Famous Scientist Sir Sandford - Essay Example

Sir Sandford Fleming

Sir Sandford is a well-known scientist and engineering researcher who is accountable for myriad innovations, which have ultimate vitalities in the daily dynamic human activities. He was born in 1827 in Scotland but later migrated to Canada at 17, where he first served as a geographical surveyor and later as an engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railways. Besides, amid his service at the firm, he founded the Royal Canadian Institute in Toronto, which he anticipated to escalate the pace of technological, engineering, and scientific advancements among the absorbed engineers, railway surveyors, and structural architects originally in the organization.

Some of the exciting part and contribution of Sir Sandford is the entitlement to the innovation of the first Canadian postage stamp in 1851, the invention of the first-in-line skate in around 1850, invention and survey of the first railway route across the Canadian land. Additionally, he was also recognized as the epitome of engineering conceptualization in the Intercolonial Railways in addition to the famous Canadian Pacific Railway firm. Most importantly, Fleming notably innovated the current and modern system of standard time, which encompasses a plethora of time facets including but not limited to the prevalent and varied geographical time zones, among other inevitable significances.

Prior to the Sandford's time revolution, time and day approximations ultimately depended on the local matters, which inevitably resulted into usage of some unique forms of local solar times by most of the Canadian cities and towns. He first recommended the standard time zones in the International Prime Meridian Conference in 1884, where he played the most instrumental role in convincing researchers, architects and scientists, in the Royal Canadian Institute, to admit the concept, which is inevitably and significantly in use today. He managed to win the trust and confidence of many hence the adoption of the current time meridians, which was(1879) and is ultimately supported both Canada and universally the general United States of America. This paper profoundly identifies, examines, discusses the vitalities and mutual significance of Sir Sandford Fleming's innovation on the worldwide standard time zones, which is explicitly applied in the modern world today in several ways with essential merits in various departments. Besides, it explores additional inventions among other scientific innovations that he is associated with, such as the mapmaking skills that played numerous roles in the foundation of railroads. Generally, this research will enlighten both the reader and the researcher on the importance of Fleming's innovations, i.e., the worldwide time in various facets of life such as in business enterprises and learning institutions. Besides, transport and communication sectors, medical and health-related fields, industrial production setups, among other fields that require timekeeping as a forefront essential factor.

The Worldwide Standard Time

Just like any other curious scientist, a frequent traveler, and additionally, a railway and architectural engineer, Sir Fleming was so much prepossessed and ultimately preoccupied with issues concerning time management- timekeeping. During this era, in the 1870s, every town and city in the Northern America virtually kept their independent times hence severe and massive confusions. As a result, it was extremely messy and practically hectic to travel from one place to another with the vast different time predictions that each geographical localities purported to be the real and reliable time zone. Having noticed this continual diversified menace, Sir Fleming opted to simplify and remedy the quo, by the aids and support of his fellow scientists, to make the world a universally smaller and manageable globe. To achieve this, the duo enhanced the deployment of their harness of technology and science in a more amorphously vast sense of time management.

Even though, most of the geographical localities across the globe still use the strict solar time, which depicted noon as soon as the sun was centrally the highest in the sky, Sir Sandford rarely tilted the windmills amid the mutual advent of the reliable and trustworthy pendulum clocks. Although, in practice, solar time is never the same in all geographical places simultaneously, but instead, ultimately varies from one place to another with an exponential difference of four minutes for every longitudinal degree covered. For instance, towards the end of the 19th century, noon time in Newark, N.J., practically came a minute later than it actually happened in most of the neighboring regions such as New York City. According to Clack Blaise in his Time Lord, the length examination and exploration of Fleming’s standard time variation movement manifested that “Every City and Town region was on its own Greenwich.” And, on the face of this, in this era, it was not necessarily a challenge since for centuries, the application and consideration of local time was most convenient as an infinitesimal number of individuals ventured far off their homes. The few people who participated in the vast and diversified journeys never saw the significance of standard time in that their activities were also not only slow-paced but also laborious, simultaneously.

The exponential diversified spread of railways transformed the face of time independency. Once the locals started locomoting and migrating from one place to another, with anticipations of covering vast distances in a single day or time, and with continual alteration of trains midtrip, the challenge of tie difference between cities and towns became a critical topic of concern. It was equally annoying , for instance, Toronto was approximately twenty two minutes lagging behind Montreal- a severe problem with uncountable timekeeping demerits among the travelers. Astrophysicists and other researchers, like Ryan Marciniak of the Ontario Science Centre attested that the trend of every city setting their own time by the noonday sun ultimately rendered the train traveling schedules in severe nightmare. By so doing, he explicitly reinforced and supported foundation of a total remedy to the menace through proper organization and exhibition on innovative ideologies that utterly featured the Sandford’s work on worldwide time.

Upon a comprehensive path-analysis of the ancient time prediction challenges, the initiators to the Fleming’s standard time innovation exclusively reflected the complications as a result of the independent standards mainly used by railway lines. Since there was lack of pre-established prime meridian, numerous railway transporting companies opted to deploy the usage of their respective headquarters’ time zones as reliable baselines for timekeeping and management. These variations drove people into unnecessary and unreliable time triangulations to evade variational inconveniences that could make one miss urgent appointments or concerns. Upon contemplation of how impractical the situation was, Fleming matched time zone innovation to the march of progress, which was encountered after diminishment of the world by the inventions of telegraphic and steam-driven train engines.

Due to the massive need of remote antiquity inheritance devoid the difficulties and uncertainties that were and are constantly faced by every part of the world, it was the time to ultimately cling on the concept of timekeeping via whatsoever the reliable scientific means applicable- Sir Sandford wrote in 1876. Furthermore, Fleming considered these challenges as non-gauzy abstractions with regard to his 1876 trip to Ireland via train, in which he anticipated to take the 1735 hours train from a region, and , besides, upon calling Bandoran in Derry city, he realized that he departed at 0535hours- 24 hours ahead. As a result, the discomfort resulted in folly of division and separation of the day into two equal halves of 12hours. Also, his advocacy to standard time exclusively expounded on institution of a globally recognized 24-hour clock system, which indefinitely incorporated a proposal for each 24 time zones to be represented by every 15 degree longitudinal adjustments and, on the other hand, an hour of the solar time- one of his most exciting and long-lasting legacy.

The issue of the standard time establishment faced a plethora of inevitable deterrents and lots of merits and demerits came in as a result. The U.S. government in 1885 called a compelling conference to establish its own prime meridian, devoid the previous use of the concept, and Fleming was called to be reprimanded as to why he spearheaded diplomatic mockery by encouraging Greenwich meridian. Sandford faced intense pressure and bitterness with the French who proposed for establishment of a neutral meridian instead of Greenwich meridian although they had adopted the concept in various facets. After a basic and mutual international agreement, the British railways deployed the application of the standard time as well as the American railroad-solution to time confusions in 1840s and 1880s respectively, for example. However, a large region continued the jumble of time keeping and management standards that definitely made no sense at all since, fortunately, the global economy grew exponentially and, further, got intensively more knitted and glued together for diminishment of economic disparities.

Due to massive and optimal racism, it was evident that Fleming’s time zone innovation, and due to his nationality, would continually be thwarted since most global states, specifically the European countries, ruled the foundation out of order purporting that he (Sir Fleming) intentionally went off the conference’s narrow purview. During his appeal of the invention, according to Mr. Blaise, an author, Sandford was immensely ignored, mostly bearing that he was a Canadian citizen- depicting an epitome of racial segregation and human rights suppression. By 1930, the overwhelming examination and understanding of global time zone had exponentially prevailed, and almost all countries across the globe were using the concept not withstanding that the founder never had the whole nation behind him, and that a lot of his more eccentric ideologies had landed on the wayside.

The Transcontinental Railroads

Sir Sandford Fleming while working as an engineer at the Northern Railway in the 1860s, he was promoted to become the Chief Government Surveyor and spearheaded a lot of architectural constructions. He headed Nova Scotia where he was held accountable for the construction of the railway line from Truro to Pictou urban centers. In rare cases did he admit construction tenders from his superiors, instead, he bid for himself the order tasks and, besides, completed the railroads within 1867 via fiscal capitalization both for revenue for himself and savings for the government simultaneously. At the mid of 1862, Sandford proposed for a constructive blueprint for construction of an interconnective transcontinental railway line that would bridge the gap between the Atlantic and Pacific states (oceans).

Fleming later became a topmost engineer in 1857 and was given the mandate to be in charge of Ontario, Simcoe, and Huron railways, which all are Canadian current national railway (Sanford, 1980). Six years later, he tables a request from colonizers at Red River to magnificent specialists in England, requesting the railway building that could connect English citizens and BNA colonies from the Far East and took short moments as the Canadian government was battling over the control of western terrains. Stanford was hired by the Canadian government in 1863 the same year after the successful war on the control of western settlements. He was given the mandate of surveying the paths of the initial Quebec – Halifax links, the projected railway that runs from Atlantic to Pacific. His excellent work made him the principal engineer on the task rendered to him and managed to give high-quality work on the international railway. He was also responsible for significant assessments all over the Rock Mountains and across the globe, giving out plentiful possibilities of having first-hand railways on different paths. Furthermore, he suggested the building of railway across estates in northern prairies, which was also known as the fertile belt and pass through Yellowhead across the Rockies heading to pacific via the bay of Burrard.

According to the study, the Canadian-pacific railway was not built using the initial Stanford suggests. It was built on a different path in conjunction with another separate survey done by Fleming, and it passes across Kicking Horse that was discovered by Major A.B Rodgers. In a nutshell, Fleming plays a vital role in championing the construction of the two international railways in the first two years of the twentieth century; he also built the Trunk pacific railway and Canadian Northern railway fleeting through the inland of BC.

His railway innovation has a series of benefits on global societies, including the following: railway transport acts as a remedy of road transport problems for the transportation of large volumes of bulky goods at a lower price over a long distance (Northrop, 1901). That is the transportation of goods across pacific-Atlantic continents.it is also most secured and dependable. Unfortunately, it operates under monopolistic terms, it is inflexible to reach every place, not suitable for short distances and small size goods. Rail transport champions the development of the economy by offering employment opportunities, both direct and indirect; they also provide taxes to the government, which boasts the country's GDP. Finally, this innovation equips the researcher with knowledge of how the train exists, its effects on society, and socioeconomic impacts

The Canadian Postage Stamp

Canada was granted the authority to manage their postal system by the British government in 1851. At this point, Canadians got a chance of showing their manhood by hurrying the production of a postage stamp (Sexty R, 2000). Two days later, Fleming was invited by James Morris to a meeting whose main aim was to make a postage stamp. It was at this consultation where Fleming proposed the hint of beaver to be used in illustrating the initial Canadian postage stamp. Fleming’s suggestion was perceived to very impudent as it was against the British norms evidenced in the use of the sovereign image as an illustration of a postage stamp. The beaver forms part of Canadian nature and is a very industrious creature that symbolizes the ability of youths towards developing their nation ( Messe et al.,n.d).

The ideologies on beaver image, Sanford managed to convince Morris, and on 23rd April 1851, a three-penny postage stamp was put into use starting with local mailing. The mark was designed to depict the image of beaver in its flowering nest and the imperial circlet of England. Fleming went further and produced another two mails bearing international stamp postage in 1851. After that, he made a six-penny stamp bearing the image of princes Albert and the queen of England's status. The beaver then became the legal symbols in the postage stamps as it embraces the wildlife of Canadian nature. The Canadian stamp secures the registered mails of essential items, and it is also used as proof and identity of various products entitled to Canada. It provides a sense of legal owner of products by investors as they enjoy its precious outfit (Sexty. R, 2000). It boosts the economy by providing tax and offering employment opportunities both directly and indirectly.

Conclusion

Also known as, the Time Lord, Sir Sanford Fleming’s innovations and inventions, as stated above such as the inline skates and founding the now Royal Canadian institute a science organization based in Toronto have various vitalities in human life. Precisely, formed in 1849, the institute came into existence through a group of civil engineers, surveyors and some architects directed by Sir Sanford Fleming as he had apprenticed to surveyors and engineers. He was 22 at the time. The main purpose for the organization was to form an alliance between surveyors, engineers and architects where they would share their interest in applied science and professions.it is said before being founded, Fleming himself and another member attended the meeting. Its membership had significantly dropped off. However, instead of forgoing the idea, the two appointed each other and settled to meet weekly than now and then.

Somehow, the institution hold out and Sanford utilized it as a platform for some of his undertakings. Today in Canada, the royal Canadian institute for the advancement of science stands as the oldest scientific association in the country.it supports a course of lectures on scientific subjects at the University of Toronto. Sir Sandford Fleming came up and even tried a prototype of the inline skate. The skate was tied with two wheels screwed in a wood. The skate did pretty well looking at the two wheels were narrow and too little. In addition, a skate of that kind did so well. It is believed Fleming’s prototype were the first inline skates in Canada. Including other inventions, Sandford Fleming regarded this two as satisfactory wholly.

In a nutshell, Fleming bore numerous merits both to individuals and states simultaneously. He solved the issue of time variation and confusion hence catalyzed the pace of the world economic growth and development. People can now travel fast devoid unnecessary confusions as the universal time zone has been applied in all parts of the world. Besides, innovation of the transcontinental railroads and the Royal Canadian Institute enhanced movement of people hence harmony and international relations respectively.