The system within the system

As everyone may know by now through other posts or general knowledge that the Romans build the aqueducts. At the high point of Rome's population the aqueducts were bring in around 150 million gallons per day. So the real question is where is that water go after it got to Rome. Some went into storage tanks, but the rest had to be taken care of. So the Romans built the first under ground sewer system. The system would take the water and deposit it in the river down stream of the city.  Then after, the first public bathrooms were built over the sewer system. Which was better than going in pots and taking to the sewer.

In the shadow of the aquaducts

It was a beautiful summer morning as we made our way out to the old roman aqueducts that brought water into Rome. It was amazing that they had the engineering and construction skills to build these giant structures with precise angles of  slope to control water flow. After all those years since its construction the structure was still standing. I was able to walk around and through the structure and as the day got warmer I was even able to put my head into the water flowing out of an adjacent and more modern aqueduct.

Pisa!

Pisa was supper awesome and very pretty. The walk from the train station to the meaning tower of Pisa was very pretty with all of the old buildings and streets. It was amazing to see the tower in person. It was awesome to see just how much the tower was leaning and then to be able to go inside! It was very difficult to climb the stairs because as you were going up you could feel the angle of the tilt in the stairs. Plus each stair was used so many times that there are now smoothed out dips in each step. This made it really hard to go down the stairs as well. It was really cool to see how as you walked up the stairs the place of the dip changes as well.

Aqueducts and mystery beige animals

During our visit to the aqueducts I was personally impressed by the precision of engineering of the waterways. To have them slope exactly enough to transfer water over such a long distance required a great deal of measurement. I didn't previously know that it was common to have two different duct systems run atop each other. This allowed for a much great total flow rate of water. Having the opportunity to feel the water that would have been transferred, it was surprising how cold the water could stay over such a long distance. 

Museum of the History of Medicine Basement

At the Museum of the History of Medicine, the exhibits stretched back to ancient medical practices until present day. Fortunately enough for our group we were given a guided tour of the basement exhibits. This includes full size rooms we could enter setup as historical places; an alchemist's laboratory, an apothecary, a physician's examination room etc. these rooms had mostly original artifacts, with a few reproductions scattered among them.

In the alchemists laboratory there were several original and real crocodiles, no more than about six feet in length. This is very fitting as the crocodile was the symbol of alchemy, similar to the snake being a symbol for medicine. Other artifacts included many specially shaped glass bottles, tools for handling the heated materials, and many of the materials used in alchemy reactions. These materials included a narwal's horn, and various animal tusks, as well as other odd materials. All in all this was a very interesting exhibit, and I learned that alchemy eventually fell away from the magical aspects associated with it and would be very important with the development of apothecaries and mixing elixirs and so forth, eventually leading to modern medicines.

Water Distribution, Ancient Roman Style

I had an awesome time visiting the aqueducts yesterday! It was impressive to see the size of the closed channels used to transport water to the city. Even more impressive for me was the understanding of hydraulics and treatment that the Romans had at the time which are still important today (as an Environmental Engineering student, this stuff was exciting). The channels couldn't be built with too steep of a slope otherwise the water would travel too fast and cause erosion. In addition, they used inverted siphons to lift water over ridges or buildings and sedimentation pits to remove large particles from their drinking/bath water. The men also knew that lead pipes could leach the chemical into the water over time which is why they typically aren't used today. We also learned that to compensate for the large amounts of water being brought into the city, a sewage system was designed to carry wastewater out of the city to the Tiber River.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was so cool! I've seen pictures, but it's pretty funny when you get there and it's actually leaning so much. I think it's so cool how they tried to fix it as they finished constructing it. You can see that it gets straighter towards the top. With over 200 stairs to the top it was a long trek, and your body could definitely feel the lean. At the top, there were seven bells. I never knew it was supposed to be a bell tower!

Leaning Tower of Pisa

On July 31, our group went to Pisa and visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Even though I've learned a lot about it, I still couldn't believe that it was actually leaning. When going up in the tower, I never imagined how difficult it would be to walk up the 257 steps, as they're at different angles. The steps also had indentations in them where everyone has walked up and down them over the years. My favorite part was seeing everyone take pictures with the Leaning Tower as if they were holding it up or as if theh were pushing it down.

Leaning tower

Yesterday we all went to go see the leaning tower of Pisa. It started out taking a train over to Florence and the. Another train from Florence to Pisa. Once we arrived we walked towards the tower, passing through a large shopping district and several restaurants. After some lunch, we were split up into two groups to go up into the tower. We were t allowed to take our backpacks or even our purses so we stored them in small lockers. Once in the tower we were given a small introduction and a little information about the tower. I noticed that the tower was hollow inside and that as we climbed the stairs, the stairs had smoothed out from so many people walking on them. Some stairs even had dips in them that it sometimes made it difficult to climb back down the stairs. As we climbed the stairs you could feel the tilt from where the tower is leaning over and sinking into the ground. It apparently sinks into the ground 8-10 mm every year, but they fix it every year so that it doesn't sink too much. The view at the top was spectacular as well as the 7 bells that were originally supposed to ring for the church right next to it. However, I don't think that the bells were ever rung. After we climbed down, the second group also went up to experience what we experienced. However, I wonder what the bells would sound like since they have never been rung.

Museum of the History of Medicine

On 29 July we visited the Museum of the History of Medicine, which is run by the Sapienza University of Rome. The museum covered everything from ancient medical theories and practices to modern day technologies and those that will likely come in the future. I thought that the section about Hippocrates was very interesting, since he was the first individual to understand that diseases were caused naturally, and not the result of gods. Hippocrates believed that a combination of environmental factors, diet, and living habits could potentially cause an imbalance in the fluids of the body, leading to disease. Even though it is known today that the biochemistry of the body is more complex, and that genetics play a huge role in our health, Hippocratic medicine was a huge step to the modern-day medicine is seen today. In fact, the oath that medical professionals take is based on the philosophies of Hippocrates, regarding the ethics that define good medical practice. The original version is not usually used, however the general ideas of morality in medicine still apply.

The Great Roman Aqueducts

On Thursday after a long metro ride and a bit of adventuring (aka not being sure where to turn then crawling through a fence), we walked up to the magnificent ancient structures known as the aqueducts. We visited the longest above ground stretch still standing, the Aqua Claudia, named after the ruler Claudius. It was crazy to imagine the 150-200 million gallons of water that would rush through these 11 structures daily to quench the Romans' thirst and bathing activities. What I found most impressive however was the math and engineering behind making sure that the water was at just a slight decline all the way from its source to Rome and the ridging in the aqueduct waterway, to make sure the water would make it there and flowed at the right speed. It was also interesting to learn that rulers built fancy public drinking water fountains to show off these awesome engineering feats as well, but really who can blame them... I would have too.

Aqueducts

Today we went and saw the aqueducts, which were Rome's ancient ways of getting water into the city. Most of it was underground, but we saw the parts of two different aqueducts that ran above ground. The partial ruins of the two we saw were actually 4 of the 11 aqueducts that ran to the city. After the initial construction the Romans built on top of the existing aqueducts to save cost. They most used lead pipes, and coined the term plumbing hence the symbol for lead on the periodic table is pb. They didn't get lead poisoning though because the natural sediments in the water built a protective  coating not allowing lead to get in the water. The oldest one dating I think back to 300bc still had water being piped to it which we and some other people and their dogs enjoyed the ice cold liquid flowing out of it.

Walking tour part 1

During the first part of the walking tour that took place in Florence, we saw the Ponte Veccio, which means "old bridge." The bridge was full of different shops and is where the term "bankruptcy" originated. If the merchants couldn't make the payments, their tables on which they sold their items would physically be broken. Also during WWII, this bridge was the only bridge in Florence that was not destroyed by the nazis.

Walking!

I really enjoyed the walking tour of Florence. It was fasinating to see the Ponte Vecchio bridge and how everything was still in use. The fact that they built shops on the side of the bridge is awesome and very clever. When walking through it felt like I was walking back through time because all the stores were still in use and the siding of each store still looked original. Plus the bridge was able to survive the devastation of World War II. Just amazing and so beautiful!

Galileo museum

Once again out group had a good experience with a knowledgable tour guide. At the Galileo museum we saw two different collections: the Medici and the Lorenese. The Medici collection contains older artifacts whereas the Lorenese collection has newer pieces geared towards educating the public during the time of the enlightenment. The Medici collection including many artifacts for navigation and measurement like telescopes, calipers, globes,and many others. Other parts of the exhibit includes early alchemy and chemistry tools, early static electricity generators, and many of galileo's works were also on display. The Lorenese collection included some models of children in the womb during complicated childbirths(to educate mothers about their anatomy and potential complications of childbirth). These were very interesting and also quite accurate anatomically, unfortunately their accuracy is due to mothers and their children dying during births and subsequent dissection. Still there were many other medical displays in this exhibit.

Trajectories

At the Galileo Museum, it was fascinating to learn about the original uses of different tools available at the time. The telescope was originally advertised for navigation and military purposes before it was pointed towards the heavens. In addition, compasses (the mathematical compass not the directional compass) were used to calculate distances and angles for navigation and trajectories. I enjoyed learning about how it was discovered that artillery followed a parabolic path. Because of this discovery, compasses were used to calculate the distance and angle required to hit the opposing forces.

Walking, walking, walking

On Monday we walked ALL OVER Florence, Italy on this super cool walking tour. We saw the Ponte Veccio, which was crazy beautiful, and learned some history. On the Ponte Veccio there are a bunch of shops. People used to take out loans from wealthy men to have these shops. If they couldn't pay back their loan, the men would go and destroy their table and take the wares as compensation for the lost money. The Ponte Veccio is the only bridge in Florence that wasn't destroyed by the Nazis. We also walked up this very menacing hill to see one of Galileo's properties. It is sometimes referred to as "the house of Galileo", but wasn't actually his home. It was a property he purchased for his son. Even so, Galileo did spend time there, so it is still awesome (and really old).

Homemade Telescopes

Many are aware of Galileo's contributions to the field of astronomy but what really struck me was that Galileo built his own telescopes. I had known for a while that Galileo built his own telescopes but it hit me in the museum both the manufacturing and engineering skills he had to have in order to build these telescopes. The precision of lens shaping and positioning of the lens are truly amazing. Galileo's work really makes me want to design and build my own telescope.

Some sacred grass

On the walking tour in Florence one of the stops was at the Santa Croche. This was the final burial place of Galileo. It was a fascinating building not only because of its size and art work, but because of who has their tombs there. It was a nice feeling to know that Galileo was finally recognized for his work and was given an appropriate burial spot. His daughter Maria Celeste had also been moved so that her casket rested alongside her fathers. Across the church laid Michelangelo's tomb. We concluded this section of the walking tour by trampling over some sacred grass.  

Influence after death

In the first part of the Galileo walking tour, in Florence, we visited places like the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Galileo's house at the end of his life, and the Bastica di Santa Core. The bastica was the most interesting place for me. There in this beautiful Basilica rested the tombs of six people (actually seven people resting). Two are Galileo and his daughter. Seeing his tomb refined my understanding of how important Galileo was. As that basilica was not the first resting place of Galileo, but was put there a lifetime after he had died. Galileo was put in a unmarked grave outside of town with his daughter because of his run ins with the church. Thanks to friends of Galileo, his grave location remained known. Not until the church renounced their objections against Galileo many years later  was he placed in this beautiful Basilica. Since Galileo was already buried with his daughter, they decide to rebury him with her in the Basilica.

Walking tour 2.0

Part 2 of the walking tour started out with a visit to the sovereign country of the Vatican where most of the cardinals and the pope reside. We mainly visited St. Peter's basilica where massive columns surrounded you on every side and the church was right in front of you looking grand and majestic. After wandering around we left to go back towards the hotel to get some lunch. After lunch we were lead to the Spanish steps where a fountain with fresh cold water was in front of said steps. There was also an Egyptian monolith with hieroglyphics. We wandered around for about 10 min after which Adam took us to go see something but ended up getting lost. We wandered over by the pantheon which we visited later on but before that we visited the building that Galileo read his apology to the church. Adam and Liz then took us to get gelato and visit some cats as a little goodie to end the night.

Museum of Galileo

Today we went and saw the museum of Gallileo it had two floors of collections of Medici which was the first floor and then the second was the collections Lorraine. on the first floor in the first room they had all things astrological then mathematical instruments was the second room. In the third was telescopes and things pertaining to Gallileo. It had two of his original telescopes then in the same case under them was three of Gallileo's books. Including an original copy of the Dialog which was what got Gallileo persecuted. Then in a case farther down was Gallileo's actual finger. It was pretty neat. We then toured the second floor which had chemistry and electricity machines and tools. Then we got to play with remakes of some of the machines in the museum.

Museo Galileo

Monday we visited the Museo Galileo in Florence. While the whole museum was full of interesting items, my favorite were the globes and the moving model of the solar system. Neither of these things were as we picture them today. The globes didn't contain the New World and had different drawings of creatures, angels, etc on them as well. It was also interesting to see on the large map that Rome was intentionally at its center, since that was the home of the Pope and the Catholic Church. The movable, via crank, solar system (though probably not called that then) was a magnificent, though scientifically inaccurate now, geocentric model. It was interesting to learn that Catholics at that time believed the heavens occupied the space beyond Jupiter, the farthest viewed planet at the time. It was, and still is, truly awe inspiring to look at all that Galileo accomplished in his life throughout this museum visit!

Walking Tour Part 2

On 28 July we had the second part of our walking tour in Rome, Italy. We visited Vatican City, where we saw the building where Galileo was tried by the Inquisition for his support of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. It was very interesting to see the real-life building that Galileo's trial took place in, because those events seem distant not only in time but in thinking about the reasons why they occurred. I think that today it can be hard to be historically relative and understand the thinking of 17th century society, because the lack of free speech is so foreign to us.

Another interesting site we saw is the Pantheon, which is outside of Vatican City in surrounding Rome. The Pantheon is an Ancient Roman building built in 2nd century A.D. that was used for the dedication of the Roman gods. In the 7th century, the temple was converted into a Christian church, and the original statues and art of the Roman gods was destroyed. It was fascinating to go inside the church, but it was also unfortunate to think about the original pieces that have been lost forever. 

Museum of books and printing

On Tuesday morning we made the journey to the museum of books and printing. There, we were greeted by a jovial Frenchmen who was very knowledgeable and passionate on the subject matter. This made the tour evermore enjoyable even in the intense heat. During the tour we were firstly introduced to the architecture of the district thought history. The mysterious passageways that cut from one side of the home to the opposite, as well as width of the roads and the general look of the buildings.

Our tour included a detailed oration on Gutenburg and the history of the development on the first printing presses. Some of the earliest printing presses would use plates with an entire page of text. Later movable type was used to decrease the time needed to print a single page, and the individual letters could be reused over and over. These individual letters were housed in a box with several compartments. Capital letters were in the upper case and the small letters were kept in the lower case, hence the upper and lower case letters. It is interesting learning the origins of our everyday phrases.

Thread by thread

The weaving of silk turns out to be a very intricate process. It generally starts out with a black silk work egg hatching. Over the next month the silk work eats a lot of leaves and is constantly growing. They don't excrete anything so when the silk worms start to make their cocoon they are actually regurgitating what they had eaten over the past month. They regurgitated material turns out to be a 1 meter long piece of silk thread. The caterpillar is then killed inside its own cocoon so that the moth doesn't create a hole in its own cocoon. If it did that the. The silk weavers would end up with a bunch of really short silk threads. The silk weavers then unravel the thread. The o e thread that they unravel is then combined with 4-5 other threads to make a much thicker thread that won't break easily. The thread is then dyed to create a specific color and used to create a design on a panel of silks, which depending on what kind of silk that you want can become expensive.

Power of the Press

As we were waiting for the museum of books and printing to open. Our tour guide showed up early and started talking about the architecture and design of the building the museum was housed in. One thing he talked about was the paths built in the buildings as short cuts, but in WWII the French freedom fighters would use these paths to get away from the germen police.
After getting in the museum, he talked about the people that worked the printing press. The top guy would proof read what were going to be printed after the first copy was made. He was classed as a noblemen. Next was the man who worked the press. This job was nicknamed the bear as the person doing the job needed to be very strong.  One benefit of this job was he got to take one part of the press home with him. This worked well as a key card in France's nation pastime of striking. Which the  tour guide said was started by the germens, but thats for a different day. Last was the guy who put together the printing block so the paper could be pressed on it.

Biological Science Museum

I loved our visit to the Merieux Biological Science Museum where we learned about immunology and the advances made in the field. From the initial discovery of immunology by Edward Jenner with the smallpox vaccine (named so for the use of cows, or vacca in Latin, for obtaining cowpox samples) to larger applications studied by Pasteur who created the rabies vaccine. These men paved the way for the eradication or control of what were leading causes of death in some regions during our history.
In particular, I liked the displays about how viral diseases are transferred to humans - typically through mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, as well as direct contact with infected animals. In many cases, animals can be vaccinated to protect them and humans from infection, but there are some where the only protection is for people to get vaccinated against the virus. Unfortunately, there are several areas of the world where viruses mutate too quickly to develop effective vaccines. It is also common that in developing countries, vaccine rates are low because there often isn't enough money or manpower to distribute it.
Despite these obstacles, it was exciting to hear about all the steps we are making in new and better vaccines which makes me optimistic for the future of this field.

Silk factories

After going to both of the silk museums I now understand why silk is expensive. The process for getting just one strand of silk is awesome yet long. In order to make one string for silk you need 7-10 strands. Then you have to actually make the fabric which now is more simple than back then. Plus you can't wash it with your regular clothes, instead you have to take it to the dry cleaner which costs even more money.

I loved the Books and Printing Museum. It was crazy to see the evolution of printing. I found it interesting that the Chinese used woodblock printing and movable type before the Europeans, but they were secluded so it didn't spread as quickly as when the printing press was made. I loved the case of the metal letters and the dog balls. It's sad that they used dogs, but I found it amazing that they even knew that dogs don't sweat so their skin wouldn't be pourous.

At the second silk museum I was happy to see that improvements had been made to automate the looms so that this art can still be used today. It was interesting to see how the weavers house was set up to resemble a small factory so they could work right at home. The main work area in the house was open but had to be sectioned off from the eating area for protection of the loom. The superior of the weaving workshop was finally recognized with the award for worker of the year. After an entire lifetime of silk weaving, she will be recognized as one of the best in France. 

The Power of Books

When visiting the museum of printing it was pretty amazing to see how powerful quickly printed books were. I was surprised to see how huge scientific and religious movements were made possible by printed books. With the printing press it was possible for the translated bibles of the protestants to be accessible to people. The printing press also made it possible for scientists to more easily share their work and have other scientists build off of it. After visiting the museum I have an new respect and understanding of the printing press and how it shaped the world we know today. 

Museum of Books and Printing

When visiting the Museum of books and printing I found it really interesting to learn how long it used to take people to write books when it first became a thing. One book would take approximately one year to write. Nowdays, we can print thousands of books per day with all of the technology we have around the world. It was also cool to see how they wrote books with the feathers, and how they printed books with the letter stamps that were stored in a box in alphabetical order.

Doctor Merieux Biological Sciences Museum

On 24 July we visited the Doctor Merieux Biological Sciences Museum, named for the Merieux Foundation and BioMerieux, which are biotechnology-based companies that have done a lot of work regarding infectious disease. The museum itself mainly focuses on topics regarding immunology, from infectious disease ecology to the actual diagnosis and treatments of such diseases. Investigative strategies that are applicable to both humans and animals are one of the major areas of expertise of this museum. Because animals can act as carriers of dangerous diseases that can be transmitted to humans, it is often more effective and efficient to treat the animals before they actually spread the disease to humans. Animal vaccines are able to be produced and used on a large scale without massive studies that may take more than a decade, which is a necessary prerequisite for the production of human vaccines. I thought that Louis Pasteur's work with the rabies vaccine was very interesting. Before his development of the vaccine in the late 19th century, almost all cases of rabies resulted in death. By using weakened rabies virus from infected rabbits, a vaccine was developed and successfully used on a child bitten by a rabid dog. I think it is interesting to think about how these discoveries have paved the way for not only vaccines to treat more diseases, but also the entire biotechnology revolution. For example, these days transgenic animals are considered the new models for studying human disease. I found it very amazing to read about some of the early work of immunologists, and to consider how far the technology has come. 

Museum of Books and Printing

Wednesday we traveled to the Museum of Books and Printing. I found the Museum very well laid out and our guide very knowledgeable. What I really enjoyed was our "pre-tour" where our guide described the history of the town. In particular, I liked the history of the tablet from Claudus' speech and wall plaque above it. The plaque had a lion and a man and woman holding jugs with flowing water that represented the two rivers in Lyon - the smaller, curvier, feminine Saone River and the broader, larger, masculine Rhone River.

Book printing

Earlier this week on Wednesday we went to tour the book printing museum. Each room was in chronological order of the advances of book printing. The first room had wood block printing, which was passages in books carved out of wood. This was not a very good method because the wood took long to carve and would wear out rather quickly. This room also talked about how the monks would copy down books. If I remember correctly around the time of the Renissance more people would read, and the monks couldn't keep up with the order. Then the printing press came about. What took monks nearly a day to finish now took less than two minutes. There was several steps to the printing press. First a man would take steal carved letters and write the page, except the letters were backwards so when they printed it looked correctly, and he had to do it from the bottom of the page up, so the letters would stay in place. Then using ink and dog skin ( poor doggies, I didn't like this part :(    ) would ink the page of steal letters. A board with parchment was then flipped on top of the letters and another man would use a lever to press down, thus creating the page. To clarify the two minutes started after orginizing the steal letters. Then we talked about improvements to the printing press, we saw how newspapers were made with copper drum rolls and spools of paper, and we ran short of time so we looked around some rooms with giant cameras and old computers. That was our tour!

Jack of all trades

On monday we went to the Ampere House where we saw an overview of the works of Andre Ampere. The thing that surprised me was how diverse his work was. At the house we saw some documents with his work in biology as well as mathematics. I dont know if the fields of science and math were at a stage of development where someone could contribute so much to several fields or if Ampere was truly that innovative. Regardless it was impressive that his work was so diverse.

Ampere house

With a crazy bus ride to start off my first full day in Lyon, France, the group toured the Ampere house. It was interesting to learn about how Ampere, as a kid, taught himself basic schooling and so much more by just reading the book in his father's library alone. But even more interesting was the hands on experiments that the staff was nice enought to set up for us.  One was about solar energy.  First, the group guested how many watts they can get from the sun. After that, we used a meter to find the real number which was 900 watts. Nexted, we used a solar panel to pump water. Then, we talked about storing energy without having a battery by pumping water to a elavated tank, then at night running the water back through the pump to make energy. Last, we mapped the relation between volts and amp using the solar panel and resisters.

Jacquard loom in real life

After researching the Jacquard loom for my site assignment I thought I would be bored in the old silk weaving district of Lyon the first couple days of our trip. I was fortunately completely wrong! I knew the general mechanics of how the old looms and the jacquard loom operated, but being able to see it was a better learning experience than I could've expected.
How fortunate we are to be able to see the warp threads lift according to the pattern 'programmed' on the punch cards to allow the weft color to slide between the threads to ultimately make nearly priceless material. To be able to hold material worth more than €20000 per square meter was so cool. This material is quite rare today. There are only a couple old style shops which can produce authentic jacquard material for restorations alone, along with just a couple companies which will take orders to produce materials for restorations or for the very very wealthy. In some ways it is amazing that this art was able to survive and be a remembered art form today.

Maison des Canuts

Yesterday we went to Maison des  Canuts to learn about the silk industry and looms. The tour guide was great, and explained all about the process of hatching and raising silk worms. I never realized that a strand of silk is obtained by unraveling an entire cocoon! Also, our tour guide showed us how a loom works. She was quite young, and I was surprised. It's great that they're teaching people how to use the looms so that the knowledge is never lost. She showed us how much work it took to weave silk, and even let us touch fabric that was worth $18000!

Maison des Canuts

When visiting the Maison des Canuts, we learned about the process of how they get the silk that will later to be woven. First, the silk worm eggs would need heat so people would put them in their beds and sleep with them to give off their body heat. When the eggs hatched, they were silk worms that eventually formed cocoons made out of silk. They would then have to unravel the silk without breaking it by putting it in warm water. I found it really fascinating how much time and effort was put into this process to get silk.

Lumiére mansion

A couple days ago we toured the Lumiére mansion which belonged to Auguste and Louise's father. I loved the tour and the tour guide, she was very easy to understand and was very knowledgable. I really liked all of the small models they had of the mansion and of the factory that the brother's owned. It is sad that the brother's house was destroyed during World War II. Also their factory was basically in their back yard and they have several thousands of workers who were mostly women. It was very interesting that the video of the factory workers was staged. I didn't notice that at first but once she pointed it out you could tell, becaue of their clothing and they are looking at the camera. It was astonishing to hear that the original projector that the brothers used for their first showing still worked! I would have never thought that and the camera also worked too. I enjoyed every bit of this tour and would visit again when I could.

Printing books

Today we went to the printing museum to see how books came to be and the intricate history behind it. It was rather interesting to learn how the start of the printing came to be was by demand. It mainly started out when the church believed that everyone should be able to read the bible. When the priests weren't writing it fast enough they made wooden blocks that they could cost in ink and then press a piece of parchment to it. However, even that wasn't enough and the printing press was created. I foun it interesting that before the printing press was created it took priests about 2-3 years to make one book with over 300 pages while with the printing press it took them only about 2 hours if they print 2 sheets at the same time. Now in modern times the printing press has expanded and is printing out hundreds of thousands of books every day compared to only maybe 5 books in one day. It just goes to show how much technology has expanded and improved as time has passed by.

Ampére Museum

As an EE it was a great start to our abroad trip being able to nerd out at the Ampère Museum. After listening through the audible tour of the house it was astounding to learn that Ampère had self taught himself from a young age. He was able to develope the first type of portable energy source which he called the column which was composed of several layers of zinc and copper plates separated by an electrolytic liquid. Stacking this disks allowed for a higher voltage at the terminal ends. This can be thought of as batteries on series. It was interesting to discover the relationship between Ampère himself and Michael Farrady, another major contributor to the field of electromagnetism. Farraday's discovery of how magnetism can induce an electric current was a crucial achievment for modern electromagnetism. Seeing the equipment developed and used by Ampère was a humbling experience because it showed with what resources some of the most significant contributions to electrodynamics were made.

History of silk weaving.

Yesterday afternoon we visited the Maison des Canuts where we learned about the history of silk. We learned about the tedious process of getting silk threads from the cocoon of silk worms, with the bug still inside them. They would need to kill the cocoon in order to have one long continuous thread, if the bug had escaped they would get lots of little threads which were useless in weaving. They would then put the cocoon in boiling water to get the glue like substance out of the thread. The glue like substance was produced by the worm in order to keep the cocoon held together.   They would then spin together 6-10 of these threads depending on the type of silk being made in order to have a strong enough thread to weave. Then the thread would be dyed a color and sent to a weaver. The weavers lived in their shops with their families and worked 18 hours a day. They could only weave 36-42 cm per day depending on the pattern and that would take up to two years to complete an order. The weaver family would then get paid only after they completed the weave mad not very much. The weavers worked in horrid conditions and it really makes you appreciate the clothes and technology of today. Just a side note we got to touch a gold weaved cloth worth 20,000 euro per meter. 

Color Pictures

Today we visited the Institut Lumière in the Monplaisir district of Lyon, France. While the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, are famous for their contributions to film-making and the invention of cinema as we know it today, I learned that they also made significant advances in photographic technology.
The brothers worked on several different methods of adding color to pictures, but they didn't achieve widespread success until after the invention of the Autochrome Lumière process was patented in 1903 and eventually marketed in 1907. This was a process that used three different colored dyes - red, blue, and green - which filtered the colors entering the camera with a mosaic filter . After being paired with a different filter, different amounts of light pass through the mosaic to display pictures in color.
Considering our guide said that before this process, women would hand-paint the colors on the film after it was developed, I would say this is definitely a major technological advance. It is also difficult to imagine our current society without colored pictures or movies where the life-like quality of cinema and photography are often so important.

Maison des Canuts

On 21 July we took the metro to Croix-Rousse, the historical silk district of Lyon. We took a tour of Maison des Canuts, where we learned about the how silk worms are used in silk making as well as the actual making of brocade cloth using a Jacquard loom. Historically, the silk worm eggs were purchased in large amounts, and tedious labor was required to sort out the empty eggs which could not be used. Labor was also required to incubate the eggs to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or human body temperature. In order to protect the eggs, women would keep them close to their bodies until they were ready to hatch. After the cocoon stage was reached, more work was needed for the raw silk strands to be extracted, wound together, and washed to remove the adhesive substance that is secreted by the silk worms. After this entire process, the silk was made into extravagant cloths that were to be sold at very high prices. From a historical standpoint, it was interesting yet unfortunate to learn that the individuals who worked in the silk factories, whether processing the raw silk or making the cloth, lived under very distressing conditions. These people worked for 18 hours a day, 6 days a week, and were paid very little money for all the hard labor that they performed.

Although the people who were buying the silk products were usually very wealthy, the individuals making their exquisite products had very little wealth. I think a connection can be made to modern-day society regarding the lack of knowledge about the true origin of our clothes, as well as the disparity of conditions between the consumers and the producers.

Lumière Institute

On the morning of our second full day in Lyon we traveled via metro to the home of the Lumière family, now known as the Lumière Institute. Inside the gorgeous home (one of 22 we found out) turned museum, our fantastic tour guide showed us the many inventions and shared several extra tidbits of knowledge from the Lumières' lives. After our assigned reading from the day before, we had learned a good chunk of info on the impact the Lumières had on cinema and movies. What I didn't know and found very interesting was their significant impact on photography, as well as various other inventions, totaling 196 patents.
The neatest thing about these patents was the fact that both brothers signed them all, even when it was the idea of just Louis or Auguste. This was part of a pact they made earlier in life to always stick together, which showed also as they shared a home their whole life, even when both had families. As our guide said, "it was very cute" that the brothers honored their agreement.
Their patents ranged from panoramic and instant photos to colored photo and 3D technology to eyeglasses and medical advancements. Even their younger brother was an inventor, creating the first night vision goggles before his young death as a pilot during the war. I found it very surprising to hear the lack of interest in the panoramic photo knowing it's popularity now, though it makes sense as it was developed during a time when the motion picture dominated.
Without the contributions of the Lumière brothers, its hard to see our technology driven, selfie stick wielding society today. Visiting the Lumière Institute today really gave me a sense of awe on the impact two brothers had on today's modern society.

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