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Inventions and Inventors This Page Intentionally Left Blank 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 v 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 This Page Intentionally Left Blank 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

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