c) Topic: The Collapse of the Space and Time Continuum
1. Historical
examples of Communication and transportation
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1:Contemporary examples of communication and transportation
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http://library.medschl.cam.ac.uk/files/2016/03/soc-med2.png
https://specialgathering.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/post_office.j
http://media.caranddriver.com/images/media/51/2016-10best-cars-lead-photo-664005-s-original.jpg
https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/china-harmony-express-california-bullet-train.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1600
3. Describing the rapid changes brought about in global transport and
communication
Looking at certain texts one can
gather numerous changes within global transport and communication. When
researching it seemed that there were main factors involved such as
technological, globalisation, infrastructure and urbanisation.
TRANSPORTATION
Research shows that during the
early years of the Industrial Revolution there was a radical change in
transportation. The arrival of defeat steamships and steam locomotives gave a
huge boost to industrialisation. The change began on the canals which, for
centuries, had proved to be the best means of transporting goods. In 1761, the
Bridgewater canal was completed in one of the birthplaces of the industrial
age, the British textile area Lancashire; from then on, the route supplied the
booming city of Manchester with coal. Other canals followed quickly, enabling
coal to be transported to textile factories and iron mills in all the major
cities in Britain.
The steam engine triggered off the
revolution in transport. The first experiments with the technology date back to
1690, when a French physicist by the name of Dennis Papin designed a
steam-driven boat with bucket wheels. But it was not until a century later that
practical experiments took place both in France and Britain. Nevertheless it
was an American, Robert Fulton, who succeeded in building the first steamship –
even before the first locomotive took to the rails. The "Clermont", a
flat bottomed boat with two huge bucket wheels and a steam engine, was launched
into the Hudson River in 1807.
In 1827 an Austrian forest
engineer, Joseph Ressel, took out a patent on a screw propeller. This only
really became commercially viable in 1845 after the "Great Britain"
had crossed the Atlantic, driven by a ca. 5 metre screw propeller. About the
same time people stopped building ships made of wood, because iron hulls were
cheaper to construct, could take greater loads and withstand rough seas more
easily. A gigantic new market had been opened for the ironmaking industry.
Railways gave the other great boost
to industrialisation. They were first used in collieries, where goods wagons
ran on wooden rails. About the middle of the 18th century horse-driven railways
were running, both above and below the surface, on rails completely made of
iron. The first steam-driven wagon was made by the French artillery officer,
Nicolas Cugnot around 1770. He was followed by the Englishman, Richard
Trevithick, who set his vehicle on rails. In 1803 the first colliery locomotive
went into action in Coalbrookdale. This gave rise to George Stephenson's
classic steam engine: the front part consisted of a large steam boiler, behind
which worked the driver and the stoker; within the engine were a huge amount of
horizontal heating pipes, and the steam was blown out at the front. Steam
cylinders and pistons were mounted beneath on either side in order to drive the
wheels directly.
Stephenson also built the first
railway line in England. In 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway was
opened, and the subsequent railway boom resulted in an explosive growth in the
whole of the British economy.
Just as railway mania was beginning
to die down, a new development began: the motorcar engine. This revolutionised
road traffic completely - primarily, however, on the continent and in the USA.
Inventors started by trying to eradicate the disadvantages of the steam engine,
which lost a lot of energy because the steam was created in the boiler but used
separately in the operating cylinder. Therefore people started experimenting
with burning the fuel directly in the operating cylinder. The obvious fuel
seemed to be gas (produced from coal), for this was used for street lighting in
many places. The first working gas engine was built in 1859 by a citizen of Luxembourg,
Étienne Lenoir. He blew an explosive mixture of gas and air into a horizontal
cylinder, alternately left and right of the pistons, and ignited it with an
electric spark. Since both the mechanical stress and the fuel consumption were
very high, the world had to wait until 1876 when the first really marketable
internal combustion engine was launched by the German travelling salesman,
Nicolaus August Otto.
Otto’s époque-making idea was the
four-stroke principal. On the first stroke (intake) the piston descends, and a
mixture of gas and air is sucked into the cylinder; on the second
(compression), the piston rises and compresses the fuel-air mixture. This is
then ignited electrically, and the resulting expansion of burning gases drives
the piston downwards (power). On the fourth stroke (exhaust), the piston rises
once again and pushes the waste fuel from the cylinder.
Rudolf Diesel's engine, however,
was even more efficient. The German engineer based his findings on those of the
French physician, Sadi Carnot. His motor sucked in pure air into the cylinder.
And because this can be more highly compressed than a mixture, it heats up
strongly. Only then is the fuel injected. Because of the high temperature, this
ignites automatically, thereby driving the piston in the same way as in the
Otto motor. Diesel's engine was presented to the world in 1897, and proved to
be both durable and economic. It was possible to get several thousand
horsepower from it. The result was that it replaced steam engines in small power
stations and was soon built into ships. That said, the high compression
demanded a robust construction, so that for a long time the motor was too heavy
for locomotives and motor cars.
In the 1870s it was discovered that
oil products could be used as engine fuel, because they could easily be
gasified: the heavy oil components in diesel motors, the light ones in Otto
motors. Now that an alternative had been found to coal gas, people were no
longer dependent on a stationary gas connection. There were no more obstacles
in the way of the triumphant march of new, mobile internal combustion engines.
Otto’s four-stroke motor was first
put into motion in 1885 in a three wheel car made by the Mannheim constructor,
Carl Benz; and a wooden motorbike made by Gottfried Daimler and Wilhelm
Maybach. In the following years these two German engineers presented the first
four-wheeled motorcar, which they had developed from a coach. It was driven by
a single-cylinder motor with a 0.5 litre piston displacement and a performance
of 1.5 horsepower. The vehicle became commercially viable on the French market
where large engineering and assembly works had taken over motor manufacturing.
Thanks to producers like Peugeot, Panhard & Levassor and Renault the first
motorcar boom in France occurred at the turn of the century.
Further improvements soon made
driving more comfortable. In 1888 an Irish vet, John Boyd Dunlop, invented
rubber tyres (at first for bicycles); in 1902 the German company Robert Bosch
invented sparkplugs, and in 1911 in the USA, an electric starting motor.
Maybach’s 1901 "Mercedes" model contained a pioneering example of a
motorcar engine: a four-cylinder, four-stroke 35 hp engine which could
accelerate the car to a speed of 72 km an hour.
Motorcar production had already
become an important manufacturing branch in industrial countries when Henry
Ford conquered the mass market. He deliberately set out to build a cheap
everyday car for farmers in the mid-west, the Ford model T. Sales rose like
lightning, bringing with them revolutionary methods of production. As early as
1911 assembly line production began in the British Ford works in Manchester. In
1914 the complete Ford factory in Detroit was operating on the assembly line
system
COMMUNICATION
The final phase of
industrialisation witnessed a revolution in communications: circulation figures
for newspapers reached hitherto unknown heights, people were able to
communicate directly across oceans and mountains, and photography became the
first mass reproducible art form. The initial wave of changes affected the
traditional medium of paper. Towards the end of the 18th century demand for
paper had risen to such an extent that it could no longer be met by manual
production. In 1799 a Frenchman by the name of Nicolas-Louis Robert invented
the first papermaking machine. His solution took the form of a continuous
screen moving like an endless belt between two rollers. It was stretched across
a barrel to catch the watery pulp and produce a continuous strip of paper
instead of individual sheets. This was the start of unbroken production. In the
following years a British engineer by the name of Bryan Donkin improved the
machine by drying the long strip of paper between steam heated cylinders,
smoothing it out and winding it into rolls.
Now the traditional raw material
used in papermaking – cotton rags – proved insufficient to meet demand. Around
the middle of the 19th century a weaver from Saxony named Friedrich Gottlob
Keller discovered that it was also possible to process wood to paper pulp by
grinding it down mechanically into fibres. In 1854 Charles Watt und Hugh
Burgess 1854 developed a soda process to produce smooth and more durable fibres
chemically: they boiled up wood and added sulphur to produce cellulose.
Unfortunately the chemicals used in the process made the paper industry the
second greatest polluter of the environment in the 19th century, after the
textile industry.
Modern methods of printing received
a decisive boost with the introduction of the high-speed printing press by the
German book printer, Friedrich Koenig. Instead of using a flat platen press, a
rotating cylinder was used to push down the roll of paper against a flat inking
table. This was the process used in London to produce the first copy of the Times
in 1814. Since printing could now be done more quickly, newspapers were more
up-to-date and circulation rose. The principle was further improved by the
introduction of the rotary printing press in America by Richard Hoe, an
invention which he patented in 1845. He succeeded in producing a printing press
in which a curved cylindrical impression was run between two cylinders. It was
not long before long continuous rolls of paper were introduced. This enabled
newspapers to be printed in a single continual conveyor belt process.
Now the only hurdle left was the
problem of setting the type, which was traditionally done by hand. This was
solved in the USA in 1884 by a watchmaker named Ottmar Mergenthaler whose
Lynotype machine revolutionised the art of printing by using a keyboard to
create an entire line of metal matrices at once. Once these were assembled, the
machine forced a molten lead alloy into a mould sandwiched between the molten
metal pot and the line of matrices, which were then returned to the proper
channels in the magazine in preparation for their next usage. This process
produced a complete line of type in reverse, so it would read properly when
used to transfer ink onto paper. The completed slugs (lines of type) were then
assembled into a page "form" that was placed in the printing press.
The word linotype, by the way, derives from the phrase "line of
type". Newspaper sales were incredibly high especially in the most
important mass market, the USA.
Around the end of the 19th century
the revolution in the newspaper industry received a further boost from the
invention of photography. People had known for a long time that it was possible
to produce an image with a lens. It was also known that light can affect
certain substances. But it was not until 1827 that a French teacher by the name
of Nicéphore Niépce succeeded in creating the first durable image. Later Louis
Daguerre improved photography by exposing a sensitive silver-coated copper
plate to the light for several minutes. But the decisive step to making
photography a mass medium - reproduction - was taken by the Englishman, William
Talbot Fox, who developed a blueprint process which enabled prints to be taken
from a single negative. Finally, in the 1890s, the American George Eastman
invented celluloid roll film, and it was not long before the Eastman-Kodak
company began to market box cameras to the general public.
The electrical telegraph opened up
a new dimension in communications. Since the start of the 19th century dozens
of inventors had been experimenting with sending news via weak electric wires
over long distances and in real time. But in order to make this practicable
people had to be able to understand the nature of electricity better,
especially the connection between electric current and magnetism. In 1837 two
Englishmen by the name of Wheatstone and Cooke patented the first
electromagnetic telegraph and put it into use for railway traffic. The receiver
contained a dial with the letters of the alphabet arranged upon it. To send a
message, magnetic needles were turned towards the desired letters. The
magnetism induced an electric current which was then sent through several wire
circuits to another receiver. The current set the magnetic needles on the
second receiver in motion, and these then pointed to the same letters which had
been typed in by the sender.
In the same year in the USA, an
amateur researcher by the name of Samuel Morse used an alternative system that
only required a single wire line. In order to broadcast a message, the information
was first coded into two different impulses, short and long: dots and dashes.
This simple telegraph alphabet soon established itself, not least because Morse
was able to deliver a new receiver which automatically recorded the messages on
a moving strip of paper. A worldwide telegraph network was subsequently
established on a basis similar to the binary code: an early form of the
internet.
A thousand kilometres of telegraph
wire had already been laid – including under the ocean – when Guglielmo Marconi
gave the first demonstration of wireless telegraphy. In the apparatus he made
in 1896, jumping sparks produced electromagnetic waves which transmitted sounds
and speech way beyond visible distances. With the aid of ever higher antennae
people were able to cover increasingly large distances. Later people learnt how
to exploit the influence of wave frequencies on broadcasting. Short wave
transmitters, for example, enabled people to communicate with far-off ships at
sea – one of the advantages of wireless telegraphy. Today radio, television and
mobile telephones work on the same principle.
At first only a very few people
recognised the commercial potential of the telephone. In 1861, a German,
Philipp Reis, was the first person to succeed in transmitting voices and sound
electrically. But the commercial exploitation of voice communications only
began with the telephone that Alexander Graham Bell, a professor of vocal
physiology and elocution, presented to the American public in 1876. Here one
person spoke into an apparatus consisting essentially of a thin membrane
carrying a light stylus. The membrane was vibrated by the voice and the stylus
traced an undulating line on a plate of smoked glass. The line was a graphic
representation of the vibrations of the membrane and the waves of sound in the
air. A second membrane device was used to receive the signals and transform
them back into the spoken word. It was not long before the membrane devices
were replaced by carbon microphones. Copper was used for the telephone lines,
and around the turn of the 20th century developments in telephone engineering
began a triumphant march that was to continue into the 21st century.
4.The role
and status of cars and cell phones in contemporary time
Questionnaire:
Name: Seshen Govindsamy
Age: 28
Occupation: Aerial Survey
Consultant
Question 1:
How important would you say your
car is on a scale of 1-10 in your everyday life?
10
Question 2:
How happy are you with your
cellphone ands its processing speed at the moment?
The S7 Edge is brilliant and its
speed is great.
Question 3:
What is main purposes of your car
in your life?
Visiting clients and getting to and
from work and home.
Question 4:
What do you do in a typical day on
your cellphone?
Calling clients. Staying in
constant contact with work and my family
Questionnaire:
Name: Alban Gamuti
Age: 28
Occupation: STudent
Question 1:
How important would you say your
car is on a scale of 1-10 in your everyday life?
1 I do not own a car
Question 2:
How happy are you with your
cellphone ands its processing speed at the moment?
BIS Is awesome and fast.
Question 3:
What is main purposes of your car
in your life?
Getting home via transport aka
taxis.
Question 4:
What do you do in a typical day on
your cellphone?
Keeping updated with campus
Questionnaire:
Name: Endria Chipangula
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Question 1:
How important would you say your
car is on a scale of 1-10 in your everyday life?
8
Question 2:
How happy are you with your
cellphone ands its processing speed at the moment?
Very happy.
Question 3:
What is main purposes of your car
in your life?
Getting from A to B
Question 4:
What do you do in a typical day on
your cellphone?
Chat to my family and friends.
Questionnaire:
Name: Michelle
Naidoo
Age: 24
Occupation: Fashion Designer
Question 1:
How important would you say your
car is on a scale of 1-10 in your everyday life?
7
Question 2:
How happy are you with your
cellphone and its processing speed at the moment?
It could be slightly faster.
Question 3:
What is main purposes of your car
in your life?
Travel
Question 4:
What do you do in a typical day on
your cellphone?
Stay connected
Questionnaire:
Name: Sean Warburton
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Question 1:
How important would you say your
car is on a scale of 1-10 in your everyday life?
10 if I had a car
Question 2:
How happy are you with your
cellphone ands its processing speed at the moment?
Sufficiently happy except for the
cracks
Question 3:
What is main purposes of your car
in your life?
A mode of transportation.
Question 4:
What do you do in a typical day on
your cellphone?
Social Networking
Research
Results:
We have established that most
people are quite satisfied with their forms of communication in all ages and
aspects, these tools aid them in daily life even if not directly in some way
they are affected by cell phone communication and/or vehicular transportation.
This outcome is expected as society
has taken a very heavy move towards a technology dependant society in order to
thrive and thus giving us a realistic look into how flawed we are but also how
far we’ve come as the human race.
Conclusion
As we can see from the time we began to experiment in new
ways of technology and transport we could not stop every idea was replaced by a new idea and continued
to be as time went on and even in
contemporary times we still continue to make
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Capiniri, C (2006). Freight
Transport, Seamlessness and Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy.
Available at
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent/154956696f630dcb?projector=1 [Accessed 9
may 2016]
Garrison. W (2000). Transportation,
Engineering and Planning: technological changes and transportation
development,Volume 1(31-63).
Johnson. J (1998) The changing
forces of urban economic development. Available at
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent/154956696f630dcb?projector=1 [Accessed 9
May 2016]
Peterson, M. (2008). Roots of
Interconnection: Communications, Transportation and Phases of the Industrial
Revolution. Peterson International Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science
and Engineering Background Reading, Version (1).
Image list
http://library.sc.edu/
http://www.sungreen.co.uk/
ttp://www.fasttrackteaching.com/
http://www.gmchina.com/
http://www.pinterest. com/
http://kidcyber.com.au/topics/technology-inventions/ships-and-boats-timeline/
http://www.trainhistory.net/
http://www.pinterest.com/
http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515c5469e201b8d17dd2da970c-pi
http://library.medschl.cam.ac.uk/files/2016/03/soc-med2.png
http://www.cablingtechnology.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/telephone.jpg
http://cdn.crunchify.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Java-Email-API-Crunchify-Tips.png
https://specialgathering.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/post_office.j
http://media.caranddriver.com/images/media/51/2016-10best-cars-lead-photo-664005-s-original.jpg
https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/china-harmony-express-california-bullet-train.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1600
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iAzjKGgcByQ/maxresdefault.jpg
Question 1 : Alban Gamuti
Question 2 : Ruben Naidoo
Question 3 : Zandri Sawma
Question 4 : Ruben Naidoo
