Topic: Invention

You are looking at all articles with the topic "Invention". We found 10 matches.

Hint: To view all topics, click here. Too see the most popular topics, click here instead.

πŸ”— Inventors killed by their own inventions

πŸ”— Death πŸ”— Lists πŸ”— Invention

This is a list of inventors whose deaths were in some manner caused by or related to a product, process, procedure, or other innovation that they invented or designed.

Discussed on

πŸ”— List of Emerging Technologies

πŸ”— Technology πŸ”— Lists πŸ”— Futures studies πŸ”— Invention

Emerging technologies are those technical innovations that represent progressive innovations within a field for competitive advantage.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Starlite

πŸ”— Brands πŸ”— Chemistry πŸ”— Invention πŸ”— Polymers

Starlite is an intumescent material claimed to be able to withstand and insulate from extreme heat. It was invented by British amateur chemist and hairdresser Maurice Ward (1933-2011) during the 1970s and 1980s, and received significant publicity after coverage of the material aired in 1990 on the BBC science and technology show Tomorrow's World. The name Starlite was coined by Ward's granddaughter Kimberly.

The American company Thermashield, LLC claims to have acquired the rights to Starlite in 2013 and replicated it. It is the only company to have itself publicly demonstrated the technology and have samples tested by third parties.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Pythagorean cup

πŸ”— Classical Greece and Rome πŸ”— Greece πŸ”— Food and drink πŸ”— Wine πŸ”— Invention

A Pythagorean cup (also known as a Pythagoras cup, Greedy Cup, Tantalus cup or i koupa tis dikaiosynis) is a practical joke device in a form of a drinking cup, credited to Pythagoras of Samos. When it is filled beyond a certain point, a siphoning effect causes the cup to drain its entire contents through the base.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Biosphere 2

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— United States/Arizona πŸ”— Invention πŸ”— Ecology

Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the universe. It is a 3.14-acre (1.27-hectare) structure originally built to be an artificial, materially closed ecological system, or vivarium. It remains the largest closed ecological system ever created.

Constructed between 1987 and 1991, Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space as a substitute for Earth's biosphere. It was designed to explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with different areas based on various biological biomes. In addition to the several biomes and living quarters for people, there was an agricultural area and work space to study the interactions between humans, farming, technology and the rest of nature as a new kind of laboratory for the study of the global ecology. Its mission was a two-year closure experiment with a crew of eight humans ("biospherians"). Long-term it was seen as a precursor to gaining knowledge about the use of closed biospheres in space colonization. As an experimental ecological facility it allowed the study and manipulation of a mini biospheric system without harming Earth's biosphere.

Its seven biome areas were a 1,900-square-meter (20,000Β sqΒ ft) rainforest, an 850-square-meter (9,100Β sqΒ ft) ocean with a coral reef, a 450-square-meter (4,800Β sqΒ ft) mangrove wetlands, a 1,300-square-metre (14,000Β sqΒ ft) savannah grassland, a 1,400-square-meter (15,000Β sqΒ ft) fog desert, and two anthropogenic biomes: a 2,500-square-meter (27,000Β sqΒ ft) agricultural system and a human habitat with living spaces, laboratories and workshops. Below ground was an extensive part of the technical infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center.

Biosphere 2 was only used twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment: once from 1991 to 1993, and the second time from March to September 1994. Both attempts ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animals and plants included in the experiment (though this was anticipated since the project used a strategy of deliberately "species-packing" anticipating losses as the biomes developed), group dynamic tensions among the resident crew, outside politics, and a power struggle over management and direction of the project. Nevertheless, the closure experiments set world records in closed ecological systems, agricultural production, health improvements with the high nutrient and low caloric diet the crew followed, and insights into the self-organization of complex biomic systems and atmospheric dynamics. The second closure experiment achieved total food sufficiency and did not require injection of oxygen.

In June 1994, during the middle of the second experiment, the managing company, Space Biosphere Ventures, was dissolved, and the facility was left in limbo. Columbia University assumed management of the facility in 1995 and used it to run experiments until 2003. It then appeared to be in danger of being demolished to make way for housing and retail stores, but was taken over for research by the University of Arizona in 2007. The University of Arizona took full ownership of the structure in 2011.

Discussed on

πŸ”— List of Chinese Inventions

πŸ”— Technology πŸ”— China/Chinese history πŸ”— China πŸ”— Lists πŸ”— Invention

China has been the source of many innovations, scientific discoveries and inventions. This includes the Four Great Inventions: papermaking, the compass, gunpowder, and printing (both woodblock and movable type). The list below contains these and other inventions in China attested by archaeological or historical evidence.

The historical region now known as China experienced a history involving mechanics, hydraulics and mathematics applied to horology, metallurgy, astronomy, agriculture, engineering, music theory, craftsmanship, naval architecture and warfare. By the Warring States period (403–221 BC), inhabitants of the Warring States had advanced metallurgic technology, including the blast furnace and cupola furnace, while the finery forge and puddling process were known by the Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220). A sophisticated economic system in imperial China gave birth to inventions such as paper money during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). The invention of gunpowder during the mid 9th century led to an array of inventions such as the fire lance, land mine, naval mine, hand cannon, exploding cannonballs, multistage rocket and rocket bombs with aerodynamic wings and explosive payloads. With the navigational aid of the 11th century compass and ability to steer at high sea with the 1st century sternpost rudder, premodern Chinese sailors sailed as far as East Africa. In water-powered clockworks, the premodern Chinese had used the escapement mechanism since the 8th century and the endless power-transmitting chain drive in the 11th century. They also made large mechanical puppet theaters driven by waterwheels and carriage wheels and wine-serving automatons driven by paddle wheel boats.

The contemporaneous Peiligang and Pengtoushan cultures represent the oldest Neolithic cultures of China and were formed around 7000 BC. Some of the first inventions of Neolithic China include semilunar and rectangular stone knives, stone hoes and spades, the cultivation of millet and the soybean, the refinement of sericulture, rice cultivation, the creation of pottery with cord-mat-basket designs, the creation of pottery vessels and pottery steamers and the development of ceremonial vessels and scapulimancy for purposes of divination. The British sinologist Francesca Bray argues that the domestication of the ox and buffalo during the Longshan culture (c. 3000–c. 2000 BC) period, the absence of Longshan-era irrigation or high-yield crops, full evidence of Longshan cultivation of dry-land cereal crops which gave high yields "only when the soil was carefully cultivated," suggest that the plough was known at least by the Longshan culture period and explains the high agricultural production yields which allowed the rise of Chinese civilization during the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–c. 1050 BC). Later inventions such as the multiple-tube seed drill and heavy moldboard iron plough enabled China to sustain a much larger population through greater improvements in agricultural output.

For the purposes of this list, inventions are regarded as technological firsts developed in China, and as such does not include foreign technologies which the Chinese acquired through contact, such as the windmill from the Middle East or the telescope from early modern Europe. It also does not include technologies developed elsewhere and later invented separately by the Chinese, such as the odometer, water wheel, and chain pump. Scientific, mathematical or natural discoveries, changes in minor concepts of design or style and artistic innovations do not appear on the list.

Discussed on

πŸ”— De Bono's Six Thinking Hats

πŸ”— Books πŸ”— Systems πŸ”— Business πŸ”— Psychology πŸ”— United Kingdom πŸ”— Engineering πŸ”— Invention πŸ”— Systems/Project management πŸ”— Method engineering

Six Thinking Hats was written by Dr. Edward de Bono. "Six Thinking Hats" and the associated idea parallel thinking provide a means for groups to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way, and in doing so to think together more effectively.

In 2005, the tool found some use in the United Kingdom innovation sector, where it was offered by some facilitation companies and had been trialled within the United Kingdom's civil service.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Chester Carlson – Inventor of Xerography

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Physics πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Physics/Biographies πŸ”— United States/Washington - Seattle πŸ”— Buddhism πŸ”— Invention

Chester Floyd Carlson (February 8, 1906 – September 19, 1968) was an American physicist, inventor, and patent attorney born in Seattle, Washington.

He is best known for inventing electrophotography, the process performed today by millions of photocopiers worldwide. Carlson's process produced a dry copy, as contrasted with the wet copies then produced by the mimeograph process. Carlson's process was renamed xerography, a term that means "dry writing."

Discussed on

πŸ”— You Will

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Telecommunications πŸ”— Marketing & Advertising πŸ”— Invention πŸ”— United States/American television

"You Will" was an AT&T marketing campaign that launched in 1993, consisting of commercials directed by David Fincher. Each ad presented a futuristic scenario beginning with "Have you ever…" and ending with "…you will. And the company that will bring it to you: AT&T."

The ads were narrated by Tom Selleck.

The creative team that created the ad campaign at N.W. Ayer & Partners were Copy Supervisor Gordon Hasse, Art Supervisor Nick Scordato and Producer Gaston Braun.

One of the first web banner ads ever sold was part of an AT&T campaign that ran on HotWired starting October 27, 1994, asking "Have you ever clicked your mouse right HERE? You Will".

In 2016, technology writer Timothy B. Lee commented that "overall, the ads were remarkably accurate in predicting the cutting-edge technologies of the coming decades. But the ads were mostly wrong about one thing: the company that brought these technologies to the world was not AT&T. At least not on its own. AT&T does provide some of the infrastructure on which the world's communications flow. But the gadgets and software that brought these futuristic capabilities to consumers were created by a new generation of Silicon Valley companies that mostly didn't exist when these ads were made."

The ads won a few different awards at the time, notably the first annual David Ogilvy Award for the most effective campaign supported by research, the 1994 PCIA (Personal Communications Industry Award), and two ADDY Awards.

Discussed on