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Topic Review
Magellan's Circumnavigation
In 1519, the Portuguese naval officer and explorer Ferdinand Magellan led a Spanish expedition to find a western route to the East Indies and reach the Moluccas or Spice Islands (in present day Indonesia) with a fleet known as the Armada de Molucca. After the death of Magellan in the Philippines in 1521 and following several other short-lived leaderships, Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano led the expedition to the Spice Islands and ultimately across the Indian Ocean and up the Atlantic ocean back to Spain, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the world in 1522. The expedition is therefore also known as the Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation. The goal of the expedition was to find a western route to the Moluccas (Spice Islands) and trade for spices. Magellan left Spain on 20 September 1519, sailed across the Atlantic, and discovered the strait that now bears his name, allowing him to pass through the southern tip of South America into the Pacific Ocean (which he named). The fleet performed the first ever crossing of the Pacific, stopping in what is today called the Philippines , and eventually reached the Moluccas, accomplishing its goal. A much-depleted crew finally returned to Spain on 6 September 1522. The fleet initially consisted of about 270 men and five ships: four carracks and one caravel. The expedition faced numerous hardships including mutinies, starvation, scurvy, storms, and hostile encounters with indigenous people. Magellan died in battle in the Philippine islands and was succeeded as captain-general by a series of officers, with Juan Sebastián Elcano leading the trip onward to Spain. He and seventeen other men in one ship (the Victoria) were the only ones to circumnavigate the globe. The expedition was funded mostly by King Charles I of Spain, with the hope that it would discover a profitable western route to the Moluccas, as the eastern route was controlled by Portugal under the Treaty of Tordesillas. Though the expedition did find a route, it was much longer and more arduous than expected, and was therefore not commercially useful. Nevertheless, the first circumnavigation has been regarded as a great achievement in seamanship, and had a significant impact on the European understanding of the world.
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Topic Review
Italia (Airship)
The Italia was a semi-rigid airship belonging to the Italian Air Force. It was used by Italian engineer and General Umberto Nobile in his second series of flights around the North Pole. It crashed in 1928, with one confirmed fatality from the crash, one fatality from exposure while awaiting rescue, and the death of six crew members who were trapped in the still-airborne envelope. At the end of the rescue operations there were 17 dead (crew and rescuers).
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Topic Review
Stall (Fluid Mechanics)
In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil as angle of attack increases. This occurs when the critical angle of attack of the foil is exceeded. The critical angle of attack is typically about 15 degrees, but it may vary significantly depending on the fluid, foil, and Reynolds number. Stalls in fixed-wing flight are often experienced as a sudden reduction in lift as the pilot increases the wing's angle of attack and exceeds its critical angle of attack (which may be due to slowing down below stall speed in level flight). A stall does not mean that the engine(s) have stopped working, or that the aircraft has stopped moving—the effect is the same even in an unpowered glider aircraft. Vectored thrust in manned and unmanned aircraft is used to surpass the stall limit, thereby giving rise to post-stall technology. Because stalls are most commonly discussed in connection with aviation, this article discusses stalls as they relate mainly to aircraft, in particular fixed-wing aircraft. The principles of stall discussed here translate to foils in other fluids as well.
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Topic Review
USS Wanderer (1857)
The first USS Wanderer was a high-speed schooner originally built for pleasure. It was used in 1858 to illegally import slaves from Africa. It was seized for service with the United States Navy during the American Civil War. In U.S. Navy service from 1861 to 1865, and under outright U.S. Navy ownership from 1863 to 1865, she was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat, as a tender, and as a hospital ship. She was decommissioned, put into merchant use, and lost off Cuba in 1871.
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Biography
Jack Kinzler
Jack Kinzler (January 9, 1920 – March 4, 2014) was a NASA engineer, the former chief of the Technical Services Center at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, known within the agency as Mr. Fix It.[1] He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for creating the solar shield that saved Skylab after the original micrometeoroid shield was lost during launch of the station. His other con
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Topic Review
Desalination in Mexico
Since the sixteenth century, water desalination systems have been developed. Mexico is a country that faces a severe water shortage, mainly due to its territorial extension, because the concentration of water resources is located in the southern zone of the country, while the main industrial activity is carried out in the north (which presents scarcity conditions). The distance and the technical limitations of transporting water between the northern and southern zones make water desalination the main tool to combat water stress in Mexico.
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Topic Review
Derailleur Gears
Derailleur gears are a variable-ratio transmission system commonly used on bicycles, consisting of a chain, multiple sprockets of different sizes, and a mechanism to move the chain from one sprocket to another. Although referred to as gears in the bike world, these bicycle gears are technically sprockets since they drive or are driven by a chain, and are not driven by one another. Modern front and rear derailleurs typically consist of a moveable chain-guide that is operated remotely by a Bowden cable attached to a shifter mounted on the down tube, handlebar stem, or handlebar. When a rider operates the lever while pedalling, the change in cable tension moves the chain-guide from side to side, "derailing" the chain onto different sprockets. For more information about the choice of particular gear ratios and sprocket sizes, see Bicycle gearing.
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Topic Review
Transactive Energy
Transactive energy is a highly effective technique for peers to exchange and trade energy resources. Several interconnected blocks, such as generation businesses, prosumers, the energy market, energy service providers, transmission and distribution networks, and so on, make up a transactive energy framework.
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Topic Review
TI MSP430
The MSP430 is a mixed-signal microcontroller family from Texas Instruments, first introduced on 14 February 1992. Built around a 16-bit CPU, the MSP430 is designed for low cost and, specifically, low power consumption embedded applications.
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Topic Review
Meunier Rifle
The Meunier rifle, known as the "Meunier A6" or "STA No. 8", evolved as a part of the program initiated in 1890 by the French military to develop a semi-automatic infantry rifle that would eventually replace the Mle 1886-93 Lebel rifle. Four government research establishments (STA, ENT, Puteaux and CTV) proposed over 20 prototypes. About half of them were based on recoil (both short recoil and long recoil) and the others were gas operated. This secret program was placed under the direction of General Naquet-Laroque who headed the Puteaux (APX) government arsenal.
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