Throughout history, there have been many inventions that have driven the progress of human civilization. Today we will take a look at these great inventions.
The wheel, 3500 BC
One of the early inventions that changed human history was the wheel. The wheel isn't as old as you might think, though. The first wheel probably appeared around 4000 BC. By then, humans were already casting metal alloys, building canals and sailboats, and even designing intricate musical instruments such as harps.
In fact, the key innovation was not the wheel itself, which was probably invented when people first saw stones rolling, but the combination of the wheel and a fixed axle so that the wheel could be attached to a stable platform. Since there is no fixed axle, the use of the wheel is very limited.
There is evidence that the first device to use a wheel-axle combination was a potter's wheel, which is a wheel-axle mechanism that spins freely. They were developed in Mesopotamia (now Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey, and Syria) around 4000 BC. The oldest extant example, found at Ur, dates back to around 3100 BC, and there is evidence of wheeled vehicles in the late 4th millennium BC.
compass, about 200 BC
The compass helps humans explore the world. Today, we have GPS navigation systems, which may seem irrelevant. But at the time, it was an important invention.
However, the compass may have been originally invented for sacrificial purposes and only later used for nautical purposes. The earliest compasses were invented by the Chinese around 200 BC and were made from lodestone, a naturally occurring mineral called magnetite.
Around 1050 AD, people started hanging lodestones, letting them move freely, and using them for navigation.A European book from 1190 describes the magnetized needle and its use in navigation, so navigation with a compass was commonplace at that time.
Waterwheel
Waterwheel is a machine that converts the energy of falling water into useful kinetic energy. The water wheel consists of a wheel and several blades arranged on the outer edge. The waterwheel was independently invented in many places. Some of the earliest were developed by the ancient Greek people who used it for irrigation and milling, beginning sometime between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC.
In the 1st century AD, the Eastern Han Dynasty began to use water wheels to grind ore and to power piston bellows, which were used to forge iron ore into cast iron. Dating back to the 4th century BC, ancient Indian texts mention possibly the earliest water wheel devices, but this has not been confirmed.
calendar
Calendar is used to record dates, it is as old as the history of words. The first "calendar" was based on the phases of the moon, with the moon revolving around the earth once (with the sun as a reference, the actual moon orbits more than one week) as one month, and a year as a calendar of twelve calendar months. The solar calendar, also known as the Gregorian calendar, is a calendar based on the movement cycle of the earth's revolution around the sun. The calendar year of the solar calendar is approximately equal to the tropical year, with 12 months in a year. This "month" is actually not related to the synodic month.
Many civilizations continue to use the lunar calendar, which has fewer days than solar years. To avoid too much variation in the months, it is common to add a month every other year. A similar system was used by the ancient Romans, but by around 46 BC it had collapsed, with civic events and religious festivals appearing at the wrong season. So Julius Caesar introduced a new system for setting the length of months and years according to the solar year. This is the Roman Julian calendar.
This method works fine, but still has a large deviation that adds a day every 128 years.To correct this error, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which is still in use today.
Concrete
We live in a world made up of concrete materials. Concrete is a composite material made of crushed stone, sand, cement and water, which is poured into a mould and hardened to form a stone-like mass.
One of the key components of concrete is cement, the origin of which dates back to 3000 BC. At the time, the Egyptians used early forms of concrete as mortar in their construction.
Around 1300 BC, the builders of Middle East painted the outside of their clay forts with a thin layer of damp burnt limestone. It chemically reacts with gases in the air to form a hard protective surface. By 700 BC, the importance of lime was recognized, which led to the development of mortar kilns for building brick-walled houses, concrete floors, and underground waterproof cisterns.
The ancient Greeks and Romans used a form of concrete that included pozzolan, which used a mixture of aluminum and silicon that reacted with calcium hydroxide at room temperature and in the presence of water to form a cement that acted as a substance. It was very strong, which is one of the reasons why so many Greek and Roman ruins exist today.
In 1824, the Englishman Joseph Aspedine invented Portland cement. In 1891, George Bartholomew laid the first concrete street in America, and it still exists today.
To the end of the 19th century, the use of reinforced concrete developed. In 1902, Auguste Perret designed and built an apartment building in Paris from reinforced concrete. This building won a lot of admiration for concrete and eventually pushed the development of reinforced concrete.
In 1921, Eugene Freycinet built two huge parabolic-arched airship hangars at Paris Orly Airport, pioneering the use of reinforced concrete structures.
clock, 725 AD, the first mechanical clock
Imagine a modern civilization without the concept of time, it is either wonderful or terrible. Humans have used devices to measure time for thousands of years. The current system for measuring time (60 seconds is a minute and 60 minutes is an hour) was invented by the Sumerians around 2000 BC. The earliest timepieces were sundials, which used the movement of the sun to time time. Other early "clocks" included candle clocks, time sticks, and hourglasses.
The earliest known mechanical clock was invented by the Greeks in the 3rd century BC and used hydrodynamic power to convert rotational energy into intermittent motion. In the 10th century AD, Chinese engineers invented the mercury-powered clock. In the 11th century, Arab engineers invented the water clock driven by gears and weights.
Pendulum clocks were the most accurate timepieces until the invention of the quartz clock in the 1930s. After World War II, atomic clocks followed.
printing press
printing press is an important foundation on which modern civilization is built. German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1436, although he was not the first to automate the printing process. Chinese printing can be traced back to the 9th century.
However, Johannes Gutenberg's machines improved upon existing printing presses and introduced them to the West. By 1500, the Gutenberg press was operating throughout Western Europe. Not only did printing allow for the mass production of newspapers and books, it also lowered the price of printed materials, made books and newspapers accessible to many, and fostered literacy.
Mark Twain once described the impact of the printing press in history: "The world today, for better or for worse, owes its existence to Gutenberg."
The Steam Engine
A man named Geronimo de A Janz's Spanish mining administrator is considered the first to invent the steam engine. He applied for a patent for a device that used steam power to propel water from a mine shaft.
However, Englishman Thomas Savery is generally credited with inventing the first practical steam engine in 1698. His device used steam pressure to pump water from flooded mines. In developing his engine, Savery used the principles proposed by Dennis Papin. Papin was a French-born British physicist who invented the pressure cooker.
1711, another Englishman, Thomas Newcomen, improved the steam engine. In 1781, James Watt, a Scottish instrument maker employed at the University of Glasgow, added a separate condenser to Newcomen's steam engine, which kept the cylinders at a constant temperature, greatly improving the steam engine's performance. He later developed a twin-rotary steam engine that, by the 19th century, powered trains, mills, factories and many other manufacturing operations, kicking off the Industrial Revolution.
Vaccines, one of the most important medical inventions
The history of vaccines is actually much earlier than you might think. In 17th century China, people applied vaccinia to a small wound on the skin to immunize against smallpox.
In the West, Edward Jenner, considered the founder of vaccinology, noticed that "milkmaids" frequently got vaccinia but rarely smallpox, and assumed that the less dangerous vaccinia virus could provide some immunity to smallpox force. In 1796, he vaccinated a 13-year-old boy with cowpox and then exposed him to smallpox, creating an early vaccine.
In 1798, the first smallpox vaccine was developed. In 1923, Alexander Graney created the tetanus vaccine. In 1926, the same method was used to develop a diphtheria vaccine. The development of viral tissue culture methods from 1950 to 1985 led to the emergence of various vaccines.
steam-powered train
In 1804, British engineer Richard Trevithick built the first full-size steam locomotive in England. It uses high pressure steam to drive the engine. On February 21, 1804, the world's first steam-powered rail journey took place, when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive dragged the train along a Welsh tram.
The first commercially successful steam locomotive, the Salamanca, was built by John Brenkinthorpe between 1812-1913. In 1814, George Stephenson built a steam engine, Locomotive No. 1, based on Blankinthorpe's design.
In 1821 Stephenson was appointed engineer to build the Stockton to Darlington Railway in North East England, which opened in 1825 as the first public steam-powered railway. His locomotive became the first steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public railway. In 1829, he built the famous steam engine "Rocket" and the railway age began.
Batteries
In the 19th century, people didn't have electrical wires to keep power on. Therefore, generating electricity is not an easy task. The battery dates back to two thousand years ago, during the Parthian Empire. Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient battery consisting of a clay pot filled with a vinegar solution into which an iron rod surrounded by a copper cylinder was inserted. These cells were probably used to electroplate silver.
It is widely believed that Alessandro Volta invented the first practical battery.In 1799, he invented the battery, which consisted of two different metal discs, such as copper and zinc, separated by cardboard soaked in salt water.
In 1802, William Cruickshank invented the trough battery, an improvement on the volt battery. The battery had a breakthrough in 1859, when French doctor Gaston Plant invented the first rechargeable battery based on lead acid. In 1899, Waldemar Jungner invented the nickel-cadmium battery. The
computer, the first mechanical computer invented by Babbage
The computer is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. The bulky computers of the past were originally built to perform complex mathematical calculations, but have now evolved into machines that can fit on almost every desktop and in our pockets.
Mechanical engineer Charles Babbage, along with Ada Lovelace, who invented the first program, laid the groundwork for this remarkable and reliable invention. In the early 19th century, the "father of computing" conceived and developed early mechanical computers. Although the inventor of the modern computer was not alone, the principle was proposed by Alan Turing in his seminal 1936 paper.
Refrigerator
According to a 2009 report by the US Department of Energy, 99% of American households have at least one refrigerator. This statistic by itself represents how pervasive refrigerators are in the modern world. This great invention helps keep perishable foods fresh longer.
In 1835, Jacob Perkins patented the first vapor-compression refrigerator based on a theory proposed earlier by Oliver Evans. Around 1851, British engineer James Harrison built the first mechanical refrigeration system to make ice. He founded the Victorian ice factory and is known as the "Father of Refrigeration". In 1873, he proved that meat frozen for months was still perfectly edible.
However, the first refrigerator to be widely used was the one produced by General Electric in 1927. While it initially helped speed up the industrial process, it later became an industry in its own right.
telegraph (1830-1840), a communication device that introduced Morse code
In the early 19th century, the development of batteries made it possible to use electric current in a controlled environment. Then, in 1820, the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oster proved the connection between electricity and magnetism. After this, scientists and inventors began to use this connection to develop some kind of communication system.
In the 1830s, a British team consisting of Sir William Cook and Sir Charles Wheatstone developed a telegraph system using magnetic needles that could be directed by an electric current to a panel of letters and numbers. Around the same time, Samuel Morse worked on developing his own telegraph, eventually producing a single-circuit telegraph that completed a battery circuit by pressing an operating key. This sends the electronic signal to the receiver on the other end.
At the same time, Morse and Alfred Weir also invented what is now called Morse code to transmit information over telegraph lines.
Steel
Although bronze was the first metal forged by man, it is relatively weak. Around 1800 BC, people along the coast of the Black Sea began to use iron ore to make sturdy iron weapons. Stronger cast iron was first manufactured in China around 500 BC.
Around 400 BC, metal workers in India invented a method of smelting, using a clay tray to hold the lumps of iron and charcoal. When these are inserted into the furnace, the wrought iron melts and absorbs the carbon from the charcoal. When the crucible cools, it contains a pure steel ingot, which is much stronger and less brittle than iron.
In 1856, British engineer Henry Bessemer invented a process in which air was injected into molten pig iron to produce carbon-free pure iron. The Bessemer process paved the way for the mass production of steel, making it one of the largest industries in the world. Today, steel is used in everything from bridges to skyscrapers.
Electric light
Electric light was pioneered in the early 19th century by Humphrey Davey, who experimented with electricity and invented the battery. When he connected a wire between the battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed. His invention is called the arc lamp. Over the next 70 years, other inventors also created "light bulbs." However, these filaments tend to break after a few days of use, making them impractical.
In 1850, a British physicist named Joseph Wilson Swan invented a "light bulb" in which he wrapped carbon filaments in a vacuum glass bulb. But without a good vacuum, his bulbs were too short-lived for commercial use. However, in the 1870s, better vacuum pumps emerged, and Swan was able to develop a light bulb that lasted longer.
Thomas Edison improved upon Swan's design for metal filaments, and in 1878 and 1879 patented electric lamps using different materials for filaments. He eventually found that carbonized bamboo silk could last for more than 1,200 hours. This discovery makes commercially produced light bulbs commercially viable.
Aircraft
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the dreamers who believed that powered flight was possible. He designed several flying machines, but there is no evidence that he actually built planes.
Many other flying machines have been invented since the time of Leonardo da Vinci, and powered flying machines have been made possible over the centuries thanks to the efforts of countless inventors. The Wright brothers were the first to achieve controlled powered flight.Beginning with their work on gliders, the duo's success laid the foundations for modern aeronautical engineering.
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled flight. Thanks to the achievements of Wilbur and Orville Wright, humans can now walk thousands of kilometers in a few hours.
The transistor, the secret of the modern computer
The origin of the electronic age is due to the transistor used to amplify electrical signals. They replaced the previously bulky vacuum tubes. In 1926, Julius Lilienfeld patented a field-effect transistor, but the actual device used was not feasible. In 1947, John Bardeen, Walter Bratton and William Shockley developed the first practical transistor device at Bell Laboratories. The trio's invention won them the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Since then, transistors have become a fundamental part of the circuits of countless electronic devices, including televisions, cell phones, and computers.
Arpanet, the early Internet
The Internet does not have a single "inventor". Rather, it has evolved over time. It started in the United States around the 1950s with the development of computers.
The first viable prototype of the Internet was born in the late 1960s with the creation of the ARPANET. By the 1970s, Vinton Chef had developed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP), which enabled computers to communicate with each other. The ARPANET adopted the TCP/IP protocol on January 1, 1983, and since then researchers have begun to assemble the "network of networks" that is the modern Internet.
The Internet is a network infrastructure, while the World Wide Web is a way of using the Internet to obtain information. The father of the World Wide Web is considered to be British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. He created the World Wide Web, which allowed scientists at universities and institutes around the world to share information.
In 1989 and 1990, Berners-Lee, in collaboration with Belgian systems engineer Robert Cailliau, formally proposed a network architecture, including describing a "World Wide Web" in which "hypertext documents" could be viewed by "browser" .
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