Men, machines and modern times

What Hacker News says

1. jacobedawsonOct 2020
   I can recommend the book 'Men, Machines and Modern Times' by Elting E. Morison for (among other things) a fascinating look into the early development of the steel industry & manufacturing process / development of the Bessemer steel process, I never thought I'd find steel so engrossing :)
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2. amhenkOct 2017
   I enjoyed Men, Machines, and Modern Times by Elton E. Morison. Not necessarily technical but has some interesting history and talks about some of the struggles inventions/inventors may take on.
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3. skmurphyFeb 2008
   The naval gunfire story is recounted in more detail in "Gunfire at Sea" and is available here http://cs.gmu.edu/cne/pjd/TT/Sims/Sims.pdf it makes for fascinating reading. It's a chapter from "Men, Machines, and Modern Times" by Elting Morrison http://www.amazon.com/Machines-Modern-Times-Elting-Morison/d... which also makes great reading.

   Elting Morrison makes the point that the modern naval gunnery was enabled by the intersection of metallurgy advances that could build longer strong gun barrels giving improved range, improved optics so that you could see and range find what you were aiming at since it was a mile or more away, an elevating gear to compensate for the rolling motion of the deck.

   Together these three inventions enabled a continuous aim firing method that saw 175x increase in the rate of effective fire in 6 years: "After twenty-five minutes of banging away, two hits had been made on the sails of the elderly vessel. Six years later one naval gunner made fifteen hits in one minute at a target 75 by 25 feet at the same range–1600 yards; half of them hit in a bull’s eye 50 inches square."

   I had included it in a longer blog entry about Paul Saffo speaking on forecasting technology http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2007/08/28/paul-saffo-on-foreca...

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4. blueyesJul 2021
   There is an excellent book by Elting Morison that includes a chapter on naval architecture, and the ways it was held back at the behest of naval commanders who wanted to preserve the culture of sailors that would be destroyed by the introduction of more powerful engines and faster hulls.

   https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/men-machines-and-modern-times...

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