Inventions and Inventors

961 Pages·2002·4.641 MB·English

by  Roger Smith

Inventions
and
Inventors
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MAGILL’S C H O I C E
Inventions
and
Inventors
Volume 1
Abortion pill — Laminated glass
1 – 458
edited by
Roger Smith
Salem Press, Inc.
Pasadena, California Hackensack, New Jersey
Salem Press, Inc
Copyright © 2002, by .
Allrightsinthisbookarereserved.Nopartofthisworkmaybe
usedorreproducedinanymannerwhatsoeverortransmitted
inanyformorbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,includ-
ing photocopy, recording, or any information storage and re-
trievalsystem,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthecopyright
ownerexceptinthecaseofbriefquotationsembodiedincritical
articlesandreviews.Forinformationaddressthepublisher,Sa-
lem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115.
Essays originally appeared in Twentieth Century: Great Events
(1992,1996),TwentiethCentury:GreatScientificAchievements(1994),
and Great Events from History II: Business and Commerce Series
(1994). New material has been added.
¥
ThepaperusedinthesevolumesconformstotheAmerican
NationalStandardforPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibrary
Materials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Inventions and inventors / edited by Roger Smith
p.cm. —(Magill’s choice)
Includes bibliographical reference and index
ISBN 1-58765-016-9 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-017-7
(vol 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-018-5 (vol 2. : alk. paper)
1.Inventions—History—20thcentury—Encyclopedias.2.Inven-
tors—Biography—Encyclopedias. I. Smith, Roger, 1953- .
II. Series.
T20 .I59 2001
609—dc21 2001049412
printed in the united states of america
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Publisher’s Note. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Editor’s Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Abortion pill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Airplane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Alkaline storage battery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Ammonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Amniocentesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Antibacterial drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Apple II computer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Aqualung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Artificial blood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Artificial chromosome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Artificial heart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Artificial hormone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Artificial insemination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Artificial kidney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Artificial satellite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Aspartame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Assembly line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Atomic bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Atomic clock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Atomic-powered ship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Autochrome plate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
BASIC programming language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Bathyscaphe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Bathysphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
BINAC computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Birth control pill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Blood transfusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Breeder reactor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Broadcaster guitar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Brownie camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Bubble memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
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Table of Contents
Bullet train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Buna rubber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
CAD/CAM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Carbon dating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Cassette recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
CAT scanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Cell phone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Cloning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Cloud seeding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
COBOLcomputer language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Color film. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Color television . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Colossus computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Communications satellite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Community antenna television . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Compact disc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Compressed-air-accumulating power plant . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Computer chips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Contact lenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Coronary artery bypass surgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Cruise missile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Cyclamate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Cyclotron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Diesel locomotive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Differential analyzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Dirigible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Disposable razor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Dolby noise reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Electric clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Electric refrigerator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Electrocardiogram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Electroencephalogram. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Electron microscope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Electronic synthesizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
ENIAC computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
vi
Table of Contents
Fax machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Fiber-optics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Field ion microscope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Floppy disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Fluorescent lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
FM radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Food freezing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
FORTRAN programming language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Freeze-drying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Fuel cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Gas-electric car. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Geiger counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Genetic “fingerprinting” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Genetically engineered insulin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Geothermal power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Gyrocompass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Hard disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Hearing aid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Heart-lung machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Heat pump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Holography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Hovercraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
Hydrogen bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
IBM Model 1401 computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
In vitro plant culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Infrared photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
Instant photography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Interchangeable parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Internal combustion engine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
The Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Iron lung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Laminated glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
vii
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Publisher’s Note
Publisher’s Note
Tomanypeople,theword“invention”bringstomindcleverlycon-
trivedgadgetsanddevices,suchassafetypins,zippers,typewriters,
and telephones—all of which have fascinating stories of invention
behindthem.However,thewordactuallyhasamuchbroadermean-
ing,onethatgoesbacktotheLatinwordinvenire,for“tocomeupon.”
Initsbroadsense,aninventioncanbeanytangibledeviceorcontriv-
ance,orevenaprocess,thatisbroughtintobeingbyhumanimagina-
tion.ItisinthisbroadsensethatthetermisusedinInventionsandIn-
ventors,thelatestcontributiontotheMagill’sChoicereferencebooks.
This two-volume set contains articles on 195 twentieth century
inventions,whichspanthefullrangeofhumanimagination—from
simple gadgets, such as disposable razors, to unimaginably com-
plexmedicalbreakthroughs,suchasgeneticallyengineeredinsulin.
This set is not an encyclopedic catalog of the past century’s great-
est inventions but rather a selective survey of noteworthy break-
throughs in the widest possible variety of fields.
A combination of several features sets Inventions and Inventors
apartfromotherreferenceworksonthissubject:thediversityofits
subjectmatter,thedepthofitsindividualarticles,anditsemphasis
onthepeoplebehindtheinventions.Therangeofsubjectscovered
hereisunusuallywide.Inadditiontoarticlesonwhatmightbecon-
sidered“classic”inventions—suchasairplanes,television,andsat-
ellites—thesethasarticlesoninventionsinfieldsasdiverseasagri-
culture, biology, chemistry, computer science, consumer products,
drugsandvaccines,energy,engineering,foodscience,geneticengi-
neering,medicalprocedures,music,photography,physics,synthet-
ics, transportation, and weapons technology.
Most of this set’s essays appeared earlier in Twentieth Century:
Great Events (1992, 1996) and Twentieth Century: Great Scientific
Achievements (1994). Its longest essays are taken from Great Events
from History II: Business and Commerce Series (1994). Information in
thearticleshasbeenupdated,andcompletelynewbibliographical
noteshavebeenaddedtoallofthem.Halftheessaysalsohaveorig-
inal sidebars on people behind the inventions.
ix