Science Projects And Inventions

"[Henry's magnetic force] totally eclipses every other in the whole annals of magnetism." William Sturgeon on Joseph Henry Englishman William Sturgeon invented the simple electromagnet in 1825; five years later, American Joseph Henry (1797-1878) successfully improved its magnetic field by a factor of about 400. The most important characteristic of modern electromagnets is the speed with which their magnetic fields can be manipulated. Basically an electromagnet is just a corkscrewlike coil of current- carrying wire—a solenoid. If a direct current is passed through the wire, the strength of the magnetic field is directly proportional to the amplitude of the current. A solenoid has only air in its core. If a stronger field is required, the core is filled with soft iron or any other suitable paramagnetic of ferromagnetic material. A disadvantage with this system is that remnant magnetism can persist after the electric current has been switched off. This has more...

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all" Hypatia of Alexandria, distillery inventor Distillation is not a process confined to spirit production; it is a method of separating chemical substances by their volatility. Chemicals are separated from solutions by heating them until they boil and turn into gas. The gas is then collected and cooled, when it condenses into a liquid. As different chemicals boil at different temperatures, it is possible to separate them by controlling the heating temperatures. There is evidence of the distillation of alcohol dating back to the second millennium B.C.E. although recent evidence from Pakistan demonstrates that it was not until 400 B.C.E; that the process was well understood. The idea of boiling water and collecting it as steam, which separates out dirt, salts, and bacteria, seems to have of tme 800 years later, when Hypatia more...

“Rowling is only a magical ceremony by means of which one compels a demon to move the ship.” Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher Although it is common knowledge that rowboats were used as far back as 3000 B.C.E. in Egypt as a means of traveling and trading along the Nile River, evidence has been uncovered recently to suggest that they were in existence much earlier. In a grave uncovered in the Mesopotamian city of Eridu, archeologists found a clay model of a boat, and the grave is thought to have been dug before 4000 B.C.E. Mesopotamia—widely cited as as "the cradle of civilization"—was the name given in the Hellenistic Period to a broad geographical area that took in what we now know as Iraq and a part of western Iran. The model they found was of a wide boat with a shallow bottom, rather like a barge, which was designed to float more...

"A hearty laugh gives one a dry cleaning, while a good cry is a wet wash." Puzant KevorkThomajan Like so many inventions, the idea of dry cleaning was hit upon by accident. One morning, French dye-works owner Jean-Baptiste Jolly noticed a clean spot on a dirty tablecloth where his maid had knocked over a kerosene lamp. Since materials such as silk and wool blends shrink and lose their color when washed with water and soap, Jolly knew exactly how to capitalize on his discovery, and soon he had developed a way of cleaning clothes without using water. Jolly called the procedure "dry cleaning"—though this is something of a misnomer since the process does involve immersing dirty clothes in a liquid solvent. Jolly started to clean delicate clothes with kerosene and gasoline. These early solvents were highly flammable and the risk of fire drove the dry-cleaning industry to look for alternatives. Synthetic more...

"[Reaching] the dim boundary... we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors..." Edwin Hubble, The Realm of the Nebulae (1936) The legend goes that, playing one day in their father's spectacle shop, two Dutch children realized that if they looked through both a concave lens close to their eye and a concave lens held at arm's length, the local church tower was greatly magnified. Their father, Hans Lippershey (circa 1570-1619), then mounted the two lenses in a tube and tried to sell the device to the Dutch Army.. Whether the credit for this invention should go to Lippershey or to, for example, Zacharius Janssen or Jacob Metius, or even the Englishman Leonard Digges, has become a matter of considerable debate. At the very least, Lippershey is generally credited with popularizing the device, and creating and disseminating designs for the first practical telescope. Soon similar instruments, known as "Dutch Trunks," more...

The world's first purpose-built granary was unearthed by lan Kuijt, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, at Dhra' on a parched plateau next to the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley. The structure, roughly 9 feet (2.9 m) square, was found about 2 feet (0.6 m) underground. The granary is smaller than other nearby structures that appear to have been houses, an indication of its different use. Interestingly, the structure has two levels, an architectural feature never seen before in buildings of this age. Its significance as the world's first granary is that it belongs to one of the world's first settled farming communities, built just as people began to live in one place all year round rather than wandering from place to place in search of their food. In other words, it marks the time when early people were making the historic transition from more...

"Man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. But he has only to sink below the surface to be free" Jacques Cousteau The aqualung, invented in 1943 by Frenchmen Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997) and Emile Gagnan (1900-1979) transformed underwater exploration, engineering, and marine biology. For the first time, divers could .move.-around freely, and undertake lengthy dives. The invention consisted of compressed air in cylinders, worn on the diver's back and connected to a mouthpiece through a regulated "demand" valve. This Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus—SCUBA—is very similar to the diving equipment we use today. Before this aqualung was invented, divers used various techniques for underwater exploration. Snorkeling, using a short tube connected to the mouth with one end above the surface, allows exploration in shallow waters. Attempts to explore deeper using a longer snorkel tube were limited by the diver's need to stay fairly close to the air source. A rebreather more...

Tools have been around for more than two million years, and over the centuries they have been designed to dig, lift, hammer, screw, propel, crush, launch, and measure^ Measurement tools are of the utmost Importance in modern construction. Although standard weights and measures Stretch back beyond the Babylonians—one of the earliest civilizations—the world's most popular measuring tool is a mere infant. The calibrated foot ruler was invented in 1675, before German Anfon Ullrich (1826- 1895) improved on it in 1851, when he invented the folding ruler. But an even more flexible and compact ruler was soon to arrive on the scene. The spring tape measure was patented in 1868 by American Alvin J. Fellows. Although the tape was made of cloth rather than metal, Fellows' retractable tape measure is nearly identical to those found in today's toolboxes. Swapping fabric for steel, New Jersey engineer Hiram Farrand updated the tape measure more...

"The atlati is the tool ancient peoples used to 'bring home the bacon.'" Robert "Atlati Bob" Perkins, primitive technologist When Spaniards first met the Aztecs in around 1500, the explorers were horrified when their armor was easily penetrated by the Aztec throwing darts. The Aztecs achieved this feat with the atlati, a simple device used by many ancient peoples for long-range hunting. It probably dates from around 23,000 B.C.E. The atlati consists of a throwing board and a dart about 6 feet (180 cm) long. The board, typically about 2 feet (60 cm) long, has a spur at its end. The dart's rear is cut down the middle so that it fits onto the spur like two fingers around a card. Gripping a handle at the front end of the throwing board, the atlati thrower can hurl the dart with considerably more force than he could by hand. During the more...

"One machine [produced] in an hour what had previously taken hundreds of person-hours." Robert Clark, University of East Anglia Preston wigmaker Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) patented a new cotton-spinning machine in 1769. Around that time people were racing to find a fast and inexpensive way to produce good-quality cotton for the textiles industry. James Hargreaves had created the "spinning jenny" between 1764 and 1767, but this simply mimicked the action of a hand-turned spinning wheel and could not produce high-quality cotton thread. Arkwright's "water frame" would become a major catalyst for the Industrial Revolution. While working as a wigmaker, Arkwright became interested in the spinning of cotton. He enlisted the help of clockmaker John Kay, who had worked previously with Thomas Highs on another spinning machine that had been halted by a lack of funds. Together, Arkwright and Kay built a prototype horsepowered spinning frame, which they patented in 1769. more...