Today in History – January 13, 1942 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile.

The plastic car Ford patented used soy-based plastics and was 25% to 33% lighter than conventional cars of his day. Ford’s dream was to use agricultural-based plastics to provide another market for farmers to sell their crops.

Sustainability in design is beginning to make a comeback as manufacturers are using recycled products in car interiors. However in today’s oil-conscious world, car manufacturers are focusing most heavily on hybrid vehicles and fuel diversity. A variety of new cars are equipped with engines that are designed to run on both traditional gasoline and an ethanol blend. And although many more plastics and composites are being used in cars, they are not of the type that Ford envisioned. A recent article in Business Week (“Lighter Cars Can Help the U.S. Kick Oil”) points out that vehicle weight has only risen over recent decades. A significant decrease in weight, like the one that Ford initially achieved, could be just as beneficial to fuel economy.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s related resources plastics and their applications. Or visit the Materials Engineering Education or the Mechanical Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History – December 16, 1915 – Albert Einstein publishes the General Theory of Relativity.

General Theory of relativity is a theory of gravity. Ninety-one years ago on this day he published his mathematical formula for the theory of relativity. The theory introduced the famous concept of gravitation and inertia equivalence, which in turns asserts ‘gravitation as a determiner of the curvature in a space-time continuum.’ It is obvious from the quote the complexity of this theorem and even to this day people have trouble grasping the concepts. His contribution of this theory has helped us better understand the fourth dimension known as time. The theory of relativity introduced concepts that changed the way we think of time and gravity, making it monumental in our history.

For related curricular resources, visit the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Einstein and relativity or the Nuclear Engineering Education community.

Today in History – December 15, 1939 – First commercial manufacture of nylon yarn. Wallace Hume Carothers led a team of researchers at DuPont to develop the world’s first totally synthetic fiber. Dupont turned their experimental laboratory in Wilmington, Delaware into a full-fledged industrial process and industry. Before the invention of nylon became a name associated with stockings, DuPont tested prototype machinery on a product called Dr. West’s Miracle-Tuft toothbrushes that had bristles made from nylon. DuPont kept the chemical nature of the new bristles secret during this trial period. The response was positive as consumers liked having a toothbrush that dried out between uses, unlike the old boar’s hair bristle brushes.

During World War II, nylon replaced Japanese silk for parachutes and tents. After World War II nylon and nylon composite products became popular for wind breakers, backpacking gear, lingerie, “wash and wear” clothing, carpeting, fishing line, rope, sails, automobile parts, and strings for musical instruments.

With concerns of global warming, environmental pollution and sustainable engineering, pervasive use of nylon has come under question, with estimates that 10% of the annual increase in atmospheric NOx may come from nylon production. New research in green chemistry and bioplastics emphasizes “developing economically viable products and processes that require fewer reagents, less solvent, and less energy than conventional processes, while being safer, generating less waste, and having a lower environmental impact”. Consumers are leading the way in demanding more environmentally friendly forms of nylon and alternatives.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Dupont and Nylon, as well as global warming, environmental pollution, and green chemistry. For related curricular resources, visit the Chemical Engineering Education or the Environmental Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

Also on this date in 1965, Gemini 6 launched and made first rendezvous in space with Gemini 7.

Today in History – November 14, 1985 – Fullerenes were first introduced in the journal Nature,. Earlier in September during 11 days of collaborative research, Robert F. Curl, Jr., Richard Smalley and Sir Harold W. Kroto discovered the first fullerene, C60, a spherical cluster of carbon atoms. The discovery was coined buckminsterfullerenes or buckyballs after famed architect Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes and molecularly-inspired architectural design concepts. Fullerenes opened a new branch of chemistry and all three men were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work. for their work. See the Engineering Pathway’s related engineering education resources in fullerenes and buckyballs.

For more on related curricular programs and educational resources visit the Biomolecular and Chemical Engineering Education or the Materials Engineering Education community sites. Or visit our resources on See the Engineering Pathway’s related engineering education resources on Buckminster Fuller an the Architectural Engineering Education community site.

Also on this date in 1896, the power plant at Niagara Falls joins long distance electric power grid. See related resources in hydroelectric power, electric power grids, as well as dam design, construction and safety.

Today in History – November 4, 1946 – Benjamin Palmer patents artificial leg technology. The leg had a relatively noiseless pliable joint that preserved its contour in all positions and contained tendons of gut and springs to give more elasticity, stength, durability and freedom of motion than previously available. It was by no means the first artificial leg, but was the first to be patented in the U.S. with these features. According to the inMotion website: the first written record of a prosthesis is the Rig-Veda, an ancient sacred poem of India written in Sanskrit between 3500 and 1800 B.C. The poem recounts the story of a warrior, Queen Vishpla, who lost her leg in battle, was fitted with an iron prosthesis, and returned to combat.

Today, biomedical engineering and bioengineering combine multiple fields of biology and engineering. Biomedical/Bio-engineers work closely with biologists, medical doctors and health practictioners to develop medical instruments, artificial organs, prosthetic devices, drug delivery systems, diagnostics and imaging systems, and tissue engineering. Our Biomedical and Bioengineering Education Community site has related news, events and curricular resources. Also see our resources for and about persons with disabilities in science and engineering.

Also on this date, Faraday discovered diamagnetism in 1845, the first cash register was patented by James and John Ritty in 1879 and African American Thomas Elkins patents an improved refrigerator design in 1879.

Today in History- October 21, 1824 – Portland cement is patented by Joseph Aspdin, a stone mason in Yorkshire, England (UK patent No. 5022). He made it by burning finely pulverized lime and clay at high temperatures in kilns and grinding the mixture into a powder. This hydraulic cement would then harden with the addition of water. The result was a manufactured counterpart to ancient (27 BC) Roman cement made from lime and volcanic ash. He named his invention “Portland cement” as it resembled the high quality building  stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the British coast.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Portland cement and concrete or visit the Civil Engineering Education, Construction Engineering Education or the Architectural Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History- October 9, 1936 – Hoover Dam goes online and begins transmitting electricity to Los Angeles. For over a decade afterwards, the Hoover power plant was the world’s largest hydroelectric installation in the U.S. with an installed capacity of 2.08 million kilowatts, generating more than 4 billion kilowatt-hours a year.

Hoover Dam was built at the height of the Depression and provided thousands of jobs for American workers.  To their credit, they completed the dam in less than five years – ahead of schedule and under budget.

Hoover Dam is a curved gravity dam with Lake Mead pushes one one side and Black Canyon on the other, creating large compressive forces. It is reported that there is enough concrete in Hoover Dam (4.5 million cubic yards) to build a two-lane road from Seattle, Washington, to Miami, Florida, or a four-foot-wide sidewalk around the Earth at the Equator. The chemical heat produced by the curing concrete was dissipated by ice water circulating through more than 580 miles of steel pipes embedded in the dam.  It is estimated that if the concrete had been allowed to cool naturally, it would still be warm to the touch!!

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on dam design and construction. or visit the Civil Engineering Education, Materials Engineering Education or the Electrical Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History – October 4, 1913 – Steel Treaters’ Club is founded. Before the steel industry was fully developed, steel treating was a trade controlled and carefully guarded by individual blacksmiths. When a blacksmith named William Woodside began working in the automotive industry, he recognized the need to exchange information within his profession. Through a meeting with 18 colleagues in the steel and automotive industries, he began the Steel Treaters’ Club. During World War I, it changed its name to the Steel Treating Research Society and in 1920 to the American Society for Steel Treating (ASST). ASST expands to include the complete range of manufacturing processes for all metals and in 1933 its name was changed to the one used today – the American Society for Metals (ASM).

The organization’s publications, Metals Progress Magazine and the Metals Handbook, became the preeminent technical publications in the field of metallurgy.

Over the next 50 years the society continued to expand in membership and technical expertise, eventually moving beyond metals to include things such as composites, ceramics, polymers and materials for the growing electronics industry. To reflect this expanding scope and vision, the society changes its name to ASM International in 1986.

Headquartered in Materials Park, OH, ASM International’s commitment to the materials community includes technical publications such as the Materials Handbook (now in its 20^th edition), short courses, technical seminars and workshops, educational outreach and scholarship opportunities.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s related resources on ASM and its affiliate societies. Or visit the Materials Engineering Education community site.

Today in History – September 29, 1954 – CERN convention ratified. A small number of scientists first envisioned CERN vision as an opportunity to bring nations together through science and build a world-class laboratory for nuclear and particle physics in Europe. CERN’s founding convention emphasized that that it should foster international collaboration, promote contacts between and interchange of scientists and make its results freely available through  advanced training and publications. “When the 12 founding Member States ratified the CERN convention on 29 September 1954,” explains CERN’s Director General Robert Aymar, “they gave the new organization a mission to provide first class facilities, to coordinate fundamental research in particle physics, and to help reunite the countries of Europe after two world wars.“ The official groundbreaking of the CERN laboratory occurred in Geneva on May 17, 1954.

Today, CERN has achieved its mission and more, hosting around half the world’s particle physicists, with  membership that includes 60 countries and 8,000 scientists; it boasts a large number of Nobel Laureates as well.  CERN supports the world’s largest set of complex scientific instruments so study the basic particles of matter and related energy releases when they collide.  “It is no accident,” says Aymar, “that many of the countries about to join the European Union are already members of CERN. Scientific collaboration has proved to be a valuable step on the way to collaboration at the political level.“

The 50th anniversary of CERN officially  began on 8 March 2004 with the launch of a Swiss postage stamp dedicated to CERN (see upper left figure).

More recently, CERN launched the Large Hadron Collider as the center for world-wide research on particle physics for the next decade.

CERN has also stimulated a number of other developments beyond fundamental particle physics. It was here that the World Wide Web was launched when CERN’s Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal titled: Information Management : a Proposal” in 1990.  His idea, later refined by collaborator Robert Cailiau, was to “merge the technologies of personal computer, computer networking and hpertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system“. The first web server in the U.S. came on-line in December 1991 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California.  The first browsers in the X-window system. The version called Mosaic published in 1993 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois became the version that was most widely used with its easy to use user interface and ability to run on a wide range of  computer platforms. The world’ first WWW conference was held at CERN in May 1994, attended by 400 users and developers. By the end of  1994, the Web had 10,000 servers and exponentially increasing traffic. The rest is history. In March 2009, CERN celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Web.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on the CERN and particle physics, including their educational site.  For related educational resources, visit the Engineering Science Education Community site. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – June 23, 1964 - Kilby patents the integrated circuit.

Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at the small Fairchild Semiconductor start-up company were both working on the concept of an integrated circuit in 1958. Prior to this invention, only parts of a circuit – such as the transistor – were fabricated using semiconductor technology.   Even though some of the other parts were composed of substrates using germanium or silicon, they were soldered together on other substrates to form the circuit.  The integrated circuit concept was to make all of the parts, such as the capacitors and resistors, and their connections out of silicon on a single chip. By September 12, Kilby had built a working model.

On February 6, 1959 Kilby applied for a patent and Texas Instruments was issued U.S. patent # 3,138,743 in 1964 for “Miniaturized electronic circuits”.

Noyce was aware of the work at Texas Instruments and was careful to improve on their design and submitted a more detailed patent application on July 30, 1959. On April 25, 1961, the patent office awarded Robert Noyce the first patent for an integrated circuit, while Kilby’s application was still being analyzed. Both Fairchild and Texas Instruments introduced commercial ICs  in 1961

Today, both men are acknowledged as having independently conceived of the idea and are given credit as the inventors of the integrated circuit. Kilby was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000. Most believe that Robert Noyce would have shared this prize had he been alive. (Nobel Prizes cannot be awarded posthumously.)

Jack Kilby is also well known as the inventor of the portable calculator in 1967 and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1970. Robert Noyce co-founded Intel in 1968.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on integrated circuits or view our Electrical Engineering Education community site.