Social Studies of Science

I.K. Brunel took the daring but carefully calculated decision to recommend the adoption of atmospheric propulsion on the South Devon Railway in 1844. The principle had been convincingly demonstrated in models and small-scale operation, and it offered attractive advantages on the heavy gradients between Exeter and Plymouth. However, the installation proved to be a costly failure for the South Devon Railway, and it was abandoned in 1848, when still incomplete. The immediate reasons for the failure were the problems involved in scaling up the atmospheric system for main-line operation, such as the maintenance of the pressure tube and its seal, and the provision of adequate pumping engines. But to some extent the atmospheric system was also overtaken by continuing improvements in steam locomotion, and in the long term any notional advantages the system may have possessed were surpassed by those provided by electric traction, so that there was no opportunity to give atmospheric railways another trial when the technical limitations had been overcome.

The life of Joseph Day (1855-1946) demonstrates the complexity of issues behind many `failed innovations'. His 1891 `invention', improved by Cock in 1892, greatly simplified the internal combustion engine. Hopes were high on its introduction that it would succeed in English engine markets which had just been liberalized by the lapse of the all-embracing Otto four-stroke patent. But English shareholders were uninterested in developing this new technology against the hegemony of the steam engine, and in any case its hoped-for market in England as a lightweight electricity generator failed to materialize. These market problems were hopelessly complicated by numerous lawsuits involving Day's activities as a company director. These helped to force Day into bankruptcy in 1893. Success only came as patent protection on the `valveless' engine was about to lapse. The engine had by then emerged as a perfect power unit for motor boats, since it was easily reversible, and had perfect power characteristics for water. The Day engine started to sell at first under licence. Day then attempted to find oil from shales in England. This risky speculation proved an ill-fated venture and first forced Day to abandon engineering, and then history to abandon him as well.

Prior to World War I, electric ploughs held great promise in Germany. They could carry out deep ploughing as well as, or better than, steam ploughs, and they promised to solve social and political problems, such as the increasing labour shortages east of the Elbe. But they found little success because, as with early tractors, agriculture had to be modified too much to make them work. Unlike tractors, electric ploughs did not prove to be flexible enough to fit the varied conditions of German agriculture.

This paper is devoted to the personality, scientific and social activities of Jaroslav ŠSafránek (1890-1957), a Czechoslovak professor of experimental physics who, in the second half of the 1930s, designed a system for the transmission of visual images by low-line mechanical television, which made the production of an authentic spatial impression of the picture, transmitted on the screen, possible. Although experts and the general public acclaimed this invention, the innovation failed to find practical application in Czechoslovakia at that time. That one of the most interesting innovations in television could not be implemented was due to the prevailing red tape in state authorities, internal political quarrels, the political situation prior to World War II, and subsequent postwar developments.

From May 1939 through June 1949, All American Aviation employed a unique nonstop airmail pickup and delivery system, invented by Lytle S. Adams and modified for commercial use by company engineers after Richard C. du Pont acquired Adams's patent rights. Used to deliver airmail to small communities scattered throughout rugged terrain in western Pennsylvania and West Virgina, the system was also exploited in World War II to tow gliders aloft, and to rescue personnel trapped behind enemy lines. After the war, it lost its economic viability because of the use of mobile postal vehicles on improved highway systems, and also because federal officials would not permit its combination with passenger operations. It was therefore abandoned in 1949, but furnished the basis for still further important military applications. Though a `failed innovation' in a commercial sense, it nevertheless did have a considerable impact upon future developments, suggesting that `failure' and `success' are relative terms.

Beginning in 1939, Farrington Daniels and his associates at the University of Wisconsin tried to develop a thermal process for nitrogen fixation, using a regenerative pebble-bed furnace. They envisioned their high-temperature process of combining oxygen and nitrogen from the atmosphere as a cheaper, more practical alternative to the high-pressure Haber ammonia synthesis. Daniels succeeded in overcoming several engineering problems in furnace design, and by 1942 he had obtained small amounts of nitrogen dioxide gas for the production of fertilizers and explosives. During the World War II years, Chinese industrialists came to the University to work with Daniels. They intended to develop the thermal process in China for the production of fertilizers. After the war, the US Army and the Food Machinery Company constructed a 40-ton/day demonstration plant in Kansas, but because the process was uneconomical, the plant ceased operation in September 1954.

In the late 1940s, Chrysler, in response to government contracts, started research and development work on the automotive gas turbine engine. George F. Huebner, Jr, later head of the research and development department at Chrysler, was the most optimistic champion of this new technology. The gas turbine engine had obvious advantages — especially the absence of vibrations, low maintenance needs, multi-fuel capability, and low emission levels due to continuous combustion. On the other hand, poor fuel economy at part-load, slow acceleration response, high manufacturing costs and the lack of appropriate materials for extremely high temperatures were problems which have only partly been solved. Therefore, large-scale production of this engine has, so far, not been possible. By using engineering ceramic materials, Chrysler and other automobile manufacturers hope to overcome the latter problem, and make full use of the advantages of the gas turbine engine. From the end of World War II, government has acted as both a support (defence R & D projects) and impediment (anti-air-pollution acts, fluctuations in defence spending) to the development of the automotive gas turbine.

To eliminate the housing problem, many authorities have contended that the application of science and modern technology to the prefabrication of housing (`industrialized building') would result in a quantum improvement in production, cost reduction and quality. Diffusion of this theory has transcended socio-political boundaries. However, extensive construction of dwellings by industrialized systems was dependent upon the prior existence of a significant state housing sector: implementation (and sophistication) increased across the spectrum from market, through welfare, to socialist economies. Although significant numbers of dwellings have been built using industrialized methods, this has not resulted in an order of magnitude improvement in quantity, quality, cost or time. Furthermore, many industrialized dwellings have serious defects, and sophisticated systems were only economically competitive for high-rise flats, which have proved unsuitable for low-income families. The relative failure of industrialized building should give policy makers pause: also, emphasis upon industrialized building has obscured consideration of employment- and skills-generating methods of increasing housing stock.

The bicycle boom which followed in the wake of the 1974 oil crisis inspired a small group of engineers in Gothenburg to develop a bicycle in fibre composite plastics. All essential parts, such as frame, wheels, fork and handlebar, were designed to be produced by automatic injection moulding, requiring very little subsequent finishing. Substantial grants and loans were obtained to start full-scale production in 1982. In spite of intense advertising and unusually high interest in the media, the new bicycle was never accepted in the marketplace. The bicycle boom was already fading out, and few people were prepared to pay the relatively high price at which it was marketed. The bicycle was just as heavy as a standard bicycle, but it was slightly more flexible, which gave some people a sense of insecurity. The appearance deviated from the archetypal shape of a bicycle, and this is believed to have been the major reason for its rejection.

The paraglider was conceived during the 1950s as a lightweight hybrid of parachute and inflated wing that might allow astronauts to pilot spacecraft to airfield landings. From 1961 to 1964, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sought to convert the idea into a practical landing system for the Gemini spacecraft. The spacecraft would carry the paraglider safely tucked away through most of a mission. Only after re-entering the atmosphere from orbit would the crew deploy the wing. Having now converted their spacecraft into a makeshift glider, they could fly to an airfield landing. How and why this ingenious scheme failed is the subject of this paper.