engineering

Richard T. James

Richard T. James is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Richard T. James rather than just read about it. In short: Richard Thompson James (March 27, 1918 – July 13, 1974) was an American naval engineer, best known for inventing the Slinky spring toy with his wife Betty James in Haverford Township, Pennsylvania in 1943. Education James was born on March 27, 1918.

Key takeaways

Richard T. James belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Richard T. James to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Richard T. James from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Richard Thompson James (March 27, 1918 – July 13, 1974) was an American naval engineer, best known for inventing the Slinky spring toy with his wife Betty James in Haverford Township, Pennsylvania in 1943.

Education James was born on March 27, 1918. In 1935, he graduated from Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school located in Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1939, he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Career In 1943 James was trying to develop a means for suspending sensitive shipboard instruments aboard naval vessels, even in rough seas, and was working with torsion springs when he accidentally dropped one. Seeing how the spring kept moving after it hit the ground, the idea for a toy was born. He bought a coil-winding machine and started the James Spring & Wire Company to mass-produce the toy. The following year, Betty came up with the name Slinky after leafing through the dictionary and thinking that the word described the motion of the spring. The couple made 400 Slinkys and convinced Gimbels department store in Philadelphia to carry the toy for Christmas 1945. Originally displayed in a static position, none of the toys sold but when Richard James stepped up to demonstrate the toy in action on a ramp, the entire first production run sold out within 90 minutes at a price of $1 each. The toy became a huge success, particularly after James left the operation and Betty took over the helm. In all, a total of 300 million Slinkys have been sold, with about a quarter million still sold world-wide every year. By the 1950s, Slinky sales were declining and Richard became affiliated with an evangelical Christian sect. In 1960, Richard went to Bolivia to join Wycliffe Bible Translators, leaving behind his wife, six children, and nearly-bankrupt company in the United States. Betty James took over as CEO of James Industries. She moved the company from Philadelphia to its current Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania location and began an active advertising campaign, complete with the famous Slinky jingle. She ran the company until her retirement in 1998, and was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 2001. Richard James died of a heart attack in 1974 in Bolivia. Betty died on November 20, 2008, age 90 of congestive heart failure at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

References

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External links Slinky patent Delaware County Times article, 26 August, 1948 Delaware County Daily Times article, 25 November 1976

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard T. James

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard T. James claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Richard T. James before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Richard T. James ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Richard T. James

In research: Richard T. James appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Richard T. James in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Richard T. James is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1918 births, 1974 deaths, 20th-century American engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard T. James outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Richard T. James in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard T. James means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Richard T. James out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard T. James in simple terms?

Why does Richard T. James matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Richard T. James?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Richard T. James.