Science Projects And Inventions

"The practical success of an idea ...is dependent on the attitude of its contemporaries." Nikola Tesla One of the most important inventors in history, Nikola Tesla, was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia. His inventions would revolutionize our world. Among his almost 300 patents were wireless communication, the alternating current, and the induction motor. Tesla built the first working induction motor in 1883. Michael Faraday had demonstrated an electric motor in 1821 and Zenobe Gramme went on to invent the modern direct current motor in 1873, but it is Tesla's motor that most of our household appliances rely on. The induction motor works using alternating current rather than direct current. It has a simple design and is significantly less expensive to manufacture than the direct current motors. It also has fewer parts to wear out and is thus more reliable. The induction motor does more than run your vacuum cleaner. more...

Sulfur is an important precursor to many industrial processes. Much of it goes into making sulfuric acid, a common reactant and a component of fertilizer. In the nineteenth century, Sicily dominated the production of this element. Deposits were found in the United States, too—notably in Louisiana and Texas—but they were much deeper and more difficult to mine. It may not have been gold, but unlocking this yellow substance could be a deeply profitable business. One man had the answer, and from it derived the process that now bears his name. German-born Herman Frasch (1851-1914) settled in the United States and made a name for himself removing unwanted sulfur from petroleum. In the 1890s sulfur itself became the focus of his attention, and he sought a way to mine the deep-set mineral. His solution was to bore a drill hole down to the layer containing sulfur. An arrangement of three concentric more...

As a conduit for the output of all electronically created sound, the loudspeaker is one of the most significant inventions of the past 150 years. Indeed, in one form or another loudspeakers have been at the heart of much of the technology that has since emerged—from telephone, radio, and television to hi-fi music systems. It was Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) who patented the first electrical loudspeaker in 1876, as part of his telephone system. In conjunction with his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, Bell created a simple design. A drum was covered with a tightly stretched goldbeater's skin (diaphragm) and a magnetized free- floating armature was placed at its center. The armature was able to vibrate against the skin and responded to changes in a magnetic field. This device was connected to Bell's "liquid" transmitter into which he uttered words that were heard clearly by his assistant in the next room. more...

"Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary... That's what gets you" Jeremy Clarkson, motoring broadcaster From time to time a talented inventor comes along who is so prolific that they almost redefine an industry single-handedly. German engineer Karl Benz (1844- 1929) was one such inventor. During the 1870s and 1880s he secured many patents—including the speed regulation system known as the accelerator or throttle in 1890—that represented  significant developments in the - technology of the automobile. Being one of the first to patent on many aspects of the design of the internal combustion engine eventually led Benz to become a leader in the field of automotive design. The throttle performs a simple function in the internal combustion engine. The fuel—usually gasoline—is mixed with air before being ignited in the cylinders to produce the small explosion that fires the piston, which in turn rotates the drive shaft turning the wheels. more...

“I got rabies shots for biting the head off a bat but that's okay— the bat had to get Ozzy shots.” Ozzy Osbourne, rock vocalist Since antiquity, rabies had been feared as a death sentence. In 1884 Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) injected material from rabid dogs into rabbits, removing their spinal cords after they had died of the disease. When the cords were suspended over a vapor of potassium hydroxide, Pasteur found the more the cords dried, the fewer infectious agents survived. He made a series of graduated vaccines, the strongest comprising spinal cord dried for just one day, and the weakest, cord dried for fourteen days. The vaccine was tested in forty-two dogs, twenty-three of whom received fourteen injections (starting with the weakest vaccine, and ending with the strongest), while nineteen received no treatment. At the end of the experiment, all the dogs were exposed to rabies; none of the more...

At the same time that the Linotype machine was being developed, Tolbert Lanston (1844-1914), a government clerk in the United States, was inventing another composition system that he called Monotype. Lanston's initial patent was awarded in 1885, but he was not successful until he founded the Lanston Monotype Machine Company in Washington in 1887. In Lanston's system, letters, spaces, and other characters were selected mechanically from instructions contained on a paper tape into which patterns of holes, each representing a different character or space, had been punched using a keyboard. Although typesetting using Monotype was not as quick as Linotype, where complete lines of text were cast, Monotype text could be corrected more easily, spacing could be more finely controlled, and its versatility made complex setting possible. Lanston used cold metal strips into which letters were punched to produce raised reverse type for printing, but realized that much finer definition more...

“... we [must] diversify our energy sources and reduce our dependency on foreign oil:" Mary Bono Mack, U.S. politician It is thanks to Russian Vladimir Shukhov (1853-1939) that we can meet the fuel demand for modern engines. In 1891 he designed a refinery to convert crude oil into more useful things like gasoline and kerosene. Crude oil is a naturally occurring fluid that consists of a mix of hydrocarbons of various molecular lengths. Crude oil straight from the ground does not burn well, although its smaller molecules, which burn more easily, can be extracted by using fractional distillation. However, a large portion always remains as larger molecules. To make these long-chain molecules burn more easily, they can be broken into shorter chains by a process called thermal cracking. Shukhov patented a method of heating and pressurizing the oil to the extent that it would start to breakup into smaller molecules. more...

While the need to wipe your nose is as old as the need to sneeze, it took a surprisingly long time to come up with a solution that disposed of nasal mucus politely and hygienically. Although a seemingly simple solution, the key features of facial paper tissues are that they are cheap, soft, disposable, and absorbent, especially in comparison to other similar types of paper products. Even toilet paper is not as effective, being designed to break down in water. In fact when the Kimberly-Clark Corporation first developed the material that would later make them household names, it was to use as bandages in World War I. Cellucotton, as it was called, was made from processed wood pulp and was five times as absorbent and half as expensive as cotton. As a result of army nurses using cellucotton as disposable sanitary pads, Kimberly-Clark introduced the first disposable feminine hygiene product more...

We often think of thoughts as instantaneous, but in truth it stands to reason that they are limited by the speed of certain chemical reactions and electrical impulses in our brain. Given that these physical activities accompany thinking, it also stands to reason that if one looks hard enough, one should be able to measure the electrical activity, despite the seemingly fleeting nature of brain activity The recording of these impulses—or electroencephalography—matured at something of a snail's pace until the work of Hans Berger (1873-1941). In 1875, English physician Richard Caton figured out that he could measure brain activity in animals with a galvanometer. A Polish physician, Adolph Beck, also working with animals, advanced the topic further in the 1890s, going so far as to discover the location of some sensory impulses and noting a change in activity that took place with loud noises or bright light. The link between more...

"Ransom Olds used [the assembly line] to jump his production from 425 cars in 1901 to 2,500 In 1902." Curtis Redgap, automobile enthusiast Just as motor cars were appearing on the market, Ransom Eli Olds (1864-1950) had an idea that was to revolutionize industry—the assembly line. After building his first gasoline-powered car in 1896, Olds set out to mass-produce successors to his beloved "Oldsmobile." Spreading himself thinly. Olds tried to produce a large range of models. Then, in March 1901, his company burned to the ground. The fire destroyed all but one of his models, the "Curved Dash" Oldsmobile. Olds focused on producing this model exclusively and made a phoenixlike comeback. He soon had more orders than he could actually meet. Recalling how he had watched workers at a musket rifle factory assemble guns in assigned stations, Olds came up with an ingenious scheme for a car assembly line. He more...