8 famous inventions and discoveries that don't belong to who you think
Miscellaneous / / June 29, 2023
Great thoughts often come to smart minds almost simultaneously.
1. Steam engine
The Scottish engineer James Watt, after whom the units of watts are named, is also considered the creator of the steam engine. His creation, collected in 1765, led to the Industrial Revolution in England and then throughout the world.
However, the first commercially successful steam pump as early as 1698 collected English inventor Thomas Savery. His apparatus pumped groundwater from mines in the south of England. In addition, Savery pumps were used to control the water supply at Hampton Court and Campden House.
A complete steam engine developed Thomas Newtcomen in 1712. His apparatus used steam to move a piston, which then powered other mechanisms. By 1735 over 100 Newcomen engines had been installed throughout England. Later, Watt greatly improved the design of the steam engine, but it was not originally invented by him.
2. Telescope
Galileo is known as the father of experimental physics and the author of the phrase "And yet she spinning!" (although in fact he is such did not tell). In addition, he is often credited with the invention of the telescope, in which, allegedly, he saw that the center of our system is the Sun, and not the Earth.
However, this device was actually developed by a Dutch spectacle maker named Hans Lippershey. On October 2, 1608, he applied to the Estates General of the Netherlands for a patent for his instrument, "allowing you to see distant things as if they were near."
He failed to obtain the document, as soon another instrument maker, Jacob Metius, also applied. As a result, officials could not figure out who was the first. Nevertheless, Lippershey was generously awarded by the Dutch government for his telescope. A year later, Galileo improved its design and began to use it for his astronomical observations.
3. Radiation
The term "radiation" is traditionally associated with the names of the French couple of scientists, Pierre and Marie Curie. But in fact, he was the first to discover in 1896 radioactivity physicist Henri Becquerel.
During his experiments with phosphorescent materials, he found outthat some substances, in particular uranium salts, are capable of radiating energy without external influence. And this discovery was the first step in the study of radioactivity.
Henri Becquerel shared his results with other scientists, including Marie and Pierre Curie. By 1898, they had done a lot of research and discovered radioactivity in other elements such as thorium, polonium and radium, and received the Nobel Prize for their contribution. Nevertheless, the first place in this matter belongs to Becquerel.
4. Bulb
It is believed that the first electric lamp was created by Thomas Edison in 1879. However, in fact, its history began much earlier. In 1800 Alessandro Volta developed a galvanic battery, which consisted of alternating discs of zinc and copper soaked in salt water and allowed electricity to be conducted. The copper wire that glowed when connected to it can be considered one of the earliest examples of a thread for incandescent lamps.
Humphrey Davy was the next scientist to contribute to this invention. In 1802 he created an electric lamp in which a bright arc of light appeared between two carbon rods. This was an important improvement, but the model was not very practical for everyday lighting.
In 1850, English chemist Joseph Swan began working on a more economical electric lighting and by 1860 created a light bulb that used carbonized paper threads.
Edison was able to make a similar design commercially successful. He tested over 6,000 materials to figure out what the best lamp filament was, and eventually made it from carbonized bamboo. This material was used in light bulbs until 1910, when the American physicist William David Coolidge of General Electric thought of replacing it with tungsten.
5. Airplane
On December 17, 1903, the Orville brothers and Wilburt Wright became the first people to make a sustained manned flight. airplane with engine. But they are not the inventors of the airplane concept itself - this is a common misconception.
In 1874 the French inventor Felix du Temple built a steam plane that took off from a springboard with a passenger on board and remained in the air for some time. It was the first heavier-than-air aircraft to take off from the ground. But his flight was very short.
Other predecessors of the Wrights were the brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal. Since 1891, they have carried out many experiments with gliders and managed to achieve significant success. They studied the principles of aerodynamics and control, which proved to be extremely valuable for future aviators.
And in Brazil, for example, in general consider the world's first pilot, a native of this country, Alberto Santos Dumont. The Brazilians refer to the fact that the Wright airplane took off from a springboard, while Dumont's apparatus took off on its own.
6. Automobile
Henry Ford released his Model T in 1908 and it was the first car to achieve massive popularity and market success. Yes, even in those days when most people in the old fashioned way still traveled by horses. Therefore, many people consider Ford the creator of passenger cars.
Henry really made a huge contribution to the automotive industry, but he did not invent the passenger car. This did Karl Benz is a German engineer and inventor. In 1885 he created the first car with an internal combustion engine. True, his Benz Patent‑Motorwagen was three-wheeled and not as comfortable as the Ford.
Ford's other predecessors were Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler, also German engineers. In 1889 they submitted the first four-wheeled car with an internal combustion engine.
What Ford has achieved is improvements in the manufacturing process. His assembly line greatly increased the efficiency of production, reducing the cost of each car so that ordinary citizens could afford it. Therefore, they also say about him that he "put America on wheels."
7. Radio communication
The inventor of radio communication is the Italian Guglielmo Marconi. In 1901 he established the first wireless connection across the Atlantic. ocean. But in fact, Marconi was not the first to create the concept of radio.
His predecessor was Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American engineer and inventor. At the end of the 19th century, he spent researched in the field of wireless communication and developed a system that allowed the transmission of radio waves over long distances. In 1895, Tesla held a public demonstration of it and received patents related to the transmission and reception of radio waves.
Another notable predecessor of Marconi was the physicist Alexander Popov. In the same 1895, he successfully demonstrated the principle of radio communication at open lectures in St. Petersburg. He created a device that could receive radio signals at a distance and was used to receive them from meteorological instruments.
However, the first person to reorderedthat radio waves can transmit sound was David Edward Hughes. In 1878, he assembled a microphone apparatus on carbon blocks that successfully received signals at a distance of up to 460 meters. That is, Hughes encountered radio waves nine years before Heinrich Hertz proved their existence in 1888.
Another thing is that he could not explain how his radio wave microphone works, and attributed this to the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction. And yet he did not manage to come up with a practical application for his invention. Marconi later applied open his forerunners of technology and turned them into a ready-made commercial product - "wireless telegraph".
8. GUI
Many people believe that it was Microsoft, under the leadership of Bill Gates, who gave the whole progressive world a graphical user interface, releasing Windows with a cursor, icons and windows. But in fact the concept of a GUI invented Douglas Engelbart in the 1960s.
His system already included windows, icons, menus, and a moving mouse pointer for interacting with computer. Engelbart also introduced the concept of hypertext and hypermedia, becoming the progenitor of the Internet and web technologies. And he, for a second, invented the mouse.
Xerox was impressed with Engelbart's designs in 1973, and a team led by Alan Kay introduced Xerox Alto computer with mouse and graphical interface.
In 1979, Steve Jobs picked up on this idea and subsequently integrated it into the Apple Lisa computer and later into the popular Macintosh line of devices. And only after that Microsoft developed its own version of the graphical interface for the Windows operating system.
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