Science Projects And Inventions

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." Albert Einstein, scientist The cultivation of the coffee bean can be traced back to tenth-century Ethiopia. It was introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century and the Americas in the mid- 1600s, after which it proved an extremely popular beverage. But preparing it correctly, brewed from ground coffee beans, could be time-consuming. It was not until 1901 that a Japanese-American chemist named Satori Kato, using an earlier process he pioneered for making instant tea, created the world's first soluble instant coffee. Kato's coffee, which he called "Sanka," though initially bitter and pungent, was a concentrated solution made from coffee beans and water that was dehydrated leaving a powdery residue, which dissolves easily in hot water. While living in Guatemala in 1909, Belgian-born chemist George C. Washington was the first to market mass-produced coffee with his "Red E Coffee" brand, after more...

“To see barges waiting ...at a lock affords a fine lesson in how easily the world may be taken." Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage (1878) Locks interrupt a canal or river with stepped stretches of still water, thus reducing currents in the waterway and conserving deep water for passage. The forerunner of today's lock was the flash lock, already in use by the first century B.C.E. in China, whereby part of a dam would be temporarily opened to allow passage of a vessel. Those traveling downstream were carried on the resulting surge of water, whereas those sailing in the opposite direction hauled the vessel against the torrent. Such an arrangement was dangerous and resulted in the loss of large quantities of water downstream for every vessel passing, a circumstance not appreciated by mill owners reliant on the supply. In 984, during the construction of China's Grand Canal, engineer Qiao more...

There can be few people who have not encountered this remarkable product. Assumed by some to have been a spin-off from wartime, military technology, and therefore named "War Department—1940," the title actually relates to the number of attempts it took the inventors of this water displacing (WD) chemical to perfect the product. It was at a lab in San Diego, California, in 1953, that the Rocket Chemical Company and its three personnel embarked on their mission to create a range of rust- prevention and degreasing products for use in the aerospace industry. After thirty-nine "almosts," they succeeded. The aerospace contractor Convair bought the chemical for use as a corrosion inhibitor on its Atlas missiles, and other wholesale orders soon followed. Rocket Chemical Company employees had for some time been taking small amounts of the petrochemical-based product home for their personal use. Company founder and chemist Norm Larsen (1923-1970), suspecting that more...

"Wrong and inappropriate use has caused LSD to become my problem child." Albert Hofmann Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a powerful psychedelic drug. While now commonly associated with 1960s dropout youth culture, it was heralded as a wonder drug in the 1940s and 1950s and was used to treat thousands of psychiatric patients. Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann (1906-2008) first synthesized LSD in 1938, expecting it to be useful as a medicinal stimulant. In 1943 he returned to studying it and after experiencing some pleasant sensations while working with the drug. .he took a dose of 0.25 mg. Hofmann bicycled home and began to experience its psychedelic effects, the world's first "trip." He reported that the morning after he felt entirely renewed and that his senses were "vibrating in a condition of highest sensitivity." Today LSD is mainly taken as a recreational drug for its psychological effects. Common accounts are of more...

"None of our mordern craftsmen [except Alberti] has known how to write these subject..." Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists (1550) Devised by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), the anemometer was a simple instrument to measure wind speed. It had a rectangular metal plate attached to a horizontal axis with a hinge, so that in the wind the metal plate lifted, giving an indication of relative wind speed that could be measured crudely on a curved scale bar below the plate. In light winds, the plate would move slightly on its hinge; in stronger winds, the plate would lift further. Alberti describes and illustrates this device in his book, The Pleasure of Mathematics (1450).' The well-educated son of a wealthy merchant, Albert! was an accomplished artist, athlete, horserider, musician, mathematician, cryptographer (inventing the cipher disc), classicist, writer, cleric, and architect. He was a true Renaissance polymath, created by the intellectual culture more...

"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days.... The end of the world is evidently approaching? Inscription on an Assyrian tablet About 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia invented humankind's first writing system. Having already established the world's first true civilization by introducing agriculture and domesticating cattle, they decided that it was more efficient to record their economic transactions in writing rather than use tokens to represent the number of beasts and the amount of harvest they traded. Their initial use of simple pictograms (drawings representing actual things) quickly developed into a complex system of symbols where items were illustrated by one sign and their volume by another. The Sumerians' innovation was not only used for commercial purposes, but also extended to phonetic—rather than wholly pictographic—ideograms that expressed concepts such as deity and royalty as well as thoughts. As the symbols evolved, the notes that were recorded on more...

"We think the iPhone is a 'game changer'... it will change how people think about... handsets." Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T Announced in January 2007 and eagerly awaited, the Apple iPhone could play music, take photographs, browse the internet, send e-mail, play movies, and store up to 8 gigabytes of information. It also had Wi-Fi capabilities, a calculator, calendar, and notepad, and operated via a nifty touch-screen mechanism. And it could make a telephone call. With its large screen, lack of buttons, and sleek appearance, the iPhone stood out in design terms alone—unlike its competitors, it did not look like a phone. What is more, the touch screen was designed to be operated by a finger, so it was no longer necessary to find the stylus required by other models. However, the iPhone did not perform as well as expected, with Apple taking only a 5 percent share of the more...

"[The company name of] lava brand motion lamp' hasn't caught on with American consumers." James P. Miller, Chicago Tribune Englishman Edward Craven Walker (1918-2000) had the idea for the lava lamp while enjoying a drink in a bar. Looking at a homemade lamp, made from a cocktail shaker and some cans, Walker realized the potential for a glass containing fluids that did not mix and had different densities. Back home, he started work on a novelty lamp, using an incandescent bulb to heat the contents of a glass bottle containing a mixture of water, translucent wax, and carbon tetrachloride. In the lamp the wax heated up, melted, and rose in the. bottle—when it reached the top, it cooled and fell back to the bottom. Molten wax would have floated on water at any temperature, but the carbon tetrachloride increased its density. Walker started a company called Crest worth and in more...

"Men of former times used to cm ploy lard... for greasing their axles." Pliny, historian As long as there have been wheels, there has been the need for lubrication. Any tribologist (an expert in the science of lubrication) will tell you that it serves to reduce friction. It conserves energy, reduces wear and tear, prevents overheating, and reduces noise. The ancient civilization of Mesopotamia, and later those of Greece and Rome, used wheels in pottery for channeling water and for transportation. Olive oil was used as an axle lubricant, and an Egyptian chariot dated to 1400 B.C.E. was found with animal fat on the axles. Fats add a crucial viscosity that water lacks. For Roman chariot racers, wheel lubrication would have been life-saving, and a mosaic has been found in Spain showing a man holding an amphora of oil beside the racetrack, much like the pit-stop mechanics of today. A first more...

"They serve as a monument to a bygone era... waiting for… freighters that no longer come." Grain Elevators, A History (website) The first grain elevator was built in Buffalo, New York, by Joseph Dart in 1842. Dart was a retail merchant who had seen Buffalo boom since the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, linking the Midwest to New York. Initially grain was loaded and unloaded by hand, a back- breaking job that took several days. To overcome this problem Dart built the first wooden grain elevator. The elevator consisted of a large wooden structure that served as a storage bin for the grain, to which a steam-driven belt with buckets was attached. The belt could be maneuvered into the hold of cargo vessels and activated, whereupon the buckets would scoop up the grain and deposit it into the storage bins. The elevator allowed ships to be unloaded at more...