In this paper, I will examine John Smeaton’s contribution to the vis viva controversy in Britain, focusing on how the hybridization of science, technology, and industry helped to establish vis viva, or mechanic power, as a measure of motive force. Smeaton, embodying the ‘hybrid expert’ who combined theoretical knowledge and practical knowhow, demonstrated that the notion of vis viva possessed a greater explanatory power than momentum, because it could be used to explain the difference in efficiency between overshot and undershot (...) waterwheels. Smeaton’s conclusions were correct since waterwheel efficiency was already measured in terms that were proportional to vis viva, not momentum, as a result of the industrial applications of waterwheel technology, which favored measuring efficiency by the product of mass and vertical displacement. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the loss of motive force in the inelastic collision driving the undershot wheel began to be seen as equivalent to the expenditure of labor in the manufacture of commodities, further underlining how strictly scientific conclusions about motive force could have their origin in industrial practices. (shrink)

A study of comprehensive schools in one English local education authority shows two Catholic schools at opposite ends of the effectiveness spectrum in helping pupils achieve examination success. Subsequent investigation of their understanding and interpretation of Catholic education finds them to represent two paradigms of Catholic school. Some possible causal relationships are explored between their values,attitudes and practices and their pupils' academic achievement.

Summary Recent concern with the academic performance of schools has led a number of local education authorities to develop systems for measuring the ?added value? that can be attributed to particular institutions in their control. An analysis of data published by one Midlands shire county on the performance of A level candidates in 1992 raised questions about the relative levels of academic achievement of pupils who remained within the Catholic school system compared to those who transferred to local authority institutions (...) for their full?time education after the age of 16. A small representative sample of students from a Catholic school who had transferred to a non?Catholic sixth form college to take A level courses was interviewed. The students? comments suggested they found significant differences in the college ethos compared to that of their previous Catholic school. Those findings together with the analysis or the available data from the local authority, raise issues that merit further detailed research. (shrink)