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Pykrete
Pykrete is a frozen ice composite, originally made of approximately 14% sawdust or some other form of wood pulp (such as paper) and 86% ice by weight (6 to 1 by weight). During World War II, Geoffrey Pyke proposed it as a candidate material for a supersized aircraft carrier for the British Royal Navy. Pykrete features unusual properties, including a relatively slow melting rate due to its low thermal conductivity, as well as a vastly improved strength and toughness compared to ordinary ice. These physical properties can make the material comparable to concrete, as long as the material is kept frozen. Pykrete is slightly more difficult to form than concrete, as it expands during the freezing process. However, it can be repaired and maintained using seawater as a raw material. The mixture can be moulded into any shape and frozen, and it will be tough and durable, as long as it is kept at or below freezing temperature. Resistance to gradual creep or sagging is improved by lowering ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Habakkuk
Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies) was a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice) for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time. The plan was to create what would have been the largest ship ever at 600 m long and would indeed have been much bigger than even USS ''Enterprise'', the largest naval vessel ever, at 342 m long.The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke, who worked for Combined Operations Headquarters. After promising scale tests and the creation of a prototype on Patricia Lake, Jasper National Park, in Alberta, Canada, the project was shelved due to rising costs, added requirements, and the availability of longer-range aircraft and escort carriers which closed the Mid-Atlantic gap that the project was intended to address. History Initial concept Geoffrey Pyke was an old friend of J. D. Bernal and ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Pyke
Geoffrey Nathaniel Joseph Pyke (9 November 1893 – 21 February 1948) was an English journalist, educationalist, and inventor. Pyke came to public attention when he escaped from internment in Germany during World War I. He had travelled to Germany under a false passport, and was soon arrested and interned. During the Second World War, Pyke proposed the newly invented material, pykrete, for the construction of the ship Habakkuk. Early life Pyke's father, Lionel Edward Pyke, was a Jewish lawyer who died when Pyke was only five, leaving his family with no money. His mother quarrelled with relatives and made life "hell" for her children. She sent Pyke to Wellington, then a public school mainly for the sons of Army officers. At his mother's insistence, Pyke maintained the dress and habits of an Orthodox Jew. He became an atheist when he was thirteen. The persecution he suffered instilled in him a hatred of and contempt for "The Establishment". After two years at Wellington, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Perutz
Max Ferdinand Perutz (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002) was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went on to win the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes. Perutz's contributions to molecular biology in Cambridge are documented in ''The History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 (1870 to 1990)'' published by the Cambridge University Press in 1992. Early life and education Perutz was born in Vienna, the son of Adele "Dely" (Goldschmidt) and Hugo Perutz, a textile manufacturer. His parents were Jewish by ancestry, but had baptised Perutz in the Catholic religion. Although Perutz rejected religion and was an atheist in his later year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smithfield, London
Smithfield, properly known as West Smithfield, is a district located in Central London, part of Farringdon Without, the most westerly ward of the City of London, England. Smithfield is home to a number of City institutions, such as St Bartholomew's Hospital and livery halls, including those of the Butchers' and Haberdashers' Companies. The area is best known for the Smithfield meat market, which dates from the 10th century, has been in continuous operation since medieval times, and is now London's only remaining wholesale market. Smithfield's principal street is called ''West Smithfield'', and the area also contains London's oldest surviving church, St Bartholomew-the-Great, founded in AD 1123. The area has borne witness to many executions of heretics and political rebels over the centuries, as well as Scottish knight Sir William Wallace, and Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasants' Revolt, among many other religious reformers and dissenters. Smithfield Market, a Grade II li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ice Dome - Foto Bart Van Overbeeke 28484
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color. In the Solar System, ice is abundant and occurs naturally from as close to the Sun as Mercury to as far away as the Oort cloud objects. Beyond the Solar System, it occurs as interstellar ice. It is abundant on Earth's surfaceparticularly in the polar regions and above the snow lineand, as a common form of precipitation and deposition, plays a key role in Earth's water cycle and climate. It falls as snowflakes and hail or occurs as frost, icicles or ice spikes and aggregates from snow as glaciers and ice sheets. Ice exhibits at least eighteen phases ( packing geometries), depending on temperature and pressure. When water is cooled rapidly (quenching), up to three types of amorphous ice can form depending on its hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sawdust
Sawdust (or wood dust) is a by-product or waste product of woodworking operations such as sawing, sanding, milling, planing, and routing. It is composed of small chippings of wood. These operations can be performed by woodworking machinery, portable power tools or by use of hand tools. Wood dust is also the byproduct of certain animals, birds and insects which live in wood, such as the woodpecker and carpenter ant. In some manufacturing industries it can be a significant fire hazard and source of occupational dust exposure. Sawdust, as particulates, is the main component of particleboard. Research on health hazards comes from the field of occupational safety and health, and study of ventilation happens in indoor air quality engineering. Formation Two waste products, dust and chips, form at the working surface during woodworking operations such as sawing, milling and sanding. These operations both shatter lignified wood cells and break out whole cells and groups of cells. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ice Dome - Foto Bart Van Overbeeke 28453
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color. In the Solar System, ice is abundant and occurs naturally from as close to the Sun as Mercury to as far away as the Oort cloud objects. Beyond the Solar System, it occurs as interstellar ice. It is abundant on Earth's surfaceparticularly in the polar regions and above the snow lineand, as a common form of precipitation and deposition, plays a key role in Earth's water cycle and climate. It falls as snowflakes and hail or occurs as frost, icicles or ice spikes and aggregates from snow as glaciers and ice sheets. Ice exhibits at least eighteen phases ( packing geometries), depending on temperature and pressure. When water is cooled rapidly (quenching), up to three types of amorphous ice can form depending on its hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City Of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the modern area named London has since grown far beyond the City of London boundary. The City is now only a small part of the metropolis of Greater London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, the City of London is not one of the London boroughs, a status reserved for the other 32 districts (including Greater London's only other city, the City of Westminster). It is also a separate ceremonial county, being an enclave surrounded by Greater London, and is the smallest ceremonial county in the United Kingdom. The City of London is widely referred to simply as the City (differentiated from the phrase "the city of London" by ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinforced Concrete
Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ductility. The reinforcement is usually, though not necessarily, steel bars ( rebar) and is usually embedded passively in the concrete before the concrete sets. However, post-tensioning is also employed as a technique to reinforce the concrete. In terms of volume used annually, it is one of the most common engineering materials. In corrosion engineering terms, when designed correctly, the alkalinity of the concrete protects the steel rebar from corrosion. Description Reinforcing schemes are generally designed to resist tensile stresses in particular regions of the concrete that might cause unacceptable cracking and/or structural failure. Modern reinforced concrete can contain varied reinforcing materials made of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floating Island
A floating island is a mass of floating aquatic plants, mud, and peat ranging in thickness from several centimeters to a few meters. Floating islands are a common natural phenomenon that are found in many parts of the world. They exist less commonly as an artificial phenomenon. Floating islands are generally found on marshlands, lakes, and similar wetland locations, and can be many hectares in size. Natural occurrences Sometimes referred to as ''tussocks'', ''floatons'', or ''suds'', natural floating islands are composed of vegetation growing on a buoyant mat of plant roots or other organic detritus. In aquatic regions of Northwestern Europe several hundred hectares or thousand acres of floating meadows (German ''Schwingrasen'', Dutch ''trilveen'') have been preserved, which are partly used as agricultural land, partly as nature reserves. They typically occur when growths of cattails, bulrush, sedge, and reeds extend outward from the shoreline of a wetland area. As the wate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the leader of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. He built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended in victory shortly after he died in office. Born into the prominent Roosevelt family in Hyde Park, New York, he graduated from both Groton School and Harvard College, and attended Columbia Law Scho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chequers
Chequers ( ), or Chequers Court, is the country house of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. A 16th-century manor house in origin, it is located near the village of Ellesborough, halfway between Princes Risborough and Wendover in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills. It is about north-west of central London. Coombe Hill, once part of the estate, is located northeast. Chequers has been the country home of the serving Prime Minister since 1921 after the estate was given to the nation by Sir Arthur Lee by a Deed of Settlement, given full effect in the Chequers Estate Act 1917. The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England. Origin of the name The name "Chequers" may derive from an early owner of the manor of Ellesborough in the 12th century, Elias Ostiarius (or de Scaccario). The name "Ostiarius" meant an usher of the Court of the Exchequer and ''scacchiera'' means a chessboard in Italian. Elias Ostiarius's coat of ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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