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Research Results For 'Pulley'

TORTURE OF JOHN COUSTOS

John Coustos was accused of the crime of freemasonry and in 1743 was imprisoned by the Inquisition of Lisbon, surviving the ordeal he documented what occurred. Refusing to divulge the secrets of his order, Coustos was taken to the torture chamber. Stripped of everything but his underpants, he was fixed on his back on the rack, his neck enclosed in an iron collar, and his feet attached to two rings. Two ropes the size of a man's little finger were wound around each arm and leg and passed through holes made for the purpose in the rack. The ropes were drawn tight by the executioners, cutting through the flesh to the bone, and causing blood to gush out from the wounds made. According to Coustos the 'executioners bent their strength to the task four different times' and at the fourth time their victim fainted through the loss of blood and pain.

After he was allowed to recuperate for six weeks, Coustos was again brought to the torture chamber. This time the procedure was somewhat different. He was made to stretch out his arms with the palms of his hands turned outwards. His wrists were tied, and then a machine gradually drew his hands together behind him until the backs of them touched. This was repeated twice more, and in the process his shoulders were dislocated and blood gushed from his mouth. He was taken back to his dungeon, and his bones were set by surgeons. Two months later Coustos was back in the torture chamber. This time a thick iron chain was passed twice around his body, crossing over his stomach. The chain terminated in rings which were fastened to his wrists. He was then placed against a thick wooden partition, at each end of which was a pulley. Ropes were fastened to the rings on his wrists and run through the pulleys, the other ends being fixed to a roller. This roller being set in motion, the ropes gradually tightened, pulling the chain tighter across his stomach until it bit into his flesh and pulled his wrists out of joint and dislocated his shoulders. The surgeons again set his bones, and after the wounds had healed Coustos was tortured the same way again. Through it all Coustos remained silent. Failing to get answers from him, the Inquisition sentenced Coustos to four years service as a galley- slave and banished him from the country.
Research Torture of John Coustos

ARCHIMEDES

Archimedes was a great ancient Greek mathematician and physicist. He was born about 287 BC at Syracuse, in Sicily. He devoted himself entirely to science, and enriched mathematics with discoveries of the highest importance, upon which the moderns have founded their admeasurements of curvilinear surfaces and solids. Archimedes is the only one among the ancients who has left us anything satisfactory on the theory of mechanics and on hydrostatics. He first taught the hydrostatic principle to which his name is attached, that a body immersed in a fluid loses as much in weight as the weight of an equal volume of the fluid, and determined by means of it that an artist had fraudulently added too much alloy to a crown which King Hiero had ordered to be made of pure gold. He discovered the solution of this problem while bathing; and it is said to have caused him so much joy that he hastened home from the bath undressed, and crying out, Eureka! Eureka ! I have found it! I have found it! Practical mechanics also received a great deal of attention from Archimedes, who boasted that if he had a fulcrum or standpoint he could move the world. He is the inventor of the compound pulley, probably of the endless screw, the archimedean screw, etc. During the siege of Syracuse by the Romans he is said to have constructed many wonderful machines with which he repelled their attacks, and he is stated to have set on fire their fleet by burning-glasses! At the moment when the Romans gained possession of the city by assault in 212 BC tradition relates that Archimedes was slain while sitting in the market-place contemplating some mathematical figures which he had drawn in the sand.
Research Archimedes

GEORGE ATTWOOD

George Attwood F.R.S. was an English mathematician. He was born in 1745 and died in 1807. He is best known by his invention, called after him Attwood's Machine, for verifying the laws of falling bodies. It consists essentially of a freely moving pulley over which runs a fine cord with two equal weights suspended from the ends. A small additional weight is laid upon one of them, causing it to descend with uniform acceleration. Means are provided by which the added weight can be removed at any point of the descent, thus allowing the motion to continue from this point onward with uniform velocity.
Research George Attwood

ARM

The arm is the upper limb in man, connected with the thorax or chest by means of the scapula or shoulder-blade, and the clavicle or collar-bone. It consists of three bones, the arm-bone (Humerus), and the two bones of the forearm (radius and ulna), and it is connected with the bones of the hand by the carpus or wrist. The head or upper end of the arm-bone fits into the hollow called the glenoid cavity of the scapula, so as to form a joint of the ball-and-socket kind, allowing great freedom of movement to the limb. The lower end of the humerus is broadened out by a projection on both the outer and inner sides (the outer and inner condyles), and has a pulley-like surface for articulating with the fore-arm to form the elbow-joint. This joint somewhat resembles a hinge, allowing of movement only in one direction. The ulna is the inner of the two bones of the fore-arm. It is largest at the upper end, where it has two processes, the coronoid and the olecranon, with a deep groove between to receive the humerus. The radius - the outer of the two bones - is small at the upper and expanded at the lower end, where it forms part of the wrist-joint. The muscles of the upper arm are either flexors or extensors, the former serving to bend the arm, the latter to straighten it by means of the elbow-joint. The main flexor is the biceps, the large muscle which may be seen standing out in front of the arm when a weight is raised. The chief opposing muscle of the biceps is the triceps. The muscles of the fore-arm are, besides flexors and extensors, pronators and supinators, the former turning the hand palm downwards, the latter turning it upwards. The same fundamental plan of structure exists in the limbs of all vertebrate animals.
Research Arm

AVERRUNCATOR

An averruncator is a garden implement for pruning trees without a ladder, consisting of two blades similar to stout shears, one fixed rigidly to a long handle, and the other moved by a lever to which a cord passing over a pulley is attached.
Research Averruncator

BAROMETER

A barometer is a device for measuring atmospheric pressure and thus determining changes in the weather, the height of mountains, and other phenomena. The basic principle behind the barometer is the discovery in 1643 by Torricelli, that atmospheric pressure might be counterpoised by a column of mercury standing as high in proportion to the thirty-four feet that water in similar circumstances stands, as the specific gravity of water is to that of mercury. Pascal confirmed the conclusions of Torricelli in 1645; six years afterwards it was found by Perrier that the height of the mercury in the Torricellian tube varied with the weather; and, in 1665, Boyle proposed to use the instrument to measure the height of mountains. Various types of barometer have been invented, among the most common being the cistern barometer, Gay-Lussac's barometer and the aneroid barometer.

The common or cistern barometer, which is a modification of the Torricellian tube, consists of a glass tube 33 inches in length and about one-third of an inch in diameter, hermetically sealed at the top, and having the lower end resting in a small vessel containing mercury, or bent upwards and terminating in a glass bulb partly occupied by the mercury and open to the atmosphere. The tube is first filled with purified mercury, and then inverted, and there is affixed to it a scale to mark the height of the mercurial column, which comparatively seldom rises above 31 or sinks below 28 inches. In general the rising of the mercury presages fair weather, and its falling the contrary, a great and sudden fall being the usual presage of a storm. The weather-points on the ordinary barometric scale are as follows: - At 28 inches, stormy weather; 28.5, much rain or snow; 29, rain or snow; 29.5, changeable; 30 fair or frost; 30.5, settled fair or frost; 31. very dry weather or hard frost. Certain attendant signs, however, have also to be noted: thus, when fair or foul weather follows almost immediately upon the rise or fall of the mercury, the change is usually of short duration; while if the change of weather be delayed for some days after the variation in the mercury, it is usually of long continuance. The direction of the wind has also to be taken into account.

The siphon barometer consists of a bent tube, generally of uniform bore, having two unequal legs, the longer closed, the shorter open. A sufficient quantity of mercury having been introduced to fill the longer leg, the instrument is set upright, and the mercury takes such a position that the difference of the levels in the two legs represents the pressure of the atmosphere. In the best siphon barometers there are two scales, one for each leg, the divisions on one being reckoned upwards, and on the other downwards from an intermediate zero point, so that the sum of the two readings is the difference of levels of the mercury in the two branches.

The wheel barometer is the one that was most commonly used for domestic purposes before the computer age. It was far from being accurate, but it was often preferred for ordinary use on account of the greater range of its scale, by which small differences in the height of the column of mercury were more easily observed. It usually consisted of a siphon barometer, having a float resting on the surface of the mercury in the open branch, a thread attached to the float passing over a pulley, and having a weight as a counterpoise to the float at its extremity. As the mercury rose and fell the thread and weight turned the pulley, which again moved the index of the dial.

The mountain barometer was a portable mercurial barometer with a tripod support and a long scale for measuring the altitude of mountains. To prevent breakage, through the oscillations of such a heavy liquid as mercury, it was usually carried inverted, or it was furnished with a movable basin and a screw, by means of which the mercury could be forced up to the top of the tube. for delicate operations, such as the measurement of altitudes, the scale of the barometer was furnished with a nonius or vernier, which greatly increased the minuteness and accuracy of the scale. For the rough estimate of altitudes the following rule was sufficient: - As the sum of the heights of the mercury at the bottom and top of the mountain is to their difference, so is 52,000 to the height to be measured, in feet. In exact barometric observations two corrections require to be made, one for the depression of the mercury in the tube by capillary attraction, the other for temperature, which increases or diminishes the bulk of the mercury. In regard to the measurement of heights the general rule is to subtract the ten-thousandth part of the observed altitude for every degree of Fahrenheit above 32 degrees.

In the aneroid barometer, as its name implies (the name coming from the Greek a, not, neros, liquid), no fluid was employed, the action being dependent upon the susceptibility to atmospheric pressure shown by a flat circular metallic chamber from which the air had been partially exhausted, and which has a flexible top and bottom of corrugated metal plate. By an ingenious arrangement of springs and levers the depression or elevation of the surface of the box was registered by an index on the dial, by which means it was also greatly magnified, being given in inches to correspond with the mercurial barometer. Aneroids are, however, generally less reliable than mercurial barometers, with which they were recommended to be frequently compared.
Research Barometer

CRANE

A crane is a machine for raising great weights and depositing them at some distance from their original place, for example, raising bales from the hold of a ship and depositing them on the quay. Cranes are generally constructed on the principle of the wheel and axle, cog-wheel, or wheel and pinion. A very efficient wheel-and-pinion crane much used on quays consists of a jib or transverse beam, inclined to the vertical at an angle of from 40 degrees to 50 degrees, which, by means of a collar, turns on a vertical shaft. The upper end of the jib carries a fixed pulley, and the lower end a cylinder, which is put in motion by a wheel and pinion. The weight is made fast to a rope or chain which passes over the pulley and is wound round the cylinder. On turning the cylinder (either by a winch handle attached to the wheel which works in the pinion, or by the application of a motor) the weight is raised as far as necessary. The jib is then turned on its arbor until the weight is brought immediately over the spot where it is to be deposited, and the moving power is withdrawn so as to allow the weight to descend by its own gravity.
Research Crane

DERRICK

Picture of Derrick

A derrick is a lofty, portable, temporary, crane-like structure consisting of a single post or pole, supported by stays and guys, to which a boom with a pulley or pulleys is attached, used in loading and unloading vessels, etc. They were invented in 1857 by Bishop for raising sunken vessels and named after the 17th century Tyburn hangman, Derrick.
Research Derrick

FUNICULAR RAILWAY

A funicular railway is a railway for transporting passengers up a steep incline. They often run on the principle of balance, two carriages of equal weight being joined by a long cable which passes over a pulley at the upper end. Small power is required at the pulley to bring one car up the slope while the other descends.
Research Funicular Railway

V-22 OSPREY

Picture of V-22 Osprey

The V-22 Osprey is an American joint service, medium lift, multi-mission tilt-rotor aircraft developed by Boeing and Bell Helicopters. The V-22 Osprey is powered by two Allison T406-AD-400 turboshafts which allow for vertical and short take-off and landing (V/STOL) with 24 combat equipped troops, dual-hook external loads up to 15000 lbs, cruise speeds in excess of 582 kmh, and a mission radius exceeding 200 nautical miles. The helicopter is self-deployable world wide with a ferry range over 3892 km. The normal operating range is up to 2224 km. The aircraft operates as a helicopter when taking off and landing vertically. The nacelles rotate 90 degrees forward once airborne, converting the aircraft into a turboprop aircraft. The aircraft can provide VTOL with a payload of 24 troops, or 6000 lbs of cargo at 430 nautical miles combat range, or VTOL with a payload of 8300 lbs of cargo for a range of 220 nautical miles.

The tilt-rotor aircraft is available in three configurations for the US Joint Services Operational Requirements: the Combat Assault and Assault Support MV-22
for the US Marine Corps and the US Army, the long range Special Operations CV-22 for US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) and the US Navy HV-22, for combat search and rescue, special warfare and fleet logistic support. The main cabin which measures 6 x 6 x 24 ft, is fitted with crash-resistant foldaway seats, arranged twelve on each side and inward facing, for 24 fully equipped troops. For the medical evacuation role the cabin can accommodate 12 litters (stretcher patients) and a team of medical officers. The cargo handling equipment includes a cargo winch and pulley rated at 2,000 lbs. Roller rails and shock absorbing cargo tie down rings are fitted on the cabin floor. The main door is on the right of the fuselage immediately behind the cockpit and a rear loading ramp door at the back of the fuselage is operated hydraulically with actuators.
Research V-22 Osprey

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