What are the most important events of inventions or. Famous inventions of mankind

Just two decades ago, people could not even dream of such a level of technological development as exists today. Today to fly half globe, it only takes half a day, modern smartphones are 60,000 times lighter and thousands of times more productive than the first computers, today agricultural productivity and life expectancy are higher than ever in human history. Let's try to figure out which inventions became the most important and, in fact, changed the history of mankind.

1. Cyanide

Although cyanide seems controversial enough to be included on this list, the chemical has played important role in the history of mankind. While the gaseous form of cyanide has been responsible for the deaths of millions of people, it is the substance that is the main factor in the extraction of gold and silver from ore. Because the world economy was tied to the gold standard, cyanide was an important factor in the development of international trade.

2. Airplane

Today no one doubts that the invention of the “metal bird” had one of the most large impacts on human history by radically reducing the time required to transport goods or people. The invention of the Wright brothers was enthusiastically received by the public.

3. Anesthesia

Before 1846, any surgical procedure was more like some kind of painful torture. Although anesthetics have been used for thousands of years, they early forms They were only alcohol or mandrake extract. The invention of modern anesthesia in the form of nitrous oxide and ether allowed doctors to calmly operate on patients without the slightest resistance on their part (after all, the patients did not feel anything).

4. Radio

The origins of radio history are highly controversial. Many claim that its inventor was Guglielmo Marconi. Others claim that it was Nikola Tesla. In any case, these two people did a lot to enable people to successfully transmit information through radio waves.

5. Telephone

The telephone has been one of the most important inventions in our modern world. As with all major inventions, who was the inventor is still debated. What is clear is that the US Patent Office issued the first telephone patent to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. This patent served as the basis for future research and development of electronic sound transmission over long distances.

6. World Wide Web

Although everyone thinks of it as a completely recent invention, the Internet existed in an archaic form in 1969 when the United States military developed the ARPANET. But relatively modern form The Internet only came about because of Tim Berners-Lee, who created a network of hyperlinks to documents at the University of Illinois and created the first World Wide Web browser.

7. Transistor

Today it seems very easy to pick up the phone and call someone in Mali, the US or India, but this would not be possible without transistors. Semiconductor transistors, which amplify electrical signals, have made it possible to send information over long distances. The man who pioneered this research, William Shockley, is credited with creating Silicon Valley.

8. Atomic clock

Although this invention may not seem as revolutionary as many of the previous items, the invention of the atomic clock was crucial in the advancement of science. Using microwave signals emitted by changing energy levels of electrons, atomic clocks and their precision have made possible a wide range of modern modern inventions, including GPS, GLONASS, and the Internet.

9. Steam turbine

Charles Parsons' steam turbine literally changed the development of mankind, giving impetus to the industrialization of countries and making it possible for ships to quickly overcome the ocean. In 1996 alone, 90% of the electricity in the United States was generated by steam turbines.

10. Plastic

Despite the widespread use in our modern society plastic, it appeared only in the last century. The waterproof and highly pliable material is used in almost all industries, from packaging food products to toys and even spaceships. Although most modern plastics are made from petroleum, there are growing calls to return to the original version, which was partly organic.

11. Television

Television has had a long and legendary story, which began in the 1920s and continues to this day. This invention has become one of the most popular consumer products around the world - almost 80% of households own a television.

12. Oil

Most people don't think at all when they fill up their car's tank. Although people have been extracting oil for thousands of years, the modern oil and gas industry emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. After industrialists saw all the benefits of oil products and the amount of energy generated by burning them, they raced to make wells for the extraction of “liquid gold.”

13. Internal combustion engine

Without discovering the efficiency of combustion of petroleum products, a modern engine internal combustion would be impossible. Considering that it began to be used literally in everything from cars to agricultural combines and mining machines, these engines allowed people to replace backbreaking, painstaking and time-consuming work with machines that could do the work much faster. The internal combustion engine also gave people freedom of movement as it was used in cars.

14. Reinforced concrete

The boom in the construction of high-rise buildings only occurred in the mid-nineteenth century. By embedding steel reinforcing bars (rebar) into concrete before pouring it, people were able to build reinforced concrete man-made structures that were many times larger in weight and size than before.

Today there would be many more people living on planet Earth less people if there were no penicillin. Officially discovered by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928, penicillin was one of the most important inventions/discoveries that made the modern world possible. Antibiotics were among the first drugs that were able to fight staphylococci, syphilis and tuberculosis.

16. Refrigerator

Harnessing heat was perhaps the most important discovery to date, but it took many millennia. Although people have long used ice for cooling, its practicality and availability were limited. In the nineteenth century, scientists invented artificial refrigeration using chemical substances. By the early 1900s, almost every meat packing plant and major food distributor was using refrigeration to preserve food.

17. Pasteurization

Half a century before the discovery of penicillin, it helped save many lives. new process, discovered by Louis Pasteur, is the pasteurization or heating of foods (originally beer, wine, and dairy products) to a temperature high enough to kill most spoilage bacteria. Unlike sterilization, which kills all bacteria, pasteurization only reduces the number of potential pathogens to a level that makes most foods safe to eat without risk of contamination, while still maintaining the flavor of the food.

18. Solar battery

Just as the oil industry sparked industrial growth in general, the invention of the solar cell allowed people to use a renewable form of energy in a much more efficient way. effective way. The first practical solar cell was developed in 1954 by Bell Telephone scientists, and today the popularity and efficiency of solar cells has increased dramatically.

19. Microprocessor

20. Laser

21. Nitrogen fixation

Although it may seem overly pompous, nitrogen fixation, or the fixation of molecular atmospheric nitrogen, is "responsible" for the explosion of the human population. By converting atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, it became possible to produce highly effective fertilizers, which increased agricultural production.

22. Conveyor

Today it is difficult to overestimate the importance of assembly lines. Before their invention, all products were made by hand. The assembly line, or assembly line, allowed the development of large-scale production of identical parts, greatly reducing the time it took to create a new product.

23. Oral contraceptives

Although tablets and pills have been one of the main methods of medicine that have existed for thousands of years, the invention of the oral contraceptive was one of the most significant innovations. It was this invention that became the impetus for the sexual revolution.

24. Mobile phone/smartphone

Now many people are probably reading this article from a smartphone. For this we must thank Motorola, which back in 1973 released the first wireless pocket mobile phone, which weighed as much as 2 kg and required as much as 10 hours to recharge. To make matters worse, at that time you could only chat quietly for 30 minutes.

25. Electricity

Most modern inventions would simply not be possible without electricity. Pioneers such as William Gilbert and Benjamin Franklin laid the initial foundation on which inventors such as Volt and Faraday began the Second Industrial Revolution.

Over the past few centuries, we have made countless discoveries that have helped to significantly improve the quality of our Everyday life and understand how the world around us works. Assessing the full importance of these discoveries is very difficult, if not almost impossible. But one thing is for sure - some of them literally changed our lives once and for all. From penicillin and the screw pump to x-rays and electricity, here is a list of 25 of mankind's greatest discoveries and inventions.

25. Penicillin

If in 1928 the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming did not discover penicillin, the first antibiotic, we would still be dying from diseases such as stomach ulcers, abscesses, streptococcal infections, scarlet fever, leptospirosis, Lyme disease and many others.

24. Mechanical watch


Photo: pixabay

There are conflicting theories about what the first ones actually looked like. mechanical watches, but most often researchers adhere to the version that they were created in 723 AD by the Chinese monk and mathematician Ai Xing (I-Hsing). It was this seminal invention that allowed us to measure time.

23. Copernican heliocentrism


Photo: WP/wikimedia

In 1543, almost on his deathbed, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus unveiled his landmark theory. According to the works of Copernicus, it became known that the Sun is our planetary system, and all its planets revolve around our star, each in its own orbit. Until 1543, astronomers believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe.

22. Blood circulation


Photo: Bryan Brandenburg

One of the most important discoveries in medicine was the discovery of the circulatory system, which was announced in 1628 by the English physician William Harvey. He became the first person to describe the entire circulatory system and properties of the blood that the heart pumps throughout our body from the brain to the tips of the fingers.

21. Screw pump


Photo: David Hawgood / geographic.org.uk

One of the most famous ancient Greek scientists, Archimedes, is considered the author of one of the world's first water pumps. His device was a rotating corkscrew that pushed water up a pipe. This invention took irrigation systems to the next level and is still used in many wastewater treatment plants today.

20. Gravity


Photo: wikimedia

Everyone knows this story - Isaac Newton, the famous English mathematician and physicist, discovered gravity after an apple fell on his head in 1664. Thanks to this event, we learned for the first time why objects fall down and why planets revolve around the Sun.

19. Pasteurization


Photo: wikimedia

Pasteurization was discovered in the 1860s by French scientist Louis Pasteur. It is a heat treatment process during which pathogenic microorganisms are destroyed in certain foods and drinks (wine, milk, beer). This discovery had a significant impact on public health and the development of the food industry around the world.

18. Steam engine


Photo: pixabay

Everyone knows that modern civilization was forged in factories built during the Industrial Revolution, and that it all happened using steam engines. The steam engine was created a long time ago, but over the last century it has been significantly improved by three British inventors: Thomas Savery, Thomas Newcomen and the most famous of them, James Watt.

17. Air conditioning


Photo: Ildar Sagdejev / wikimedia

Primitive climate control systems have existed since ancient times, but they changed significantly when the first modern electric air conditioner was introduced in 1902. It was invented by a young engineer named Willis Carrier, a native of Buffalo, New York.

16. Electricity


Photo: pixabay

The fateful discovery of electricity is attributed to the English scientist Michael Faraday. Among his key discoveries, it is worth noting the principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. Faraday's experiments also led to the creation of the first generator, which became the forerunner of the huge generators that today produce the electricity we are familiar with in everyday life.

15. DNA


Photo: pixabay

Many believe that it was the American biologist James Watson and the English physicist Francis Crick who discovered it in the 1950s, but in fact this macromolecule was first identified in the late 1860s by the Swiss chemist Friedrich Maischer Miescher). Then, several decades after Maischer's discovery, other scientists conducted a series of studies that finally helped us clarify how an organism passes its genes to the next generation and how the work of its cells is coordinated.

14. Anesthesia


Photo: Wikimedia

Simple forms of anesthesia, such as opium, mandrake and alcohol, have been used by people for a long time, and the first mention of them dates back to 70 AD. But pain management moved to a new level in 1847, when American surgeon Henry Bigelow first introduced ether and chloroform into his practice, making extremely painful invasive procedures much more tolerable.

13. Theory of relativity

Photo: Wikimedia

Comprising two related theories of Albert Einstein, special and general relativity, the theory of relativity, published in 1905, transformed all of 20th century theoretical physics and astronomy and eclipsed Newton's 200-year-old theory of mechanics. Einstein's theory of relativity became the basis for much of scientific works modernity.

12. X-rays


Photo: Nevit Dilmen / wikimedia

German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen accidentally discovered X-rays in 1895 when he observed fluorescence produced by a cathode ray tube. For this pivotal discovery, the scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1901, the first of its kind in the physical sciences.

11. Telegraph


Photo: wikipedia

Since 1753, many researchers have experimented with establishing long-distance communication using electricity, but a significant breakthrough did not come until several decades later, when Joseph Henry and Edward Davy invented the electrical relay in 1835. Using this device they created the first telegraph 2 years later.

10. Periodic table of chemical elements


Photo: sandbh/wikimedia

In 1869, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev noticed that if you arrange chemical elements Based on their atomic mass, they are conditionally arranged into groups with similar properties. Based on this information, he created the first periodic table, one of the greatest discoveries in chemistry, which was later nicknamed the periodic table in his honor.

9. Infrared rays


Photo: AIRS/flickr

Infrared radiation was discovered by British astronomer William Herschel in 1800 when he was studying the heating effect of light different colors, using a prism to split light into a spectrum, and measuring the changes with thermometers. Today, infrared radiation is used in many areas of our lives, including meteorology, heating systems, astronomy, tracking heat-intensive objects and many other areas.

8. Nuclear magnetic resonance


Photo: Mj-bird / wikimedia

Today, nuclear magnetic resonance is continually used as an extremely accurate and effective diagnostic tool in the medical field. This phenomenon was first described and calculated by American physicist Isidor Rabi in 1938 while observing molecular beams. In 1944, for this discovery, the American scientist was awarded Nobel Prize in physics.

7. Moldboard plow


Photo: wikimedia

Invented in the 18th century, the moldboard plow was the first plow that not only dug up the soil, but also stirred it, making it possible to cultivate even very stubborn and rocky soil for agricultural purposes. Without this weapon Agriculture as we know it today, in northern Europe or in Central America would not exist.

6. Camera obscura


Photo: wikimedia

The forerunner of modern cameras and video cameras was the camera obscura (translated as dark room), which was an optical device used by artists to create quick sketches while traveling outside their studios. A hole in one of the walls of the device served to create an inverted image of what was happening outside the chamber. The picture was displayed on the screen (on the wall of the dark box opposite the hole). These principles have been known for centuries, but in 1568 the Venetian Daniel Barbaro modified the camera obscura by adding converging lenses.

5. Paper


Photo: pixabay

The first examples of modern paper are often considered to be papyrus and amate, which were used by ancient Mediterranean peoples and pre-Columbian Americans. But it would not be entirely correct to consider them real paper. References to the first production of writing paper date back to China during the reign of the Eastern Han Empire (25-220 AD). The first paper is mentioned in chronicles dedicated to the activities of the judicial dignitary Cai Lun.

4. Teflon


Photo: pixabay

The material that keeps your pan from burning was actually invented completely by accident by American chemist Roy Plunkett when he was looking for a replacement refrigerant to make household life safer. During one of his experiments, the scientist discovered a strange, slippery resin, which later became better known as Teflon.

3. Theory of evolution and natural selection

Photo: wikimedia

Inspired by his observations during his second voyage of exploration in 1831-1836, Charles Darwin began writing his famous theory of evolution and natural selection, which, according to scientists around the world, became a key description of the mechanism of development of all life on Earth

2. Liquid crystals


Photo: William Hook / flickr

If the Austrian botanist and physiologist Friedrich Reinitzer had not discovered liquid crystals while testing the physicochemical properties of various cholesterol derivatives in 1888, today you would not know what LCD televisions or flat-panel LCD monitors are.

1. Polio vaccine


Photo: GDC Global / flickr

On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Jonas Salk announced that he had successfully tested a vaccine against polio, a virus that causes a severe chronic disease. In 1952, an epidemic of this disease diagnosed 58,000 people in the United States and killed 3,000. innocent lives. This spurred Salk on a quest for salvation, and now the civilized world is safe at least from this disaster.

It would seem that any invention must be ingenious. But the desire to come up with something unusual sometimes leads to such absurd inventions that it turns out to be 200% surprising, but not everyone wants to use such an innovation.

The most useless inventions

Why isn't the subway cap patented in Japan funny? Put it on your head, pull it over your eyes, and rest while the train is moving. And in order not to oversleep your stop, there is a special slot in it where a sign with the name of the desired station is inserted. A kind neighbor-passenger will always wake you up if the owner of such a cap suddenly falls fast asleep.

Alarm clock for those who are constantly late for work. It looks no different from a regular alarm clock. But a small button the size of a match head is located among the needles densely embedded in the body. Even to a normal person it is difficult to press. But what about those who spent a stormy night the day before, or who after have a fun feast Are your hands shaking?

Rotating ice cream has been patented in America. The balls inside the cup are constantly moving. All that remains is to stick out your tongue and hope that at least a drop of the delicacy will reach its “destination.”

Among the eccentric inventors there are truly talented people who have left their mark on the world of discovery.

The most famous inventions

The first place was taken by such an invention as letters. They make up words and sentences. This is the language of communication, without which it is impossible to imagine human existence. No inventions or technologies could have been born if letters, signs, and language did not exist.

Anesthesia. It is impossible to imagine how even the most simple operation. The term "anesthesia" belongs to an ancient Roman physician and pharmacologist who lived in the 1st century AD. He managed to isolate narcotic extracts from mandrake root, which had an analgesic effect.

Laughing gas, or nitrous oxide, which relieves pain after several inhalations, was invented by the English chemist Humphry Davy. And the invention of anesthesia using diethyl ether belongs to Dr. Morton. It was from this moment that surgery learned to control pain.

Antibiotics have protected humanity from epidemics and fatal diseases. The inventor of penicillin, the first antibiotic, was Alexander Fleming, who patented this wonder drug in 1928.

How did the invention of the computer change the world?

The computer has become not only a means of collecting and processing information. This is not only a way to transmit any data to almost all parts of the world. This invention is indispensable in process control. With the help of computers, automated control of production processes, automatic robots, and mechanisms for calculating control and measurement data occurs.

They are important in the field of medicine when making diagnoses and examining the body, during complex operations, including transplantation of the heart and other human organs.

Computers are indispensable in the military-technical field. Calculating the flight trajectories of spaceships and satellites, launching them into space, studying the bowels of the earth, predicting natural disasters and observing changes in nature, searching for and extracting minerals, the ability to control the operation of nuclear power plants - this is a tiny part of the opportunities that man received with the invention of the computer.

The most significant invention in human history

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