Science Projects And Inventions

The Babylonians are said to have built a tunnel under the Euphrates River in circa 2180 B.C.E. using what is now known as the cut-and-cover method. The river was diverted, a wide trench was dug across the riverbed, and a brick tube was constructed in the trench. The riverbed was filled in over the tube and the river allowed to resume its normal course. However, there is no firm proof of this tunnel's existence, so we need to look to the more recent past. Many tombs of the Egyptian New Kingdom pharaohs buried between 1481 and 1069 B.C.E. in the Valley of the Kings were approached by tunnels dug in the solid rock, but these are as much entrances as tunnels. The first real tunnel—that is, one that was dug through solid rock from both ends, to meet in the middle—was Hezekiah's Tunnel (the Siloam Tunnel) in Jerusalem. This tunnel more...

It may come as no surprise to some that the three- point seat belt in widespread use today was invented by a Swede working for Volvo. Nils Bohlin (1920-2002) was an aircraft designer for Saab, where he developed ejector seats, before joining Volvo as its first safety engineer in 1958. Seat belts at that time involved just one belt across the lap, a design that risked injuries to internal organs in high-speed crashes. Bohlin sought to find a simple, comfortable alternative that would protect both the upper and lower body. His three-point solution allowed occupants to buckle up with one hand, using one strap across the chest and lap with the buckle placed next to the hip. The design spread out the forces of a crash more evenly across the body, resulting in fewer injuries. It was effective at restraining the body and preventing ejection from the vehicle in high-speed more...

"We in astronomy have an advantage in studying the universe, in that we actually see the past." Lord Rees, Astronomer Royal for England Often known simply as Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope was named for Edwin Hubble, the U.S. astronomer who showed the existence of other galaxies outside the Milky Way. Hubble is an orbiting reflecting telescope designed to study the distant universe in visual light. Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) since 1977, its launch was planned for 1986, but the Challenger Space Shuttle tragedy put it back until April 1990. The four instruments attached to the telescope focal plane were designed to be modular, and it was intended that they should be replaced by other instruments during the mission. This attribute was extremely useful because it was soon found that the main mirror had a design fault. A space shuttle rescue mission in 1993 corrected more...

“I couldn't reduce the explanation to a freshman level. That means we really don't understand it." Richard Feynman on the behavior of electrons The first spectrometer was devised by Martin Deutsch (1917-2002) and Robley D. Evans (1907-1995) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Electrons are a by-product of nuclear reactions and the first electron spectrometers were used to monitor the radiation from the nuclear tests that took place toward the end of World War II. They have since become a "must have" instrument on scientific space missions. The fourth state of matter is plasma, where some of the outer electrons of the atoms have been knocked away, and move off freely in space. Electrons are relatively simple fundamental particles. Their mass, charge, and collision cross-section are well known. That leaves their speed and direction of motion as unknowns. An electron spectrometer measures their kinetic energy by registering the way more...

The first manned helicopter flight was achieved by the Frenchman Paul Cornu who lifted his twin-rotor craft off the ground fortwenty seconds in 1907; his machine unfortunately broke up on landing. In 1909 Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972) built two helicopters but these could lift very little more than their own weight. The first practical helicopter was the German Focke-Wulf FW 61, which flew in 1936. By 1939 the British had built the two-seater Weir W.6, which was powered by a pair of rotors mounted independently, one on each side of the fuselage. The Weir W.6's prototype was the first helicopter in the world to carry three occupants. Many control problems had to be solved, the main ones being unsymmetrical lift, which caused the craft to flip over on takeoff, and the fact that the body's natural tendency was to spin in the opposite direction to the rotors. However, one big advance more...

“... the sewing machine was as awe-inspiring as the space capsule [was to twentieth-century people]" Grace Rogers Cooper, writer The history of the sewing machine begins in 1790, with a patent by British inventor Thomas Saint for a device (never built) to puncture leather and repeatedly pass a thread through the holes. In 1830 Frenchman Barthelemy Thimonier successfully built a machine that also used this "chain stitch" method. Within a dozen years he had built eighty machines, but they were destroyed by a mob of angry tailors. The first person to develop the sewing machine as we know it was American Walter Hunt (1796-1859), in 1834. His crucial innovation was to use two spools of thread (on an upper spindle and a lower bobbin) and an eyed needle to create "lockstitch"—the two threads lock together when they pass Through the hole. Hunt, also the inventor of the safety pin, failed more...

"The principle of this burner is simply that city gas is allowed to issue under such conditions." Robert Bunsen Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899) was appointed Professor of Chemistry and Medicine at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg in 1852. Before accepting the position, he negotiated the construction of a new laboratory building equipped with pipes for coal gas, which the city had begun to use to light the streets. Bunsen was not happy with the equipment he had for heating samples in the laboratory. In 1827 Michael Faraday had written about a burner that used coal gas, but the flame produced too much soot as well as more light than heat. Bunsen's idea was to mix the coal gas with air before the flame rather than at the flame. Because the oxygen and gas would be well mixed at the point of combustion, the resultant flame would be hot rather more...

"[Odysseus] fumigated the hall, house and court with burning sulfur to control pests." Homer, The Odyssey Civilization was founded on agriculture. The earliest cities grew up around 9,000 years ago when nomadic hunter-gatherers settled in Mesopotamia, herding animals and growing crops for the first time. But relying on the success of an annual crop was risky. poor weather, an infestation of insects, or crop diseases could ruin the harvest and starve a population. Humans are still unable to control the climate, but solutions to the other problems were proposed in the most ancient of times. Early attempts to limit damage by pests were mostly physical interventions, such as crop rotation and the manual removal of grubs. The first evidence for a chemical agent comes from Sumeria in 2500 B.C.E., where elemental sulfur was used to ward off insects. The Sumerians had developed a sophisticated agriculture, employing irrigation and mass labor more...

The modern flame thrower was not particularly innovative—it simply launched burning fuel to spread fire. However, when used on the battlefield, its effect was devastating, and it is remembered as the most demoralizing infantry weapon ever used. At the turn of the twentieth century, German inventor Richard Fiedler experimented with two types of flame thrower. The Flammenwerfer was a smaller, handheld weapon that used pressurized gas to push out streams of burning oil. The larger model was not as portable, but had a range of 118 feet (36 m) and could produce a continuous stream for forty seconds. When used in warfare, the weapons were highly dangerous, both for the enemy and the users, as the pressurized gas cylinders were prone to explosion. Modern flame throwers consist of a backpack containing a tank with a flammable liquid, often napalm, and a tank with compressed gas. When fired the pressurized gas more...

"Your bath took care of the past, but for future freshness, make Mum your next step." Mum advertisement, 1946 The development of the roll-on deodorant is a perfect example of how ingenious lateral thinking can link one seemingly unrelated invention to another and result in a useful product. "Mum" deodorant—first developed in the late nineteenth century—was a rather sticky, hard-to-apply substance. When Helen Barnett Diserens (1918-2008) joined the product team of Bristol-Myers as a researcher in the late 1940s, one of the company's skills' was working creatively on a select list of consumer-Bqsed toiletries. A member of Diserens's team suggested that she take a look at another recent marvel, the ballpoint pen (actually based on an idea from the late 1800s) to get some inspiration for improving Mum's applicator. Diserens's new roller applicator—made of glass with a rolling ball at its tip—was tested in the United States in 1952. After more...