La meccanica: scienza delle macchine

Le prime righe

Copyright, Ewing Galloway The drop forge. A fourteen-ton hydraulic press is employed in forging an immense open hearth steel plate. Popular Science Library EDITOR-IN-CHIEF GARRETT P. SERVISS AUTHORS WILLIAM J. MILLER HIPPOLYTE GRUENER A. RUSSELL BOND D. W. HERING LOOMIS HAVEMEYER ERNEST G. MARTIN ARTHUR SELWYN-BROWN ROBERT CHENAULT GIVLER ERNEST INGERSOLL WILFRED MASON BARTON WILLIAM B. SCOTT ERNEST J. STREUBEL NORMAN TAYLOR DAVID TODD CHARLES FITZHUGH TALMAN ROBIN BEACH ARRANGED IN SIXTEEN VOLUMES WITH A HISTORY OF SCIENCE, GLOSSARIES AND A GENERAL INDEX ILLUSTRATED VOLUME FIVE P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY NEW YORK Copyright 1922 By P. F. Collier & Son Company MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A. MECHANICS The Science of Machinery BY A. RUSSELL BOND Formerly Managing Editor, Scientific American P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY NEW YORK PREFACE ALTHOUGH strictly speaking the term “Mechanics” applies to that branch of Physics that deals with the actions of forces on material bodies, originally the word had a broader meaning embracing all machinery and mechanical inventions. To-day popular usage is restoring to the term its original broad interpretation, and it is in this popular but rather unorthodox sense that “Mechanics” has been chosen as the title of this book; for although certain elementary principles of mechanics are described and explained, the major portion of the book deals with machines and their evolution to their present stage of perfection. Machines are man’s creation, and yet in a sense the man of to-day is a machine product; for modern civilization owes its material and in large measure its esthetic development to machinery. The story of machinery, from primitive man’s first attempts to augment his physical powers with mechanical aids down to the present era of gigantic,