VII. Invention and Eureka Anniversaries
Thomas Edison made his electric bulb light up, Enrico Fermi switched on the world's first nuclear reactor and William Shockley's team assembled the first semiconductor. These were moments that changed the world forever. The dates of such events are well worth recalling. They may be useful for anniversaries and the launching of new initiatives, by any department that wants to foster creativity and innovation. Accordingly, the above table gives thirty-six of the most famous moments of invention, whose dates are known. For a new initiative, why not pick one of these celebrated dates when a major new invention first worked? These dates - and sometimes times of day as well - were moments of triumph, achievement, excitement and innovation. Pick up the excitement and colour of these dates by using them! The list spans four centuries of scientific endeavour, from the moment when the first barometer was seen to work in 1648 in Clermont-Ferrand in central France, to the successful treatment of a child by gene-therapy in 1990, in Bethesda hospital, Washington. To be included in the list, a date is needed that can be agreed upon. Where doubt existed as to who was the inventor, the Engineers and Inventors volume of the Biographical Dictionary of Scientists was used. Also, the large The Inventions that Changed the World by the Reader's Digest is a fine sourcebook. The UK is still a world leader in industrial innovation - as it always has been. Just over a third of the inventions selected for our anniversary dates were British. Over the last century or so more of a US lead has appeared. As a science historian I have selected moments that are celebrated and whose date is known. The average age of the inventors was 37 years. So much for current myths about how only young persons are prone to being inventive. All the inventors listed are male, but let's hope this will change in the future. Benjamin Franklin discovered the principle of the lightning-conductor, publishing it in 1750, but it was in France that the first lightning-conductor was erected to test his theory, a couple of year later. Leonardo da Vinci had the idea for the helicopter which Sikorsky built four centuries later. Alexander Fleming in London discovered penicillin in 1928, but it was first prepared in Oxford in a usable form by Florey and Chain twelve years later. The feasibility of a chain reaction was discerned by Szilard in 1933 in London, then utilised by Fermi in Chicago when he started a chain reaction for nuclear energy on December 2nd, 1942. Charles Townes had the idea for the laser principle in 1951 in Washington DC, but it was not built until 1960 by Theodore Maiman in California, in the Howard Hughes Laboratories. Our list is concerned with the second of these events, with the practical achievement rather than the idea. Some inventions enjoyed no single moment of birth. For the steam engine or the motion-picture, the birth-process was, on close examination, a gradual series of steps. To quote Robert Stevenson, 'The Locomotive is not the invention of one man, but of a nation of mechanical engineers.' George Stevenson (no relation) probably built the first decent, workable steam engines starting in 1814, which the public were not afraid to get into in case they blew up, but a whole string of predecessors lead up to his work - starting from Cugnot's steam tractor of 1769, which pulled heavy guns, the first self-propelled road vehicle. The Cornishman Richard Trevithic first put a locomotive onto a railway line. Likewise the motion camera developed into cinema through a line of inventors including Prince, Edison and the Lumière brothers, with others fighting for patents. No consensus exists that one of these was its inventor. The first public display was achieved by the Lumiere brothers in Paris. * On the
19th September 1648, a barometer was shown to respond to air pressure
when taken up a mountain in France: 'Everyone was elated. The barometer
had been invented' wrote James Burke (Connections, p.75). The earlier
date when Torricelli first made one is unrecorded. Will tours one day show the spot in Sheffield where Harry Brierley had the first stainless steel knives made by Mr Ernest Stuart of a local cutlery firm, or the Soho attic where Baird first showed a face on a TV set, as well as visiting the Royal Institution at Picadilly where Faraday made the first transformer? I hope so, though many of these historic sites are now concreted over. I suggest that UK firms can key into the creative thought and constructive action of these moments, so many of which have happened on this island, to give a link with the past as well as helping adapt to future challenges. EUREKA & INVENTION ANNIVERSARIES (invention-moments in capitals) Date
........Scientist ..Location ..Invention / Idea |
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©
2003 Research Group for the Critical Study of Astrology
