On this day in 1863 Englishman Frederick Walton received a patent for the production of linoleum. The name comes from the Latin words linum - flax, linen and oleum - oil. The ancestor of linoleum was “oiled canvas,” the production process of which looked like this: a hot mixture of resin, oleoresin, brown Spanish dye, beeswax and linseed oil was applied to the fabric. Then they began to add ground cork to this mixture.
Further improvement of the process and the desire to reduce the cost of components led to the replacement of expensive components with linseed oil, then linseed oil, and finally linoxin. In 1863, Frederick Walton, an English industrialist and inventor, patented an improved technology for the production of linoxin and flooring based on it - linoleum. Three years later, its industrial production began, quickly spreading throughout the world.
It should be noted that the linoleum production process has not changed much since the time of Frederick Walton: linseed oil is oxidized to form a special mixture called linoleum cement, then the mixture is cooled and mixed with pine resin and wood chips to form linoleum sheets.
Mark Twain and his invention - suspenders
On this day in 1871, the American Samuel Clemens, better known to us as Mark Twain, received a patent for “Improved adjustable detachable clothing belts” - a kind of suspenders. The invention consisted of an adjustable strap that was fastened to the buttons of trousers, shirts or a woman's corset and tightened them at the waist.
Mark Twain was always very interested in the achievements of science and technology. He was a close friend of the famous inventor Nikola Tesla and spent a lot of time in his laboratory. Twain also communicated with Thomas Edison. In 1909, during a visit to Twain's estate in Connecticut, Edison captured his companion in a silent video, which is currently the only recording of the famous writer that has survived to this day.
A brilliant humorist and joker, Twain remains true to himself even after death. The last book he wrote was an autobiography. According to the writer’s wishes, the first volume of the autobiography was published only a hundred years after his death, in November 2010 (and instantly became a bestseller). The second volume should be published twenty-five years after the first (that is, in 2035), and the third another twenty-five years later (in 2060).
It is hard to imagine that American patent law predates the current United States itself—the first patent law was passed in the spring of 1790, and the first patent for an important invention, the cotton gin, was issued on March 14, 1794. Over the course of two centuries, humanity has gone from patenting simple mechanisms to patenting bacteria, animals and individual human components. There is only one step left before a patent on people.In the spring of 1793, friends of her late husband, retired majors, visited Katherine Greene's estate in Georgia. After lunch, we discussed the most pressing issue - how to manage the plantations so that they generate income. The guests grew cotton, and they constantly had to choose between two evils: one type of cotton, in which the seeds are easily separated from the fibers, grows only on the coast, and another variety thrives in the higher elevations - but is not industrially profitable, since the seeds are separated by hand with great difficulty . Now, if it were possible to come up with a way to easily glean mountain cotton, what kind of income could be generated... Mrs. Green, who listened attentively to them, suggested turning to her new mechanic, Ellie Whitney, for help - she believed that his technical genius could solve this problem .
Commissioners for the promotion of crafts
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution states that Congress shall provide "to promote the advancement of the sciences and arts, by granting to authors and inventors for limited periods the exclusive rights in their works and inventions." The Constitution was ratified by nine states in June 1788, and in January 1790, Congress appointed a committee to develop patent law. Two and a half months later, the first patent law was signed into law by the first American President, George Washington. By this time, only 12 states had recognized the constitution.
The first patent law did not provide for the creation of a special patent office. Applications for patents had to be addressed to the Secretary of State. The received applications were considered by a commission of three people who called themselves “authorized to promote the development of crafts”: the Secretary of State, the Minister of Defense and the Prosecutor General. The commissioners had to decide by a majority vote whether they considered the invention or discovery to be “sufficiently useful and important.” The main criteria, of course, were the novelty of the proposed invention and its non-obviousness to a specialist knowledgeable in this field. The applicant was required to provide a detailed written description of the invention accompanied by drawings, technical drawings and a working model. Thus, an inventor who wished to obtain a patent was required to make all the details and secrets of his invention public so that after the patent expired, others could benefit from it.
The first American patent was issued on July 31, 1790 to a certain Samuel Hopkins. The patent, signed by George Washington, certified Hopkins' priority in inventing a method for producing potash from wood ash for further use as an agricultural fertilizer. By the end of 1790, only three patents had been issued. Thomas Jefferson wrote later that he could not have imagined the wave of applications that would fall on the heads of the three commissioners.
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And yet, patents (as a kind of transaction between the inventor and the state) were an undoubted step forward and, in general, a sign of a developed civilization. Abraham Lincoln, the only patent-holder president in US history, saw an almost philosophical meaning in patents: “The patent system added fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” The rules of the game are simple: the inventor receives a temporary monopoly on his invention in exchange for full disclosure of information about it. What the lack of patent rights threatens humanity is clearly demonstrated by the history of the invention of obstetric forceps.
Barbers-obstetricians and the Queen of England
In late 16th-century England, doctors and surgeons belonged to two different professions—surgeons were considered a type of barber, and physicians were prohibited from practicing surgery. It so happened that Peter Chamberlain Sr., the court surgeon of Queen Anne of England, invented obstetric forceps, thanks to which he became extremely popular as an obstetrician. The doctors were so jealous of him that they accused him of illegal medical practice, for which he was liable to imprisonment. Only thanks to the personal intervention of the Queen (who already had the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of his invention) was Peter Chamberlain released. Until his death in 1631, Chamberlain Sr. kept his secret, saving women in labor in cases where they died with other obstetricians.
The secret of obstetric forceps was inherited first by the discoverer's younger brother, and then by his nephew, who was the first in the family to receive a medical diploma. This doctor, Peter Chamberlain, was not only an excellent obstetrician, but also a good businessman. By that time, it was already known that he helped women in labor with a special instrument and asked for a high fee for this. The monopoly on obstetric forceps continued in the next generation of Chamberlain doctors. In 1670, one of Dr. Peter's three sons offered to sell the family secret to the personal physician of the King of France, but the deal did not take place. The secret was eventually sold to an Amsterdam physician, who maintained a monopoly on obstetric services in Amsterdam for almost 60 years, until another Dutch doctor revealed the secret of obstetric forceps in 1732. So for 130 years, thousands of women in Europe died in childbirth only because the Chamberlain clan knew no other way to profit from their invention except to keep it secret.
Cat's Paw, Gun Parts, and the Civil War
About 50 patents were issued under the first patent law in the United States. In 1793, the second patent law appeared. This time the pendulum swung from overly strict requirements of the patenting authority to complete freedom for inventors. The commission of three patent commissioners was abolished. The responsibility for registering patents was assigned to the State Department, and applications were now subject to exclusively formal requirements, subject to which the patent was automatically registered, and it was up to the courts to determine its validity.
The first important invention patented under the 1793 Act was Ellie Whitney's cotton gin, which he created at the request of Catherine Greene. It must be said that the miracle mechanic Ellie Whitney and Katherine Green were connected by a romantic story. According to one version that has reached us, Catherine, the widow of Revolutionary War hero General Nathaniel Greene, and Yale College graduate Ellie Whitney met on a ship. Whitney received his education quite late, when he was in his late thirties, and could not find work. One day, together with his Yale classmate Miller, he sailed to Georgia. Miller, who worked as Mrs. Green's manager, introduced Whitney to her. Upon arrival in Georgia, Mrs. Green, on Miller's recommendation, invited Whitney to her place - to teach children, repair equipment and have pleasant conversations.
History is silent about the teaching activities of Ellie Whitney; his love for the charming hostess remained unrequited (she married Miller), but his technical achievements exceeded his wildest expectations - Whitney became famous as the inventor who marked the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Having received the task from Catherine to think about cotton, the first thing Ellie Whitney did (not without difficulty, since it was spring) was to find a specimen of this plant lying somewhere in the barn, which he had never seen before in his life. Legend has it that Whitney had an epiphany when he saw a cat. She tried to grab the chicken with her claws, but since the prey was walking behind a wire fence, the predator only got a tuft of chicken fluff. Another legend gives the main role in the invention of the cotton gin not to a cat, but to a woman. According to this version, Catherine Greene not only brought the problem to Whitney's attention, but also made a major improvement to Whitney's model. When he came to her with a prototype of the future cotton gin, it was a rotating drum with wooden teeth that separated the valuable cotton fluff from the seeds. The cleaned fluff could then be combed from the drum. The problem was that the wooden teeth did not grip the fibers well, leaving a lot of waste. Katherine Green took her wire hair brush out of her drawer and showed it to Whitney. He beamed: “I understood your hint. Now everything should work out.”
Indeed, the results were impressive. With the help of the new device, a worker could manually harvest 50 pounds of ginned cotton in a day—25 times more than before. It was necessary to quickly secure a patent, and Whitney went to the then capital of the United States, Philadelphia, where he paid a patent fee of $30, and on June 20, 1793, filed a patent application with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. After an exchange of letters between the Secretary of State and the inventor and the presentation of a working industrial model, on March 14, 1794, Whitney received a patent signed by Jefferson.
Under patent law at the time, the patent holder had exclusive rights to his invention for 14 years. If you want, make new cars yourself and sell them to everyone in need, or if you want, sell the license to someone else for a lot of money. But it was not there. The invention was so simple and effective that all farmers in the South began to produce their own cotton gins, claiming that they, if not invented them themselves, then at least significantly improved them. The strategy of Miller, who provided the initial capital to Whitney and was responsible for marketing in their partnership, also did not contribute to financial success: Miller decided to produce as many machines as possible, place them on plantations and charge the planters a fee for using the new product in the amount of 40% of the harvest. The planters rebelled: why on earth should they give up their cotton for some kind of roller with teeth that any mechanic can make?
The end result was that the patent for the cotton gin not only failed to enrich Whitney, but also forced him into a mountain of debt to litigate and maintain production. Whitney’s other most important invention, the mass production of weapons and spare parts for them, did not bring any income either. It is not known whether Whitney was the pioneer of the idea of unifying production (so that a broken part did not need to be made specifically for this broken gun, but could take any one mass-produced for this model), but the spread of mass production is undoubtedly Whitney's merit. By the end of his life, Ellie Whitney was quite a wealthy man, but only because he managed to successfully invest his money in stocks.
As for invention, Whitney's activities had literally historical consequences, and not only for technology. Thanks to the cotton gin, labor productivity on plantations increased and slavery in the South became economically profitable. And thanks to the methods of mass production introduced by Whitney, the industry of the North began to rapidly develop. So Whitney, in a sense, had a hand in both the fact that the southern states defended slavery in the Civil War, and the fact that the northerners won this war.
Lincoln, ear protectors and Christmas stocking
“Everything that can be invented has already been invented!” - exclaimed the head of the American patent office, Charles Deuel, in 1899, trying to convince Congress and the president of the need to abolish his own office.
The chief patent officer's feelings are understandable. The list of inventions patented in the 19th century leaves just such an impression - everything has already been invented. Humanity acquired the telegraph, telephone, phonograph, electric light bulb... The patent fever affected everyone - even people who seemed very far from technology: women, children, politicians, writers. In 1809, the first patent was issued to a woman - Mary Keys patented a method of making straw products using threads. In 1849, the future president and then congressman, Abraham Lincoln, distinguished himself by becoming the owner of a patent for a “device for moving ships by swimming across shallows.” In 1871, a patent was issued to Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) for “an improved form of adjustable detachable clothing strings” (this, by the way, was not his only patent). In 1873, 15-year-old Chester Greenwood invented and patented fur earmuffs that protected him from the cold and wind while skating and later in the trenches of the First World War, thanks to which the owner of Greenwood's ear protector factory became fabulously rich.
Despite the pessimistic predictions of Charles Hughes, the flow of inventions did not dry out in the 20th century. Among the applications that thousands of patent office employees have to study, there are many fantastic ones. Patent law enthusiasts want to patent, for example, "a device for a child's Christmas stocking that provides a visually perceptible light signal at the time of Santa Claus's arrival by igniting an externally visible light source coupled to an energy source located inside said stocking."
An equally serious problem is solved by a complex system of devices, sensors and signals that allows for “non-lethal cockfighting” like fencing matches: “Signals are generated and transmitted to a remote center using transmitters operated by switches and attached to the skin in the bottom area below tail plumage of each of the opposing birds." Against the backdrop of such applications, one cannot help but be touched by the desire to patent a special glove for lovers with two sets of fingers and a common central part - so that lovers can walk in gloves, holding hands and at the same time feeling each other’s palms.
One of the most notorious patents of recent years was awarded to Steven Olsen, who invented “a new and improved method of swinging on a swing,” which involves pulling “first on one chain and then on the other.” The application emphasizes that thanks to this invention, “even the youngest users will be able to swing independently and enjoyably, which will greatly benefit all members of society.” This seemingly unremarkable patent, issued to a seven-year-old boy, dealt a serious blow to the reputation of the patent office. The fact is that the application on behalf of Stephen was drawn up and submitted by 3M patent specialist Peter Olsen in order to clearly explain to his son what he actually does at work. But patent officials are no longer laughing. In order for a patent issued due to oversight to become invalid, they will have to find documentary evidence of the lack of novelty in it. In other words, you will have to prove that from time immemorial children have swung on swings this way - pulling “first on one chain, and then on the other.”
Children's patents are not always the result of a parental joke. Kay-Kay Gregory followed in the footsteps of Chester Greenwood and came up with another piece of winter equipment. “Wrists” that protect the sleeves from snow getting into them bring the patent holder a good income. And the youngest patent holder was Sydney Dittman, who at two years old assembled a device for opening drawers and doors from scrap parts from her toys, and at four years old, through the efforts of her father, received a patent for it as a device useful for people with disabilities. Another inventor, schoolgirl Kellyan, apparently suffered so much from her screaming classmates that she came up with the “sh-sh-sh-machine.” This device measures the noise level in the classroom and gives a signal when the children's hubbub begins to go off scale.
Body armor and other women's secrets
It is not only delusions of grandeur, mental disorders and childish curiosity that drive those who dream of becoming a patent holder. Sensible women also do not miss the opportunity to legitimize their rights to various useful devices. An inspiring example comes from divorced single mother and bad secretary Beth Graham, who made so many typing mistakes and was so desperate to keep her job that she came up with a recipe for “liquid paper” to correct typos. Beginning with a makeshift mixing of white paint, thinner and other ingredients in her own kitchen, Beth ended up a millionaire by selling her putty corporation for $47.5 million.
It's no surprise that the secretary's salvation was invented by a secretary. It is also not surprising that it was a woman who came up with the idea of replacing uncomfortable rigid corsets with elegant bras. However, there are at least two women's discoveries that were primarily useful to men. Chemist Stephanie Kwolek created Kevlar, a material used in body armor. And the Hollywood star of the 40s, Hedy Lamarr, revolutionized modern communication systems by coming up with the idea of transmitting signals with frequency hopping. This principle is used in all modern broadband wireless communication systems.
Hedy's dramatic fate serves as the best confirmation of the foresight of the holder of three patents, Mark Twain, who wrote: “I recently became aware of an invention that is guaranteed to bring millions to those who invest in it. I hastened to forward this information to the man whom I hate and whose family I dream of. ruin." Together with her friend, an avant-garde piano player, Hedy Lamarr invented "frequency hopping" and patented it in 1942. Unfortunately, this was a case where the invention was too ahead of its time. The military began actively using the FHS (frequency hopping) system only in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, to encrypt messages transmitted between ships. By that time, the patent had already expired. Until the 1980s, SCH was classified and used only by the military, but in 1985, access to it was opened to commercial organizations. Communications companies received huge opportunities and huge profits, but this no longer had anything to do with Hedy Lamarr. She lived for 86 years, was in great need, and was even caught twice for petty theft, but never even received gratitude from those who took advantage of her invention.
Device, appearance, word
With the development of software, the Internet and new technologies in general, the boundaries of applicability of patent law are increasingly blurred. At the dawn of the patent era, everything was clear: patents were given for something
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The most recent expansion of the scope of patent law has occurred in the last 10-15 years. It has become possible to patent completely ephemeral entities - business and computer technologies. One of the most famous examples is Amazon.com's patented one-click ordering technology. As a result, customers of all other e-commerce companies are forced to double-click to avoid violating Amazon's patent rights.
Roses, bacteria, mice
The basic idea of patent law has always been that everything existing under the sun and created by man can be patented. The first exception was made in 1930 - for plants. Congress, however, was aware that it was stepping on a slippery slope. But the desire to reward breeders for their work prevailed, and the law on plant patenting was adopted. In 1970, congressmen, apparently sensing the approaching era of biotechnology, decided to close all the loopholes just in case and adopted a special amendment prohibiting the patenting of bacteria.
Just two years later, General Electric (GE) filed an application to patent the bacteria as if nothing had happened. When the application was rejected on apparent legal grounds, GE sued. Whatever the law said, for her, a new bacterium grown in a laboratory was no worse than some frost-resistant breeding rose. Even much more useful: the invented bacterium was able to eat oil stains on the surface of salt water, thus cleaning up oil spill areas. In 1980, the court ruled in favor of the company: "The fact that bacteria are living organisms is not legally relevant." GE achieved its goal - the boundary between living and non-living things in patent law disappeared.
The next step came in 1988, when Harvard University received a patent for the mouse. No, of course, the mouse was not a simple one, but an exclusive laboratory cancer mouse, and it was born to get cancer and thereby benefit people. Frightened by the outcome of the case against GE, the patent office employees, as it turned out later, patented not just a certain type of mouse with overexpression of a certain oncogene, but generally unknown something: the wording of the patent gave its owner the right to any non-human mammal with any intensely working oncogene. After much debate, the state managed to persuade the DuPont company, which bought the license for onkomice, to allow the use of animals covered by its patent for scientific purposes. But this permission does not apply to private companies.
Patent against the centaur
At the turn of the 21st century, genes became the most fashionable subject of patenting. No one is bothered anymore by the fact that genes do not meet any of the good old criteria for issuing a patent. Genes are not new, they are not created by humans, and their functions are mostly unknown or poorly known—both public and private companies are rushing to patent hundreds of pieces of DNA in the hope of later discovering something valuable there. Many seriously fear that instead of adding “fuel to the fire of genius,” such patents only create obstacles for doctors and scientists. It turns out that a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease carries a gene that belongs to one of the universities, and women with suspected breast cancer are partly the property of Myriad Genetics, from which they must buy tests for the presence of two specific genes in their bodies.
"We have abolished slavery. Now a human being as a whole cannot be someone's property - but you can have all its component parts separately. Genes, cells, chromosomes, organs, tissues... What if we patented all the building blocks of life? Which Will we leave the role to faith and religion, or at least to the idea of nature as independent of us and primary in relation to us? - this is the reasoning of Jeremy Rifkin, who published a book back in 1977 that predicted the commercialization of the genome. But even this man now fights the enemy with his own weapons. Since 1997, he has been seeking a patent for any organisms with a mixed - human-animal - set of genes. That is, he wants to patent modern centaurs, minotaurs, mermaids, sphinxes and other hybrids, in the genome of which there is something from a person and something from an animal. And if he has such a patent, he will be able to stop science and protect life from the attack of patents. At least he hopes so.
ANASTASIA FROLOVA
Who doesn't know Mark Twain? Everyone knows the author of the world-famous adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. So interesting facts about Mark Twain will impress everyone! Ten-year-old boys sighed over the kids’ crazy exploits, girls dreamed of Becky Thatcher’s golden curls. But not every reader knows about some of the nuances of Mark Twain’s life, even the most elementary one - Samuel Clemens (his real name) was the author of many satirical, fantastic, fairy-tale works that deserve your attention.
Mark Twain funny
Mark Twain wrote a pornographic story about Elizabethan times called "1601", this raunchy tale was written in 1876, and first published in 1880 under the title "Talk at a Fireside in the Time of Queen Elizabeth". Represents an excerpt from a diary written by Queen Elizabeth I's cupbearer. Elizabeth converses with numerous prominent people of the era (William Shakespeare and Sir Walter Raleigh). At first the conversations are erotic in nature, then everything goes into a religious direction and smoothly flows into poetry. Twain used medieval English in the story as a way to express his disdain for the modern literary community.
It is surprising that none of the books that are now considered the quintessence of Twain's work - Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn did not become bestsellers during Twain's lifetime: instead, his first work, Innocents Abroad, received that honor. There is an opinion that his success was helped by an enthusiastic review of the book, which Twain himself wrote anonymously. Eugene O'Neill noted: "Twain was the true father of all American literature." Ernest Hemingway stated: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain - called Huckleberry Finn." Which is surprising, because Twain himself believed that his best book was not “Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer” or “Simp Wilson” (an 1894 novel about the hardships of an African-American man born during the slave system in the United States), but his last work, “Personal Memoirs.” about Joan of Arc (1896).
Amazing inventor
An interesting fact is that Twain patented three inventions, without which it is difficult to imagine life in the modern world. He could not come to terms with the inconvenient fastenings on the suspenders and had no choice but to improve them. By the way, Twain’s invention is considered one of the first examples of a modern bra fastener.
From a young age, Samuel loved to collect all kinds of newspaper clippings and various photographs. But gluing them into a regular album was completely inconvenient, so it was then that Twain came up with the idea of placing adhesive strips on sheets that would hold the photograph without damaging it. In 1872, a scrapbooking album was patented.
Friendship with Nikola Tesla
It is not surprising that the tireless experimenters Twain and Tesla became friends, but under a strange circumstance. Twain developed a severe form of constipation and could not restore his health; Nikolai Tesla helped him with this (history is silent about how he succeeded). After which the two brilliant people began to conduct experiments together. For example, we were testing an X-ray gun. The goal was to pierce a paper sheet with X-rays, but it failed.
Stargazer and mystic
The famous writer calculated that he was born two weeks after Halley's comet flew near the Earth in 1835. The writer was interested in this fact, and he predicted that he would die with her. Of course, no one took this seriously, but Mark Twain actually died in 1910, when the comet approached the Earth again.
Lecturer and sexologist
Students retold Mark Twain's lectures to each other because they created a sensation! For example, one of the lectures was called “The First Watermelon I Stole,” which surprisingly, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmunt Freud, was present during the broadcast. And in 1879 he gave a lecture entitled “Some Reflections on Onanism.”
Pseudonym - the writer's veil
Mark Twain plays with his cats.
Before choosing a pen name, Samuel published under the names Josh, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, and Rambler. And the name “Mark Twain” chosen in the end means “two fathoms to the bottom” - the depth at which the ship can sail without running aground. Twain also came up with several beautiful names for cats: Beelzebub, Buffalo Bill, Satan, Sour Mash and Zoroaster.
Loser businessman
This is exactly what you can call a person who made incredible profits from his talent, but invested it in useless enterprises that only brought bankruptcy. For example, Twain was offered to invest in the development of a communication device - the telephone, he said that this stupid invention would not be popular, but if he moved to the present time, he would understand how greatly he was mistaken.
The Real Huck Finn
Yes, everyone’s favorite Huckleberry had a prototype - a boy with whom Mark Twain interacted as a child. As the writer said, he was always a dirty tomboy, ready for any adventure, but at the same time he was distinguished by amazing kindness. And his brother actually helped the fugitive African American hide. The amazing story about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn was banned from reading in schools and was called propaganda of racism and immoral behavior.
We all use notepads and loose-leaf calendars, not realizing that they were Mark Twain's invention. One of the writer’s biographers noted that this is the only book where there are no original thoughts. But he was wrong. In the punched holes of each sheet lies the simple and original idea of the author. More than 100 years have passed since the invention of Morse code.
But, despite the development of cybernetics and information theory, it lives and lives. It was invented by painting professor S. Morse.
The man who said a wise phrase:“In order to know people, you need to love them... without telling them about it,” was also the inventor. This is the famous writer and pilot A. de Saint-Exupéry. He is the author of a number of inventions on aircraft orientation in fog.
But let's return to our reality.
Above the entrance to the Ufa Aviation Institute one could safely write:“Everyone can invent!” Here, almost every thesis and dissertation includes inventions. For example, the institute developed an original aircraft, called “Dolphin,” with low mileage during takeoff and landing.
Maybe only applicants who are creatively inclined are selected for this institute?
Not at all. Regular entrance exams. No additional tests.
The casket opens simply— wide involvement of students and teachers in the creative process. The institute has a student design bureau, a public patent bureau, a course on invention and patent science, competitions for the best innovative works, each department attracts students to creative research... This is, in essence, one of the proofs of the theorem about the ability of everyone to create something new .
“Conversations about invention”, N. Petrovich
Is it possible to improve it? It turns out that it is possible. Here are two examples. The jar is made of plastic, but there is metal foil between the product and the walls of the jar. It is a heating element. Want to heat up the contents? Connect the jar to the mains or battery. One American company has created a self-cooling tin can. A compartment containing a capsule with a low-boiling liquid is built into the jar. If you crush the capsule, the liquid...
Where can we find a dead invention? Maybe it's matches? Let's head to the stand called "Making Fire". The exhibition, of course, opens with the invention of primitive man, who, by rotating a stick with his palms, “easily” made fire. Skipping the long and winding path of man’s struggle for a simple and cheap pocket-sized means of making fire, let’s immediately move on to the main achievement - matches. Small box. It's worth...
Now let's turn our attention to the shovel. After all, it has served man since time immemorial. Perhaps she has reached the heights of perfection? But even here we will be disappointed. In the exhibition of shovels of all times and peoples we see a number of new original designs. Just one example. Here we have a snow shovel recently released in the USA. Firstly, it is very striking...
The roller was the ancestor of the wheel. Here in front of us is an improved skating rink found during excavations. By simple firing, its middle part is made thinner to reduce friction. This skating rink was called “skat”. Nearby we see a ramp, roughly hewn from a log, probably with a stone axe. It was replaced by a more advanced design of the ramp - two round blocks of wood tightly mounted on a wooden axis...
Here before us are dozens of designs of water wheels that convert the energy of moving water into rotational energy. They were replaced by water turbines, where the main element is also a wheel with blades. Then there are wind wheels of various designs that convert wind energy into mechanical movement. Why are airplane propellers and helicopter blades located here? But their pedigree also comes from...
Man differs from animals in that he creates and continuously improves tools, that is, he creates new things. To be fair, we note that in some animals we notice the beginnings of creativity. For example, an African monkey wanted to eat termites. She takes a thin twig, plunges it into the anthill and waits for the termites to cling to it. Then he pulls out a twig and eats the treat. IN…
An amazing feature of inventions is that, solving some problems, removing some contradictions, they give birth to new problems and reveal new contradictions. Thus, the invention of the car with an internal combustion engine was a great step forward. But, when there were too many cars, when the air of large cities was filled with exhaust gases, the task arose of creating a “smokeless” engine. They are currently working hard on it...
And which of you, readers, in a critical situation, when you need to immediately stop the water from a broken tap, put out a fire, open a slammed door, help a baby, did not find innovative, unexpected solutions? This ability of a person to create in case of emergency has become a proverb: “The need for invention is cunning.” An urgent need can stir up the creative powers in a person. Is it possible...
For hundreds of years, only fictional heroes wore walking boots. Today this is no longer the case. At the central exhibition of NTTM, many were amazed by the exhibit with the inscription: “Boots that walk quickly.” A two-stroke internal combustion engine is strapped to each boot. Its cylinders are located on both sides of the boot. With each flash of the mixture, the boot receives a forward and upward push with a force of 600 kilograms. This allows…
A happy accident gave T. Edison the idea of his favorite invention - the phonograph. He worked alone in the quiet of the laboratory to improve a telegraph apparatus that printed characters on paper tape. He began to be distracted by the monotonous sound in the device. Trying to eliminate it, T. Edison unexpectedly discovered that it was the sound of a paper tape under pressure from a roller. The pitch changed with...