Inventions Miscellaneous

Radium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie on 21 December 1898, in a uraninite sample. While studying the mineral earlier, the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They separated out an element similar to bismuth from pitchblende in July 1898, that turned out to be polonium. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of two components: compounds of barium, which gave a brilliant green flame color, and unknown radioactive compounds which gave carmine spectral lines that had never been documented before. The Curies found the radioactive compounds to be very similar to the barium compounds, except that they were more insoluble. This made it possible for the Curies to separate out the radioactive compounds and discover a new element in them. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898. The naming of radium dates to about 1899, from the French word radium, formed in Modern Latin from radius (ray): this was in recognition of radium's power of emitting energy in the form of rays.

Frank Epperson of Oakland, California, popularized ice pops after patenting the concept of "frozen ice on a stick" in 1923. He initially called it the Epsicle. A couple of years later, Epperson sold the rights to the invention and the Popsicle brand to the Joe Lowe Company in New York City.

Epperson claimed to have first created an ice pop in 1905 at the age of 11 when he accidentally left a glass of powdered soda and water with a mixing stick in it on his porch during a cold night, a story still printed on the back of Popsicle treat boxes.

Jethro Tull invented some machinery for the purpose of carrying out his system of drill husbandry, about 1733. His first invention was a drill-plough to sow wheat and turnip seed in drills, three rows at a time. There were two boxes for the seed, and these, with the coulters, were placed one set behind the other, so that two sorts of seed might be sown at the same time. A harrow to cover in the seed was attached behind.

Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by brine-soaked paper disks, that could produce a steady current for a considerable length of time. Volta did not understand that the voltage was due to chemical reactions. He thought that his cells were an inexhaustible source of energy and that the associated corrosion effects at the electrodes were a mere nuisance, rather than an unavoidable consequence of their operation, as Michael Faraday showed in 1834.

Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle (1 June 1907 - 9 August 1996) was an English Royal Air Force (RAF) engineer air officer. He is credited with single-handedly inventing the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 for a similar invention; however, this was technically unfeasible at the time. Whittle's jet engines were developed some years earlier than those of Germany's Hans von Ohain who was the designer of the first operational turbojet engine.

Karl Benz invented Automobiles using gasoline.

Bakelite or polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, is an early plastic. It is a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. It was developed by the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland in Yonkers, New York, in 1907.

The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. While other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edison's phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a tinfoil sheet wrapped around a rotating cylinder.

Kruesi was also involved in many of Edison's key inventions. Including the quadruplex telegraph, the carbon microphone, phonograph, incandescent light bulb and system of electric lighting.

Sir William Grove invented fuel cells in 1839.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan was a Scottish blacksmith. He is generally credited with inventing the pedal-driven bicycle.

Steam Engine invaded by James Watt.

Benjamin Franklin is generally credited with the invention of bifocals. Historians have produced some evidence to suggest that others may have come before him in the invention; however, a correspondence between George Whatley and John Fenno, editor of The Gazette of the United States, suggested that Franklin had indeed invented bifocals, and perhaps 50 years earlier than had been originally thought.

The first lawn mower was invented by Edwin Budding in 1830 in Thrupp, just outside Stroud, in Gloucestershire, England. Budding's mower was designed primarily to cut the grass on sports grounds and extensive gardens, as a superior alternative to the scythe, and was granted a British patent on August 31, 1830.

George Gamow, born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov, was a theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He was an early advocate and developer of Lemaitre's Big Bang theory. He discovered a theoretical explanation of alpha decay via quantum tunneling and worked on radioactive decay of the atomic nucleus, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis and Big Bang nucleosynthesis (which he collectively called nucleocosmogenesis), and molecular genetics.

The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce cloth, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology advanced. The yarn produced by the jenny was not very strong until Richard Arkwright invented the water-powered 'Water Frame', which produced yarn harder and stronger than that of the initial spinning jenny. It started the factory system.

Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay) and stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht and patented in 1867. It rapidly gained wide-scale use as a safer alternative to black powder.

Today dynamite is mainly used in the mining, quarrying, construction, and demolition industries. Dynamite is still the product of choice for trenching applications, and as a cost-effective alternative to cast boosters. Dynamite is occasionally used as an initiator or booster for AN and ANFO explosive charges.

The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 - May 30, 1912), were two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1904-05 the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.

Smallpox vaccine, the first successful vaccine to be developed, was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. He followed up his observation that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox by showing that inoculated cowpox protected against inoculated smallpox. The word "vaccine" is derived from Variolae vaccinae (i.e. smallpox of the cow), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox and used in the long title of his An enquiry into the causes and effects of Variolae vaccinae, known by the name of cow pox. Vaccination, the term which soon replaced cowpox inoculation and vaccine inoculation, was first used in print by Jenner's friend, Richard Dunning in 1800. Initially, the terms vaccine/vaccination referred only to smallpox, but in 1881 Louis Pasteur proposed that to honour Jenner the terms be widened to cover the new protective inoculations being introduced.

Railway air brakes invented by George Westinghouse.

Francis Crick(UK), James Watson(US) and Maurice Wilkins(UK) invented DNA Structure in 1951. In 1962, after the death of Francis, Watson and Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Because, Nobel Prizes are awarded only to living recipients.

In 1814, the first successful steam engine locomotive was built by the British Engineer George Stephenson called Blucher.

Thomas Edition is associated with the invention or discovery of Phonograph.

George Eastman is associated with the invention or discovery of Roll film.

Levi Strauss is associated with the invention or discovery of Blue jeans.

Orville and Wilbur Wright is associated with the invention or discovery of the Powered airplane.

Alexander Graham Bell is associated with the invention or discovery of Telephone.

Alessandro Volta is associated with the invention or discovery of Battery.

Mikhail Kalashnikov is associated with the invention or discovery of AK-47 assault rifle.

J. Robert Oppenheimer is associated with the invention or discovery of Atomic bomb.

Charles Macintosh is associated with the invention or discovery of Waterproof raincoat.

Karl Benz is associated with the invention or discovery of the Petrol-powered automobile.

Alfred Nobel is associated with the invention or discovery of Dynamite.

Laszlo Biro is associated with the invention or discovery of Modern ballpoint pen.

John Moses Browning is associated with the invention or discovery of Automatic handgun

Blaise Pascal is associated with the invention or discovery of Barometer.

Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen is associated with the invention or discovery of the X-ray machine.

Ernest Rutherford is associated with the invention or discovery of Nuclear model of an Atom.

John Napier is associated with the invention or discovery of Logarithms.

Thomas Edison is associated with the invention or discovery of Commercially practical light bulb

Dennis Gabor is associated with the invention or discovery of Holography.

Philip Diehl is associated with the invention or discovery of the Electric sewing machine.

Clarence Birdseye is associated with the invention or discovery of Modern frozen food industry.

Auguste and Louis Lumiere is associated with the invention or discovery of Cinematograph.

Josephine Cochrane is associated with the invention or discovery of Dishwasher.

Felix Hoffmann (Bayer) is associated with the invention or discovery of Aspirin.

Aeroplane invented/discovered by Orville & Wilbur Wright (Wright brother) in the year 1903 [Country: U.S.A.]

Arc Lamp invented/discovered by C. F. Brush in the year 1879 [Country: U.S.A.]

Antipolio Vaccine invented/discovered by J. E.Salk in the year 1950 [Country: U.S.A.]

Antipolio Vaccine (oral) invented/discovered by Albert Sabin in the year 1954 [Country: U.S.A.]

Aspirin invented/discovered by Dreser in the year 1889 [Country: Germany]

Anti-toxins (science of immunity) invented/discovered by Behring & Kitasato in the year 1890 [Country: Germany & Japan]

Bakelite invented/discovered by Leo H. Baekeland in the year 1909 [Country: U.S.A.]

Bail-point pen invented/discovered by John. J. Loud. in the year 1888 [Country: U.S.A.]