Images Dated 31st March 2004

Bell X-1 in flight, the first supersonic aircraft

First supersonic aircraft. Bell X-1 aircraft used by Charles "Chuck" Yeager to fly faster than sound on 14 October 1947. The X-1 was carried into the air under a converted B-29 bomber, and released at 6800 metres altitude over Muroc, California, USA. The X-1 was powered by a four-chamber XLR-11 rocket engine that generated 26.5 kilonewtons of thrust. This pushed the aircraft to a speed of 1078 kilometres per hour at an altitude of 12, 800 metres - equivalent to 1.015 times the speed of sound. Yeager unofficially named the aircraft "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife. It is now displayed in a museum in Washington DC, USA

© U.S. AIR FORCE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

A Calculating machine

The control panel of the automatic sequence-controlled calculating machine at Manchester University; showing the monitor cathode-ray tube with Dr. T. Kilburn (left) and Professor F. C. Williams (right), inventor of the memory storage system. Williams became Professor Electrical Engineering at Manchester in 1946 is chiefly known for his development of the Williams tube, the first successful electrostatic random access memory for the digital computer. This enabled him, along with Kilburn, to operate the world's first stored-program computer in June 1948

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10216252

Staites patent electric light apparatus

Engraving of Edward Staite's patent electric light apparatus, exhibited at the Hanover Square Rooms, London in 1848. The light used a weight-driven mechanism, controlled by the heat of the arc of electricity expanding and contracting a copper strip. Although not a commercial success to begin with, W. Petrie's improvements to the original design led to Edison and Swan adopting the light in the 1870's

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10216281