Author: JF Ptak

A Guide to German Trenches and Aircraft, 1915
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WWI was into its sixth (of fifty-one) months of war when these helpful graphics appeared in the pages of the Illustrated London News on Feb 6, 1915. Distinguishing trenches was interesting though not very essential, and certainly not as potentially useful to the broad population as the sheet identifying German aircraft. This image is a version of a poster that was distributed far and wide in Great Britain and France teaching ordinary citizens the differences between airplanes of friend and foe. There were a large number of designs of aircraft,especially so when you threw the British and French planes into the mix. It certainly would’ve been a bit involved at first to make these distinctions, though if your survival depended on perhaps knowing the differences in all of these aircraft then no doubt the learning curve would flatten out. It is also remarkable that all of these developments in aviation come just a dozen years after the Wright brothers first made their powered flight at Kill Devil Hills.
- Both images are clickable and greatly expandable.
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Aviation & flight — World War I
On Building Mr. Babbage’s Engines (1878)

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Here’s a very interesting report from an 1878 issue of Nature (volume 18 pp 460) considering the construction and its consequences of the yet-built Babbage computer (analytical machine). Charles Babbage died in Marylebone in 1871 and bequeathed his working archive to his youngest son Henry (1824-1918) who expected to carry his father’s work into the future. This is one attempt to construct a working machine from the Babbage plans. I’ve reproduced most of the Nature article below, with a few inconsequential edits. Enjoy.

REPORTS Report of the Committee, consisting of Prof. Cayley, Dr. Farr, Mr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Dr. Pole, Prof. Fuller, Prof. A. B. W. Kennedy, Prof. Clifford, and Mr. C. W. Merrifield, appointed to consider the Advisability and to estimate the Expense of constructing Mr. Babbage’s Analytical Machine, and of printing Tables by its means. Drawn up by Mr. Merrifield. We desire in the first place to record our obligations to General Henry Babbage for the frank and liberal manner in which he has assisted the Committee, not only by placing at their disposal all the information within his reach, but by exhibiting and explaining to them, at no small loss of time and sacrifice of personal convenience, the machinery and papers left by his father, the late Mr. Babbage. Without the valuable aid thus kindly rendered to them by General Babbage it would have been simply impossible for the Committee to have come to any definite conclusions, or to present any useful report.

We refer to the chapter in Mr. Babbage’s “Passages from the Life of a Philosopher,”and to General Menabrea’s paper, translated and annotated by Lady Lovelace, in the third volume of “Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs,”for a general description of the analytical engine.

The Report then, in Section I., contains an account of the general principles of calculating engines, and proceeds:

Section II. Special Characteristics of Mr. Babbage’s Analytical Engine.

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Computer Tech/History
A Bad Place to Be in 1868

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There have been a number of posts to this blog on “Bad Places to Be”–that is, very unpleasant surrounds in which someone was working, or found themselves to be. For example, sappers digging under opposing sapper’s tunnels to place explosive charges under trenchworks, or being in a tiny observation gondola let on a cable suspended from a dirigible, or digging a tunnel, or being a U-Boat crew member in late 1943, and so on. And then there’s the impossible scenario of being the man with the job of crawling through the burnt and enormous timbers of the Brooklyn ‘Bridge’s east caisson, crawling though tiny spaces to chisel out damaged sections of the gigantic woodworks upon which tons of rock were placed, and doing this in mostly the dark and underwater. Really, quite incredible. But then again it was a terrifically difficult and dangerous job to be a workman anywhere in those caissons–the environment was dank, dark, fetid, muddy, slippery, hot, and on top of it all, crowded. And so to today’s issue: the building of the pier for Kehl Bridge, found in the July 1868 issue of Journal of the Franklin Institute. It was quite a massive undertaking, and of course my eye is drawn immediately to the bottom of the image, where the men with the most impossible jobs labored. Here’s the detail:

Which is a section of this image:

I feel an instant chill looking closely at images like this…

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JF Ptak

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Technology, History of
The Ineffable Beauty of Gutters (1867)

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This is really an ultra-quick post, as I just wanted to share this delightful and lovely image of profiles of different sorts of gutters. I do recall seeing images like this on occasion, here and there, over the last few decades, though I think that they were either about Roman construction or cross-sections of streets in Paris and London. In any event, these profiles are from a paper written by supervising engineer of the construction of New York City’s Central Park, and they are a delight to look at.

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Architecture and Building — Industrial & Technological art — Technology, History of
An Attempted Glorification of the Hexadecimal (1863)

JF Ptak Science Books Post 2812

I found a very unusual paper¹ in the Journal of the Franklin Institute for 1863 promoting moving from base-10 to base -16…for almost everything. It was written by John Nystrom², an engineer who practiced across several fields and wrote textbooks about more. (Including in this very volume, where he contributes two other papers.) The paper in mind is a very early entry in the history of the application of the hexadecimal system. Nystrom’s plan included converting to a hex arithmetical system, and then expanded the idea to the calendar, musical notation, geography, time—an overall shift in metrology. His idea did not extend to calculators, and his name does not seem to be referenced by any of the modern compsci folks (with the major exception of Donald Knuth³). Probably base-16 was not employed in programming until, I guess, around the early 1960’s. All that said, this is still a remarkable paper. Also: the paper is illustrated with a beautiful color-highlighted folding plate of divider-like instruments that translated hex to denary.

The Nystrom ideas did not take hold, and it seems that he was a bit cranky about the idea of its not being accepted, perhaps because it was left to the hands of people who just couldn’t see its value. He ends his book of 1862 with the following few observations: “If the Arabic notation employed in our present decimal arithmetic had been suggested to Moses when he wrote the ten commandments on Mount Sinai he would surely have made similar remarks as that made on the tonal system that such curious looking characters could not be understood by his people….My manuscript on the tonal system has been sent to a great many places for publication. The Franklin Institute thought it would have a very serious effect on the number of subscribers of their journal. The Smithsonian Institute would not publish it because they had so much of the same kind before. The US Coast Survey stated they would publish it if recommended by a member of Congress. And lately the Society of Philadelphia has rejected it perhaps on the remarks herein replied to but Mr D recommended its publication.”–John William Nystrom, Project of a New System of Arithmetic, Weight, Measure and Coins: Proposed ...(1862)

As for me, I just don’t understand what he was driving for, or at.

Notes

1. John Nystrom, “A New System of Arithmetic and Metrology, called the Tonal System”, pp 263-275, 337-348, 402-407 (concluded), and illustrated, including a folding plate. In Journal of the Franklin Institute, third series vol 46 overall vol 76, July-December 1863, 432pp.

2. “John Williams Nystrom (Swedish: Johan Vilhelm Nyström) (1825–1885) was a Swedish born, American civil engineer, inventor, and author. He served as an assistant Secretary and Chief Engineer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Nystrom received many patents for inventions such as a marine steam engine, a refrigerator, and calculating machines…Nystrom is most notable for his proposal to switch from decimal to hexadecimal as defined in his 1862 publication titled . In 1859, Nystrom proposed a hexadecimal (base 16) system of notation, arithmetic, and metrology called the Tonal system. In addition to new weights and measures, his proposal included a new calendar with sixteen months, a new system of coinage, and a hexadecimal clock with sixteen hours in a day.”–Wikipedia

3. “…a prominent Swedish-American civil engineer named John W. Nystrom decided to carry Charles XII’s plans [radix-8 arithmetic] a step further, by devising a complete system of numeration, weights, and measures based on radix-16 arithmetic. He wrote, “I am not afraid, or do not hesitate, to advocate a binary system of arithmetic and metrology. I know I have nature on my side; if I do not succeed to impress upon you its utility and great importance to mankind, it will reflect that much less credit upon our generation, upon our scientific men and philosophers.” Nystrom devised special means for pronouncing hexadecimal numbers; for example, (C0160)16 was to be read “vybong, bysanton.” His entire system was called the Tonal System, and it is described in J. Franklin Inst. 46 (1863), 263–275, 337–348, 402–407. A similar system, but using radix 8, was worked out by Alfred B. Taylor [Proc. Amer. Pharmaceutical Assoc. 8 (1859), 115–216; Proc. Amer. Philosophical Soc. 24 (1887), 296–366].–Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming section 4.1 (which is in volume 2).

A last note on the Nystrom calculator: “In an article of Scientific American the device was hailed as the most important one ever brought before the public. Despite all of the accolades however, it was never widely accepted, and no more than 100 devices were ever produced. This may have been because the cost (there were $10, $15, and $20 models, a huge sum in 1850s), or because the instrument was never well advertised or marketed. –history-computer.com

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History of Nothing — mathematics, logic
Russian Trench Cross-Sections, 1917

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I’ve made a number of posts to this blog on trenches/trench life (findable by entering the search term in the google box at right) and I believe that I’ve not made one regarding Russian trenches, until today. This image (“Russia’s Masterly Underground Defenses”) appears in a news-of-the-world section of Popular Mechanics for July, 1917, and includes a number of very smart smaller cross sections of division of the works. The whole of it is headed by a plan of the works, followed by several smaller works, including the central image which shows the great depth at which the sleep chambers are set. (I also enjoy the bit of free will by the illustrator to include some tiny laundry drying out in the barracks.) Its a lovely work of an uncommon visual.

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Cross-Sections — World War I
An Early Appraisal of Life at the Extreme Edges of Earth: the Oceans (1861)

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I just came upon an interesting article on the discovery and possibility of life at extremes on Earth. It was printed in 1861 in Journal of the Franklin Institute and addresses the existence of life at extreme depths of the oceans. The author, George C. Wallich (1815-1899) wrote in his well-reasoned paper¹ that the extreme water pressure in the deep would limit the extent of life to about 400 or 500 fathoms (2400-3000′), and that “…life, whether animal or vegetable, must be extinct”. In similar language, the naturalist Edward G. Forbes wrote² in 1859: “As we descend deeper and deeper in this region, its inhabitants become more and more modified, and fewer and fewer, indicating our approach towards an abyss where life is either extinguished, or exhibits but a few sparks to mark its lingering presence.“

Earlier still we find this interesting statement and call to experimentation by Robert Hooke³: “Animals and Vegetables cannot be rationally supposed to live and grow under so great a Pressure, so great a Cold, and at so great a Distance from the Air, as many Parts at the Bottom of very deep Seas are liable and subject to…We have had instances enough of the Fallaciousness of such immature and hasty Conclusions…” These testimonies go back much further, at least to the time of the great classifier, Aristotle, though the possibilities of experimentation at these points were virtually non-existent.

It would be shown just three years later by the father and son naturalists Michael and Georg Ossian Sars that life in Norwegian fjords was found at depths of 3,000 meters, and more life found deeper still (5,000 meters) in the findings of the Challenger Expedition in 1872. Discoveries of life at deep thermal vents in 1977 extended the life-bearing depths further still; currently, as of 2017 at least, rich life has been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, at depths of 10,600 meters.

This was the beginning of the period of discovery of life at the extreme deep edges of Earth.

Notes:

1. “On the Nature of the Deep-Sea Bed, and the Presence of Animal Life at Vast depths in the Ocean”, pp 237-241, 321-325.

2. E.G, Forbes. The Natural History of the European Seas, London, 1859.

3. William Derham. Philosophical Experiments and Observations of the late Dr. Robert Hooke and other Eminent Virtuosos in his Time, London, 1726, p. 314.

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Anticipation, History of — History of Nothing
A Nasty Piece of Propaganda from French Collaborationists (1943)

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The offending pamphlet here is a celebration of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany, a “two year anniversary” of the beginning of “Operation Barbarossa”. The author(s) presented the new front in WWII as a “joined” effort on the part of European nations to rid the world of the Bolshevik threat. (The title of the work: Toute l’Europe contre le Bolchevisme, 2^eme Anniversaire which was published by CEA, the Centre d’Etude Antibolchéviquethe (Anti-Bolshevik Studies organization), a French organization running with Nazi funding.)

The pamphlet of course fails to mention the turning of the tide against the Germans, especially with the defeat and destruction of von Paulus and the 6th Army at Stalingrad in January/February 1943, the failure of the Caucasus push, and so on. Then again, this is a piece of propaganda, and facts can be conveniently excluded whenever necessary. A few pages later by the way there is the introduction of Bolshevism being the invention of “International Judaism” and other anti-Semitic lies that was an attempt to perpetuate the fiction of the Nazis and the Allies working together to defeat Stalin and his Jewish co-conspirators in quest of world domination.. Besides the text supporting this stab-in-the-heart thinking is a horrible caricature of “international Jewry” combining with Bolshevism and Freemasonry (?) as a force out to capture the world.

Events antithetical to this propaganda were excluded–I did check out some of the numbers for the battle represented below (like Smolensk and Vizma (Moscow) and those are correct…these battles were mainly fought in 1941/early 1942 at which point the Nazi offensive was still going forward, so there’s not much from 1943. So numbers and events that supported the crucially insane claims of the pamphlet were used; everything else was ignored or re-packaged with false data and employed.

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Bad Ideas — Maps/Diagrams of Imagination & Ideas — World War II
Social Life on the pre-Internet (1922)

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The “pre-Internet” here of course is radio, just as the wired telegraph was the pre-radio, and so on down the turtle stack, and these images and stories from Illustrated World from 1922 celebrate the newness of that invention. The thing about radio though was that the makings for commercial broadcast radio were in place for a good solid decade–maybe even 15 years–before the bright idea landed within someone to broadcast on radio out into the rest of the U.S. That first honor belongs to KDKA, using Westinghouse equipment and operating from “east Pittsburgh” on November 2, 1920, and discussing the presidential election returns for the Harding-Cox context…and delivering the news so that people could hear it before they read it. By the time these covers appear in IW radio broadcasting was two years deep, and the idea of expanding the medium’s scope was certainly presenting itself–people had gotten married and played checkers before remotely by telegraph, but with some time-lag; and certainly there was no sound involved. This was pretty hot stuff in 1922, a real barometric increase in the possibilities of electronics. (By the way, just two years later, in 1924, there would be 600 commercial broadcast stations, and another three years later RCA would found NBC and go nation-wide.)

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Anticipation, History of — Technology, History of
A Crowd of Smiles (1945)

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I’ve written a number of posts on this blog on dense crowd imagery in photographs–parades, armies, union marches, protests, celebrations, work environments, and so on,not the least of which are the famous Weegee million-person-Coney-Island beach scenes. (All of these are findable via the Google search box at right.) Today’s installment is the back cover of a small pamphlet called Your City, a Handbook for the Citizens of Liverpool, which is a short guide to the nuts-and-bolts of living there. The remarkable thing about the dense crowd photo is that so many of the people are smiling, which to my experience is not a common thing. Since this pamphlet was published in October 1945 my guess is that the crowd formed in celebration for the end of WWII in Europe or Japan, resulting in this photograph of 2,000 smiles.

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Books–Great Cover Art