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Another invention that comes to mind that had no practical application when it was invented was the gyroscope. The earliest known gyroscope was made by Johann Bohnenberger in 1817, although he called it simply the 'Machine'. It had no practical use, and was regarded as a novelty. Early attempts were made to use gyroscopes to study the earths' movement but were unsuccessful. The first functional marine gyrocompass was developed between 1905 and 1908. Thus it took 91 years before a practical application was found. The American Elmer Sperry followed with his own design in 1910. The Sperry Gyroscope Company quickly expanded to provide aircraft and naval stabilizers as well, and other gyroscope developers followed suit. Today Gyroscopes can be used to construct gyrocompasses which complement or replace magnetic compasses in ships, aircraft and spacecraft. During World War II gyroscopes were used to stabilize the platform for the famous Norden Bomb sight. The bomb sight was somewhat less successful than was commonly thought, but it wasn't the gyroscopes' fault. |
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Thomas Edison patented the first phonograph in 1878. It took awhile but we have since seen that morph into the tape recorder, stereophonic sound, transistor radio, 8-track tape, cassette tape, compact disc, and mp3's. What stands out is the demand for better, smaller and more individual sound. In the future, sound will be more enveloping, producing a "3D" effect that along with visual improvements can create a perfectly recorded scene.
Music, of course, is an important part of human life. Indeed, animals seem to appreciate music also and I've heard rumors that plants thrive with it, too. Of course, it must be "good music", but since we all have our opinions on that, the need for individual sound reproduction becomes even more important.
When we become more specialized in our personal sound the worry pops up that we will then become more isolated. My father has a difficult time with "rock and roll" and his definition is anything after "Rock Around the Clock" so he feels there are few places left for him. I on the other hand like music all around me and appreciate almost all the forms. I feel deprived if I don't have my hard rock when I drive; it gives me energy to go about my travels. I must admit, though, that the cutting edge of adolescent music is often not to my liking and it feels so stereotyped to say that.
All in all, the direction humans are heading is positive. When our equipment becomes more accurate and smaller and the variety offered increases, I believe this can only help mankind. Yes, there is the potential of destruction or mundane offerings, but when there is so much choice the odds go up that a person can find what is "good" for them. |
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Thomas Edison was a little boy without a place in public school. Mr. Edison's teacher, Reverend Engle, was known to call him "addled" because his mind wandered so much. After three long months he was out. Luckily for Thomas, his mother home schooled him, allowing him more freedom than he would ever find in a classroom. Most of that knowledge came from reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy.
After his death in 1931, a bitter assistant, Nikola Tesla had only this comment to criticize Edison: "He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene" and that, "His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense."
Thomas Edison was a narrowly educated man who successfully competed with those more thoroughly educated. At his death, Mr. Edison had over 1500 patents here in the United States and around the world. His most well known inventions were the phonograph, and the electric light bulb. |
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Invention, The Mother of Necessity We all know that old saw, "Necessity is the mother of invention." Sometimes, however, an invention will come along and, aside from the novelty of it, we don't know what to do with it at first. Eventually the eureka moment comes, and we figure out that it actually has a useful purpose beyond that for which it was discovered or invented. When Lasers were invented in 1960, they were called "a solution looking for a problem." The problems were finally found, and over the next 47 years they have multiplied into the hundreds. Examples include consumer electronics, information technology, Science, medicine, industry, law enforcement, entertainment, military and, last but not least, their first use in the general population, bar code scanners. Consider the uses of radio waves. In 1887 Heinrich Hertz, experimenting with radio waves, discovered that they could be transmitted through some materials and were reflected by others. Then in 1896 Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio which transmitted electrical impulses through the air with no wires, making possible wireless communication over great distances. In 1904 Christian Heulsmeyer demonstrated that radio waves could be used to detect ships to avoid collisions at sea. Later in the 1930s it was demonstrated that radio waves could detect airplanes. During World War II radar became highly developed and was even shown to be useful in locating rain and snow and detecting wind speed. Thus, basic research, centering on the behavior of radio waves, turned into devices that had a multitude of uses, none of which were envisioned while the basic research was being done. Quite by accident Percy Spencer, while building radar sets for Raytheon, discovered that the chocolate bar in his pocket melted in the presence of micro waves. He immediately knew that this was an important discovery. The microwave oven was the outgrowth of this discovery. The role of scientific research is to learn the nature of things. The role of the inventor is to recognize the significance of discoveries and to see potential practical uses for them. Many can see a problem and think, "There ought to be a better way to do this." But the inventor sees potential in seemingly unrelated facts or phenomena and inquires into how they might interact to produce something entirely new. They seek out the "better way" and bring their inventive minds to bear on solving the problem. The inventor, by nature, is persistent, and through trial and error will refine the thought process to it's essentials leading toward that Eureka moment. How many inventions can you think of that were solutions looking for a problem? |
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