Four Engineers and a
Mathematician
ESE 251
HARRY WONG
Joseph Louis Lagrange
 Born in Italy during the mid-1700s
 Inspired by a paper by Edmund Halley to enter mathematics while
studying at Turin College in Italy
 Later studied under Euler and eventually succeeded him as
director of Mathematics at the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
 Moved to France in 1786
Survived the French Revolution
 Reformed the systems of weights & measurements in France to
what is currently used today
 Made significant advances in diverse fields of mathematics

Achievements of Lagrange
 Method of undetermined coefficients
 Very useful technique developed by Lagrange
 A method for finding solutions to inhomogenous differential
equations
 Lagrange Multipliers
 Used often in optimization problems
 In number theory
 Proved every positive integer can be expressed as the sum of
the squares of four other integers
Death
Died in 1813 and was Buried in the Pantheon
Leonardo Da Vinci
 Born in 1452 – Florence
 To a notary and peasant
 Phenomenal individual who accomplished many
things as…….
Paintings
A painter…
1452 - Tempera
1505 – Oil on poplar
Anatomy
An anatomist….
Extremely detailed
drawings of body
parts via dissection
Da Vinci the Engineer
 And most importantly – as an engineer
 Made technical drawings/designs for machines way
ahead of their times
The Helicopter
 It consisted of a flat platform
with a screw running through it


Instead of rotor blades seen in
modern helicopters
Had no real hope of actually taking
flight
 Inspired Sikorsky - “father of
helicopters” to start building
helicopters

Made first mass produced helicopter
Sketch of Leonardo’s
Ornithopter Flying Machine
Sikorsky’s Helicopter
Similar concept
– use of rotors
instead of
screws to
generate lift
Igor Sikorsky
Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 – First mass produced helicopter
The Parachute
 First modern conical
parachute
 Linen cloths supported by
wooden poles
Testing of Leonardo’s Parachute
 In 2000, Adrian
Nicholas used the
canvas/wood design
set by Leonardo to
make a parachute
 Test jump from
10,000 feet was
successful
 Proved that
Leonardo’s design
worked!
Nikola Tesla
 A Serbian scientist born in Austria [1856]
 Trained as an electrical engineer
 Immigrated to the US in 1884
 Worked for Thomas Edison for a while

Completely redesigned its direct current generators
 Later formed his own company and made numerous
advances in physics, computer science, and robotics
 Died in 1943 after a long mental illness
 The unit for magnetic induction was named Tesla in
his honor
The Invention of The Radio
 Credit usually attributed to Marconi
 Tesla’s patent upheld by SCOTUS after death
 Used a high voltage resonance transformer [Tesla
Coil] to propagate radio waves
 And a rather bulky receiver consisting of a strong
magnet, a long steel wire, and various other
components (like an antenna)
 Used innovation to pilot a mechanical radiocontrolled boat
Other Achievements of Nikola Tesla
 Developed AC current (alternating current)
 Electric current can reverse direction sinusoidally
 Proved superior to DC
Transport electricity further at higher voltages
 Used for domestic energy distribution

 Developed induction motor
 AC motor
 Uses electromagnetic induction to get power to motor

“Electromagnetic induction is the production of voltage across a
conductor situated in a changing magnetic field or a conductor
moving through a stationary magnetic field.”
Charles Algernon Parsons
 Sir Charles Algernon Parsons was born in 1854


Graduated college with a degree in mathematics
Founded a company called C.A. Parsons and Company to market his
invention of steam-turbines

Company is now part of Siemens
 Died in 1931 in Jamaica
Achievements of Parsons
 Primarily known for his invention of steam turbines
 Uses pressurized steam to turn rotary blades producing energy
 Showcased the capabilities of this technology in the Turbina,
the first turbine-powered ship


Faster than any other ship at that time
Later used to power everything from locomotives to airplanes
Left: steam turbine
Right: Turbina
Achievements of Parsons Today
 Today, 80 percent of world electricity production is
done via a steam turbine driving a electric generator
Above: Generator powered by 3 steam turbines – 1000 MW
Alexander Graham Bell
 Born in 1847 in Scotland
 Had two other brothers who died of Tuberculosis
 He immigrated to the US in the 1870 to establish a school for the deaf for the
purpose of teaching them how to speak using special method set up by his father


One of the students was Helen Keller
Later abandoned the school to devote his full energy to the telephone
 Died in 1922
The Telephone
 Derived from Bell’s work on the harmonic telegraph


MAIN QUESTION: Can we use electric currents to represent sound
waves?
ANSWER: YES
 According to patent: the telephone was an "apparatus for
transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically”

Sound was converted into waves that were then transmitted by wires
Alexander Bell
speaking into a
telephone
prototype
The Metal Detector
 Developed the first metal detector
 Device that detects metals by electromagnetic induction
 Used to detect (unsuccessfully) the bullet lodged in President
Garfield’s body
Hydrofoil Boat
 Bell with Casey Baldwin created first hydrofoil boat
prototype

Based on the idea of hydroplanes
As speed of boat increases – hydrofoils lift boat steadily out of
water – the hydrofoils generate lift
 Allows the hydrofoil boat to reach amazing speeds
 Created the Bell HD-4 that could reach speeds of 71 MPH

Questions