Today’s modern world is built on the work of many famous inventors like Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Johannes Gutenberg, and Alexander Graham Bell.These inventors and hundreds more created necessities that we wouldn’t be able to live without today such as the Worldwide Web, the light bulb, the telephone, optical lenses, the printing press and so many more! What was first created from a single idea has now become highly important to people all over the world.Read on to learn all about how these amazing inventions came about! It is quite difficult to choose the greatest invention as every invention has had some impact in the world. What do you think the greatest invention so far has been?Greatest Defense InventionsThere have been many inventions to help armies defend their countries.Gunpowder: Used for both offense and defense, gunpowder is what led to the invention of guns, cannons, and other tactical weapons. It was developed first in China during the early ninth century and used in fireworks and for medicinal purposes. However, its explosive properties were soon put to use in mining, building roads, and making weapons for war.Walkie Talkies: A type of communication system, walkie talkies are used by military personnel to keep in touch while carrying out tactile missions while in war. The name walkie-talkie comes from a two-way radio device invented by Motorola for the military in 1940, which soldiers carry around on their backs in order to keep in touch with their battalions.Submarines: Underwater ships are called submarines as they are able to fully submerge underwater! Submarines played a large role in World War I and II because they were used to block supply routes underwater, sink ships from below, and even target enemy locations on land. Their discreet presence makes them highly useful in stealth missions, and they are used as an invisible line of defense. Submarines are also used in marine research because they can reach depths that humans would be unable to go on their own due to the large amount of pressure. Today, submarines are used for defense, communication, as well as tactile missions.Lasers: Lasers are very important for the military. Laser guidance on guns, missiles, and other offensive weapons is highly important as it helps to determine the exact location of the target. It can help to pinpoint a target that is many miles away and make sure the target is hit! Laser technology also has some other great uses, like helping to read bar codes, changing the TV channel in a remote, and laser printing onto paper and other materials.Greatest Medical InventionsThe evolution of medicine has made it possible for humans to live longer and lead healthier lives, as we continue to find cures for health problems that didn’t exist before. Here are some of the most important medical inventions so far.Stethoscope: Before the stethoscope was invented, doctors put their ears to the chest of the patient to evaluate their heartbeat and lungs! However, this did not always provide accurate results, as the sound was not always clear. To combat this problem, René Laënnec, a French physician, designed a wooden instrument with a tube that allowed him to amplify the sound of the patient’s heartbeat by placing the end of the tube near their heart. This led to the invention of the modern stethoscope, which gives much more accurate readings.Anesthesia: Before the invention of anesthesia, patients were awake during surgery, which was unpleasant and also very painful! There were many attempts to devise some sort of painkiller, however, it was only in 1846 when William T.G. Morton, a dentist, was able to safely demonstrate the usage of Ether anesthesia and successfully perform surgery on a patient. Nowadays, anesthesia has made it much easier for surgeons to perform difficult procedures on patients.Vaccines: The first vaccine for the deadly disease smallpox was created in 1796 by Edward Jenner. He observed that artificially introducing a weaker strain of smallpox, called cowpox into patients automatically prepared their immune systems into protecting their bodies against the deadly disease. His discovery helped to eradicate smallpox, and many vaccines were developed for similarly dangerous diseases like polio and rabies. Today, everyone is required to get vaccinated for lots of common diseases which could prove deadly without the help of a vaccine.X-ray: Without being able to observe internal damage to the body, it was often very difficult to diagnose and treat patients. This was until the invention of the X-ray machine by German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen. He was able to use cathode rays, which passed through human flesh but not bones, making them visible to observe the bones inside of his hand. The unknown identity of the rays at that time led to him naming them X-rays, meaning ‘unknown’. The discovery of X-rays helped to revolutionize medical technology, and other imaging techniques like MRI, Ultrasound, CT scan, and Echocardiography have all been developed with its help.Greatest Innovative InventionsThough most inventions are born out of necessity, there are a number of inventions that are simply created from the sheer innovation of the inventor. Here are some of the most imaginative and coolest inventions.Augmented Reality (AR): Augmented Reality helps to combine digital data and the real world, helping people to live virtual lives or combine digital elements into the real world! The release of recent games like ‘Pokemon Go’, the use of Snapchat Filters which add fun and creative elements to your pictures through your camera, and even apps developed by fashion and furniture brands that help you try on clothes virtually or check how a certain sofa or table would look in your house all use Augmented Reality!3D Printing: Have you ever wanted to instantly download a real, actual object from the internet? If you have the time and money to spare, you can 3D print it! 3D printing uses heat-powered ‘pens’ to create an object in layers, by using a heat-moldable material. People can create online blueprints for items, which when programed into the printer can create whatever you want! 3D printing is used in many areas from creating small models of buildings to making lightweight workable parts for cars and other machines. Research is even being done to help create 3D printed organs for people in need in the future.Greatest Technological InventionsWe are living in the age of technology. Almost everything we use, from our mobile phones to refrigerators in the kitchen and light bulbs on the ceiling are all a result of constantly improving technology! What are the greatest technological inventions which have made our lives easier? Let’s find out!The Wheel: The humble wheel was first developed to create pottery, but now the wheel helps us move from one place to another quickly. This invention is definitely one of the most important in history, as it helped to change the face of transportation! Every type of land transport such as bicycles, modern cars, buses, trains, and even airplanes all have wheels! The first wheel was created around 3500 BC, by the ancient Mesopotamians, 300 years after which the chariot was invented. This changed the purpose of the wheel from creating clay pots to helping humans easily move and transport things from one place to another! The earliest wheels were made from wood and stone, but today you will find them being made with the most advanced materials like lightweight metals, special rubber, and even plastic!Printing Press- If you’ve ever visited a bookstore, you must have seen hundreds of copies of the same book, ready to go home to book lovers all over the world. But how is it possible to make so many copies of the same book at once? Someone certainly does not sit and type the same book thousands of times. In the past, however, this is exactly how books were made. The text was handwritten over and over again onto pieces of paper, leaves, or papyrus and hand-stitched together to form books. Due to this, only a few copies of each book existed, which were prone to being destroyed or lost, causing the loss of important knowledge. This problem was solved in 1439 by the German publisher Johannes Gutenberg, who invented the world’s first printing press. The machine worked by arranging text onto wooden blocks, which were dipped into ink and pressed onto fresh sheets of paper. It was quite time-consuming to arrange the letters, however it made printing the same text over and over again easier. Today, the mass production of books has become much easier with the invention of computers and printers, and thousands of copies can be churned out at once.Telephone: Today, you can talk to friends and family all over the world with just the press of a button! The invention of telephones has certainly made it easier to keep in touch with people rather than writing letters which would stretch a single correspondence over a matter of days! The first electric telephone was invented in 1876 by the Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who invented a simple communication system that transmitted words using electricity. It had two parts, a transmitter and a receiver. However, it had a much smaller range than today’s mobile phones.The World Wide Web: Without the invention of the internet, or the World Wide Web, you wouldn’t be reading this article right now! It was created in the 1989 by a British scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, as a communication system between scientists in universities around the world, but interest in the project to make it global brought upon the WWW project. Soon, Tim Berners-Lee published his software as open-source, with people uploading their own websites on the system with their computers and even helping to improve the original software, which helped it evolve steadily into the internet which we know and love today.Personal Computer: After the World Wide Web was created, people needed machines to access it. Personal computers were first introduced in the ’70s by a company called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, after which companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Apple stepped in to create desktop computers that people could use to process data, type up and save information, and access the internet. These evolved to smaller computers like laptops, which people can carry with them everywhere, and nowadays smaller devices like phones and tablets can do almost everything that a desktop could do back in the day!Greatest Scientific InventionsHere are some of the most important inventions ever made, which have helped humanity to advance like never before!Lightbulb: At night, peoplle can simply replace the natural light of the sun by flicking a switch and the room is flooded with light. Thanks to the genius of Thomas Edison, an American businessman, the first light bulb was invented in 1879, using a simple glass vacuum bulb and a platinum filament. Electricity was passed through the filament which made it glow, creating light.Airplane: People often look at the birds in the sky and dream of being able to fly. The Wright brothers made this dream into a reality! Orville and Wilbur Wright built the first airplane in 1903, which was made using wooden beams and canvas. It was powered by a small 12 horsepower motor, connected to twin propellers through a series of connected pulleys. It could hold only a single person, the pilot, but with that one invention, humankind’s journey into the sky began, and today we have large commercial airplanes ready to fly us around the world.Steam Turbine: Used mainly to generate electricity which powers entire cities, the steam turbine was invented in 1884 by Charles Parsons. This innovative creation uses steam from water heaters by coal, solar or nuclear fission, which then moves past the turbine rotating blades, making it cool and expand. This turns the potential energy of the steam into kinetic energy, which is then used to power electricity!Compass: The world’s earliest compasses were made between 300-200 BC in China, out of a material called lodestone. These devices were very important for early explorers, especially those at sea, who were able to navigate their way using the natural magnetism of the Earth. Today, GPS systems based on the same concept as compasses are more widely used, however, we wouldn’t be where we are today if not for this simple invention.Internal Combustion Engine: First created by Belgian engineer Etienne Lenoir in 1859, with improvements then made by German Nikolaus Otto in 1876, the combustion engine converted chemical energy into mechanical energy, which was easier to use and much more feasible to add to smaller machines like cars and airplanes. Many pioneers of motor cars like Karl Benz and Henry Ford used this technology while creating the world’s first passenger cars.
Today’s modern world is built on the work of many famous inventors like Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Johannes Gutenberg, and Alexander Graham Bell.
