direct connection.

1958 Texas Instruments introduces the silicon-based transistor.

1959 AT&T introduces the TH-1 1860-channel microwave system.

1960 AT&T installs first electronic switching system.

1961 Bell Telephone Labs releases design information for touch-tone dial to

Western Electric

1962 AT&T introduces T-1 multiplex service in Skokie, Illinois.

1962 Telephone cables start to use plastic insulation.

1962 Paul Baron introduces idea of distributed packet-switching networks

1970 AT&T introduces its ESS#2 electronic switch.

1970 Bell Labs releases design information to Western Electric for modular

telephone cords and jacks

1975 Last manual telco switchboard in Maine is retired.

1975 Fiber optics trials begin in U.S. and Europe

1980 AT&T introduces the DataSpeed 40, forerunner of "smart terminals" with

data processing capability

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1981 Bell Labs designs network-embedded database of Personal

Identification Numbers (PINs) for calling card customers to be accessed

by public telephones.

1982 Caller ID patent filed by Carolyn Doughty, Bell Labs

1987 Bellcore introduces Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) concept

which has potential of multimedia transmission over nation's copper

loops.

1993 Telecom Relay Service available for the disabled.

1995 Nationwide Caller ID implemented.

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Greatest Achievements - 10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration

Air conditioning and refrigeration changed life immensely in the

20th century. Dozens of engineering innovations made it

possible to transport and store fresh foods, and to adapt the

environment to human needs. Once luxuries, air conditioning

and refrigeration are now common necessities which greatly

enhance our quality of life.

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Greatest Achievements - 10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration

Life changed immensely in the 20th century as air conditioning and refrigeration

systems became more efficient, controllable, and even mobile. No longer dependent

on the weather for work or play, humans truly made the environment adapt to their

needs. Climate control became so reliable and affordable it grew from an invisible

luxury to a common necessity. By the end of the century, nearly 70 percent of U.S.

households had air conditioning. Now people can live and work in glassed-in or

windowless buildings, in porchless houses, or in the warmest and most humid

places. In the United States alone, air conditioning reversed a century-long pattern of

migration out of the southern cities.

Refrigeration makes transporting fresh food and other perishables possible, and

makes home storage for days or weeks practical. By the end of the 20th century,

99.5 percent of U.S. households had a least one refrigerator. Many had separate

freezers. People were able to simplify shopping and save money while enjoying a

greater diversity and higher quality of food because of this excellent preservation

technology.

In an air conditioner, air is cooled and conditioned by units that are similar to

domestic refrigerators. Cold liquid refrigerant at low pressure flows through coils on

one side. A centrifugal fan draws warm air from the room over the coils. The cooled

and conditioned air is returned to the room. The warmed refrigerant evaporates, and

then passes into a compressor where it is pressurized. The hot, pressurized gas

enters a second set of coils on the exterior side. A second fan draws cool external air

over the hot coils to dissipate their heat. In the process, the refrigerant is cooled to

below its boiling point and condenses into a liquid. The refrigerant then passes

through an expansion valve, where its pressure is suddenly reduced. As this

happens its temperature drops, and the cooling cycle begins again.

This may sound simple, but it took the pioneering genius of Willis Carrier to work out

the basic principles of cooling and humidity control, and it took innovations by

thousands of other engineers before the air conditioner became a real benefit to the

average person. Carrier's invention made many technologies possible, especially in

fields that require highly controllable environments, such as medical or scientific

research, product testing, computer manufacturing, and space travel.

Carrier claimed that while he was standing in a Pittsburgh train station one night in

1902, he realized that air could be dried by saturating it with chilled water to induce

condensation. He built the first air conditioner that year, which had the cooling power

of 108,000 pounds of ice a day. It was for a Brooklyn printer who couldn't print a

decent color image because changes in heat and humidity kept altering the paper's

dimensions and misaligning the colored inks.

A refrigerator operates in much the same way as an air conditioner. It moves heat

energy from one place to another. Constant cooling is achieved by the circulation of

a refrigerant in a closed system, in which it evaporates to a gas and then condenses

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Greatest Achievements - 10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration

back again to a liquid in a continuous cycle. If no leakage occurs, the refrigerant lasts

indefinitely throughout the entire life of the system.

The use of natural or manufactured ice for refrigeration was widespread until shortly

before World War I, when mechanical refrigerators became available. In 1927,

General Electric introduced a refrigerator with a "monitor top" containing a

hermetically sealed compressor. The 14-cubic-foot refrigerator sold for $525,

affordable to just a few, and made GE the industry leader by 1930.

Single-phase electric motors were perfected and reliable by 1920. Frigidaire

manufactured the first individual room cooler in 1929, using technology from the

household refrigerator. The invention of halocarbon refrigerants by Thomas Midgley

in 1928 provided a safe alternative to the toxic and flammable refrigerating fluids

previously used. The Frigidaire division of General Motors adopted Freon 12

(dichlorodifluoromethane) refrigerant gas, invented by Midgley and Charles

Kettering. Most other refrigerator makers followed suit, replacing ammonia and other

more dangerous gases. In the late 1980s, chlorofluorocarbons had demonstrated

signs of destroying the Earth's ozone layer, and the production of these chemicals

began to be phased out, while the search for a replacement began.

The first air-conditioned automobile, a Packard, was engineered in 1938. The first

successful window air conditioner was marketed in 1938 by Philco-York. Mass

production of window air conditioners after World War II lowered costs to the point

where they were accessible to mass consumers, as were refrigerators. From 1920 to

1930, the cost of a household refrigerator dropped from $600 to $300, and to nearly

$150 by 1939.

Refrigeration technology led to the creation of the frozen food industry. In 1914,

Clarence Birdseye was fishing in Canada when he noticed that fish caught through

the ice froze stiff the instant they were exposed to the air, and they tasted almost

fresh when defrosted and cooked weeks later. For several years, he pursued the

commercial exploitation of his food-freezing discoveries, learning to freeze cabbages

in barrels of seawater. By 1925, Birdseye and Charles Seabrook developed a deepfreezing

process for cooked foods. In 1930, Birds Eye Frosted Foods were sold for

the first time in Springfield, Mass.

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Greatest Achievements - 10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration

Timeline

1902 Willis Haviland Carrier designs a humidity control process and pioneers

modern air conditioning.

1907 First overseas sale of a Carrier system was made to a silk mill in

Yokohama, Japan.

1911 Carrier presents his paper "Rational Psychometric Formulae" to the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers and thereby forms the basis

of modern air-conditioning.

1914 Clarence Birdseye pioneers the freezing of fish for later defrosting and

cooking.

1915 Carrier Corp. is founded under the name Carrier Engineering.

1920s Carrier introduces small air-conditioning units for small businesses and

residences.

1922 Carrier develops the centrifugal refrigeration machine.

1925 Clarence Birdseye and Charles Seabrook develop a deep-freezing

process for cooked foods that Birdseye patents in 1926.

1927 General Electric introduces a refrigerator with a "monitor top" containing

a hermetically sealed compressor.

1929 U.S. electric refrigerator sales top 800,000, and the average price of a

refrigerator falls to $292.

1930s Air conditioners are placed in railroad cars transporting food and other

perishable goods.

1931 GM's Frigidaire division adopts Freon 12 (dichlorodifluoromethane)

refrigerant gas, invented by Thomas Midgley of Ethyl Corp. and Charles

Kettering of GM.

1931 Birds Eye Frosted Foods go on sale across the U.S. as General Foods

expands distribution.

1937 Air conditioning is first used for mining in the Magma Copper Mine in

Superior, Arizona.

1938 Window air conditioner marketed by Philco-York.

1939 The first air-conditioned automobile is engineered by Packard.

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Greatest Achievements - 11. Highways

Highways provide one of our most cherished assets - the

freedom of personal mobility. The story of their construction is

one of the most remarkable of the 20th century. Thousands of

engineers built the roads, bridges, and tunnels that connect our

communities, enable goods and services to reach remote

areas, encourage growth, and facilitate commerce.

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Greatest Achievements - 11. Highways

Early in the 20th century, most of the streets and roads in the U.S. were made of dirt,

brick, and cedar blocks. Built for horse, carriage, and foot traffic, they were usually

poorly cared for and too narrow to accommodate automobiles.

With the increase in auto production, private turnpike companies under local

jurisdiction began to spring up, and by 1921 there were 387,000 miles of paved

roads. Many were built using specifications of 19th century Scottish engineers

Thomas Telford and John MacAdam (for whom the macadam surface is named),

whose specifications stressed the importance of adequate drainage. Beyond that,

there were no national standards for size, weight restrictions, or signage. During

World War I, roads throughout the country were nearly destroyed by the weight of

trucks. When General Eisenhower returned from Germany in 1919, after serving in

the U.S. Army's first transcontinental motor convoy, he noted: "The old convoy had

started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but Germany (Autobahn) had

made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land."

It would take another war before the federal government would act on a national

highway system. During World War II, a tremendous increase in trucks and new

roads were required. The war demonstrated how critical highways were to the

defense effort. Thirteen per cent of defense plants received all their supplies by

truck, and almost all other plants shipped more than half of their products by vehicle.

The war also revealed that local control of highways had led to a bewildering array of

design standards. Even federal and state highways did not follow basic standards.

Some states allowed trucks up to 36,000 pounds, while others restricted anything

over 7,000 pounds. A government study recommended a national highway system of

33,920 miles, and Congress soon enacted the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944,

which called for strict, centrally controlled design criteria.

The interstate highway system was finally launched in 1956 and has been hailed as

one of the greatest engineering public works projects of the century. To build its

44,000-mile web of highways, bridges, and tunnels, hundreds of unique engineering

designs and solutions had to be worked out. Consider the many geographic features

of the country: mountains, steep grades, wetlands, rivers, deserts, and plains.

Variables included the slope of the land, the ability of the pavement to support the

load, the intensity of road use, and the nature of the underlying soil. Urban areas

were another problem. Innovative designs of roadways, tunnels, bridges,

overpasses, and interchanges that could traverse or bypass urban areas soon began

to weave their way across the country, forever altering the face of America.

Long-span, segmented-concrete, cable-stayed bridges such as Hale Boggs in

Louisiana and the Sunshine Skyway in Florida, and remarkable tunnels like Fort

McHenry in Maryland and Mt. Baker in Washington, met many of the nation's

physical challenges. Traffic control systems and methods of construction developed

under the interstate program soon influenced highway construction around the world,

and were invaluable in improving the condition of urban streets and traffic patterns.

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Today, the interstate system links every major city in the U.S., and the U.S. with

Canada and Mexico. Built with safety in mind, the highways have wide lanes and

shoulders, dividing medians or barriers, long entry and exit ramps, curves

engineered for safe turns, and limited access. Fatality rates on highways are half that

of all other U.S. roads (0.86 fatalities per 100 million passenger miles compared to

1.99 fatalities per 100 million on all other roads).

By opening the North American continent, highways have enabled consumer goods

and services to reach people in remote and rural areas of the country, spurred the

growth of suburbs, and provided people with greater options in terms of jobs, access

to cultural programs, health care, and other benefits. Above all, the interstate system

provides individuals with what they cherish most: personal freedom of mobility.

The interstate system has been an essential element of the nation's economic

growth in terms of shipping and job creation: more than 75 percent of the nation's

freight deliveries arrive by truck; and most products that arrive by rail or air use

interstates for the last leg of the journey by vehicle. Not only has the highway system

affected the American economy by providing shipping routes, it has fostered spin-off

industries like service stations, motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. It has

allowed the relocation of manufacturing plants and other industries from urban areas

to rural.

By the end of the century there was an immense network of paved roads, residential

streets, expressways, and freeways built to support millions of vehicles. The highway

system was officially renamed for Eisenhower to honor his vision and leadership.

The year construction began he said: "Together, the united forces of our

communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name

we bear - United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many

separate parts."

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Timeline

1930s Need for a U.S. interstate highway system recognized.

1938 Federal-Aid Highway Act calls for superhighway feasibility study.

1940 Pennsylvania Turnpike opens

1941 National Interregional Highway Committee appointed by President

Roosevelt

1944 Federal-Aid Highway Act called for designation of a national system of

interstate highways, as well as strict, centrally controlled design criteria

1952 Federal-Aid Highway Act authorizes the first funding specifically for

system construction

1956 Construction of the interstate highway system is launched

1956 Highway Revenue Act creats the Highway Trust Fund as a dedicated

source for the interstate system.

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Greatest Achievements - 12. Spacecraft

From early test rockets to sophisticated satellites, the human

expansion into space is perhaps the most amazing engineering

feat of the 20th century. The development of spacecraft has

thrilled the world, expanded our knowledge base, and improved

our capabilities. Thousands of useful products and services

have resulted from the space program, including medical

devices, improved weather forecasting, and wireless

communications.

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Greatest Achievements - 12. Spacecraft

In 1957, Sputnik I pierced the atmosphere, shocked the world, and started a space

race that launched the greatest engineering team effort in American history. The

resulting space program re-ignited the pioneering spirit that had once driven humans

to explore every corner of the Earth, and set a new course for discovery in a longdreamed

of realm -- outer space.

Along the way, the space program has greatly expanded the world's knowledge

base. As the average person learned more about the universe and planet Earth,

engineers advanced technologies in the areas of energy, communications, materials,

structures, and computers - all the systems that made space travel possible. In the

process, their work has spawned more than 60,000 products that have had a direct

impact on the general public, with more products sure to come.

The technical challenges faced to build, launch, and guide spacecraft were

staggering. Most of the technology developed was entirely new. Early human space

flight leading up to the Apollo program required the integration of numerous

technologies on a scale never before undertaken. Every major technological field

was tapped. The launch and return of spacecraft, from Apollo to the Shuttle, is one of

the monumental engineering triumphs in all of human history.

The need to have computers that would fit on board a spacecraft drove the

development of the electronics industry. Advances enabled the development of

microcomputers, small in size but great in calculation and communications

capabilities, which eventually led to the burgeoning PC industry. In the biomedical

field, tests on the rigors of space on astronauts provided insight into aging. Sensors

that allowed doctors to monitor the astronauts' health were soon used routinely

throughout the medical profession. Plastics and polymers developed for use in space

had thousands of applications on Earth. As engineers learned to transport volatile

fluids and gases in space, they applied this knowledge to sea and ground

transportation of similar materials.

Because a huge amount of energy is required for spacecraft to escape the Earth's

atmosphere, most of the weight of a launch vehicle at liftoff is fuel. Engineers have

devised complex systems of pipework and turbopumps that force huge volumes of

liquid fuel (often hydrogen) into the combustion chamber inside the rocket, where the

fuel is mixed with pure oxygen. This action results in a violent combustion (explosion)

that produces very hot waste gases. These gases are forced backward at high

speeds out of the rocket nozzle, producing a reaction force that pushes the launcher

upward. A second stage then fires to propel the payload to its correct orbit.

The first spacecraft to be launched were Earth-orbiting satellites that began a

revolution in global communications. Eventually they would provide instantaneous

voice, data, and video services to hundreds of millions of people, and be

instrumental in the areas of weather forecasting; national defense services;

navigation for airplanes, automobiles, and ships; environmental and scientific

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research; and wireless communications systems.

A communications satellite races around the earth at almost 2 miles per second - 10

times as fast as a jet aircraft. Like any moving object, its tendency is to move in a

straight line, in a path that would take it farther and farther away from the Earth. This

tendency is countered by gravitational forces, which constantly accelerate the

satellite back toward Earth. The stronger the gravitational force acting on a satellite,

the faster it must fly to avoid spiraling down. Engineering plays a role in the success

of its journey, from materials and structure to the rockets and boosters that elevate it

to the proper orbit.

In the late 1950s, engineering advances with liquid hydrogen led to the RL-10 rocket

engine. Since 1963, it has launched an array of America's most sophisticated

unpiloted spacecraft, including Viking, Mariner, and Pioneer, without a single engine

failure. The RL-10 led to the development of larger hydrogen-fueled engines that

made the lunar landing possible.

Wernher von Braun and his team played a crucial role in the U.S. space program by

outlining the basic technology that would achieve the first major space goal: the

moon landing. The engineering challenges included building a service module

containing fuel, power, and life-support systems; a command module; and a lunarlanding

vehicle; as well as developing the fuel and the engine to boost the 40-ton

ship into orbit. Von Braun devised the most powerful rocket ever built, the giant

Saturn V. It was over 360 feet long and weighed 3,000 tons. Its lift-off engines

delivered an incredible 7.5 million pounds of thrust and burned more than 10 tons of

fuel each second.

Milestones that led to the moon landing included the Mercury program, 1961-63, with

Col. John Glenn's historic first flight which took him around the Earth three times and

proved the capsule's material and structure could withstand the enormous

temperatures of re-entry. The space docking between two Gemini spacecraft in 1965

was another significant step towards the Apollo program because it solved the

problem of the amounts of fuel needed to get to the moon. The actual moon landing

in 1969 was an astounding achievement, both technologically and socially. Many

people around the world gathered outside to watch President Nixon make the

connection with the astronauts. As they watched on large screen televisions, they

could also look up and see the moon - some 240,000 miles away. Surely an

unforgettable experience.

During the 1970s the U.S. space program de-emphasized piloted flights and

stressed instead fully automated missions that sent spacecraft close to the surfaces

of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. In 1982 the Soviets succeeded in landing an

exploration craft on Venus, where it successfully transmitted pictures back to Earth.

In the 1980s the Space Shuttle program was launched, heralding a new era in

aviation design and technology. The Shuttle, with its airplane shape and huge

disposable booster rockets, is part aircraft, part rocket. Dozens of shuttle flights have

conducted hundreds of scientific experiments and medical tests, and carried

satellites and the Hubble telescope into space.

If Sputnik was the catalyst for the U.S. space program, President Kennedy was the

inspiration when he said in 1962: "We have a long way to go in this space race. But

this is the new ocean, and I believe the U.S. must sail on it and be second to none."

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Greatest Achievements - 12. Spacecraft

Only seven years later, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar landscape. As he

declared the moment a "giant leap for mankind," back on Earth, a note was being

placed on JFK's grave to honor his vision: "Mr. President, the Eagle has landed."

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Timeline

1915 Robert Goddard proves validity of rocket propulsion principles in a

vacuum.

1926 Goddard launches first liquid-fuel rocket engine.

1932 Wernher von Braun begins experimenting with rocket engines for his

doctoral dissertation.

1933 Russia's first liquid-fueled rocket is launched.

1934 Von Braun built his first successful rocket, the A-2.

1942 Von Braun achieves the first successful launching of a V-2 rocket.

1950 A two-stage bumper rocket is launched from Cape Canaveral.

1957 Sputnik I is launched by liquid-fueled rocket built by Sergei Korolev.

1958 The U.S. launches Explorer 1, signalling the beginning of the space

program.

1959 Russian lands a Luna probe on the moon and takes the first pictures of

its far side.

1961 Russian Yuri Gagarin orbits Earth one time.

1961 Alan Shepard is launched 115 miles into space, lands 15 minutes later in

Atlantic Ocean.

1962 John Glenn orbits Earth three times in a Mercury capsule, Friendship 7.

1962 Mariner 2 flies past Venus, the first probe to fly beyond another planet.

1963 RL-10 rocket engine, the world's first high-energy liquid hydrogen

engine.

1963 Valentina Tereshkova, Soviet cosmonaut, becomes the first woman in

space.

1963 The first communications satellite to reach synchronous orbit, Syncom II,

is launched.

1964 First space walk, U.S. Gemini program.

1965 Early Bird is launched for use by communications services.

1965 Gemini spacecraft makes first rendezvous in space between two

spacecraft.

1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, Neil Armstrong is first person to walk on moon.

1971 Earth-orbiting space station, USSR.

1973 Skylab is placed in orbit.

1976 Mars space probes, NASA's Viking I and Viking II, launched.

1977 U.S. Space Shuttle program begins.

1981 Columbia Space Shuttle, the first reusable winged spaceship, is

launched.

1997 The robotic explorer, Sojourner, lands on Mars.

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1997 Pioneer 10 spacecraft exits the solar system for interstellar space, and is

still functioning.

1997 Discovery Shuttle mission with John Glenn aboard at age 77.

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http://www.greatachievements.org/greatachievements/ga_13_1.html

Initially a tool to link research center computers, the Internet

has become a vital instrument of social change. Created via a

series of engineering innovations, the Internet is changing

business practices, educational pursuits, and personal

communications. By providing global access to news,

commerce, and vast stores of information, the Internet brings

us together and adds convenience and efficiency to our lives.

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Greatest Achievements - 13. Internet

The Internet was conceived in the 1960s as a tool to link university and government

research centers via a nationwide network that would allow a wide variety of

computers to exchange information and share resources. The engineering

challenges were manifold and complex, beginning with the design of a packet

switching network-a system that could make computers communicate with each

other without the need for a traditional central system. Other challenges included the

design of the machines, data exchange protocols, and software to run it. What

eventually grew out of this endeavor is a miraculous low-cost technology that is

swiftly and dramatically changing the world. It is available to people at home, in

schools and universities, and in public libraries and "cyber cafes."

The Internet is not owned or controlled by any company, corporation, or nation. It

connects people in 65 countries instantaneously through computers, fiber optics,

satellites, and phone lines. It is changing cultural patterns, business practices, the

consumer industry, and research and educational pursuits. It helps people keep up

to date on world events, find a restaurant in Oregon or a cheap flight to Paris, play

games, and discuss everything from apples to zoology. It has marshaled support for

human rights in suppressed nations, saved the life of a child in Beijing, and helped a

man in Iowa find a lost family member in Brazil.

On the heels of Sputnik and the onset of the Cold War, President Eisenhower

thought it wise to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in 1958, to

keep the United States at the forefront of technology. ARPA would soon begin the

research that eventually lead to the Internet. However, before ARPA began

supporting networking research seriously, Leonard Kleinrock had already invented

the technology of the Internet in 1962 while an MIT graduate student. The packet

switching technology he proposed was a dramatic improvement over the circuitswitched

telephone network in which the entire path connecting a voice call between

two parties was dedicated only to their conversation, even when they were silent.

Typically, silence occupies about one-third of speech patterns, but in the

transmission of data, silence can occupy as much as 99.9 percent of the data

stream. Packet switching avoids this inefficiency by chopping messages into

packets, and sending these packets of data independently through the network as if

they are electronic letters passing through an electronic post office.

Communication links are assigned to packets, providing a highly efficient technology

for sending packets over links (fiber, copper, radio) from one network node to

another. These nodes are routers (or switches), which collectively share the job of

directing the packets from node to node on the way to their destinations. The

selection of the routes, the management of the packet flow, and the general rules for

running the network are governed by protocols that are typically implemented in

software and hardware.

In 1963, JCR Licklider, head of the computer research effort at ARPA, articulated a

vision of a network that would connect machines and people worldwide. In the mid-

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Greatest Achievements - 13. Internet

1960s, ARPA determined that it needed a network to connect together the research

computers and programs it funded. Larry Roberts was brought to ARPA in 1966 to

manage the program to create the packet-switched ARPAnet. This network was to

form the foundation of the Internet.

A contract was let to Bolt, Beranek, and Newman in Cambridge, Mass., in January

1969 to implement the design. Supervised by Frank Heart, they designed small

machines called Interface Message Processors (IMPs), specifically for packetswitching

technology. A new communications protocol for packet switching was

needed and they came up with the Network Control Protocol (NCP). The new

network was ready for unveiling at UCLA in September 1969.

Universities and research organizations were among the first to join the network in

order to exchange information. Electronic mail was introduced in 1972 by Ray

Tomlinson. NCP was phased out by a new communications protocol technology --

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) which was created by Bob

Kahn and Vint Cerf in 1973. It was accepted by the U.S. government in 1978, and

became the de facto networking standard in 1983. More networks began to pop up in

the 1980s. Educational and commercial organizations that fell outside the original

charter wanted to use the same packet-switching technologies, and the system came

to be known as the Internet during this period. It had far exceeded its original

purpose, and was providing the impetus for a vast technological revolution that was

just ahead.

Major innovations in software were necessary before the Internet could function as a

global information utility. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at the European

Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, proposed the World Wide Web project,

and a new language for linked computers known as HTML (Hyper-Text Markup

Language). Simple tools to retrieve information from the Web and communicate

would be the focus of much activity in the next few years. In 1991, the University of

Minnesota developed "Gopher," the first successful Internet document retrieval

system. In the spring of 1993, a group of graduate students at the University of

Illinois computer laboratories, led by 21-year-old Marc Andreessen, created a

"browser" program called Mosaic, and distributed it free. Netscape and then

Microsoft followed with browsers that greatly simplified a computer user's ability to

search the Internet in search of information.

Today people can search thousands of databases and libraries worldwide in several

languages, browse through hundreds of millions of documents, journals, books, and

computer programs, and keep up to the minute with wire-service news, sports, and

weather reports. An increasing number of people shop, bank, and pay bills on the

Internet. Many invest in stocks and commodities online. It's a powerful symbol of

society's expectations about the future - fast-moving technology that adds

convenience and efficiency to their lives.

Beyond convenience, as people consider the philosophical ramifications of the

Internet, some view it as a tool of unity and democratization. In the 1960s, long

before the Internet, futurist and author Sir Arthur C. Clarke predicted that by 2000 a

vast electronic "global library" would be developed. Recently, a judge cited it as "the

single most important advancement to freedom of speech since the writing of the

Declaration of Independence." Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase "the global

village" when he spoke of how radio and television had transformed the world in the

course of the 20th century. In the 21st century, it seems the Internet is destined to

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Greatest Achievements - 13. Internet

have even more profound effects.

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Greatest Achievements - 13. Internet

Timeline

1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower saw need for the Advanced Research

Projects Agency (ARPA) to keep the U.S. at the forefront of technology.

1962 Leonard Kleinrock invents packet-switching technology.

1963 J.C.R. Licklider, head of computer research at ARPA, articulates vision

of worldwide network.

1967 Larry Roberts publishes a paper proposing the ARPAnet network.

1968 DOD initiates the ARPAnet development.

1969 ARPAnet unveiled at UCLA.

1972 E-mail introduced by Ray Tomlinson.

1988 Albert Gore, then a Tennessee senator, proposes the National Research

and Education Network, which would provide top computing facilities to

research communities and schools.

1991 Gopher document retrieval system introduced at University of

Minnesota.

1992 The World Wide Web is born, introduced by Tim Berners-Lee. The first

audio and video multicasts are broadcast over the Internet.

1993 The Internet browser MOSAIC is introduced at the University of Illinois

by Marc Andreeson.

1994 Real Audio introduced to Internet which allows one to hear audio in near

real time. Radio HK, first 24-hour Internet-only radio station, starts

broadcasting.

1996 Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulates data network transmission.

1999 150 million users on the Internet. Over 800 million web pages

accessible.

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From tiny atoms to distant galaxies, 20th century imaging

technologies have expanded the reach of our vision. Probing

the human body, mapping ocean floors, tracking weather

patterns - all are the result of engineering advances. Coupled

with the computer, imaging gives us incredible new views, both

within and beyond the human body and environment.

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Greatest Achievements - 14. Imaging

There were few imaging or vision tools in the 19th century beyond human sight. The

microscope allowed visibility of tiny things and telescopes allowed views of the

heavens. Photography was well in hand but it recorded in black and white what the

human eye saw in color. It was engineering in the 20th century that introduced color

to photography, movies, and television.

It was also 20th century engineering that changed this narrow view for everyone by

creating a new class of sensors and precision instruments. They brought a range of

vision beyond anything humans could have imagined. This range allows us

unprecedented scrutiny: from tiny atomic particles to vast galaxies in the universe.

Consequently, this class of engineering has greatly expanded our depth of

knowledge by unfolding some of the mysteries of the physical world. These modern

tools allow us to see inside the human body, to monitor its life forces, and to identify

and treat diseases. Others let us track weather patterns, map ocean floors, and

observe brain waves.

Ultrasound presents images formed by the echoes of inaudible sound waves

beamed into the body. These images can be of an unborn child or of blood flowing

through a beating heart. Ultrasound can diagnose various medical conditions by

enabling doctors to "see" diseased tissue that needs repair or removal. Sensors can

measure brain waves, the color of blood, heart rates, blood pressure, oxygen levels,

and body temperature, and give out instant warnings. They are the very basis of an

intensive care unit.

The entire microelectronics revolution is based upon imaging. Without it, we would

never have gotten enough transistors on one piece of silicon to make a

microprocessor. The key fabrication process for integrated circuits is done by

imaging pictures of circuit patterns on photoresist (a light-sensitive material). The

development of better cameras and the use of shorter and shorter wavelengths can

resolve ever smaller patterns in the photoresist.

Electron microscopes can magnify objects 1 million times (equivalent to magnifying a

postage stamp to the size of a small country). Because its power lies in its resolution

capabilities as much as its magnifying potential, it is capable of viewing individual

molecules. Atomic force and tunneling microscopes can view atoms, and are making

nanotechnology (engineering on the scale of billionths of a meter) able to yield

machines assembled from single atoms. Another class of microscope is engineered

with many different glass elements that cancel out each other's distortions. They

produce highly magnified images free of aberrations. Zoom lenses on high-quality

cameras work the same way. These are invaluable tools for researchers, geologists,

archeologists, and others. X-ray crystallography can investigate the structure of a

solid by illuminating it with electrons - a process that helped reveal the structure of a

DNA molecule.

Telescopes probe ever deeper into space because of huge mirrors that can grasp up

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to 10 billion times more light than the naked eye. Their range can extend from the

invisible radio and infrared frequencies to the ultraviolet and X-rays, allowing them to

observe everything from stellar explosions to dark matter in the universe. Precision

engineering shaped them into sensitive instruments that can reveal the detailed

structure of stars and galaxies.

The basis for many of these technologies was the discovery of X-rays in 1895 by

Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen. Today, while X-rays remain a major diagnostic tool, they

are enhanced by computer-aided tomography (CAT scans), magnetic resonance

imaging (MRI), and ultrasonic imaging. The four of these, along with endoscopy,

which inserts an imaging device into the body, have almost eliminated exploratory

surgery as a medical diagnostic tool.

Sonar (sound, navigation, and ranging), invented as a system for underwater

detection and location of objects during World War I, helps naval fleets locate

submarines and icebergs. Ultrasonic imaging, which utilizes very high frequency

sound waves, has found both medical applications and major industrial applications,

such as finding flaws hidden within materials. It is also used for microscopy, which

can look into opaque materials well beyond their surface.

Radar (radio detection and ranging) was developed to identify and track airplanes

and naval warships, and is an especially vital tool for pilots. The radar network

NEXRAD is now replacing aging conventional radar units. Computers take in data,

display it on a monitor, and run algorithms, that, in conjunction with other

meteorological data, detect severe weather phenomena, such as storm cells, hail,

cyclones, and tornadoes.

Satellites flying over the Earth have been extensive users of imaging technology,

with uses from intelligence gathering to weather tracking. Weather satellites,

supplemented with terrestrial radar, have allowed us to improve our prediction

capabilities.

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Timeline

1895 X-rays discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen.

1900 Intensifying screens developed by Thomas Edison.

1901 German physicist Christian Helsmeyer discovers that radio echoes can

prevent collisions.

1913 "Hot cathode" X-ray tube, W. D. Coolidge.

1915 French professor P. Langevin develops sonar.

1927 Radioactive tracers, de Hevesy.

1930 Rotating anode X-ray tube.

1937 Electron microscope.

1939 Henry Boot and John Randall develop resonant-cavity magnetron.

1940 Radar development begins.

1942 Demonstration of the detection of ships from the air.

1947 John Barker discovered that moving automobiles would reflect radar

waves.

1950s Police began using traffic radar.

1953 Image intensification, Coltman.

1957 Scintillation camera, Anger.

1958 Ultrasound.

1960 Radionuclide generator, Richards.

1970 Emission tomography, Kuhl.

1970s Realtime, gray-scale ultrasound, Kossoff.

1972 X-ray computed tomography, Hounsfield.

1980 Magnetic resonance imaging, Lauterbur.

1960s Use of radar in air traffic control.

1960s Doppler radar.

1970s Earth-observing satellites begin to use radar to measure Earth's

topography.

1990s A network of over 130 Doppler radar stations is in place in the U.S.

1990s The Magellan spacecraft maps most of the surface of the planet Venus.

The Cassini spacecraft carries radar instruments to study the surface of

Saturn's moon Titan.

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Greatest Achievements - 15. Household Appliances

Household appliances dramatically changed the 20th century

lifestyle by eliminating much of the labor of everyday tasks.

Engineering innovation produced a wide variety of devices,

including electric ranges, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, and

dryers. These and other products give us more free time,

enable more people to work outside the home, and contribute

significantly to our economy.

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Greatest Achievements - 15. Household Appliances

The engineer's role in transforming the domestic environment throughout the century

has been enormous. It began with electrification, which brought light and power into

homes. The household appliances that followed in the first half of the century

depended on two basic engineering innovations - resistance heating and small,

efficient motors. These technologies were incorporated into devices ranging from

electric stoves and heaters to vacuum cleaners and dishwashers. In the second half

of the century new technologies like the magnetron and microprocessor transformed

the household environment yet again, spawning new appliances with sensors,

timers, and programming devices. Always, design innovations focused on making

appliances lighter, smaller, more energy efficient, and more useful.

Until these products arrived, most women organized household work by day.

Families were generally large, and chores took a long time. One day was set aside

for laundry. The tools at hand were wash boards and tubs, boilers, and clothes lines.

Another day was for ironing and sewing. Heating heavy flat irons on the stove,

keeping two or three going at the same time so there was always a hot one, keeping

the fire stoked with coal or wood. Cutting cloth and stitching it by hand. Making one's

own patterns for dresses and shirts. Another day was for cleaning -- sweeping with

brooms, scrubbing and waxing floors by hand, taking rugs to the clothes line to beat

the dust and dirt away. One day was set aside for baking, canning and preserving.

By contrast, the modern family may program the coffee-maker before going to bed at

night so it turns on when the alarm goes off in the morning. Refrigeration, freezers,

blenders, waffle makers, food processors, bread machines, and other kitchen

appliances make breakfast preparation a chore that takes minutes instead of hours.

Automatic washers and dryers allow one to do the laundry and clean the house at

the same time. Machines to shampoo carpets, wax and polish floors, and steam

clean upholstery are easy to operate and efficient, cutting labor time from a long day

to a short few hours.

One of the first appliances to help end hours of drudgery was the vacuum cleaner.

James W. Spangler received the first U.S. patent for an electric vacuum cleaner in

1908. Early models were clumsy and difficult to maneuver. The first Hoovers

weighed 40 pounds, most of it the weight of motor. In 1909 a small, high-speed

universal motor was developed that greatly reduced the weight.

Early clothes washers appeared in the mid 1920s and were wringer types that were

hand-cranked and had a foot pump to start the motor. By 1953 automatics were

outselling wringer washers 10 to one. Innovations have resulted in modern machines

that offer cycles for different types of garments, water temperature and level options.

The first dryer manufactured by a company weighed 700 pounds. Realizing the

model would be impossible to install in homes, engineers returned to the drawing

board and designed a 200-pound model.

The electric toaster was a small, but important device to many. Numerous attempts

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to find the proper heating element were tried by dozens of engineers and inventors,

including Thomas Edison. Finally, in 1905 an engineer solved the problem. Albert

Marsh received a patent on an alloy of nickel and chromium, Nichrome. Dozens of

designs for electric toasters followed within two months.

Percy L. Spencer, an electrical engineer, developed the microwave oven in the

1940s. While touring a laboratory at the Raytheon Company, he stopped

momentarily in front of a magnetron, the power tube that drives a radar set. Spencer

noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket had begun to melt. He immediately

experimented with a bag of unpopped corn, holding it next to the magnetron. His

quick observation powers and this simple experiment led to his development of the

microwave oven.

A major event that contributed to the success of electrical appliances was the

standardization of electric outlets and plugs in the 1920s. Early versions of many

appliances had wiring with plugs that screwed into an overhead light or a wall sconce

- wall outlets did not appear until much later. Revisions to the National Electric Code

and National Housing Code encouraged the installation of high capacity wiring and

multitudes of wall outlets in new houses, providing further safety for families. Safety

standards for appliances were outlined by the Underwriters Laboratories, Inc., to

ensure that appliances sold to consumers minimized the risk of fire and electric

shock.

For women in the last half of the century, the domestic engineering revolution began

to include digital technology. For the majority of women in the workforce, having the

added convenience of timing and programming devices helped to maintain high

standards in caring for the family. This technology also made it easier to delegate

chores among family members - more young children know things about a

microwave oven than many of their grandparents.

Household appliances give us more free time, and their related industries contribute

significantly to our economy. Their impact on life in the 20th century has been

immense.

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Timeline

1905 Albert Marsh patents alloy of nickel and chromium, Nichrome, making

electric toasters possible.

1908 First U.S. patent for vacuum cleaner, James W. Spangler.

1909 First successful electric toaster was produced.

1909 Development of high-speed universal motor for vacuum cleaners.

1913 First refrigerator for home use.

1919 Eureka produces 2,000 vacuums a day due to improved mass

production techniques.

1919 Charles Strite invents first pop-up toaster.

1920s Safety standards for electric outlets and plugs revise housing codes.

1926 General Electric introduces refrigerator with hermetically sealed

compressor.

1927 John W. Hammes patents garbage disposal.

1929 Cost of U.S. electric refrigerator $292, down from $600 in 1920.

1931 U.S. refrigerator production tops one million units.

1931 Birds Eye Frosted Foods go on sale across the United States.

1932 Electric dishwasher.

1935 Clothes dryer, Ross Moore.

1937 Hand-held vacuum.

1946 Microwave oven, Percy L. Spencer.

1947 First top-loading automatic clothes washer.

1955 Domestic deep freezer.

1957 Spin clothes dryer.

1961 Smaller freezers with front doors introduced, more suitable for home

kitchens.

1963 Steam-or-dry electric iron.

1976 Singer electronic sewing machine that dials up to 25 preset stitches, selfwinding

bobbin.

1980s Microprocessors revolutionize household appliances.

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Greatest Achievements - 16. Health Technologies

Advances in 20th century medical technology have been

astounding. Armed with only a few instruments in 1900, medical

professionals now have an arsenal of diagnostic and treatment

equipment at their disposal. Artificial organs, replacement

joints, imaging technologies, and biomaterials are but a few of

the engineered products that improve the quality of life for

millions.

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Greatest Achievements - 16. Health Technologies

It is astounding to compare the medical technology of today with that of 1900. Then,

doctors with small black bags came to one's house and, using a few instruments and

their senses, determined one's illness. A trip to a doctor's office or hospital would not

find much more in the area of diagnostic tools. The X-ray machine had just been

invented.

Today, people live nearly 30 years longer, on the average, than their greatgrandparents

did at the beginning of the 20th century. Many factors in public health

and medical discoveries contributed to this, but in no other area since the Industrial

Revolution has engineering started from so limited a base and produced such an

invaluable, complex, and startling number of innovations. Although many advances

were underway early in the century, health technologies really began to blossom in

the last half, when engineering and medicine became increasingly interdisciplinary,

and the human body was more fully recognized as a complex system of electrical

fields, fluid and biomechanics, chemistry, and motion - ideal for an engineering

approach to many of its problems. There are currently some 32,000 bioengineers

working in various areas of health technology.

Since then, engineers have worked with the medical profession to develop artificial

organs, replacement joints, life-enhancing systems, diagnostic and imaging

technologies -- remarkable machines, materials, and devices that save lives and

significantly improve the quality of life for millions. The technologies for surgery,

medical implants, bioimaging, and intensive care units, as well as methods to massproduce

antibiotics and other drugs, are all a vital part of this story.

Each year, worldwide, physicians implant 200,000 pacemakers, 100,000 heart

valves, 1 million orthopedic devices, and 5 million intraocular lenses. A number of

machines make many of these surgeries possible. The heart-lung machine

mechanically pumps and maintains a patient's blood circulation and pulmonary

function during heart and lung transplant surgery by shunting blood away from the

heart, oxygenating it, and returning it to the body. The blood-heat exchanger safely

and quickly lowers and raises a patient's body temperature before and after surgery.

Before its invention, this process took hours, which meant more risks to the patient,

including a longer period of time under anesthesia. The kidney dialysis machine is a

pumping and filtering system of tubing, compressed air, dialysate and coiled

membrane tanks that purify blood in patients suffering from kidney failure. It has

helped millions of people suffering from kidney disease, and is currently keeping an

estimated 55,000 people with end-stage renal disease alive, many of whom will

eventually receive kidney transplants.

Artificial hearts are engineered to replicate the heart's pumping function and keep

patients alive until suitable donors can be found. Mechanical or electromechanical

devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators regulate heartbeats and correct

rhythm dysfunction. Damaged valves are routinely replaced with prosthetics.

Ventricular assist devices can provide circulatory support by assuming the work of

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Greatest Achievements - 16. Health Technologies

the failed heart, allowing the organ to recover normal functions.

The modern pharmaceutical industry introduced highly active medicinal compounds

in the 19th century and life-saving sulfa drugs and vaccines in the 20th. But without

two major engineering components, these discoveries would have meant little to the

masses: the fermentation process through which many pharmaceuticals are grown,

and the large-scale manufacturing techniques that mix, shape, package and deliver

drugs in all their forms, from millions of vials and pills to gallons of serum and liquids.

These medicines greatly reduced or completely eradicated diseases that plagued the

population for much of this century, such as rheumatic and typhoid fever, lobar

pneumonia, poliomyelitis, syphilis, and tuberculosis.

Pharmaceuticals have also provided greater protection from infection, which has

allowed doctors to go farther in repairing and replacing damaged or worn-out tissues

with engineered materials (biomaterials). Synthetic and biological polymers, metals,

and ceramics, are used for almost everything from suture material to heart valves,

and to replace bones or eye lenses. Inert metals, such as vitallium, are used to repair

fractures or replace joints. Silicone capsules protect implanted electric equipment,

such as cardiac pacemakers. Woven acrylic artificial arteries prevent rapid clotting of

blood in artificial blood vessels. With such a tremendous increase in medical

applications, demand for new biomaterials grows by 5 to 15 percent each year.

Some of the very latest technologies are prevalent in the operating room. The

medical laser, first developed for use in eye surgery in the 1960s, can vaporize brain

tumors via selective wavelengths without harming surrounding tissue, "weld" nerves

and blood vessels in transplant surgery, and act as a "bloodless scalpel" to perform

many types of surgery with little or no blood loss. The operating microscope has

expanded the scope of surgery through the benefit of magnification — critical in

neurosurgery. By using liquid nitrogen, cryosurgery can destroy cancerous tumors.

With the invention of the transistor in 1948, microelectronics altered the size and

quality of many medical devices, like the hearing aid. It also made some bulky

mainframe-dependent systems portable for home use, most poignantly seen in crib

alarm systems for infants susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome. The

intensive care unit is a technological wonder, replete with microelectronic systems,

as is the incubator, which engineers transformed from a simple warming device for

premature infants to a complex life-support system.

Computer-aided design and manufacture help to ensure the best fit for prosthetic

limbs. Techniques include digitized plaster impressions, optical shape sensors that

rotate about the limb to collect data points, and laser shape sensing. The computer

has also advanced research in myoelectrics, which will help power prosthetic limbs

through a combination of muscle contractions and electrodes.

The impact of engineering in the medical arena and the resulting benefits to the

average person are incalculable. In no other field have engineers become so

intimately wedded to life itself.

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Timeline

1903 Willem Einthoven, Dutch physiologist, develops electrocardiograph.

1927 Iron lung developed by Phillip Drinker.

1932 Defibrillator developed by William Bennett Kauwenhoven.

1945 Artificial kidney developed by Willem J. Kolff.

1950s Charles Huntnagel pioneers prosthetic heart valves.

1953 First successful application of a heart-lung machine, John H. Gibbon.

1954 First human kidney transplant, Edward Donnal Thomas.

1956 Plastic contact lenses developed by Norman Bier.

1957 First externally worn, battery-powered pacemaker developed by Earl

Bakken Robert Jarvik, and C. Walton Lillehie.

1957 Blood-heat exchanger developed by Duke University, GM, and SUNY

Buffalo.

1960 First totally implanted pacemaker.

1973 Computerized tomography (CAT scan).

1982 William C. DeVries surgically implants a permanent artificial heart

1985 Soft bifocal contact developed by Sofsite Contact Lens Laboratory.

1985 Michele Mirowski develops ventricular defibrillator.

1986 In France, Professor Benabid uses electrical stimulation to treat

Parkinson's patients.

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Greatest Achievements - 17. Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies

Petroleum has been a critical component of 20th century life,

providing fuel for cars, homes, and industries. Also critical,

petrochemicals are used in products ranging from aspirin to

zippers. Spurred on by engineering advances in oil exploration

and processing, petroleum products have had an enormous

impact on world economies, peoples, and politics.

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Greatest Achievements - 17. Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies

At the beginning of the 20th century, refined oil was used primarily for lighting. This

use was soon eclipsed by the needs of automobile and aircraft, making oil a more

significant fuel than coal by 1920. Liquid petroleum was easier to transport, and was

a much more concentrated and flexible form of fuel than anything previously

available. Soon, dependence on crude oil made it a raw material of immense

economic value and international political significance. Eventually, oil refining

innovations would allow engineers to tailor the products of crude oil to suit the

market, thus marking the true beginning of the petrochemical industry and the

development of modern plastics.

Petroleum-based fuels transformed the world landscape as they increased

agricultural productivity, provided the means for distributing industrial and farm

products, and furnished the personal mobility that defines 20th century technology.

Petrochemicals have also had an enormous impact, providing everything from

aspirin to zippers, including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, synthetic fabrics,

fertilizers, pesticides, building materials, and cosmetics, among them.

Initially, the demand for convenient and affordable fuels drove the industry. During

the war years and later, concern shifted to finding substitutes for increasingly scarce

natural commodities such as rubber. The resulting products, such as sulfa drugs and

vitamins, were useful in fighting infectious diseases. Later in the century, emphasis

shifted to reducing the environmental consequences of oil. Gasoline, for example,

was reformulated to eliminate lead.

Until 1900, refining consisted of a fairly simple batch process whereby oil was heated

until it vaporized, and the various fractions were separated by distillation. The first big

advance came in 1913 with the introduction of thermal cracking. This process took

the less volatile fractions after distillation and subjected them to heat under pressure,

thus cracking (breaking) the heavy molecules into lighter molecules for producing

gasoline, kerosene, and light industrial fuels. The introduction of catalytic cracking in

1936 further manipulated the molecules of the hydrocarbon raw material, providing a

higher-octane product. Cracking of petroleum yields light oils, heavier oils, and gases

such as methane, ethane, ethylene, propane, and propylene. These gases are the

starting points for the production of compounds that constitute five major groups of

end products: synthetic rubber, plastics, textiles, detergents, and agricultural

chemicals.

Edwin Drake drilled the first well specifically for oil in Titusville, Penn., in 1859. The

success of this well, drilled close to an oil seep, soon led to similar exploration

elsewhere. Within a short time, inexpensive oil from underground reservoirs was

being processed at already existing coal-oil refineries, and by 1900, oil fields had

been discovered in 14 states. During the same period, oil fields were found in Europe

and East Asia as well. In 1900, crude oil production worldwide was nearly 150 million

barrels. Half of this total was produced in Russia, and most of the rest was produced

in the U.S. Annual production surpassed 1 billion barrels in 1925 and 2 billion barrels

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in 1940.

Since World War II the demand for light products (gasoline, jet, and diesel fuels) has

grown, while the requirement for heavy industrial fuel oils has declined. In 1947, a

process called "platforming" introduced platinum as a catalyst in the refining process.

This resulted in fewer emissions, removed much of the sulfur and other

contaminants, and generated significant amounts of hydrogen and other raw

materials used to manufacture plastics. The availability of hydrogen was one of the

most far-reaching developments of the refining industry in the 1950s. Since 1980,

hydrogen processing has become so prominent that many refineries now incorporate

hydrogen manufacturing plants in their processing schemes.

By the last decade of the 20th century, there were almost 1 million wells in more than

100 countries producing more than 20 billion barrels per year. Every day, more than

60,000,000 barrels of oil are produced. The rate of growth has been stunning. The

first 200 billion barrels of world oil were produced before 1968 — since that time,

world oil production rates have stabilized at a rate of about 22 billion barrels a year.

The challenge of retrieving this resource, however, often places humans in hostile

and volatile environments. The vast majority of petroleum deposits lie trapped in the

pores of natural rock at depths from 500 to 25,000 feet below the surface of the

ground. As a general rule, the deeper deposits have higher internal pressures and

contain greater quantities of gaseous hydrocarbons.

The Middle East is thought to have an estimated 41 percent of the world's total oil

endowment, with Saudi Arabia thought to have the largest original oil endowment of

any country. North America is a distant second. Eastern Europe, because of the

large deposits in Russia, is also well endowed with oil. Most of Western Europe's oil

is buried below the North Sea.

Cumulatively, the U.S. has produced more oil than any other country, but is still

considered to have a significant remaining undiscovered oil resource. Prudhoe Bay,

which accounted for approximately 17 percent of U.S. oil production during the mid-

1980s, is in decline. This situation, coupled with declining oil production in the

contiguous states, has contributed to a significant drop in domestic oil output.

With an estimated 77 percent of the world's total recoverable oil having already been

discovered, the remaining 23 percent, mostly located in smaller fields or in more

difficult environments, is expected to become ever more expensive to find and to

recover. The offshore oil and gas industry has produced some of the world's largest

and most unique structures, as well as the large floating construction vessels

required to build them. Some are located hundreds of miles offshore, enduring

formidable forces — hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, typhoons in the South China

Sea, earthquakes off California shores, and icebergs that roam the Canadian North

Atlantic. More than 11,000 work-years were required to construct the largest of the

North Sea gravity platforms, making capital costs per daily oil production as much as

40 times the costs in the Middle East. A guyed tower constructed in more than 300

meters of water in the Gulf of Mexico has been estimated to produce oil at about 65

times the production cost of the Middle East. As oil exploitation moves into deeper

waters or under Arctic ice, the cost will further escalate.

As the world has become aware of the impact of industrial pollution on the

environment, the petroleum-refining industry has had to take remedial action.

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Refiners added hydrotreating units to extract sulfur compounds from their products

and began to generate large quantities of elemental sulfur. Effluent water and

atmospheric emission of hydrocarbons and combustion products have been

reduced, and techniques have been developed for manufacturing high-quality

gasoline without employing lead additives. For example, the catalytic converter,

developed in the 1970s, removes nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide from vehicular

emissions. Additives such as ethanol were placed into fuel to make it burn cleaner.

By 1990, substantial investments in the complete reformulation of transportation

fuels helped to minimize environmental emissions. Petroleum refining has become

one of the most stringently regulated of all manufacturing industries, expending a

major portion of its resources on the protection of the environment.

For these and other reasons, much research has examined alternatives to petroleumbased

fuels. Since the crude oil shortages of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the

natural gas formed alongside or near oil deposits (which was for many years flared

or burned off at the wellhead) became itself an important world energy source.

Because natural gas burns completely, carbon dioxide and water are normally

formed, and the combustion of gas is relatively free of soot, carbon monoxide, and

the nitrogen oxides associated with the burning of other fossil fuels. In addition, sulfur

dioxide emissions, another major air pollutant, are almost nonexistent with natural

gas.

Throughout the 19th century the use of natural gas remained localized because

there was no way to transport large quantities of it over long distances. An important

breakthrough occurred in 1890 with the invention of leakproof pipeline coupling,

which still had limited use for anything more than 100 miles from a source of supply.

Long-distance gas transmission became practical during the late 1920s, and from

1927 to 1931, more than 10 major transmission systems were constructed in the

U.S. alone. Since the early 1970s, the longest gas pipelines have been built in

Russia.

The engineering efforts in the petroleum and gas industries continue to resolve

environmental issues, dealing with shortages and spills alike. If, as anticipated with

any limited resource, oil reigns as the dominant source of energy for a mere

transitory period of 100 years or so, then it will have done so with enormous

influence on the quality of life worldwide.

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Greatest Achievements - 17. Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies

Timeline

1913 Thermal cracking introduced.

1914-15 Square kelly rotary rig introduced.

1920 Coal begins to suffer from cheap oil and natural gas prices. Gas

Regulation Act introduces sale of gas by BTU.

1920-29 Liquid fuels created by synthesizing hydrocarbons; Fischer and Tropsch.

1921 Ethyl gasoline introduced; Charles Kettering, Thomas Midgley Jr., T.A.

Boyd.

1924 American Petroleum Association commences standardization of oilfield

equipment and material.

1924 Bubble-cap fractionating tower for petroleum refining developed.

1926 Bergius begins single-stage process for liquefaction and coal

hydrogenation for motor fuel in Germany.

1928 Submersible drilling barge patented by Louis Giliasso.

1932 First well from an independent platform drilled off the West Coast.

1932 Submersible drilling barge designed for swamp oil by Texas Company.

1933 First controlled direction drilling of oil wells developed at Huntington

Beach.

1936 Catalytic cracking introduced.

1939 Oil rigs now made of steel structures.

1940 Underwater drilling in Gulf of Mexico begins.

1942 Fine-powder fluid-bed production of ingredients for 100-octane aviation

gasoline.

1947 Vladimir Haensel invents platforming.

1947 Sufficient oil not found in the United States, according to U.S.

Department of State.

1947 Floating drilling tender that can withstand severe ocean environment is

demonstrated by Kerr-McGee Oil Industry.

1950-55 Koppers-Totzek gasifier introduced.

1954 Submersible mobile drilling unit operates in Gulf of Mexico for shallow

water installations.

1955 First jack-up oil drilling rig designed.

1960 OPEC founded.

1965-69 U.S. gas shortage threatened due to lack of financial incentives for

exploration.

1967 Pilot plant built for extraction-hydrogenation process to produce synthetic

oil.

1973 Oil embargo created by cut in OPEC oil supplies.

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1974 Alberta tar sands synthetic fuel project starts.

1975-79 U.S. natural gas deregulated and gas prices rise.

1982 Tallest giant oil platform for North Sea exploration built in Inverness,

Scotland.

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Greatest Achievements - 18. Laser and Fiber Optics

Pulses of light from lasers are used in industrial tools, surgical

devices, satellites, and other products. In communications,

highly pure glass fibers now provide the infrastructure to carry

information via laser-produced light - a revolutionary technical

achievement. Today, a single fiber-optic cable can transmit tens

of millions of phone calls, data files, and video images.

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Greatest Achievements - 18. Laser and Fiber Optics

At the beginning of the 20th century, communications relied on mail, the telegraph,

and the telephone. News did not travel quickly. Telephones were commonly shared

through a party line system of several families. Waiting for your turn could be

frustrating or inconvenient. Long distance and overseas calls were placed through

telephone operators and could take hours to connect as they waited for available

lines. Though telegrams could be transmitted rather quickly, someone at the other

end still had to deliver them. People in remote areas could wait for several days

before they received an "urgent" message.

At the close of the century, people can't imagine such slow, plodding ways to

communicate. Can anyone imagine a teenager waiting for his or her turn on a party

line? Unthinkable, because in today's world, tiny semiconductor lasers routinely

transmit light pulses carrying billions of bits of information per second over glass

fibers. This process has dramatically changed the telecommunications industry by

making worldwide connection, by phone, fax, or the Internet, almost instantaneous.

People routinely talk to or e-mail friends around the world, without thinking too much

about the distance. Corporations and small businesses are truly global, because the

technology is affordable.

The technical means for this communications revolution are lasers and fiber optics -

a unique blending of light and glass that transmits our words and thoughts, orders

and memos, data and video anywhere in the world, immediately. A single optical

fiber combined with fiber amplifiers can carry tens of millions of phone conversations,

tens of thousands of television channels or transmit an entire encyclopedia in onethousandth

of a second. By the end of 1998, there were more than 215 million

kilometers of optical fiber installed for communications worldwide. The optical fibers

transmit light pulses up to 13,000 miles, and are handling data rates that are

doubling each year. Today, optical fibers are the best conduit for delivering an array

of interactive services, using combinations of voice, data, and video.

A few key people are responsible for this revolution, as are thousands of engineers

who designed and developed the manufacturing and delivery systems to make it

happen. In the 1940s and early 1950s Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow were

deeply interested in the field of microwave spectroscopy, a field that was delving into

the characteristics of molecules. Neither had planned to invent the laser - what they

wanted was to develop a device to help them study molecular structures.

They were eager to use microwave radiation of short wavelengths, because as the

wavelengths became shorter, the interaction with molecules became stronger. The

technical challenge was to build a device small enough to generate the required

small wavelengths - something that was beyond current manufacturing techniques.

Townes had the idea to use molecules instead of a device to generate the desired

frequencies. Initially, there seemed no practical way of doing this, but in a moment of

sudden inspiration he realized how to use stimulated emission from molecules and

atoms to amplify waves, which led to his invention of the maser (microwave

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Greatest Achievements - 18. Laser and Fiber Optics

amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).

The question remained whether stimulated emission could be used for wavelengths

much shorter than those of microwaves - perhaps into the infrared region.

Theoretical calculations by Townes, and a chance meeting with Schawlow, provided

the answer. Schawlow's idea was to arrange a pair of mirrors, one at each end of a

region of excited atoms or molecules, to bounce the light straight back and forth. This

could produce a pure frequency and a highly directed beam by eliminating any

beams bouncing in other directions. In the fall of 1957 they began working out the

principles of a device that could provide these shorter wavelengths.

The paper they published in 1958, which laid out the principles for the laser (light

amplification of stimulated emission radiation), caused an explosion of research by

engineers and scientists at laboratories and universities around the world. Townes

and Schawlow had just launched a new scientific field, quite unintentionally. In 1960

they received a patent for their work and both were subsequently granted Nobel

Prizes.

In May 1960, American physicist Theodore Maiman built the first laser to

successfully produce a pulse of coherent light, using synthetic ruby as the laser

medium. The first continuously operating laser was achieved a few months later. A

July 1960 issue of Electronics magazine made a mild statement about the new

device: "Usable communications channels in the electromagnetic spectrum may be

extended by development of an experimental optical-frequency amplifier."

Communications engineers were ecstatic. The information revolution was already

upon them, and they knew that the traditional technologies of electric signals and

radio waves would not be enough to handle future communications traffic. They had

already begun to look for ways to increase bandwidth (information carrying capacity).

Telephone companies thought video telephones were imminent and would further

escalate bandwidth demands. Laser technology gave them hope. Now all someone

had to do was invent a means to channel the powerful optical waves effectively.

Some early work on glass-clad fibers attracted attention, but most technical opinions

deemed glass-clad fibers excellent for medical imaging, but much not very practical

for communications over long distances. Fortunately a small team at Standard

Telecommunications Laboratories in the United Kingdom did not dismiss the

potential of glass. One of its engineers, Charles K. Kao, collected samples from fiber

makers and carefully researched the properties of bulk glasses. He believed that the

high losses of early fibers were due to impurities and not to the silica glass itself. His

research and belief that fiber loss could be reduced significantly attracted the interest

of the British Post Office, which also operated the British telephone network, and

soon a sizeable research fund was tapped to study the problem.

Based on Kao's work, laboratories around the world also began dealing with the

problem. A breakthrough at Corning was one of the most important in the

development of this technology. In 1970 Robert Maurer demonstrated the first lowloss

fiber. By 1974 John MacChesney at Bell Labs introduced an alternative

synthesis process leading to low contamination and precise index of refraction

profiles.

In 1975, engineers at Laser Diode Labs developed the first commercial continuouswave

semiconductor laser operating at room temperature. Smaller than a grain of

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Greatest Achievements - 18. Laser and Fiber Optics

sand, this opened the door to the use of lasers to transmit optically encoded

telephone conversations over fiber-optic cables. Another major step occurred in 1987

with the introduction of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, which provide multiple

channels of laser light and can handle 80 million telephone calls simultaneously.

In 1988 the first transoceanic fiber cable, TAT-8, was laid. Economically, this made a

tremendous difference, first to industry, and ultimately to consumers. In comparison,

the first trans-Atlantic copper cable cost $1 million per circuit to install in 1956; TAT-8

cost less than $10,000 per circuit.

Aside from providing the basis for modern communications system, the laser is a

versatile tool used in many industries. It is used in manufacturing to cut precision

parts, in medical applications such as eye surgery, in satellites to transmit weather

and climate information, in scanners to read bar codes at cash registers, and in

devices to play music on compact discs.

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Greatest Achievements - 18. Laser and Fiber Optics

Timeline

1917 Albert Einstein establishes stimulated emission.

1957 Charles Townes, James Gordon, and Herbert Zeiger develop first

maser.

1958 Arthur Schawlow develops working principles of laser.

1958 Schawlow and Townes publish paper on laser.

1960 Theodore Maiman develops first laser action in solid ruby.

1961 First semiconductor laser, Robert Hall.

1960s Charles K. Kao is the first to publicly propose the possibility of a practical

application for fiber-optic telecommunication.

1970 Robert Maurer leads a team at Corning who design and produce the first

optical fiber.

1974 John MacChesney and colleagues at Bell Labs develop the modified

chemical vapor deposition process.

1974 John MacChesney introduces an alternative synthesis process leading

to low contamination and precise index of refraction profiles.

1975 First nonexperimental fiber-optic link installed in Dorset (UK) police

communication system.

1975 First semiconductor laser operating continuously at room temperature.

1976 Bell Labs field tests multimode fiber-optic system at its Norcross,

Georgia plant.

1977 General Telephone and Electronics begins first trial of 6Mbit/s fiber-optic

link carrying live telephone traffic in Long Beach, California

1977 Bell system starts testing 45 Mbit/s fiber link in downtown Chicago phone

system.

1977 Chicago has the first commercial fiber-optic communications system.

1987 Introduction of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers.

1988 TAT-8 fiber-optic cable for telephone service laid.

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Greatest Achievements - 19. Nuclear Technologies

The harnessing of the atom changed the nature of war forever

and astounded the world with its awesome power. Nuclear

technologies also gave us a new source of electric power and

new capabilities in medical research and imaging. Though

controversial, the engineering achievements related to nuclear

technologies remain among the most important of the 20th

century.

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Greatest Achievements - 19. Nuclear Technologies

The harnessing of the atom in the 1940s changed the nature of war forever, offered

a new source for electrical power generation, and improved medical diagnostic

techniques. The awesome and compact power of nuclear arms has transformed the

military arsenals, strategies, and psyches of nations around the world. It has also

greatly improved the range and comfort of submarines, and had a significant impact

on peacetime activities. Nuclear technologies have stirred emotions and controversy,

but the engineering achievements related to their development remain among the

most important of the 20th century.

Einstein's relativity theory marked, above all, the point from which there was no

return. The inevitable development that changed the world, however, occurred in

1942, when Enrico Fermi conducted the first controlled chain reaction, releasing

energy from the atom's nucleus. The developments that immediately followed were

directed by Robert Oppenheimer, working with engineers and physicists from the Los

Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Their work came amid worldwide

competition to be the first to have the atom bomb as a defense priority in World War

II. The nature of war changed when the United States dropped atomic bombs on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The nuclear arms race began full-blown in 1949

when the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. As a destructive power the

atomic bomb has been unequalled, and its potential threat alone drives peace and

war initiatives worldwide.

Peacetime uses were pursued with equal fervor with the first nuclear-reactor

radioisotopes for civilian medical use delivered in 1946. Both military adaptation in

submarines and aircraft carriers and the use of nuclear energy for commercial power

plants resulted from this work. Admiral H. G. Rickover led engineers to pioneer new

materials, design reactors, develop an industrial base, establish safety and control

standards and operating procedures, organize training programs, and build and test

full-scale propulsion prototypes. The nuclear submarine is an engineering

masterpiece which has withstood practical service with unblemished records.

Rickover also directed work at the Westinghouse Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory

and the GE Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory to develop the Pressurized Water

Reactor (PWR) in 1953. These reactors ultimately became the mainstay design of

commercial power stations. Ceramics -- as fuel pellets, control rods, high-reliability

seats and valves, and containerization -- were a critical feature of the PWR. The first

nuclear reactor system to produce electric power commercially in the United States

was in 1957 at Shippingport, Penn. (retired in 1982). It was a joint effort by the

Duquesne Light Company, Westinghouse, and the U.S. Naval reactor program. The

first major nuclear power plant in England opened in 1956.

Through most of the 20th century energy production has relied on fossil fuels.

Consumption increases globally, while these fuel sources race towards being

exhausted. The International Energy Agency projects a 65 percent growth in world

energy demand by 2020. Engineers worldwide have made impressive strides in the

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Greatest Achievements - 19. Nuclear Technologies

use of nuclear fission for electrical power production.

The great advantage of nuclear power is its ability to extract enormous energy from a

small volume of fuel. Nuclear fission, transforming matter directly into energy, is

several million times as energetic as chemical burning. One metric ton of nuclear fuel

produces energy equivalent to 2 to 3 million metric tons of fossil fuel (1 kilogram of

coal generates 3 killowatt-hours of electricity; 1 kilogram of oil 4 killowatt-hours; 1

kilogram of uranium fuel in a modern light-water reactor generates 400,000 killowatthours;

and if uranium is recycled, 1 kilogram can generate more than 7,000,000

killowatt-hours). A 1,000-megawatt-hour nuclear plant releases no noxious gases or

pollutants and less radioactivity per capita than is encountered from airline travel, a

home smoke detector, or a television set. Nuclear power is meeting the annual

electrical needs of more than 1 billion people with more than 400 operating reactors

worldwide, most in Europe, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Nuclear energy

accounts for about 20 percent of power production in the United States.

Nuclear safety and efficiency have improved significantly since 1990. New

generations of small, modular power plants are on the horizon. A South African utility

has announced plans to market a modular gas-cooled pebble-bed reactor that does

not require emergency core-cooling systems and physically cannot "melt down." MIT

and the Idaho National Engineering and Environment Lab are developing a similar

design to supply high-temperature heat for industrial processes such as hydrogen

generation and desalinization.

Japan has begun using recycled uranium and plutonium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in

its reactors and will use 100-percent MOX fuel by 2007. France and the United

Kingdom currently reprocess spent fuel; Russia is stockpiling fuel and separated

plutonium for jump-starting future fast-reactor fuel cycles. Engineering techniques to

recycle spent fuel can extend the world's uranium resources and make it possible to

convert plutonium to useful energy while breaking it down into shorter-lived,

nonfissionable, nonthreatening nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is not an engineering

problem, as advanced projects in France, Sweden, and Japan demonstrate. Rather,

it offers solutions to energy needs. The safety record in more than 40 years of

commercial nuclear power operations demonstrates that this is much safer than

fossil-fuel systems in terms of industrial accidents, environmental damage, health

effects, and long-term risks.

Innovations in reactor and shielding design have achieved considerable success.

New mathematical methods, new measurement technology, new fuel-element

production, and a new metallurgical science evolved with this technology. Basic

engineering equations had to be reconsidered in light of new chemical elements and

nuclear reactions. Design of safe nuclear energy conversion systems required

extensive programs of fluid and thermal hydraulic measurements, expanding the field

of engineering itself. Process control depended on invention and commercial

development of new instrumentation. Even accidents, such as Three Mile Island

(1979) and Chernobyl (1986), have led to improvements in core-damage limitations,

containment integrity, and radiological hazard studies.

In the 1950s, nuclear development was actively pursued in Europe, resurging in the

United States in the 1960s and 1970s, with Europe and the Far East having the

greatest growth in activity since then. Safe disposal of nuclear waste and the

optimization of process design continue to require cooperative efforts among

engineers on a global scale. While the United States hasn't built a nuclear power

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Greatest Achievements - 19. Nuclear Technologies

plant since 1980, the rest of the world continues to develop this technology. In the

context of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that calls for the reduction of

emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2008, nuclear power plant

development may once again fail to meet expectations. The challenge for engineers

remains to design and operate nuclear plants to perfect this technology. Worldwide

adoption of safe and cost-efficient nuclear-energy programs will affect these

greenhouse and other pollution issues.

Because of its lack of emissions, nuclear energy has potential over fossil-fuel

technology as a lasting solution to energy demand. Projected global warming and

international hostilities over scarce energy supplies also drive engineers to find

solutions toward adopting nuclear and other renewable sources. Furthermore, what

has been learned from these technologies-the use of radiation, particularly for

medical diagnosis and treatment-has and continues to improve our lives.

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Greatest Achievements - 19. Nuclear Technologies

Timeline

1905 Einstein's theory of special relativity.

1932 English physicist and Nobel laureate James Chadwick discoveres the

neutron.

1932 Atom split by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton.

1937 Westinghouse builds 5-million volt Van de Graff generator ("atom

smasher").

1939 Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassman, Lise Meitner, and Otto Frisch demonstrate

fission.

1939-45 Manhattan Project develops atomic bomb.

1942 Enrico Fermi and colleagues at the University of Chicago achieve the

firstcontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction.

1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ending

World War II.

1946 Atomic Energy Act passes, establishing the Atomic Energy Commission.

1946 Oak Ridge facility ships first nuclear reactor-produced radioisotopes for

civilian use to Barnard Cancer Hospital in St. Louis.

1948 Argonne Naitonal Laboratory and Westinghouse announce program to

commercialize nuclear power.

1951 Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR-I) produces the world's first

usable amount of electricity from nuclear energy.

1953-55 Three Boiling Reactor Experiment (BORAX) reactors are built at the

Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

1954 United States launches the U.S.S. Nautilus, the world's first nuclearpowered

submarine.

1954 The second Atomic Energy Act is passed by the U.S. legislature.

1954 Arco, Idaho, population 1200, becomes the world's first community to

have all electrical power provided by nuclear energy.

1957 The International Atomic Energy Agency is formed with 18 member

countries to promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Today it has 130

members.

1957 First U.S. large-scale nuclear power plant begins operation in

Shippingport, Penn.

1962 First nuclear-powered surface ship, N.S. Savannah, put to sea.

1962 First advanced gas-cooled reactor is built in England.

1966 The Advanced Testing Reactor at the Idaho National Engineering and

Environmental Laboratory begins operation for materials testing and

isotope generation.

1969 The Zero Power Physics Reactor goes operational at Argonne National

Laboratory-West in Idaho.

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1974 Atomic Energy Commission splits into the Energy Research and

Development Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

1979 Three Mile Island accident.

1986 Chernobyl accident.

1990s The U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program pioneers new materials,

including uranium-dioxide fuels systems, the use of zirconium and its

alloys, boron, and hafnium, and develops material fabrication,

radiological control, and quality control standards.

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Greatest Achievements - 20. High-performance Materials

From the building blocks of iron and steel to the latest advances

in polymers, ceramics, and composites, the 20th century has

seen a revolution in materials. Engineers have tailored and

enhanced material properties for uses in thousands of

applications. In aircraft, medical devices, computers, and other

products, high-performance materials have a great impact on

our quality of life.

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Greatest Achievements - 20. High-performance Materials

Much as earlier eras were characterized as the ages of stone, iron, and copper, it

may be that the term that best characterizes the 20th century is "the age of

engineered materials." But choosing just one material to define the century would be

difficult. Steel for skyscrapers? Copper for electrical conduction? Silicon for chips?

Plastics and polymers? Biomaterials for medical implants? In one way or another, all

of these materials have been crucial to the inventions and innovations that have

transformed the century.

The materials revolution that took hold in 1900 began with the heavy building blocks

of iron and steel and ended with lighter weight metal alloys and exotic high-strength

composites. Throughout the century, engineers learned new methods to analyze,

process, refine, and add to materials in ways that maximized their properties,

enhanced their performance, and met design challenges. They set about to reshape

skylines with sleek architecture of steel and glass, forge great sheets of metal for

airplane wings, fabricate plastics into heart valves and computer circuits, and create

new composites for spacecraft.

It is a major engineering enterprise to design, analyze and test materials. Analytical

methods coupled with the powerful computational tools that allow detailed imaging

and simulation have completely revolutionized materials research. They have

changed an empirical methodology into a directed, rapid approach to the materials

requirements, and we can see the results everyday:

The interior of a jet engine is one of the most ferocious environments on Earth,

reaching temperatures of 3600°F while exhaust gases rush past turbine blades,

making them spin thousands of times per minute. The material for the blades must

be strong enough to withstand the stress and force of the gases and heat, light

enough to maximize efficiency, and durable enough for extensive use.

Copper is a highly conductive metal, but it is soft. Mixing it with a minute amount of

silver makes it strong enough conduct electricity without melting. The wrong material,

or the wrong amount of copper to silver, could spell disaster in many areas, including

disconnecting a telephone call or causing the lights to go out.

Engineers are involved in solving such needs precisely. Because materials have

different properties, some are better than others for certain things. Computers using

plastic photonic circuits handle data more rapidly than electronic devices - photons

travel much faster, and plastic components are lighter than metals, can store

information more compactly, and are not subject to magnetic interference. Ceramic

materials, in another example, enable engines to run hotter, therefore burning fuel

more efficiently than do metal engines.

Adjusting carbon and other elements in steel produces many new alloys, allowing

steel to be used in countless industries from shipbuilding to watchmaking. Adding tin

to copper makes bronze, ideal for gears and bearings in places where strength

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Greatest Achievements - 20. High-performance Materials

counts, as in industrial machinery. Additives can turn some materials into shapeshifters

-- for example, polyvinylchloride (PVC) used in gutters, pipes, and panels

can be turned into clothing by adding plasticizers, or be used as the tubing that forms

the circuit of the heart-lung machine.

More of the world's products are made with composites that combine different types

of strength or resilience. These include exotic amorphous metals and shape-memory

alloys — "smart" materials that can actually respond to changes in their environment

and "remember" their shape. They are being applied to many products, such as

stents used to keep human arteries open.

The greatest leaps in technological innovation occur as improved materials become

available. This is especially true in the semiconductor business, where engineering

silicon to make microprocessors is a delicate process. Silicon must be purified to

produce crystals, then sliced into wafer-thin chips. With the recent "lab on a chip"

technologies, the ability to build and use micromachines will soon move from a

curiosity to specific applications.

One of the greatest examples of materials engineering responding to a crisis

occurred during the early 1940s. Polymer chemistry and engineering took on critical

new importance as the United States entered World War II. The seizure of rubber

plantations in the Malay Peninsula and East Indies cut off the source of nearly 90

percent of America's natural rubber supply. A massive national research and

engineering effort was undertaken to produce enough synthetic rubber to meet the

needs of the country. A collaborative government-industry synthetic rubber program

was put in place that called for the construction of four plants, each with a yearly

capacity of 10,000 tons. Before the war, no more than 6,000 tons had ever been

produced in a single year. By 1945, annual synthetic rubber production in the United

States exceeded 600,000 tons.

At the end of World War II, the U.S. military released to the public many "high tech"

synthetic materials that were previously restricted or unavailable. These state-of-theart

materials included silicones, Dacron, polyurethanes, nylon, titanium, and Teflon

(which was discovered purely by accident). Physicians quickly saw the possibilities of

using many of these in medicine. Engineers translated their vision into useful

devices, first by analyzing the properties, then by figuring out how to manufacture

them. Remarkable new biomaterials continue to be developed for use in making

heart-assist devices, artificial kidneys, contact lenses, vascular grafts, shunts,

sutures, prostheses, and hundreds of other products.

The space age has spawned important new materials and uncovered new uses for

old materials. Fiberglass-reinforced plastics have been molded into rigid shapes to

provide car bodies and hulls for small ships. Carbon fiber has demonstrated

remarkable properties that make it an alternative to metals for high-temperature

turbine blades. Ceramics research has produced materials resistant to high

temperatures and suitable for heat shields on spacecraft. New analytical techniques,

molecular and atomic imaging, and quantum calculations for atomic and molecular

systems are available to help optimize materials choices and manufacturing

approaches.

Materials development today is much closer to engineering science than in the past.

The engineer's ability to translate that science into applications is now approaching

the level of atomic and molecular design — the frontier of the future. The availability

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of new analytical and computational techniques has enabled engineers to take the

study of material properties to new heights, and holds tremendous potential for the

future.

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Timeline

1907 Leo Baekeland made first totally synthetic plastic called Bakelite.

1910 Cellophane invented by Swiss chemist Jacques Brandenberger.

1924 Aminoplastic (first pale colored plastic).

1926 Synthetic rubber.

1927 Polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

1930s Engineers develop new molding and extrusion techniques for plastics.

1930 Polystyrene.

1933 Polyethelene.

1933 First continuous casting of steel, S. Junghaus, Germany (machine is

prototype for future industrial-scale steel plants).

1936 Plexiglass.

1938 Nylon.

1938 Teflon discovered by Roy Plunkett.

1938 Fiberglass.

1938 Foam glass insulating material.

1939 Plastic contact lens.

1946 Tupperware.

1946 Vinyl floor covering.

1946 Aluminum-based metallic yard.

1946 Ceramic magnets.

1952 Basic oxygen process refines steel making.

1953 Karl Zeigler invents new process for producing polyethelene.

1953 Dacron, plasticized PVC, and silicones manufactured by Dow Corning.

1955 Polypropylene (petroleum-based).

1961 Superpolymers (heat resistant).

1964 Acrylic paint.

1964 Carbon fiber (used to reinforce materials in high temperature

environment).

1964 Beryllium (hard metal) developed for heat shields in spacecraft, animal

surgery, aircraft parts, etc.

1970 Sialon (ceramic material for high-speed cutting tools in metal machining).

1983 Soft bifocal contact lens.

1986 Synthetic skin.

1990s New composites and lightweight steel.

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Greatest Achievements - 20. High-performance Materials

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Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century

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