Archives November 2014

The innocuous spray can has been the subject of some controversial press coverage over the years. Its use as a cheap means of getting "high," termed solvent abuse, involves inhaling the fumes of certain aerosols to achieve an effect a little like being drunk. The aerosol can is also popularly used to spray-paint graffiti and, during the 1970s, the increasing awareness that chlorofluorocarbons were causing damage to the ozone layer led to the use of CFCs being phased out in agreement with the Montreal Protocol. Despite the negative aspects of the product, the aerosol spray can is a ubiquitous invention that enjoys widespread use around the world today. Aerosols date back to the late 1800s, with metal spray cans being tested as early as 1862. The real breakthrough in aerosol technology did not come until 1926 when Norwegian chemical engineer Erik Rotheim (1898-1938) discovered that a payload could be mixed more...

Debate rages over the starting point of the bicycle, butmost experts agree that the nineteenth century was the great era for the development of the bike. British cycle-maker John Kemp Starley (1855-1901) claimed the safety bicycle as his invention, first demonstrating it in 1885. Questions have been raised over Starley's right to this invention as other similar models appeared around the same time, but his version was undoubtedly the best. Starley's Rover Safety model featured spoked wheels of almost equal size, a diamond-type frame, J. H. Lawson's recent invention of the chain-drive (which powered the rear wheel), and an easily adjusted seat and handlebar. The word "safety" was used here for a reason. Previous bicycles were perilous contraptions, especially the penny-farthing (developed by Starley's uncle, James Starley) that immediately preceded the Rover. The penny-farthing's giant front wheel and tiny rear one made it a strange-looking device, with riders perched precariously more...

The steam shovel, invented in 1839 by William Otis, was used to dig the Suez Canal in 1869 and the Panama Canal in 1910. But eighty years after the invention of a digging machine, trenches were still being filled using mule power. In 1923, American farmer James Cummings (1895- 1981) saw mules being used to backfill oil pipeline trenches and realized that a machine could do the job more efficiently. He and draftsman J. Earl McLeod drew up plans, built the first bulldozer from junkyard parts, and won the contract to backfill the pipeline. The purpose of the bulldozer is to move material from one place to another. Bulldozers have wide tracks to facilitate movement over mud and sand, and a heavy metal plate (or blade) to smooth, push, or carry rocks, sand, soil, or debris. They are the most frequently used earth-moving machines on construction projects today and are more...

Sylvan Goldman (1898-1984) was the owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City when in 1937 he struck upon the idea of the shopping cart. Goldman had observed that shoppers would often struggle with the wire and wicker baskets once they became too full, and he realized that this would stop them from buying. His initial inspiration for the design came from a folding chair in his office. Along with employee Fred Young, Goldman designed and built the first shopping cart, which held two wire baskets, one above the other, in a metal frame with wheels at the base. When the carts were not in use, the frame would fold flat, like the chair that suggested the design. Goldman founded the Folding Carrier Basket Co., while a mechanic called Arthur Kosted developed a production line process to mass produce the carts, and began to introduce them in his more...

"Illegitemi non carborundum. Mock Latin slogan: Don't let the bastards grind you down." Source unknown In 1880 Edward Goodrich Acheson (1856-1931) developed an electrical battery that he tried to sell to the inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison. Rather than buying his battery, Edison gave Acheson a job. Despite rapid promotion, Acheson left to become an independent inventor. As the superintendent of a factory that made lamps, he could conduct his own experiments. He wanted to recreate diamonds in the laboratory, but his processes for heating carbon failed. Next he tried mixing day and carbon together by electrically fusing the two. The fused mass he created had dark shiny specks in it, and examining these further he found they were extremely hard. Acheson had created silicon carbide, which he named carborundum, wrongly thinking it to be a compound of carbon and aluminum. In 1893 he received a patent for his discovery. more...

The history of blue jeans can be traced to two men— Levi Strauss (1829-1902), a German who emigrated to the United States as a young boy, and the lesser known Latvian Jacob Davis (1834-1908), who moved to the United States in 1854. In 1853 Levi Strauss moved to San Francisco where he set up a company, Levi Strauss & Co., selling buttons, scissors, bolts of cloth, and canvas. He also designed heavy-duty canvas work overalls for local miners. When his canvas supplies ran out, he began using heavyweight cotton twill, later known as denim. One of Strauss' customers was a tailor, Jacob Davis, who also made work trousers. His clients were complaining that the pockets kept ripping out, so Davis devised a method of strengthening the pocket corners and fly fastenings with metal rivets. This was an immediate success, but Davis did not have the money to obtain the patent, more...

"The launching of the BCG vaccine was ...a gigantic dishonest commercial operation." Dr. Jean Elmiger, Swiss doctor and homeopath Since it was first developed in 1921, the BCG, or Bacille- Calmette-Guerin, vaccine has been given to over a billion people worldwide to prevent tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was a huge killer of adults in the nineteenth century. In 1882 Robert Koch proved that the bacterium tubercle bacillus was the cause. Using it in killed or treated form to protect people from infection did not work, however. French bacteriologist, Albert Calmette (1863-1933) and his colleague, veterinary surgeon Camille Guerin (1872-1961) made a significant step forward when they found that placing bovine tuberculosis in a glycerine-bile-potato mixture caused it to grow bacilli that were less virulent. By 1906, through further subculturing, Calmette and Guerin produced a strain of living bacilli that were so weakened they could not produce disease but could still be used more...

"When I'm watchin'my TV/ And that man comes on to tell me how white my shirts can be..." The Rolling Stones, "Satisfaction" In 1907 the technology company Henkel launched Persil—the world's first self-acting detergent. This new type of washing powder allowed stubborn stains to be removed from clothes, without the need for rubbing or bleaching. Henkel & Cie was established in Aachen, Germany, in 1876 by Fritz Henkel (1848-1930) and his business partners and the first product they marketed was a universal detergent based on silicate. In 1905, Henkel's youngest son joined the company and began to study the chemistry of washing, bleaching, and peroxide. Persil was one of the first-ever branded products. The name was derived from two of the detergent's ingredients: perborate and silicate. Though Persil proved to be hugely successful commercially, synthetic detergents did not develop until World War I, when problems securing a supply of fats more...

"Don't ask me. Ask the metal detector, it's supposed to work...” Manny, from American crime drama series CSI When U.S. President James Garfield was shot in an assassination attempt in 1881 the doctors called on Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) to find the bullet in his dying body. For this purpose Bell quickly threw together a makeshift instrument that could detect metal, but unfortunately the President was lying in a bed with a metal frame, unusual at the time, and this interfered with the instrument. Bell eventually realized why his detector was not functioning properly, but it was too late and President Garfield died shortly after. Metal detectors rely on the relationship between electricity and magnetism. A current is run through a coil of wire, and this causes a magnetic field. If a metal object passes through the field, then an electric current will be generated on the object. This, in more...

"One thing I feel most passionately about: love of invention will never die,” KarlBenz' The invention of the gear system used in motorcars followed hot on the heels of the construction of the first automobiles. Karl Benz was the first to add a second gear to his machine and also invented the gear shift to transfer between the two. The suggestion for this additional gear came from Benz's wife, Bertha, who drove the three-wheeled Motorwagen 65 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim—the first long-distance automobile trip. The need for gears arises from the specifics of an internal combustion engine. The engine has a narrow range of revolutions per minute (rpm), where the horsepower and torque produced by the engine is at a maximum. The gears allow the engine to be maintained at its most efficient rpm while altering the relative speed of the drive shaft to the wheels. This allows the more...