My Science School

            Various types of mechanical calculators had already been invented when, in 1835, Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, described the principle of an analytical engine. This was the world’s first programmable computer, using a system of cogwheels and data entered by means of punched cards. Ada, Countess Lovelace was also a mathematician, and she wrote several computer programs for Babbage’s device. The analytical engine was, sadly, far ahead of its time and was never developed past its first crude form.

            The first practical computer was Colossus, a huge mechanical device invented to help break German secret codes during World War II. It was based on the theories of the eccentric mathematician Alan Turing.

Picture credit: google

            In 1771, Nicolas Cugnot produced what was probably the first self-powered vehicle, driven by steam. In 1801, the Englishman Richard Trevithick ran a steam car along a road in Cornwall, reaching a speed of 14 km/h. From then until the end of the 1800s, all successful road vehicles were powered by steam, although there were many experiments with petrol engines. Then in 1885 Karl Benz in Germany built the first successful modern motor car, powered by a petrol engine.

 

 

           Frank Whittle designed the first true jet engine between 1928 and 1930, but it was not used to fly a jet aircraft until 1941. Meanwhile, the German engineer Hans von Ohain began work on a similar jet engine in 1936. His engine had flown a Heinkel aircraft by 1939. German developments proceeded more rapidly, and Germany had a jet fighter plane in action before the end of World War it.

 

Picture credit: google

            In 1903, at Kitty Hawk in the United States, Orville Wright made what is said to be the first controlled powered flight of a heavier-than-air craft. People had already flown small airships, but there was now a race to make the first successful aeroplane. The Wright brothers and other would-be pilots had already built several gliders. The Wright biplane looked like a huge box kite, with a home-made engine that drove two propellers by means of chains – but it flew and it was controllable.

            Clement Adler, in France, had flown under power in 1890 in a bat-shaped aeroplane powered by a steam engine. However, the aircraft was not controllable; so many people do not accept his attempt as the first flight.

Picture credit: google

 

 

            Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) was born in Scotland but moved to the USA. He realized that sound consists of vibrations, and he began working out a way of changing these vibrations into electrical impulses. These impulses could then be carried along a wire – this was the origin of the telephone. His rival, Thomas Edison, soon produced a much improved version of Bell’s telephone. Bell retaliated by devising a better version of Edison’s own phonograph.

Picture credit: google

 

 

                        Although he was actually a draper, the Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) ground glass lenses and used them to examine the world about him. In the 1670s he made his first crude microscope with a tiny lens, and this allowed him to be the first person to see microscopic life such as bacteria, yeast and living blood cells. During his career, van Leeuwenhoek ground a total of 419 lenses, and his microscopes became progressively more effective.

 

            During the 1st century AD, a Greek inventor and mathematician called Hero of Alexandria produced a device that later led to the development of modern turbines and jet engines. Hero’s device was a hollow water-filled ball mounted on a swivel. Two nozzles stuck out on opposite sides, pointing in different directions. When the ball was heated, steam shot out of the nozzles, causing the ball to spin rapidly.

            Hero failed to see the practical use of this device and regarded it as an interesting toy. He went on to invent several mathematical formulae, one of which is still used for calculating the area of a triangle.

Picture credit: google