Abstract
AMONG the great mechanical inventors of last century, none was known to a wider public than Sir Hiram Maxim, who was born on February 25, a century ago. When he came to Europe in 1881 to attend the Paris Exhibition, he was the engineer of the first electric light company in the United States, but was known to few in Great Britain. He had, however, already taken out a goodly number of patents, had invented a gas-making machine for lighting buildings and had done much original work on the incandescent electric lamp, dynamos, regulators, boiler plant and suchlike. When on the Continent, his attention was attracted to the subject of machine-guns. His countrymen Gatling, Gardner, and Hotchkiss had all invented machine-guns, and so had the Swedish engineer Nordenfelt. None of their guns, however, had proved entirely satisfactory.
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Centenary of Sir Hiram Maxim. Nature 145, 292 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145292d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145292d0