In 1930 he [Whittle] patented his design for the world’s first jet engine. The Genius of Invention II: Speed, BBC 2013
Suck – Squeeze – Bang – Blow = thrust out the back. ibid.
The modern jet engine contains thousands of parts. ibid.
The systems engineering method recognizes each system is an integrated whole even though composed of diverse, specialized structures and sub-functions. It further recognizes that any system has a number of objectives and that the balance between them may differ widely from system to system. The methods seek to optimize the overall system functions according to the weighted objectives and to achieve maximum compatibility of its parts. Harold Chestnut, Systems Engineering Tools
How did the Romans manage to defy gravity and make millions of litres of water flow uphill over mountains? How did the ancient Egyptians carve massive granite obelisks thousands of years before the Washington monument was built? And why would the Roman army build their own mountain? Monuments more colossal than our own … The ancient world was far from primitive. Ancient Impossible s1e1: Moving Mountains, H2 2016
The Romans completed the wall around Masada in just a few days. But what they didn’t realise was how well stocked the rebels were. ibid.
How do you get a thousand-ton obelisk on to a barge? … [A. Make it an axle] ibid.
Roman engineers kept the water moving through hills and valleys maintaining a steady gradient of less than one per cent. An astounding feat … uphill: the inverted syphon … ibid.
It covers over sixty thousand square feet and consists of a hundred and thirty-four columns in sixteen rows; most of them are fifty-feet high. The twelve central columns stand an incredible eighty-feet tall. The Hall is one of the greatest achievements of ancient Egyptian engineering. Ramesses the Great
The Romans brought their superior engineering skills to bear. When Rome Ruled Egypt, Discovery 2008
To ensure a constant water supply they had to dig deep. ibid.
To those who began the revolution in Russia seventy-five years ago science was a grand liberating force. They believed Karl Marx had discovered the scientific laws of society which they would now use to unlock the gates to a new world where everyone would be equal and free. But within twenty years the revolution was taken over by technocrats who looked down on the crowd below as though they were atoms. They were inspired not by Marx but by the laws of engineering. They believed they could transform the Soviet Union into a giant rational machine which they would run for their political masters. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box I: The Engineer’s Plot: A Fable From the Age of Science, BBC 1992
This is a story of science and political power. How the Bolshevik’s vision of using science to change the world was itself transformed. What resulted was a strange experiment far removed from the original aims of the revolution. From the beginning of the revolution, modern technology was central to the Bolsheviks’ plans. Above all, the new power of electricity. ibid.
The aim of the Bolsheviks was to transform the people they ruled into what they called ‘scientific beings’, people able to understand and control the machines of the modern world rather than become enslaved to them. ibid.
The people to shape the future Soviet Union was passing to those who could build the new industrial society the Bolsheviks wanted so much. They were known as the bourgeois specialists, engineers from before the revolution who had the skills needed to master the modern technology. ibid.
At the end of 1930 the engineers’ dream suddenly became a nightmare: Stalin ordered two-thousand of them to be arrested, and eight of the most senior were put on a public show-trial. ibid.
‘Bolsheviks must master technology. It is time for the Bolsheviks themselves to become specialists. In the reconstruction period, technology decides everything.’ ibid. Stalin
He [Stalin] ordered engineering schools to be set up across the country to thousands of the young party faithful. ibid.
The model for this new simplified world was American … Gary, Indiana, is almost derelict. But seventy years ago it was a new kind of model city planned in an ordered way around a giant steel mill. To its builders it was a chance to break with the complexities of the past. ibid.
Those who lived in the American City were the new elite: a mixture of old Bolshevik commissars, foreign technicians and an ever increasing number of young red engineers. By the mid-30s the engineers had become the heroes in Soviet society. Praised by Stalin, they flaunted their new status. ibid.
In 1937 Stalin began another series of purges. This time his targets were the tens of thousands of old Bolsheviks. ibid.
It was a vision of a planned Utopia. Everything in the new Russia was to be designed and controlled from the centre of Moscow. ibid.
By the early ’50s vast reconstruction projects had changed the face of Soviet cities. ibid.
For over a 100 years Rolls Royce has been a British icon. Known for unparalleled luxury and classic design, loved by royals and the rich and famous. This is the story of Britain’s most iconic engineering firm. Rolls Royce: Dream Machine, Channel 5 2018
Rolls Royce started with two men: Charles Rolls and Henry Royce; they were unlikely business partners. ibid.
Their jet engines power the greatest airliners. ibid.
The car business suffered in post-war austerity Britain. ibid.
In the hidden world beneath London an army of 4,000 workers is attempting to build the biggest sewer in Britain’s history: seven metres wide and twenty miles long, the enormous tunnel will run directly beneath the River Thames. The five-billion-pound tunnel is urgently needed. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer I, BBC 2018
A project first mooted almost twenty years ago. ibid.
London’s excess sewage has to go somewhere so to stop it backing up into people’s homes it’s released into the Thames. ibid.
London’s Victorian sewers are a labyrinth of more than 500 miles of interconnecting tunnels. Parts of the network have never been accurately surveyed. ibid.
If successful, the new super-sewer will capture this waste and transfer it to Europe’s largest treatment works east of the city. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer II
Jim must scan every inch of the 20-mile stretch of the Thames to complete the underwater map. ibid.
Every day over 30 tonnes of wet-wipes are flushed down London’s loos. ibid.
During tunnelling, engineers plan to excavate over 40,000 tonnes of earth every week. ibid.
The most important part of the machine is the cutter-head; it’s been built specifically based on the predictions of what the earth will be like sixty metres bellow the Thames. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer III
Sixty metres below the assembly team’s feet deep underground in Battersea excavators have been battling through the tough ground. ibid.
In the long reign of a single Queen, Britain changed the world and was itself utterly transformed. Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837; by the time she died in 1901 we had built the modern world. It was a time of outstanding engineering, remarkable innovation, all of it driven by ambitious pioneers. It shaped the country we live in today. Michael Buerk, How the Victorians Built Britain s1e1, Channel 5 2018
A radical new transport system was carved out of London; how engineers wrestled to run steam trains underground. ibid.
A new rival vehicle came to London … The rails that carried the trams were slightly raised above the roads. Everything changed in 1868: a company in Liverpool obtained a local act to introduce tram lines to their city … A horsedrawn tram could pull up to fifty passengers. ibid.
Britain was in the grip of a public health catastrophe … The main cause was dirty water and raw sewage. How the Victorians Built Britain s1e2: Saving the Nation’s Health
A sophisticated network of pipes and tunnels beneath our streets – the sewers. ibid.
Construction began on Newlands’ Liverpool sewer in 1849 … The pioneering sewer took 21 years to complete. ibid.
Bazalgette’s scheme didn’t just change the shape of London, he’d eradicated diseases like cholera for ever, and had transformed the lives of London’s inhabitants. ibid.
The Victorians harnessed the power of gas and electricity for the home … Domestic appliances became the must-have items of the day. How the Victorians Built Britain s1e3: The Making of the Modern Home
In the 60 years of her reign the population of Britain doubled. ibid.
Gas street lighting spread out from London across the rest of the country. ibid.
The Great Exhibition was the very first international presentation of manufactured products. It was organised by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, and held in a purpose-built crystal palace in Hyde Park. ibid.