| Aircraft
Carrier |
|
An aircraft carrier
gets about 6 inches per
gallon of fuel. |
|
|
| Airplanes |
|
The first United States
coast to coast airplane
flight occurred in 1911
and took 49 days.
A Boeing 747s wingspan
is longer than the Wright
brother's first flight (120ft). |
|
| Aluminum |
|
The Chinese were using
aluminum to make things
as early as 300 AD Western
civilization didn't rediscover
aluminum until 1827. |
|
| Automobile |
|
George Seldon received
a patent in 1895 - for
the automobile. Four years
later, George sold the
rights for $200,000. |
|
| Coin
Operated Machine |
|
The first coin operated
machine ever designed was
a holy-water dispenser that
required a five-drachma
piece to operate. It was
the brainchild of the Greek
scientist Hero in the first
century AD. |
|
| Compact
Discs |
|
Compact discs read
from the inside to the outside
edge, the reverse of how
a record works. |
|
| Computers |
|
ENIAC, the first electronic
computer, appeared 50 years
ago. The original ENIAC
was about 80 feet long,
weighed 30 tons, had 17,000
tubes. By comparison, a
desktop computer today can
store a million times more
information than an ENIAC,
and 50,000 times faster.
From the smallest microprocessor
to the biggest mainframe,
the average American depends
on over 264 computers per
day.
The first "modern"
computer (i.e., general-purpose
and program-controlled)
was built in 1941 by Konrad
Zuse. Since there was a
war going on, he applied
to the German government
for funding to build his
machines for military use,
but was turned down because
the Germans did not expect
the war to last beyond Christmas.
The computer was launched
in 1943, more than 100 years
after Charles Babbage designed
the first programmable device.
Babbage dropped his idea
after he couldn't raise
capital for it. In 1998,
the Science Museum in London,
UK, built a working replica
of the Babbage machine,
using the materials and
work methods available at
Babbage's time. It worked
just as Babbage had intended. |
|
| Electric
Chair |
|
The electric chair
was invented by a dentist,
Alfred Southwick. |
|
| E-Mail |
|
The first e-mail was
sent over the Internet in
1972. |
|
| Eye
Glasses |
|
The Chinese invented
eyeglasses. Marco Polo reported
seeing many pairs worn by
the Chinese as early as
1275, 500 years before lens
grinding became an art in
the West. |
|
| Glass |
|
If hot water is suddenly
poured into a glass that
glass is more apt to break
if it is thick than if it
is thin. This is why test
tubes are made of thin glass.
|
|
| Hard
Hats |
|
Construction workers
hard hats were first invented
and used in the building
of the Hoover Dam in 1933.
|
|
| Hoover
Dam |
|
The Hoover Dam was
built to last 2,000 years.
The concrete in it will
not even be fully cured
for another 500 years. |
|
| Limelight |
|
Limelight was how we
lit the stage before electricity
was invented. Basically,
illumination was produced
by heating blocks of lime
until they glowed. |
|
| Mobile
(Cellular) Phones |
|
As much as 80% of microwaves
from mobile phones are absorbed
by your head. |
|
| Nuclear
Power |
|
Nuclear ships are basically
steamships and driven by
steam turbines. The reactor
just develops heat to boil
the water. |
|
| Oil |
|
The amount of oil that
is used worldwide in one
year is doubling every ten
years. If that rate of increase
continues and if the world
were nothing but oil, all
the oil would be used up
in 400 years. |
|
| Radio
Waves |
|
Radio waves travel
so much faster than sound
waves that a broadcast voice
can be heard sooner 18,000
km away than in the back
of the room in which it
originated. |
|
| Rickshaw |
|
The rickshaw was invented
by the Reverend Jonathan
Scobie, an American Baptist
minister living in Yokohama,
Japan, built the first model
in 1869 in order to transport
his invalid wife. Today
it remains a common mode
of transportation in the
Orient. |
|
| Ships
& Boats |
|
The world's oldest
surviving boat is a simple
10 feet long dugout dated
to 7400 BC. It was discovered
in Pesse Holland in the
Netherlands.
Rock drawings from
the Red Sea site of Wadi
Hammamat, dated to around
4000 BC show that Egyptian
boats were made from papyrus
and reeds.
The world's earliest
known plank-built ship,
made from cedar and sycamore
wood and dated to 2600 BC,
was discovered next to the
Great Pyramid in 1952.
The Egyptians created
the first organized navy
in 2300 BC.
Oar-powered ships were
developed by the Sumerians
in 3500 BC.
Sails were first used
by the Phoenicians around
2000 BC. |
|
| Silicon
Chip |
|
A chip of silicon a
quarter-inch square has
the capacity of the original
1949 ENIAC computer, which
occupied a city block. |
|
| Skyscraper |
|
The term skyscraper
was first used way back
in 1888 to describe an 11-story
building. |
|
| Sound |
|
Sound travels 15 times
faster through steel than
through the air. |
|
| Telephones |
|
There are more than
600 million telephone lines
today, yet almost half the
world's population has never
made a phone call. |
|
| Television |
|
Scottish inventor John
Logie Baird gave the first
public demonstration of
television in 1926 in Soho,
London. Ten years later
there were only 100 TV sets
in the world. |
|
| Traffic
Lights |
|
Traffic
lights were used before
the advent of the motorcar.
In 1868, a lantern with
red and green signals was
used at a London intersection
to control the flow of horse
buggies and pedestrians.
|
|
| Transistors |
|
More than a billion
transistors are manufactured...
every second. |
|
| VCR's |
|
The first VCR, made
in 1956, was the size of
a piano. |
|
| Windmill |
|
The windmill originated
in Iran in AD 644. It was
used to grind grain. |
|
| World
Trade Center |
|
The World Trade Center
towers were designed to
collapse in a pancake-like
fashion, instead of simply
falling over on their sides.
This design feature saved
hundreds, perhaps thousands
of lives on Sept. 11, 2001,
when they were destroyed
by terrorists. |
