Submarine Design
His design, detailed in his book Inventions and Devises published in 1578, was one of the first recorded plan for an underwater navigation vehicle. He designed an enclosed craft capable of submerging by decreasing the overall volume (rather than flooding chambers as in modern submarines), and being rowed underwater. Bourne described a ship with a wooden frame covered in waterproofed leather, but the description was a general principle rather than a detailed plan. However, Bourne's concept of an underwater rowing boat was put into action by the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel in 1620, and Nathaniel Symons demonstrated a 'sinking boat' in 1729 using the expanding and contracting volume of the boat to submerge.
The submarine was the subject of a modern-day recreation on season 3 of "The Re-Inventors" TV show, episode "Bourne Submarine". The recreation had limited functionality before it sank when water pressure ruptured some membranes on a test descent.
Read more about this topic: William Bourne (mathematician)
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life ... for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,—some of its virus mingled with my blood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)