 |
| The blueprint of Wright Flyer. |
All inventions are important but
some of them lead to bigger changes in human lives than the other. In this
article we are going to see for the 10 most important inventions that give
biggest impact to how we living in this world today.
Printing Press (1950)
Print was invented earlier with
slower and complicated process. Anyway printing press machine invented by
Johannes Gutenberg 1440 not just allowed the printing works to be faster but
also make books available at cheaper price. This is what contributes to any
other knowledge to be spread exponentially.
Before printing machine was
invented, the knowledge texts only available to few selected people. These
materials prepared by selective people consist of monks and few learned
individuals. With this invention however changed the whole Western Europe by 16th
century by mass produced texts with diversity of topics.
Telescope (1609)
Human always fascinated with
stars in the sky but only with the invention of telescope that allow us to understand
more about them. Even though invented earlier by Greek mathematician Giovanni
Demisiani in 1611 the good quality telescope only produced later by Sir Isaac
Newton in 1668 with his reflecting telescope.
Besides telescope another same
optical apparatus that look at smaller objects also considered one of the most
important inventions is microscope. Before microscope was invented no one knows
that we living in the world with full of microscopic organisms that also have
bigger impact in our lives.
Steam Engine (1712)
Even though steam engine no
longer used today as how it’s been used before, most electricity generated by
huge steam turbines to rotating it’s giant magnets. The steam machines evolve
from the first machine produced in Egypt by Hero of Alexandria in the first
century AD.
Steam engines were incredibly
inefficient until few popular figures in steam engines come with better
improvements such as Thomas Newcomen, James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Steam
engines are the first machines that allow industrial practices to be
implemented and created mass production of materials.
Plastic (1856)
Plastic is another invention have
bigger impact to the world until today. Even though today we think the usage of
plastics give negative impact to the nature, yet the invention of plastics
creates many products at cheaper price. On the negative sides today we struggle
to clean up all the plastics that float in the ocean and endanger their
creatures.
Plastic was first invented by
Alexander Parkes in 1862. A few years later American inventor John Wesley Hyatt
came out with first synthetic man-made plastic. Today there are many types of
plastics with different characteristics to allow many other materials to be
produced with most of our household products contained plastics.
Telephone (1876)
Telephone was invented by two men
separately and only one of them known as the inventor since he arrived at the
patent office earlier. They are Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray in
producing device that can transmit voice electronically.
Bell keeps on upgrading his
invention that allows his invention to be more successful from any other
inventor work on similar device. On March 10, 1876 he uttered the first word to
his assistant Thomas A Watson: “Mr Watson, come here, I want you.”
If we look on how our phone works
today, it will be far different than the first phone invented by Graham Bell,
where today we have computer instead of phone on our hand.
Airplane (1903)
Airplane was another great
invention in human history, while human already can fly with glider in short
distance but not truly flying - without engine that provide enough force to
keep on flying.
Orville and Wilber Wright also
known as Wright Brothers were businessman with bicycle shop. It took them few
years to develop Wright Flyer the first plane that flies on 17 December 1903
for 36.6 meters with its own engine. One year later Wilber flew and improved
Flyer II for five minutes.
With advancement in aviation
technology today the air travel not just become easier but also cheaper. Keep
on travelling.
Television (1926)
Television is more complicated
device with more electronics parts in it. Start with visionaries of the
invention of such product to the invention of the product itself was not
produced by single man. Television requires different discoveries by different
inventors to further develop the fully functional television set.
First thought to be nothing good
will comes out of it until to be one of the devices we can find in every home.
The television becomes the most popular electronics in 21st century
that also used to spread ideas, commercials, news and entertainment.
Touch Screens (1965)
Touch screens was invented
earlier by English engineer EA Johnson in 1965 that simplify the input device
to computer. Anyway it took very long until touch screens technology to become
cheaper to be able to use with smaller device such as smart phone.
There area to types of touch
screen: resistive and capacitive. In the early introduction resistive touch
screen was more popular, while today capacitive touch screen usage is wider.
With touch screen the control of devices become easier, faster and more
accessible by everyone.
GPS (1973)
GPS was technology developed for
military usage to allow them to firing missiles accurately. It was developed by
American Ivan Getting and Professor Bradford Parkinson on military request.
Then the GPS network was proposed with network of radio transmitters with each
having an in-built clock. That’s requires an atomic clock for high precision
measuring of time.
GPS satellites were launched by
the US military in 1978 and were used for military purposes only, public usage
of this technology only available in early nineties. Originally there were 18
satellites in 1979 and 24 by 1988, that number is now closer to 30.
Internet (1960 & 1989)
The best invention that allows the acceleration
of information to be transfer, share and to make it more accessible is the
invention of internet. Anyway the invention of internet itself requires the
platform of network system.
The invention of the network
start as early as 1960’s when Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of US
Department of Defence created ARPANET. This network allows the communication between
computers across the network.
While the internet as we know it today start
with the invention of websites (the World Wide Web) that was invented in late-Eighties.
It all start when the researcher at CERN called Tim Berners-Lee and his
colleagues develop a system that will allow user of the internet to access
text-based ‘pages’. This is possible by the usage of HyperText Transfer
Protocol (HTTP), allowing communication between network servers and computers.
They released the early web browser to the public in 1992 and the advancement
of internet begun.
Those are among 10 best
inventions that shape out our world today. There are many other best
inventions, but these ten are inventions that allow the other inventions
possible or inspiring it to happened. Well, we know it can’t be just 10, as we
all have our own criteria of what best inventions is. Anyway, it is better to
keep on inventing than just rather to talk about which one is the best than the
other.
 |  |  |  |
