10 inventions that killed their creators

1. Motorbike

In 1863, American inventor and engineer Sylvester Roper created Roper's steam carriage - one of the first cars in history. And also a shotgun with a revolving magazine and a so-called choke gun with a special narrowing in the muzzle to reduce the dispersion of shot. In general, he was a creative comrade.

He died in 1896. The steam car was not enough for him, and Roper also invented a steam bicycle - in fact, the first motorcycle in history. Wanting to prove to cyclists who preferred to pedal the old fashioned way that the car is stronger muscles, the inventor staged a street race near the Harvard Bridge in Cambridge, State Massachusetts. In 2 minutes 1.4 seconds he accelerated to a maximum of 64 km/h. Apparently, at that time people were still unaccustomed to such speed, because Roper’s heart suddenly gave out, he lost control and crashed to death.

2. Balloon

The Frenchman Jean-François Pilatre de Rozier is considered a pioneer in the field of aeronautics. He was not the first to come up with the idea of ​​flying in a hot air balloon. He was ahead of him by the Montgolfier brothers, who created their own apparatus that rose into the sky using hot air and was named a hot air balloon after the name of its creators.

But Rosier invented the so-called rosier - an aircraft lighter than air itself, which uses two cameras at once to fly. One of them was filled with hydrogen, the other with hot air. This made it possible to save fuel and control the volatility of the device.

November 21, 1783 de Rosier with his comrade Marquis d'Alembert committed the first successful flight in a hot air balloon without a tether.

But, alas, luck was not always on de Rosier's side. In 1785, the inventor died trying to cross the English Channel on his rosiere with another famous aeronaut, Pierre Romain. Their balloon suddenly caught fire while flying at an altitude of about 450 meters, after which it deflated and fell. So de Rosier and Romain became the first people in history to die in plane crash.

By the way, Rosier also invented a respirator. And if I had limited myself to only that, I might have remained alive.

3. Typewriter

American engineer and entrepreneur William Bullock had a significant influence on the development of printing and publishing in the 19th century. He came up with a lot of improvements for printing presses and other printing machines.

Bullock, in particular, modified the design of his predecessor Richard Howe and created the so-called rotary printing press, which wound paper on huge rollers. Bullock's inventions revolutionized the printing industry.

It may seem that his work was not obviously fraught with danger. Making printing presses is not like testing Formula 1 cars. Alas, Bullock also became a victim of his invention. In 1867, while he was debugging one of his machines in a printing shop in Philadelphia, his leg was caught between the shafts. The limb was crushed, gangrene set in, and Bullock died a few days later.

4. Steamship Titanic

Irish businessman, engineer and shipbuilder Thomas Andrews went down in history as the creator of the unsinkable ship Titanic. Yes, the same one that Harland and Wolff launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Andrews was the ship's chief designer and was on board during his first and only voyage. On the night of April 14-15, 1912, the ship collided with an iceberg and began to sink. Andrews kept his cool, organized the evacuation and assisted in the rescue of many passengers. But he himself, despite his efforts, died, sharing the fate of more than one and a half thousand people, when “Titanic"sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. His body was never found.

5. Combat submarine

Horace Lawson Hunley was born in 1823. During the American Civil War, he was a Confederate naval engineer and became famous for inventing the first attack submarine in history. Her called in honor of the creator - CSS H. L. Hunley.

But then the very concept of “submarine” did not yet exist, and among themselves engineers talked about the apparatus “fish boat”, “fish torpedo boat” or “porpoise”. And somehow things didn’t work out with this car from the very beginning.

On August 29, 1863, Hunley sank during a test dive, killing five crew members. Hunley was not on board, and he decided next time to independently control the boat, which was raised from the bottom. This decision of his turned out to be fatal. On October 15, 1863, during a second test dive, the boat again sank, and this time all eight members of her new team were killed, including Horace Hunley himself.

The inventor died, but the boat survived him.

Hunley was brought to the surface again. On February 17, 1864, she attacked and sank Housatonic, a 1,240-ton Union screw sloop of war that was blockading Charleston. Moving torpedoes had not yet been invented, and the submarine acted according to a different principle. She swam to the enemy ship and rammed him with a long stick with a bomb tied to it. It was a so-called pole mine, or spar torpedo.

The Housatonic, thus destroyed, became the first ship in history to be sunk by a submarine. But the torpedo explosion was so strong that it damaged the Hunley submarine itself. She and her entire crew sank again.

Hanley's brainchild raised from the ocean depths for the third, last time only 136 years later, on August 8, 2000. But they decided not to put her on combat duty anymore, but safely moved her to the maritime museum at the Warren Lash Conservation Center in North Charleston.

6. Parachute suit

The Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt was obsessed with the idea of ​​​​creating a parachute suit for pilots. You see, at the beginning of the 20th century, when aviation was just beginning to take its first timid steps, aircraft were not very reliable. So the engineers were looking for a way to protect the pilots.

Reichelt was an enthusiastic inventor who made a hybrid parachute and wingsuit. According to his idea, pilots would put on such suits before takeoff and, in an emergency situation, would simply jump out of the plane.

February 4, 1912 Reichelt spent publicly testing his version of a wingsuit by jumping from the Eiffel Tower in Paris in front of scores of onlookers, reporters and photographers. The authorities allowed the experiment only on the condition that the inventor throw a mannequin from the tower. But the brave tailor decided: well, these precautions, his suit is reliable.

In general, the parachute did not unfold completely, Reichelt fell to the ground and was killed.

7. Sea lighthouse

The English engineer, artist, entrepreneur and architect Henry Winstanley, who lived in the 17th century, earned good money by designing various hydraulic structures. He decided to invest his wealth in trade and bought five cargo ships. Two of his ships were wrecked at Ediston Rock near Plymouth, England. And then Winstanley decided to build a lighthouse there.

The situation was complicated by the fact that in that place there was not a single meter of land suitable for construction, because Edinston Rock is an underwater reef 14 km from the nearest shore. Winstanley's construction was destined to go down in history as the first water lighthouse.

His started erected on July 14, 1696, but the process was difficult. Great Britain and France were at war at the time, and one day Winstanley's construction team was even captured by a French privateer. But when King Louis XIV found out about this, he ordered the immediate release of the engineer, declaring: “France is fighting with England, and not with all humanity! Construction continued.

As a result, the lighthouse turned out to be such that it stood for five years in one of the most storm-prone regions of the sea - and for good measure.

Winstanley was very pleased with the lighthouse and once said that he would like to endure “the greatest storm that could ever happen” in it.

His wish came true. On the night of November 27, 1703 happened The so-called Great Storm is the largest hurricane in the history of England. The lighthouse and Winstanley were washed out to sea and were never seen again.

8. flying car

A graduate of the Northrop Institute of Technology School of Aeronautical Engineering, Henry Smolinsky loved not only airplanes, but also cars. And I decided to combine both of these types of transport, because flying cars are cool.

In 1971, Smolinsky founded Advanced Vehicle Engineers (AVE) and built several flying car prototypes by combining a subcompact Ford Pinto with the rear end of a Cessna Skymaster. This device was named AVE Mizar. Test flights began in 1973.

At first, professional test pilot Charles Janisse was put behind the wheel of the prototype. The first flight did not go well. The car's right wing strut was torn off, so Jennis landed the vehicle in a bean field and returned to the airfield in ground mode, on wheels. Jennis could not participate in the second flight, scheduled for September 11, 1973, and Henry Smolinsky decided: if you want to do something well, do it yourself.

He got behind the wheel of his brainchild, rose into the air - and at the car fell off wings. Smolinsky and AVE Vice President Harold Blake, who was sitting with him in the cabin, died on the spot.

9. copper bull

Perillos, or in other translations Perilaus of Athens, was a painter and sculptor who lived in Greece in the 6th century BC. According to the records of the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus, Perillos invented a very original device for torturing and executing people. It was a copper statue of a bull, hollow from the inside.

The victim had to be placed in a bull, and a fire was made under its belly. The screams of the prisoner, who was being roasted alive, passed through the acoustic chamber in the statue's throat and were transformed into a monstrous bull's roar.

Perillos offered to buy his torture device to Phalaris, the tyrant of the city-state of Akragas (now Agrigento in Sicily). The ruler appreciated the device, but did not want to pay and tested the copper bull on its own inventor. So the sculptor was baked into his own creation.

Phalaris, by the way, was overthrown a few years later and also put into a bull.

10. Method of cooling food for long-term storage

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, born 22 January 1561. An English philosopher, politician, lawyer, historian and statesman, he is best known as the founder of natural philosophy and the scientific method.

You see, before Bacon, science was practiced according to the methods of scholasticism, that is, they relied on theology, interpreted the Bible, the philosophy of Aristotle, and quoted the “great minds” of Antiquity. Therefore, scientists mainly indulged in speculations like “Can several angels be in one place at one time?”, and ignored practical experiments.

Bacon first offered empirical approach - when constructing hypotheses, rely on experiments and observations, as in modern science, and question the theses of authoritative scientists of the past. Quite progressive for the 16th–17th centuries. Therefore, Bacon is considered the father of natural sciences.

In September 1626 Bacon had tried Find out whether refrigeration can be used to slow down the rate at which poultry spoils. It's funny to you, but in England at that time refrigerators had not yet been invented, and natural philosophers did not have a common opinion on such things. Basically, Bacon stuffed chicken carcasses with snow and tested how long they would last.

During the experiments, Bacon became hypothermic and caught a cold. In his last letter to his comrade Lord Arundel, he, already ill, enthusiastically reportedthat the experiment was a success and a way to preserve food longer was found. A few days later Bacon died of pneumonia.