Technology and Inventions

Primitive batteries capable of producing ½ volt of electricity were made in Mesopotamia between around 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. They were used mainly for electroplating silver onto copper.

Among the important devices in naval technology developed by the Chinese are: the stern-post rudder, which appears on a pottery model of a boat dating from the first century A.D.; watertight compartments; and the paddle wheel, descriptions of which date from the fifth century A.D. [ Technology and Inventions | China ] (source)

The umbrella was invented by the Chinese in the second century B.C.

Glass mirrors were known in the Roman Empire, but the art of making them was lost and not recovered until 1300 in Venice. (source)

Billiards were invented in France in 1471. (source)

James Watt did not invent the steam engine. In 1763, he hit upon an innovation to the Newcomen steam engine. The Newcomen engine was incredibly inefficient, wasting enormous amounts of steam because vapourization and condensation took place in the same chamber. Watt introduced a separate condensing vessel which greatly increased the work efficiency of the machine. (source)

Through his spyglass, in 1609 Galileo saw that there were spots on the Sun, imperfections on the Moon, and that the Milky Way was composed of millions of faint stars. His most stunning (and controversial!) discovery was of satellites orbiting Jupiter, dashing the concept that the Earth was the center of the Universe. (source)

Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair, the pedometer, a letter-copying press, a tilting table, a more effective plough, and several other items. He never patented any of his inventions, wanting people to have free use of them. [ Geniuses | Technology ]

The first patent for a fax machine was issued to British clockmaker Alexander Bain in 1843, over 30 years before the telephone. In 1865, Abbé Caselli introduced the first commercial facsimile system, between Paris and Lyons. Newspapers began to send photographs starting in 1902. Modern fax machines were developed by the Japanese due to difficulties in otherwise transmitting their written language. [ Technology | Firsts ]

Major Radiovision of London began selling videodiscs in June 1935. Each side of a disc offered six minutes of sound and pictures, which were reproduced by means of a device linked to a primitive television set. The discs were never commercially successful. (source)

The science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke may have lost out on millions of dollars in royalties when he wrote an article about radio communication via satellite before first taking out a U.S. patent. (source)

The advent of the photo-finish camera took the guesswork out of judging horse races. It showed that human judges were generally accurate, but not on the close calls. In pre-camera 1935, judges called only 20 dead heats, but in 1938, when most tracks had cameras, films showed 264 dead heats. Apparently thousands of tied races had previously been miscalled due to human error and the desire to have a "decision".

The last person on the moon was Eugene Cernan. He and fellow explorer Harrison Schmidt left the moon at 5:40 A.M. GMT, December 13^th, 1972. No humans have visited the moon since then. [ Solar System | Lasts | Technology ]

On July 22^nd, 1962, the Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, en route to Venus. Four minutes after lift-off, it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in an $18.5 million loss for the U.S. space program. An investigation later revealed that the crash was caused by a single minus sign being omitted from the instructions entered into the rocket's computer. (source)

The engineering division of British Rail applied for and received a patent for a flying saucer in 1972. It would be capable of transporting 22 passengers. However, the nuclear fusion technology used to power it does not exist, and it appears that by 1976 they lost faith in the practicability of the saucer, and allowed the patent to lapse. (source)

History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a basketball, weighed only 183 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race. [ Technology and Inventions | Exploration ] (source)

In 1950, the Illinois Central Railroad operated 1,166 steam locomotives and 89 diesel locomotives. It had replaced all its steam locomotives with diesel locomotives by 1960. Despite the fact that it would take two or three diesels to replace a heavy steam locomotive, the Illinois Central was operating its railway in 1960 with only 600 diesels. This was possible because diesels could be utilized more heavily.

A robot has already killed a human. In the summer of 1981, a Japanese industrial robot malfunctioned. Its repairman neglected to open the chain fence around the robot that would have shut off the robot's power, and then accidentally touched the switch that turned the robot on. The robot then performed the actions that it was designed to do, and with the human in the way the robot caught the employee, pinning him against a machine processing automobile gears, killing him.

In 1967, Keuffel & Esser, a maker of slide rules, commissioned a study of the future. The report predicted that, by the year 2067, Americans would live in domed cities and watch three-dimensional television. Unfortunately for the company, the report failed to predict that slide rules would be obsolete in less than ten years, replaced by the pocket calculator. By 1976, Keuffel & Esser mothballed its slide rule manufacturing equipment and sent it to the Smithsonian Institution.

On March 16, 1926, Dr. Robert H. Goddard successfully launched the first liquid fueled rocket. The launch took place at Auburn, Massachusetts, and is regarded by flight historians to be as significant as the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk. (source)

Did you know that data from satellite instruments are used by fishermen to find areas where fish are most likely to be found? Fish find food in zones where cold and warm water mix. (source)

A geostationary satellite travels at an altitude of approximately 36,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) above the Earth and at a speed of about 11,000 kph (7,000 mph). (source)

In the mid-1960s, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed digital image processing to allow computer enhancement of Moon pictures. Similar technology is now used by doctors and hospitals on images of organs in the human body. [ Technology and Inventions | Medicine and Health ] (source)

The main engine of the Space Shuttle weighs one seventh as much as a locomotive but delivers as much horsepower as 39 locomotives. (source)

The Space Shuttle travels about 17,600 miles per hour when orbiting the Earth. (source)

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by the U.S. on April 24, 1990 and is named after Astronomer Edwin P. Hubble. It is a Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellite, located about 375 miles (600 km) above the surface of the Earth. Hubble completes an orbit around the Earth every 97 minutes. (source)

Every day, the Hubble Space Telescope archives 3 to 5 gigabytes of data and delivers between 10 and 15 gigabytes to astronomers. (source)