Technikatörténeti szemle 9. (1977)

KRÓNIKA - Debreczeny Ágnes: Energia – Ember – Munka. Az Országos Műszaki Múzeum új kiállítása

KRÖNIKA AGNES DEBRECZENY* ENERGY — MAN — WORK The progress of utilizing Nature's energies is demonstrated by the tools, machines, models, diagrams presented at the new exhibition of the Museum for Science and Technology. The show gives a clear review of the scientific experiments and achievements of various ages, following historical and social changes, aimed at the conversion and steadily improving exploitation of energies. The problems of energy utilization and the performance of work, and their solutions, date back as long as the beginnings of human civilization. It is sure that of the past eight to ten thousand years of Eurasian cultures, this question became crucial during the past two centuries or so only — the ,,energy problem" emerging in the past decades only. The most ancient „power source" of human culture was the muscle power, the applications of which are illustrated by the tools of prehistoric man, the mobile carts driven by human and animal power, the tread-wheels. The machines based on human and animal muscle power already incorporated the „germs" of many contemporary devices. The „live power source" of the society based on slave labour was replaced in the Middle Age by the exploitation of the energies of water and wind. Various water-wheels and wind-mills were constructed. The rotary motions of water wheels were utilized in the operation of a number of power machines (e. g. pumping, wood-working, ore crushing). A number of designs and pictures have been preserved from the early Renaissance showing water-wheels and wind-mills. In 1750 J. A. Segner employed a novel-type water-wheel for driving an oil mill. Named after him the Segner wheel may be regarded as an old forerunner of the reactive turbine. The first turbine of reactive operation is associated with the name of Benoit Fourneyron (1802—1867). The first „radial hydro-turbine" was devised by James B. Francis (1849). The mentioning of Pelton's water-wheel, invented in 1880, may be followed by the ingenious turbine * Museum for Science and Technology, Budapest