Science Projects And Inventions

"The Analytical Engine... can do whatever we know how to order it to perform" Ada Lovelace Ada Byron (1815-1852) was the daughter of the English poet Lord Byron. Under her mother's guidance, Ada was tutored from an early age in mathematics and science; she later married the Earl of Lovelace. In 1835 Ada was introduced to Charles Babbage and learned of his ideas for his "analytical engine." In 1842, Babbage was invited to give a seminar at the University of Turin in Italy. Interest in his work spread when an Italian engineer, Federico Luigi Menabrea, published an account of the lecture in a leading French scientific journal. Babbage asked Lovelace to translate Menabrea's work; the notes and comments she made were considerably more extensive than the original paper and were published in their own right. In the last of her seven notes, Lovelace describes an algorithm that would enable the more...

"Curran revolutionized... skiing by designing an easy... method for skiers to ascend the mountain." Press release from the Ski Hall of Fame The idea of using ropes to climb mountains is almost as old as rope itself, and evidence can be found from the 1600s for people using ropes to cross chasms or valleys suspended below a rope bridge (although some consider rope to have been used as far back as 15,000 B.C.E.). Where this practice first began to be adapted to aid the sport of skiing (saving the time and tedium of having to climb the mountain before skiing back down) is somewhat uncertain, and also depends on your definition of "ski lift." Broadly, ski lifts fall into a number of categories. The first of which is where skiers appropriate an existing lift system. A good example of this was on Gold Mountain (later named Eureka Peak) in the more...

The idea of an atom laser has been around for many years, and its principle is based on the more conventional optical laser. A normal laser emits light, but, unlike a normal lamp, the laser light is "coherent," so that it can focus to a pinpoint, and also travel a long distance without spreading out like a flashlight beam. By the time the optical laser was introduced in 1960, scientists were already familiar with the wavelike properties of matter, and the atom laser was under consideration as a theoretical possibility. But It was not until 1997 that reports of the first rudimentary working model were released. A bizarre form of supercooled matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate made it all possible. This strange stuff, in which individual atoms "lose their identity" and coalesce into a single "blob," is in some ways like the photons of light in a laser. It was more...

“... good wood block printing rests upon the perfection of drawing and painting, of color and line." Hiroshi Yoshida, Japanese Woodblock Printing (1939) Woodblock printing first appeared in China during the Tang Dynasty in the ninth century and was initially used in the production of textiles and Buddhist texts and amulets. A text or image was transferred to a thin layer of paper that was then glued face down onto a wooden surface using rice paste. The lines would then be cut out by the block maker. Only those portions of a page or pattern to be inked were left untouched, on the block's surface, with the remainder carved away along the grain using a fist knife known as a quan dao. Dense hardwoods such as birch, pear, or jujube were used because they withstood moisture and insects yet their regular, fine grains lent themselves to easy engraving and printing. more...

"Paper can convey a private warning, a public threat, secret temptation, open defiance..." Eric Frank Russell, Wasp (1957) In 105 when Ts'ai Lun (50-121), a courtier in the Chinese Imperial court, invented paper, little did he realize that he was opening one of the most epoch-making chapters in history. He refined and popularized the process of mixing tree fibers and wheat stalks with the bark of a mulberry tree, then pounding them together and pouring the mixture onto a woven cloth to create a lightweight writing surface. His blended, fibrous sheets were an improvement over bamboo and wood, which were awkward and heavy, and silk, which was expensive. Successive Chinese dynasties conspired to keep his invention secret, and it was not until the start of the seventh century that papermaking techniques began to appear in Japan and Korea. With the capture of Chinese paper merchants by Arab soldiers during the more...

"The engineer is the key figure in the material progress of the world." Sir Eric Ashby, British botanist and educator In 1860 Belgian engineer Etienne Lenoir (1822-1900) created the first gas-fired internal combustion engine, which was designed to provide an alternative to the rather cumbersome steam engines that were being used at that time. Since steam engines required furnaces, boilers, and large supplies of bulky fossil fuel to be of any use, Lenoir's idea of a more compact, workable gas engine was incredibly popular. Lenoir earned the patent for his idea in 1860 and created his first actual engine the same year. Initial demand for the invention was high and production started in France, England, and the United States. The gas engine worked by drawing a mixture of gas and uncompressed air into the cylinder during the first part of the piston's stroke, then igniting it with a jumping spark in more...

"We are concerned here with methodical digging for systematic information." Sir Mortimer Wheeler, at Mohenjo-daro Trade between people depends on a uniform set of weights and measures that can be used by both sides of the transaction to ensure that the amount obtained or handed over is correct. The first such standard weights were developed in the Indus Valley Civilization of southern Asia. This civilization was among the most advanced of its time—equal to any in the Near East or Egypt—and boasted large cities, such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. The system its merchants or accountants devised consisted of cubes of chert, a crystalline form of silica. These cubes were organized in series, doubling in weight from one unit to two units to four to eight and on to sixty-four units. The next block weighed 160 units, the next 320, and then proceeded in multiples of 160.The smallest units were used more...

Acrylic glass, or Perspex® under its commonly used trade name, is a transparent material that has been found to have many advantages over traditional glass. It is a polymer of methyl methacrylate, a simple organic compound, and is called by a number of monikers, including plexiglass, acrylic, and, properly, poly (methyl 2-methylpropenoate). It is a simple polymer, formed from chains of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Despite its simplicity, Perspex® is a versatile material. Durable, yet easily molded, it found early use as a safe alternative to glass, with particular utility during World War II in Spitfire canopies, and later in visors and shields. At about half the weight of glass, but seventeen times its strength under constant load, Perspex® is also useful in aquariums, skylights, and anywhere else a transparent material under pressure is required. Medical uses include contact lenses, dentures, and bone cement. Furthermore, when suspended in water, it more...

"A rather unusual advantage of the syphon bottel was its use as a fire extinguisher." Bryan Grapentine, antique collector Carbonated drinks were known in France as early as 1790, but the soda syphon or seltzer bottle was developed by Deleuze and Dutillet in 1829. This featured a hollow corkscrew that allowed some of the contents to be dispensed, via a valve, while keeping the bottle under pressure and its contents fizzy. The modern bottle, which remains essentially unchanged today, was patented by Antoine Perpigna in 1837 and was known as the "Vase Syphoide." In an improvement on the earlier design, the head featured a valve that was closed by a spring. The drink is carbonated by pressurized carbon dioxide. The excess pressure causes more of the gas than usual to dissolve in the liquid. When the liquid is returned to atmospheric pressure in the glass, this gas comes out of more...

"Before ...the flying ambulance, we seldom saw men who had lost both legs and arms..." Dominique-Jean Larrey, surgeon Ambulances first began to appear on the Napoleonic battlefields of France in 1792. Their inventor, surgeon Dominique-Jean Larrey (1766-1842), had grown frustrated with regulations requiring him to stay to the rear. After observing how the mobility of the French artillery helped it to quickly disengage from an advancing enemy, Larrey proposed to the military hierarchy what he called an ambulance volante, or "flying ambulance," that would follow the artillery into battle and tend to the wounded where they fell. Larrey devised a horsedrawn wheeled carriage with a central compartment able to transport two patients comfortably on leather-covered horsehair mattresses; windows on either side provided good ventilation. Inside, patients could be moved in and out easily on floors seton rollers. Recessed areas contained medicines and medical equipment, and ramps at the rear doubled as more...