In year 1869, butter was expensive and in short supply, Emperor Napoleon III, of France, sought a cheap, tasty substitute for it. Also, on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War, he needed a butter substitute that would store well on ships. The Emperor sponsored a contest, and offered a prize for the best butter substitute […]
An LCD or liquid crystal display is a type of flat panel display commonly used in digital devices, for example: digital clocks, TV displays, and computers.Liquid crystals are liquid chemicals whose molecules can be aligned precisely when subjected to electrical fields, much in the way metal shavings line up in the field of a magnet.
Joshua Lionel Cowen of United States was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. When he was seven, he whittled a miniature locomotive from wood. It exploded, however, when he tried to fit it with a tiny steam engine. Joshua had never forgotten his childhood experiment. In 1901, he fitted a
Lightning Rod Benjamin Franklin was fascinated by storms; he loved to study them. If he were alive today, we could probably add ‘storm-chaser’ to his long list of titles.It was in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1746 that Franklin first stumbled upon other scientists’ electrical experiments. He quickly turned his home into a little laboratory, using machines
In 1912, when American candy maker Clarence Crane first marketed ‘Crane’s Peppermint Life Savers/ life preservers were just beginning to be used on ships—the round kind with a hole in the centre for tossing to a passenger fallen overboard. But that is not the whole story.Crane had been basically a chocolate maker. Chocolates were hard
In 1894 Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was superintendent of a famous hospital and health spa in Battle Creek, Michigan, America. His younger brother, Will Keith Kellogg, was the business manager. The hospital stressed healthful living and kept its patients on a diet that eliminated caffeine, meat, alcohol, and tobacco. The brothers invented many foods that
Jigsaw Puzzle In 1880, Milton Bradley made the first jigsaw puzzle for children The Smashed Up Locomotive.’ By printing a lithograph of a steam engine locomotive and cutting it into pieces, the ‘smashed up’ effect was achieved when a child opened the box and saw the locomotive all in pieces. Because of his Puritan upbringing,
It seems that the integrated circuit was destined to be invented. Two separate inventors, unaware of each other’s activities, invented almost identical integrated circuits or ICs at nearly the same time. Jack Kilby, an engineer with a background in ceramic-based silk screen circuit boards and transistor-based hearing aids, started working for Texas Instruments in 1958.
In 1920, Canadian surgeon Frederick Banting visited the University of Toronto to speak to John J.R. Macleod, the newly appointed head of the department of physiology.Banting had a new idea on how to find not only the cause but also treat the so-called ‘sugar disease’ or diabetes.In diabetes, the blood of patients contains more sugar
Charles E. Menches was an ice cream salesman at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, the great fair in St. Louis, United States. Whenever Menches visited a certain lady friend, he brought a bouquet of flowers. On one occasion, for a super date, he brought flowers and an ice cream sandwich. Because his lady friend
In 1782 in France, Joseph Michel Montgolfier filled a silk bag with hot air which, being less dense than the air around it, lifted the bag to the high ceiling of his house. On April 25, 1783, Joseph and his brother Jacques Etienne built a larger, spherical bag, filled it with hot air from a
Hand-held Calculator In 1886, Burroughs and several St. Louis businessmen formed the Arithmometer Co. of America to market the machine. The first machine, however, required a special knack in pulling the handle to execute the calculation correctly. More often than not, novice users would get wildly differing sums depending on the vigour with which they
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