
Isambard Kingdom Brunel - rexreed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel
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kitd
Brunel is one of my heroes.

I was born in Bristol and he was a large part of the city's heritage and
featured in the school curriculum. I have an early memory of standing on the
edge of the Avon watching the SS Great Britain come under the suspension
bridge into the Cumberland Basin in around 1970.

Funnily enough, I visited the ship again just the other weekend for the first
time in about 30 years. It is only apparent to me now just how advanced the
ship was at the time. This was the very first iron-only ocean-going liner and
even the use of a propeller was bleeding-edge when it was built, and yet some
the techniques used were similar to what you might see now. If you're ever in
the area, I really recommend a visit.

Also worth mentioning is Maidenhead Railway Bridge
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Railway_Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Railway_Bridge)

built in 1838, which held the record for the longest flattest brick arches in
the world up until only quite recently I believe. It appears in Turner's
famous painting "Rain, Steam, Speed"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rain_Steam_and_Speed_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rain_Steam_and_Speed_the_Great_Western_Railway.jpg)

and also has a fantastic sounding echo underneath.

~~~
duncanawoods
I love the Clifton Suspension bridge - its a thing of beauty. I like this
combo of engineering feats - Concorde's last flight included a flyby over the
bridge:

[http://www.justmomentsintime.com.au/BaileySite/Terrys%20Page...](http://www.justmomentsintime.com.au/BaileySite/Terrys%20Page/ConcordeOverBridge.jpg)

For added interest - the white building is one of only two working camera
obscuras in the country and the bridge is over Avon Gorge. If you hear of
"Silicon Gorge", now you know what it looks like!

~~~
kitd
Lovely shot. Concorde is a thing of beauty too, all done with pen/paper/slide-
rules of course.

At about the time the SS Great Britain was being repatriated, Concorde was
undergoing its initial test flights. We saw an early one take off from Filton
from across the Bristol Channel in Wales. In those days, it was allowed to do
sonic booms as it flew along the Welsh coast. Bloody hell it was loud!

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arethuza
Babbage had an argument with Brunel about the who had the right of way when
driving their own railway engines:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKqdlpuLDPE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKqdlpuLDPE)

Brunel is also a character in the brilliant "The Thrilling Adventures of
Lovelace and Babbage":

[http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/cast/](http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/cast/)

Where his described as:

"The Wolverine of the mid-Victorians, he was short, ripped, had big sideburns,
smoked forty cigars a day and generally kicked everyone’s ass."

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fredgrott
The reading of Brunel's "atmospheric caper" sounds somewhat a forerunner to
one of Elon Musk's transport ideas.

~~~
rexreed
That was my first thought too - and if you dig deeper you'll see there were
quite a few folks working on this concept in the mid-1800s. Suprising!
Steampunk indeed.

~~~
damian2000
FYI

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway)

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brendannee
There is a bizarre animated biography on IKB made by the BBC in 1975:

[http://transportationist.org/2012/09/17/great_isambard_kingd...](http://transportationist.org/2012/09/17/great_isambard_kingdom_brunel/)

"It is mostly about Brunel, but it is also telling of the state of the UK in
the early 1970s. Something was clearly wrong that this was green-lighted."

What is even stranger is that it won an oscar in 1976.

Its definitely worth watching if you can find it.

~~~
buro9
I just tried finding that on YouTube as the IMDB comments suggested it might
be there.

I didn't find that film, but I found this film:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXgGsEO1b04](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXgGsEO1b04)

Which, for a condensed, half-witty animation, does a fair job of putting such
a life into 3 minutes.

The best I found on the Oscar winning film are some clips:
[http://0xdb.org/0073068/clips/position](http://0xdb.org/0073068/clips/position)
. From the clips, I would describe it as a cross between the animations of
Monty Python's Flying Circus and Yellow Submarine.

And those clips worked best in Firefox, click a frame and wait for no
feedback, and then 5 seconds will play (with audio) when you least expect it.

~~~
goatforce5
[http://video.yandex.ru/users/urikis/view/644](http://video.yandex.ru/users/urikis/view/644)
seems to be it, complete with Russian subtitles.

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VLM
I was familiar with his story from playing the "railroad tycoon" series of
games as a kid. I suspect many startup / HN / MBA types were inspired by
playing those games and therefore had some exposure to Brunel's story.

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pkolaczk
Sting wrote a song related to him (actually one of the ships he'd built):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH44goCQqCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH44goCQqCU)

~~~
Joeboy
Totally reddit style comment, destined for downvote oblivion, but I like this
Brunel related Steampunk song so much I can't resist linking to it just this
once:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21QqXumEWFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21QqXumEWFU)

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uppe
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZn8EQaoD9w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZn8EQaoD9w)

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jacques_chester
A remarkable engineer. My father nearly named me Isambard, but my mother got
in first with "Jacques".

~~~
narag
Hadn't heard the name ever. I guess it's not very common, is it? Also
"Kingdom".

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awda
Speaking of this guy, my nephew is named after him :).

