Interesting Science Fact

By Phyllis Barkas Goldman

The first plastic was used to make billiard balls. The material was used by Isaiah and John Wesley Hyatt to enter into a contest to find a new material for billiard balls.
Thomas Edison directed the U.S. Navy's research on torpedos and anti-submarine devices during World War I and served as head of the Naval Consulting Board.
The paper clip was invented in 1900 by Johann Vaaler.
In 1701 Jethro Tull invented the seed drill. Before this invention, farmers simply scattered seeds across the fields.
Tull's seed drill placed the seeds in holes in rows so that fewer seeds were wasted, there was less over-crowding, and weeding plants was easier.
African-American scientist George Washington Carver developed ways to make such products as coffee, soap, ink, cheese, dyes, and plastics from peanuts!
Sir Isaac Newton developed his laws of gravity after an apple fell off a tree and hit him on the head!
Famous oceanographer Jacques Cousteau helped develop the diving apparatus called the aqualung. This device allows divers to stay underwater for very long periods of time.
In the first century B.C., parchment was used to write on. Parchment is the dried skin of certain animals, especially sheep.
It was not until around 100 A.D. that a Chinese court official named Ts'ai Lun used hemp, mulberry, bamboo, and straw to invent paper. For 500 years after this, the art of paper making was kept a secret.
Despite the good intentions of patents, some people abuse them by making false proposals.
These "patent submarines" file hundreds of patents and delay their approval for years. They wait for someone else to patent a similar product, then rise like a submarine and sue for hundreds of millions of dollars. Actions like these can slow the progress of much needed inventions and waste court time with false accusations.
The pencil was invented in 1565 by Swiss inventor Konrad Gesner. The lead was made of graphite.
The ancient Chinese invented hundreds of products that are still used today. Some of their most famous innovations include the abacus, the kite, paper, the wheelbarrow, the oil lamp, gun powder, and the umbrella.
As a boy Isaac Newton preferred monkeying around to studying. His creativity led him to create a windmill that could grind wheat and a clock that was run by dripping water.
George Washington Carver never tried to patent His products or obtain any profit from them. He donated the award money he received to his George Washington Carver Foundation for future scientists.
The first mechanical calculator was invented in 1642 by Biaise Pascal to help his father do his taxes faster. The first pocket calculator did not appear until 1971.
In 1903 Mary Andersen made cleaning the windshield much easier by developing a windshield wiper that could be controlled from inside the car.
Before windshield wipers were invented, drivers used to rub carrots or onions on the glass of the car to prevent icing or just use their hands to wipe off snow, ice, or rain during bad weather driving.
Italian scientist Galileo Galilei discovered sun spots, the mountains and craters on the moon, and four of Jupiter's moons with a telescope he built himself in 1609.
Wilbur and Orville Wright invented and flew the first powered airplane in Kittyhawk, North Carolina in 1903. The brothers established a company to build their planes in 1909.
During the late 1700s and early 1800s many people were frightened by new technology. Some people even believed that someone was going to invent a huge machine that would blow up the world!
The first synthetic rubber gloves were made in 1952. They were intended to be used in surgical and industrial procedures. The London rubber company introduced household rubbergloves in 1961.
Anton van Leeuwenhoek invented the first single-lens microscope in 1676. Van Leeuwenhoek was not even a scientist — he worked for a draper and created his microscope to look more closely at cloth fibers.
The first metal-lined bathtub was built by Adam Thompson in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1840. It weighed almost one ton.
The telephone made its first public appearance at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876.
This huge show of American accomplishments was held to celebrate the 100th birthday of the United States. Also appearing at this event was the first hot dog seller.
The first aluminum pot was made in 1890 by Henry Avery of Clevland, Ohio. Avery's wife used the pot for 43 years.
The first automobile resembling a car was built by Cugnot during the eighteenth century. It had only three wheels.
The first brown paper grocery bags were made by Charles Stilwell in 1883 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Stilwell called his invention the "S.O.S" which stood for "Self-Opening Sack."
In 1817 the first bicycle was developed by German Karl von Drais. His bicycle, however, did not have pedals — the rider moved himself by pushing his feet along the ground.
Kleenex tissues were first invented to be used as surgical bandages and air filters in gas masks during World War I. After the war, however, they were marketed as "Kleenex Kerchiefs" for use as make-up removers. Finally, people just began using the cloths for nose-blowing.
In 1816 a French doctor named Rene Laennec invented a device for hearing the sounds made by the heart and lungs. The device was named the stethoscope. Most modern doctors own one.
The zipper was created By Whitcomb Judson in Chicago, Illinois in 1893. It was meant to Be used for lacing up boots.
The invention was a very long process — it took 20 years for Hudson to complete his device and another W years to get people to use it!
The first hot-air balloons were made by French brothers Joseph and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier. In 1783 they had their first flight with a duck, a sheep, and a rooster as the passengers.
The first known patent given to an African-American was issued in 1834 to Henry Blair, who invented an improved seed drill for farming.
A spinning motion picture device was invented twice — first by William Horner in England around 1834, where it became known as the "wheel of the devil", and again in 1860. The second inventor was a Frenchman named Pierre Desvignes. His name for the device was "zoetrope", which means "wheel of life."
Some inventions are highly specialized. Kingdom Isambard Brunei invented a machine that could get coins out of a choking person's throat.
In 1874, barbed wire was patented by Joseph Glidden. His invention was designed to keep cows from wandering away from the farm. When barbed wire became available to the public, many cowboys were put out of work.
The Persians invented the windmill in about 600 A.D. It was used to grind grain. Later, windmills were used in Holland to pump water from flooded land. Today, windmills are used to generate power.
The ancient Egyptians first created hula hoops from dried grapevines. These children's toys went on to become popular with kids and adults alike during the hula hoop craze of the 1950s.
The teddy bear is named after America's 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. Toy salesman Morris Michtom created the stuffed bear in 1902 based on a political cartoon about Roosevelt.
Silly Putty, first called "nutty putty," was originally created to be a cheap substitute for rubber during World War II.
When no real use was found for the putty, Connecticut toy store owner Paul Hodgson began selling the novelty in 1949. It went on to outsell every other item in his store!
In 1857, Elisha Otis developed the first elevator for carrying passengers. This elevator was based on a hoisting apparatus that Otis had designed in 1853.
The passenger elevator allowed for the development of the skyscraper. Nobody would have built such tall buildings without a safe way to get people to the top of them.
In 1892, Emile Reynaud invented the praxinoscope, which he used in 1892 to show movies in the "Theatre Optique", in Paris, France. The "Theatre Optique" was the world's first movie house.
German Karl Benz competed with engineer Gottlieb Daimler in the development of the automobile. Daimler's first vehicle in 1886 was faster than that of Benz and became more popular. The two manufacturers combined their companies, however, in 1926.
In 1811 Peter Durand created the first canned food. However, it was not until 1855 that the can opener was invented!
The oldest known mirrors were found in the ancient ruins of a Turkish city called Catal Huyuk. These mirrors are made of a volcanic glass called obsidian and were crafted during the sixth millenium B.C.
A 15 year-old boy from Euclid, Ohio created his own Internet company called ExchangeNet in 1995.
Michael Krause, has watched his company grow to become one of the largest companies to provide Internet service in the northern Ohio area.
The first writing, which is called cuneiform, was invented in Sumeria in 350 B.C. Five hundred years later, the Egyptians invented hieroglyphic writing.
Around 1000 B.C. ice skates were invented in Europe. The blades were made from the bones of animals.
The Etruscans of central Italy invented false teeth nearly three thousand years ago. By 700 B.C. they were making dentures that were sturdy enough to chew food.
The table fork was invented in Byzantium during the fourth century A.D., but it did not become popular in Euope until four hundred years later.
The first raincoats, developed in 1819 by Charles Macintosh, were criticized by people for smelling bad and looking like sacks.
The creator of liquid paper, better known as "white out," is the mother of Mike Nesmith, guitarist for the musical group the Monkees.
Bette Nesmith Graham went to work as a typist in 1951 to support herself and her son. However, she made many mistakes in her work and needed an easy way to cover them up. So, in her kitchen she made a white tempura paint which became so popular with the other secretaries that she began selling it. The product was first called "Mistake Out" and later renamed Liquid Paper.
The first coins appeared in Lybia during the seventh century B.C. More than a thousand years later (11th century), a famous Mongolian emperor named Kubla Khan introduced the first paper money.
In 1952, an American doctor named Paul Zoll used electricity to revive a heart. This led to the invention of the pacemaker. Pacemakers are devices which keep the heartbeat regular by sending out tiny electrical impulses.
The electric guitar was invented by Adolphus Rickenbacker in 1932. The Rickenbacker guitar company still exists today.
In 1934 Wallace Hume Carothers and his team produced nylon, which was the first all-synthetic cloth. In 1939, nylon stockings went on sale and became an instant sensation.
In 1863, an Englishman named George Harrington invented a clockwork dental drill. After being wound up, the drill would run for two minutes.
Before they were famous American presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were inventors. Jefferson originated many different devices, but his most complex is the cipher wheel which was used to make coded messages.
In 1849 Lincoln patented an adjustable buoyancy chamber to help steamboats pass over shoals and sand bars.
During the seventeen hundreds a disease called smallpox was killing people all over the world. In 1797 an English doctor named Edward Jenner noticed that the milkmaids who caught a mild disease called cowpox seemed to be immune to smallpox.
Jenner decided to conduct an experiment in which he would infect a person with cowpox and then try to infect the same person with smallpox. The first person who Jenner tested his experiment on was his son. The boy did not become infected with smallpox. He was the first person to be vaccinated. Thanks to Edward Jenner's development of the vaccine, there are no more cases of smallpox.
The ice cream cone was invented at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. When a French-American ice cream vendor named Arnold Fornachou ran out of paper ice cream dishes, a Syrian baker named Ernest Hamwi gave him waffles.
Fornachou rolled the waffles into cones and used them to serve ice cream. Less than fifteen years later ice cream cones were being used all over the country.
Thomas Allbut invented the first clinical thermometer in 1866. Since even a slightly abnormal body temperature is a definite sign of a health problem, this invention has been extremely useful in the detection of illness.
To get ice cream for his girlfriend Bess, Ole Evinrude had to travel four miles by rowboat. In 1909 Evinrude made his trip easier by inventing the outboard motor. With the new motor, his rowboat became the first motorboat.
The mobile phone was originated at Bell Telephone Laboratories during the 1940s. Thirty years later, mobile phone services became available to the public.
The first motion picture device was called the phenakistoscope. It was invented in 1832 by Joseph Plateau, who was partially blind.
The television went through many stages of development and had many different contributors. Scientists from all over Europe and the U.S. began developing ideas for the t.v. in the 1880s. The first working system was created by John Logie Baird in 1925 in Scotland. In 1930 both Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin of the United States independently devised electronic television systems.

Source: Monkeyshines on Great Inventors