8/7/2019 6 Inventions That Changed The World

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6 Inventions That Changed The World - And What You CanLearn From ThemThroughout history, people have made inventions that changed theworld. Some got lucky and stumbled on something, some actually setout to make something, and still others improved upon existing technology to create something revolutionary. Were going to show what we consider the top 6 world changing inventions, from how they were found, to how they ended up being used.

Penicillin Penicillin was actually discovered a bit by accident. It is credited toscientist Alexander Fleming in 1928. He noticed that certain moldcould kill bacteria, which proved that there was an antibacterial agentin the mold.Fleming did not actually invent penicillin though - he merely madepopular the knowledge that there was an anti-bacterial agent in themold Penicillium notatum. It was originally noticed by Frenchmedical student Ernest Duchesne in 1896. Fleming, however, saw thepotential importance of what he named penicillen. In a 1929 paper,he noted that the results he observed could have medical implicationsif the anti-bacterial agent could be isolated and produced in quantity.Dr. Howard Florey and Andrey J. Moyer later perfected massproducing penillin at around the time of World War II. Moyer

obtained a patent for the process of its mass production.As you can see, not all inventions are by design. Fleming merely noticed something that was interesting - he didnt set out to find whatmany would consider a miracle drug. But once he made anobservation, he made theorized what the implications of thisdiscovery would be.Further reading: Wikipedia

Electricity While not a singular inventions like others, electricty is arguably themost important innovation ever. It was first noticed by ancientGreeks, who saw the static charge when you rubbed an object againstfur. It was not used in the modern sense until quite a few year later,starting in the 18th and 19th centuries.

While most people generally attribute Benjamin Franklin aselectricities discoverer, it isnt entirely accurate. He did, however, lay the ground work for future scientists to make world changing breakthroughs, so there is some degree of accuracy in calling him thefather of electricity.The list of scientists who did groundbreaking work with electricity reads like a whos who list of famous inventors - Thomas Edison,Allessandro Volta (volt), Andre-Marie Ampere (amp), Georg SimonOhm (ohms), Nikola Tesla, Samuel Morse, and Alexander GrahamBell, among others. Each of them contributed to our modernelectircal technology.The key each of them exhibits is they dont try and do all the researchthemselves - they take an already existing and known principle andextend and apply those theories in new and revolutionary ways.Further reading: Wikipedia

Light Bulb Most people believe that the light bulb was invented by ThomasEdison. In fact, it was invented in 1809 by Humphry Davy, anEnglish chemist. Unfortunately, it was not very useful, and wasnt likeour modern version of a light bulb.What Edison did do was invent a carbon filiment that burned for upto 40 hours - a good bit longer than the one invented a year earlierthat burned for around 13.5 (and the one before that was even less!).It is said that Edison tried and failed over 2000 times before finally perfecting the filiment.

Edison shows two things in his carbon filiment invention: first, heimproved on an existing technology that had the potential to changethe world, but lacked a certain aspect. The idea of an electric lightwas there - the practicality was not. He also showed what seperatesyour amateur inventer/scientist from your world class one -persistance. He didns succeed on his first, second, third, or 1999thtry. But when he did, look at what happened.

Cotton Gin The cotton gin (short for engine) was invented in 1792 by EliWhitney. It is actually a rather simple device - it pulls the seeds out othe cotton fibers quickly and easily, and when it was introduced tothe southern cotton farms, it increased the amount of cottonproduction 50 times. While Whitney filed the patent and hence hasthe credit, there is evidence that a cotton gin may have been built by a man named Noah Homes two years prior.It was said that Whitney saw a cat clawing at a chicken through acoop and coming away with a paw of feathers, which then led to hisidea. Few inventions have been so seemingly simple, and yet havehad such economical and even social impacts for years after. Theinvention of this propelled southern cotton farms to the top of theAmerican economy at the time, and made cotton a major cash crop.It also can be argued that the invention led indirectly to the Civil

War. Because of the increased production of cotton, slave labor wasan increasingly valuable commodity. As more and more slaves werebrought into the south, tension mounted, eventually resulting in thewar. While it is very probably that a Civil War would have happenedeventually, it is entirely possible that it would have taken years longeduring which more powerful weapons would have developed, andcould have set the entire Nation back years.

The Telephone Where would we be without the telephone. While the credit for theinvention can be disputed, Alexander Graham Bell is generally givecredit for it. Oddly, the device that allows us to communicate withanyone in the world met with some resistance from majorcorporations, who still preferred press releases.

While Bell may not have been the first to invent it, he was one of themen responsible for thrusting it into the public eye. Unlike many other inventions, he had to fight tooth and nail to get credit for itsuse. The moral of this is to never give up when you believe in yourinvention - even if it is a difficult road, its worth it in the end.

Printing press In the 1440s, Johann Gutenberg came out with an invention calledthe printing press. Previously, books were copied down mainly by monks in monastaries, which made them quite rare. Gutenbergsinvention in effect brought the written word to the masses.In many ways, this brought on a complete revolution. A lasting effecwas on the scientific community. Suddenly, scientists working indifferent locations could popularize their findings with their peers,opening the doors to the scientific revolution. No longer would eachscientist have to reinvent the wheel, but instead could build on theresearch of his peers and predecessors.It also gave a greater degree of accountability to authors. Sincepreviously each individual page was copied by hand, a text written bone author could vary from book to book. You could never be surethat you were reading the same version as someone else. It also led tgreater education for the masses, since now books were more widelyavailable.Gutenberg may not have set out to revolutionize the way thatlanguage was used, but ended up doing just t