Science Projects And Inventions

Interest in atmospheric pressure arose when miners and well-diggers realized that pumps and siphons would only raise water to a maximum distance of about 33 feet (10 m). Hearing that the Grand Duke of Tuscany had a suction pump that could not raise water as far as he wanted, the Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli (1608-1647) investigated the problem in 1643, creating what is known as the Torricelli tube. Imagine that you have such a tube of straight glass, 40 inches (100 cm) long, sealed at one end and filled with mercury, and you carefully invert this tube, keeping the open end dipped in a reservoir of mercury. The mercury will retreat down the tube leaving a vacuum at the top. The height of mercury above the reservoir level will be about 30 inches (75 cm), and the weight of the mercury in the tube will be supported by the pressure more...

The earliest known breast implant was undertaken in 1895 by Austrian surgeon Vincenz Czerny (1842-1916). Czerny transplanted a large lipoma (a benign tumor composed of fatty tissue) from a patient's flank to create new breasts in a woman who had undergone a mastectomy. Details of the outcome went unrecorded. In the early twentieth century paraffin-wax injections were used to augment breast size, but discontinued due to disastrous complications such as "wax cancer." Other substances tried included ivory, glass balls, ground rubber, and ox cartilage. In the 1920s transplants of fatty tissue were attempted, where fat was surgically removed from the abdomen and buttock area and transferred to the breasts. The procedure was unsuccessful since the body quickly absorbed the fat, leaving the breasts in a lumpy, asymmetrical condition. However, modern transplants using the patient's own fat or muscle tissue are now much more likely to produce good results. Otherwise, there more...

"Damn the torpedoes.... Captain Crayton, go ahead! Joucett, full speed!" Admiral David Farragut, Battle of Mobile Bay, 1864 Despite its notoriety as a naval weapon, the first modern torpedo was developed in landlocked Austria,  or rather by a retired army officer in what was then the Austrian Empire stretching down to the Adriatic Sea. In 1864 Giovanni Luppis (1813-1875) presented his idea of using small, unmanned boats carrying explosives against enemy ships to Robert Whitehead (1823-1905), an English engineer producing steam engines for the Austrian Navy, Similar devices (spar torpedoes) were also employed in the American Civil War taking place at the same time. However, those contraptions consisted of manually driven steam launches with explosives hanging from a long pole. In order to set them off the crew would ram the end of the spar into the target vessel and then back off again, thus pulling a mechanical trigger by more...

Astronomers observe light from stars many light years away and yet the thin atmosphere that surrounds Earth can play havoc with their results. Small volumes of the atmosphere have different temperatures and densities; they move around and this turbulence causes incoming light to change direction. The change in direction shows up as distortions in the data and can either render measurements useless or make their interpretation difficult. Observatories are often built on high mountains to limit the thickness of atmosphere the light needs to travel through. However, for the most detailed projects the thinnest atmosphere is still enough to cause problems. U.S. astronomer Horace Babcock (1912-2003) devised an optical system in 1953 that could adapt to the changes and correct the errors in real time. Although his design gave hope to toiling astronomers, it was not used until the 1990s when computers could keep up with the speed of the more...

"The ancient Greeks used dugouts and called them monooxylon, which means 'single tree.'" John Crandall, Dugout Canoes Sometimes there is no real need to be clever, or complex, or even particularly sophisticated when it comes to inventions. Sometimes simple wins. This is definitely the case with the dugout canoe. The people of 7500 B.C.E. needed a way to travel on water, but many of the materials used in the very earliest boatbuilding still lay a long way ahead in the future. So they came up with a simple answer using the technology that was accessible to them. The dugout canoe is, in its most basic terms, a hollowed-out log, nothing more than a tree trunk laid down on its side and its interior removed. All that was required was that the hollowed log had to be big enough for at least one person to sit inside, and the wood had more...

“I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this bridge" King Arthur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Primitive suspension bridges, in the form of vines and fiber ropes, have been used for many thousands of years throughout Asia, Africa, and South America, such as those by the Incas. It is thought that the iron chain first replaced these frailer materials in China inc. 100. The walkways of early catenary bridges were directly fixed onto the chains that spanned a valley, but in fourth-century India the road deck was instead suspended from the main cables to create a horizontal pathway that was more easily negotiable than its sloping predecessors. Basic suspension bridges were used in military campaigns in Europe, but the first permanent example in the West was a primitive catenary bridge built over England's River Tees circa 1741. The idea caught on in more...

The precise year of the hammock's invention is impossible to tell, but estimates of 1000 B.C.E. are considered reasonable, with the Mayan Indians most often credited with the invention. However, there is no evidence for this, and the hammock's creation is often attributed to a later inventor. In Greece, Alcibiades (c. 450-404 B.C.E.) was a student of Socrates, and some sources attribute its invention to him. Western European society was first introduced to the hammock in 1492 when Christopher Columbus returned from the Bahamas where he had found the native people resting and sleeping in them. He took some hammocks back to Europe and within a century or so they were standard issue for European sailors. In the cramped ships of the time their value was obvious, as they could be stowed away or hooked up for use almost instantly. More than any other form of bed, they allowed sailors more...

"If I still had the patents on my inventions, Bill Gates would have to stand aside for me." Alfred Gross In 1945 the U.S. government allocated radio frequencies, called the Citizens' Band (CB), for personal radio services. In response, Alfred J. Gross (1918-2000) set up a company to produce two-way CB radios; in 1948 his radio was the first to receive federal approval. Citizens' Band radios are used for short-distance communication, generally within the 27 MHz band. Unlike amateur radio, CB can be used for commercial communications. CB radios first became popular with small businesses and truck drivers, but during the 1970s their popularity around the world soared—a popularity that was bolstered by film and television with Smokey and the Bandit and "The Dukes of Hazzard." Governments around the world often released the CB frequencies only after CB radio equipment had been imported and used illegally. After the release of more...

"It will run on any fuel with a hydro-carbon base, needs no repair and the oil in it is good for life." Russell L. Bourke, engineer In 1932, Russell L. Bourke built an engine he thought was destined to change the world. It had only two moving parts (the pistons) and a fluid bearing connecting the pistons to a Scotch yoke (a mechanism Bourke used instead of a crankshaft to change the linear motion of the pistons to rotary motion). Four years later, Bourke applied for three U.S. patents for his engine; these were issued in 1938. For twenty years, Bourke was unable to interest government or industry in his engine. Then, in 1957, his patents ran out, enabling anyone in the world to manufacture it. And yet, few were interested. Over the last half century, gas prices have skyrocketed, concern over greenhouse gases has dramatically increased, and the Bourke more...

Conceived at the height of World War II by English aeronautical engineer Barnes Neville Wallis (1887- 1979), the bouncing bomb was a weapon with a unique purpose; namely the destruction of Hitler's Ruhr Valley-based hydroelectric plants. Codenamed "Upkeep," the cylinder-shaped bouncing bomb had its origins among naval gunners of two centuries before, who had increased the range of their cannons' projectiles by literally skimming or bouncing them off the water. The effect had also been noticed by Allied pilots attacking ships. Forced by enemy fire to drop their bombs prematurely, the bombs had, under certain conditions, similarly bounced their way onward to the target. Reasoning that a bomb system able to do this by design would enable the destruction of targets otherwise requiring an impossibly heavy load of explosives, or a suicidal pilot, Wallis set about creating one. Numerous designs of scaled-down "bombs" were tested before Wallis concluded that a more...