8 inventors that changed our lives and made our homes better
Many of us take things we find in our homes for granted, but as we know everything has a creator. How many of these inventors were you familiar with? We simply can't live without any of these inventions, we simply wouldn't survive!
James Prescott Joule discovered the mechanical equivalent of heat
Born 24th December 181 in Lancashire, England, James Prescott studied the nature of Heat and its relationship to mechanical work. Known for Joule’s law which shows the relationship of heat generated by a direct current that flows through a conductor. He discovered that the amount of heat generated per second in a wire carrying an electrical current is proportional to the resistance of the wire and square the current. Today we know that 1 Watt is equal to 1 Joule per second. Joule was not recognised for his work until 1849 when he wrote his paper “On the Mechanical equivalent of Heat”. In 1889, Joule died at the age of 70.
Lloyd Groff Copeman changed the way we cook
Inventor of the electric stove, Llood Groff Copeman was born in Michigan on the 28th of December 1881. Born to be an inventor, his first invention was when he was just 10 years old. His works that we are familiar with include the electric stove, toaster, refrigerator and the flexible ice-cube tray, but other patents include thermostat and thermometer, water cooler and electric heated oven. With almost 700 patents to his name Llyod Groff Coleman died at the age of 74 in 1956.
James Watt improved the steam engine
James Watt was born in Birmingham, England on 18th January 1736. In the early years Watt manufactured toys and musical instruments. Befriending legendary Adam Smith and obtaining the backing from Joe Roebuck and Matthew Boulton to help fund inventions that change the industrial world. His first patent was in 1769 which covered a list of improvements made to the Newcomen’s engine. Later in 1784 he makes further improvements to the steam engine and patents a steam locomotive making him and his partner Boulton worldwide celebrities. Watt died in 1819 and it wasn’t until 1882 that the unit of measurement of electrical and mechanical power was named in his honour, known today as the Watt.
Thomas Edison gives us electrical light
Thomas Edison known commonly as the inventor of the lightbulb was born in Ohio on 11th February 1847. Although he didn’t actually invent the electric lightbulb, he simply improved it for home use as well inventing an electric lighting system. His first invention was the Electrographic Vote recorder later introduced the Phonograph that recorded voices with the ability to play it back. Edison famously said “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that”. Edison died at the age of 84 in 1931 but he had more than 2000 patents to his name across the globe. Some of his inventions he left us include the storage battery, telegraph, dictating machine and even the talking doll.
Nikola Telsa gives us more power
Born in the July of 1856 in Croatia Nikola Telsa came to Untied States in the 1884 to work with Thomas Edison. After a couple of years, he split with Edison and he became a direct competitor of Edison’s. In 1887 his company “Telsa Electric Company” began to flourish where he patented AC-based inventions. In 1896 Tesla’s idea of the hydroelectric power was actualised giving power from the Niagara Falls, New York power plant to the nearby homes of Buffalo. His inventions changed industries across the world giving us such inventions like Fluorescent bulbs, X-rays, the remote control, the electric motor and the laser. He died in 1943 at the grand age of 86 leaving behind his some of the most important inventions in that contribute to our world today.
Charles Babbage concept of the computer
Born in London on 26th December 1791 Charles Babbage was a mathematician in the calculus of functions. In his 20s he developed his passion of calculating machinery; his idea was to eliminate human error in mathematical computations. His idea stemmed from reviewing his own log table which was full of errors. Known as the father of the computer Babbage’s Analytical Engine was his 2nd attempt at creating a machine that could compute. Dying in 1871 at the age of 79 he truly did inspire others to develop the technology we have today.
Martin Cooper let us go mobile
Born 26th December 1928 Martin Cooper is the American engineer that gave us the mobile telephone. He had a concept of that person if “given the choice would demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are”. While working for Motorola he developed the hand held portable telephone and made the first wireless phone call on the streets of New York in 1973. Since then the cell phone the brick-like phone that weighed 30 ounces has gone through many transformations. Today Millennials will use a slim touchscreen model that allows us to communicate on the go not just by telephone but email, text and social media. It is also estimated that most of us spend approx. 8 hours of out spare time a day on our smart phone.
Tim Berners Lee opens up the world wide web
Tim Berners Lee was born in London UK on 8th June 1955. In 1989 a mere 34 years later he sketched the template for the World Wide Web. By the end of 1990 the first test was complete where he wrote the first web client and server. Tim Berners-Lee did not make any money from his hard work and offered the idea of the web to the world for free. Today we rely on it to do business, communicate and research, incorporating in into our daily lives to reach out to friends, family and peers.
Resources
http://inventors.about.com/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/martin_cooper.htm
http://internethalloffame.org/inductees/tim-berners-lee
https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
http://www.biography.com/people/nikola-tesla-9504443