Original Solutions of Several Problems in Aerodynamics
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.
Eli Whitney Blake was an American scientist and businessman. He also was a co-founder and president of the Connecticut Academy of Science.
Background
Eli Blake was born on January 27, 1795, in Westborough, a small village in Massachusetts sixteen miles east of Worcester, United States, the son of Elihu and Elizabeth (Whitney) Blake. In Westborough lived his famous uncle, Eli Whitney, and also his maternal grandfather, the latter, in good Yankee fashion, being both farmer and mechanic, and having not only a complete kit of cabinet-making tools but a turning-lathe as well. In this environment Blake was reared. His life differed, however, from that of the average youth of his day and was more like that of a young man of the twentieth century in that his parents apparently were fully resolved from his birth to enable him to be well educated.
Education
Young Blake was prepared for Yale at Litchfield Academy, entered college at the age of seventeen, and graduated with the class of 1816. He then spent the year aftergraduation in the Litchfield Law School.
Career
At the request of his uncle, Eli Whitney, Blake abandoned a professional career and entered his uncle's employ in the manufacture of firearms at Whitneyville, a suburb of New Haven. Upon the death of Whitney in 1825, Blake with one of his brothers carried on the armory business at the same place until 1836. During this time he made several important inventions having to do with the manufacture of arms, which were immediately adopted in armories throughout the country. In 1836 the armory was given up, and with two brothers, Blake established in Westville, another suburb of New Haven, a manufactory of domestic hardware, which was the pioneer establishment in this field in the United States. He continued as the directing head of this establishment for thirty-five years and then retired at the age of sixty-six. Among the patents granted by the United States Patent Office to the Blake brothers, Philos, Eli, and John, for inventions made during the period of their hardware manufacturing business, were a door lock and escutcheon, thumb latch, castors for bedsteads, button, plate, and turn for fastening cupboard and other doors.
In 1855 Blake served on a committee of townsmen who had charge of the macadamizing of one of the principal streets of New Haven. His attention was drawn to the need of a machine to perform the labor of crushing the various sizes of stone used in this type of paving. He apparently devoted all of his energies and inventive genius to the solution of the problem, and on June 15, 1858, United States patent No. 20, 542 was granted him for a stone crusher. It is for this invention that Blake is best known.
All of his life Blake was a profound student of mathematics and physics, and in his later years, particularly after his retirement from active business, found his happiness in studying problems of aerodynamics. He was one of the founders and several times president of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, and wrote many valuable papers for the American Journal of Science and other scientific periodicals. Just four years before his death he gathered together a number of these papers and published them in a single volume, under the title Original Solutions of Several Problems in Aerodynamics (1882), which was probably his most valuable contribution. After an old age of honored retirement, he died at his home in New Haven, Connecticut, in his ninety-second year.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
Connections
Blake married Eliza Maria O'Brien of New Haven, on July 8, 1822. They had twelve children, ten of whom lived to maturity. Each of their six sons attended Yale and five graduated, the sixth being prevented from completing his course by ill health.