John Burkitt Webb

Background

John Burkitt Webb was born in Philadelphia, Pa. , the son of Charles Roe and Eliza Ann (Greaves) Webb. His grandfather, Burkitt Webb, emigrated from England as a young man and settled in Philadelphia.

Education

Webb attended the public schools and the drawing school of the Franklin Institute.

Career

For several years, while he worked as clerk in a store, he spent his spare time in the study of mathematics and mechanics, and as a pastime designed and built machinery. About 1860 he formed a small company at Bridgeton, N. J. , to make electro-magnetic apparatus for playing organs automatically, but the undertaking was abandoned for lack of capital, and for a year or so Webb was a traveling salesman. In 1863, with his former partner, Oberlin Smith, he organized at Bridgeton the Smith and Webb Manufacturing Company to manufacture special machine tools. The business prospered, but poor health compelled Webb to seek some more healthful climate. Going to Ann Arbor, Mich. , he entered the University of Michigan to study civil engineering. After receiving the degree of C. E. in 1871, he was called to the chair of civil engineering which had just been established at the University of Illinois at Urbana. During his eight years there he made a study of the scientific schools of Europe, and after his resignation he spent two full years in advanced studies in mathematics and physics at Heidelberg, Göttingen, Berlin, and Paris. Part of this time was spent in experimental work in electricity in Helmholtz's laboratory in Berlin and in the instrument-maker's shop at the University of Berlin. Webb returned to the United States in 1881 to accept the new chair of applied mathematics at Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. During the five years that he held this position he delivered lectures on thermodynamics, mechanisms, drawing and drawing instruments. In 1886 he was called to the chair of mathematics and mechanics at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N. J. , where he remained until 1908. In 1888 he invented and brought out his floating dynamometer, a very simple but effective device for measuring the power delivered by dynamos, motors, and the like. In 1892 he perfected his viscous dynamometer and in 1900 the dynamophone, which by a simple telephonic method measured the twist of a transmission shaft carrying power. In addition he wrote many technical papers on advanced mechanics. His lectures on mechanical paradoxes (such as a man's lifting himself by his own boot straps, rolling a barrel up hill by gravity, etc. ) were always well received by enthusiastic audiences. Webb believed strongly in graphical methods, and insisted upon precision and accuracy in the work of his students. He was a member of a number of engineering and mathematical societies both in the United States and Europe, and was a vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1885). After his retirement he devoted himself to private consulting practice. At the time of his death at his home in Glen Ridge, N. J. , he was survived by his widow and six children.

Achievements

• He invented a draft gauge and an inertialess steam-engine indicator; acted as judge at the International Electrical Exhibition, Philadelphia, in 1884; and published an exhaustive study on "Belting to Connect Shafts Which Are Not Parallel and Do Not Intersect".

Works

More photos

• book

  • Integration by Trigonometric and Imaginary Substitution

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Overhauling of a mechanical power

Connections

He married Mary Emeline Gregory, daughter of John Milton Gregory, in Urbana, Ill. , on April 19, 1876.

Father:

Charles Roe Webb

Mother:

Eliza Ann (Greaves) Webb

Spouse:

Mary Emeline Gregory

Grandfather:

Burkitt Webb