Member Articles Member Articles Invention, Mother of Necessity Part 2 | Invention, Mother of Necessity Part 2 |
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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. 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. Most errors were human. Some failures were due to the fact that the wind wasn't taken into account and bombs were frequently wide of their mark. A common practice was to put the Norden bombsight in just the lead plane and the whole flight would drop their bombs when the bombadier told them he was dropping his bombs.                     |
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