Talk:Isambard Kingdom Brunel
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On the subject of Box Tunnel and Brunel's birthday...
R. Angus Buchanan writes in Brunel: The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel ISBN 1-85285-331-X (p.269, n.48):
- The alignment of the Box Tunnel has been the subject of serious discussion in the New Civil Engineer and elsewhere. I am grateful to my friend James Richard for making calculations which convinced me that the alignment on 9 April would permit the sun to be visible through the tunnel soon after dawn on a fine day.
On the other hand, it is asserted at http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/TOMPAINE/feb99/0023.html that it impossible to guarantee the effect on a particular calendar day, because the angle at which the sun rises on a given date varies slightly with the cycle of leap years.
It is also asserted at http://www.magonia.demon.co.uk/news/tunnels.html (about two-thirds of the way down the page) that Brunel failed to account for atmospheric refraction and the effect is visible a few days too early. (This page is mainly concerned with another story: that there is a junction within the tunnel leading to a secret bunker.)
Buchanan concludes (ibid., p.226):
- ...I have found no documentary evidence for the often-repeated story that Brunel aligned the Box Tunnel so that the rising sun shone through it on his birthday, even though careful examination shows that it could indeed do so, and it is certainly a good story.
In light of this, judging the story to be a "myth" may well be too harsh; I'm not sure what the entry should say, though. Box Tunnel is only ten miles from me, but April is months away as I write and I'm not keen on standing in the middle of a high-speed railway line at any time of the year, so I'm not going to go and check.
--rbrwr
- I put the bit about Box Tunnel in the article months ago, although I couldn't remember which tunnel. I'd heard about it (and how it wasn't true) at a public lecture at UCL, but (memory loss) again, I can't remember who gave it. -- Tarquin
- I've recycled the stuff above into Box Tunnel --rbrwr
Stuff from the Great Western article which would be better merged into this article
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in 1806 in Portsmouth his mother was named Nee Brunel and his father was named Marc Brunel.His father sent him to the college of caen in Normandy , France when he was 14 years of age. He went to the Henri Quatre school in Parris. In 1826, when he was20, the young Brunel was appointed resident engineer.The biggest event in his life was swallewing a coin and having to have an operation but it went terribley wrong a few days later it came out naturally. -- Derek Ross 17:24 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)
I have checked the above information against Buchanan's biography and have incorporated it in a corrected and substantially rewritten form. --rbrwr
Brunel as inventor
Somebody has placed Isambard Kingdon Brunel is the British Inventors category. I question this since IKB invented nothing, he was a civil engineer and designer of ships. His father Marc Isambard was the inventor and had patents to his name. Any comments before I remove it? Apwoolrich 14:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)