Early attempts to design a music-playing gadget began in 1877 when Thomas Edison invented his tin-foil phonograph. The word ‘phonograph’ was Edison’s trade name for his device, which played recorded sounds from round cylinders. The sound quality on the phonograph was bad, and each recording lasted just for one only play. On November 8, 1887, […]
Buckminster Fuller is best known for the invention of the geodesic dome, the lightest, strongest, and most cost-effective structure ever devised. The geodesic dome is able to cover more space without internal supports than any other enclosure. It becomes proportionally lighter and stronger the larger it is. The geodesic dome is a breakthrough in shelter,
On July 25, 1916, an explosion occurred in Tunnel No. 5 of the Cleveland Waterworks. Some 250 feet beneath Lake Erie, more than 30 workmen were trapped. As smoke and dust threatened to consume the men, a call was put out to find Garrett A. Morgan. Someone had remembered that Morgan, a Cleveland inventor and
Frozen Food The first patent for freezing food was granted in 1852 in England. This involved immersion of the food in an ice-and-salt brine. All other patents granted at that time used ice-and-salt mixtures for freezing food. But frozen foodscould not be used widely until the invention of mechanical refrigeration. This made the freezing and
Combine a pie maker from Bridgeport, Connecticut, and an UFO aficionado from Southern California and you come with the Frisbie. William Frisbie’s pies, nestled in circular tin pans bearing the family name, were all the rage in 1870’s Bridgeport, Connecticut. As years went by, students at nearby Yale University came to consider them a two-fer:
The fountain pen’s design came after a thousand years of using quill-pens. Early inventors observed the apparent natural ink reserve found in the hollow channel of a bird’s feather, and tried to produce a similar effect, with a man-made pen that would hold more ink and not require constant dipping into the ink well. However,
In 1971, the IBM Company of USA introduced the first ‘memory disk’, as it was called then, or the ‘floppy disk’ as it is known today. IBM engineers, led by Alan Shugart invented the ‘floppy’. The first floppy was an 8” plastic disk coated with magnetic iron oxide. Data was written to, and read from
James Watt, the Scottish mathematical instrument maker, designed the first workable steam engine in 1765. In the following century, it was developed as a stationary power source to operate machinery, and as a mobile power source to run boats, cars, and trains. The steam engine brought about a great industrial revolution in the Western world
We know that ridges of our fingertips from certain patterns. In fact, the Chinese have used finger prints for hundreds of years in various forms and for various purposes.But the use of fingerprints in detecting criminals is a recent development. Dr. Henry Faulds of England was the first man to suggest that finger prints be
The Ferris Wheel is a large amusement-park ride that is made of a giant, vertical, metal wheel that slowly turns around. The wheel is equipped with hanging compartments for people, who ride around in a circle, going far above the ground. The Ferris Wheel was invented by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bridge-builder George Washington Gale Ferris
The use of the fax machine to transmit images via telephone lines did not become common in American businesses until the late 1980s, but the technology dates back to the nineteenth century. In 1843 in England, Alexander Bain (1818-1903) devised an apparatus comprised of two pens connected to two pendulums, which in turn were joined
Long ago, man decided to replace his lost natural teeth when he encountered difficulties with eating and chewing on the loss of his natural teeth. Substituting artificial replacements for natural part is in teeth called ‘prosthetics’. When the natural teeth are gone, they are replaced either by bridge work or by dentures. In bridge work,
An escalator is a moving stairway that helps people move easily from floor to floor in building. The escalator was invented by the American inventor Jesse W. Reno in 1891. On his ‘inclined elevator/ passengers rode on an wedge-shaped supports attached to a conveyor belt at an incline of about 25 degrees. The original elevator
The word ‘dictionary’ comes from Latin dictionarius, meaning ‘a collection of words’. This word was first used by an English scholar called John Garland in 1225, as the title for a manuscript of Latin words to be learnt by heart. Most early dictionaries had been written to help people study Latin. They had all sorts
Encyclopedia provides us facts on all important subject. The word ‘encyclopedia’ began as a Greek word meaning ‘instruction in the whole circle’. It was first used in English by Sir Thomas Elyot in 1538 who said it was “the lerynge which comprehends all liberal science and studies.” In early times, encyclopedia were not arranged alphabetically,