Table Of Content
s m i t h s o n i a n
INVENTIONS
AND DISCOVERIES
Written by
Roger Bridgman
A Dorling Kindersley Book
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Contents
4
..................
introduction
LONDON, NEW YORK, MUNICH,
MELBOURNE, and DELHI learning the basics
6
.............
NEW EDITION
3,000,000 – 500
Senior Editor Carron Brown c bc bc
Designer Mary Sandberg
US Editor Allison Singer
Managing Editor Linda Esposito
Managing Art Editor Michael Duffy
Category Publisher Andrew Macintyre the age of authority
Production Controller Gemma Sharpe 40
....................
Production Editor Ben Marcus 499 – 1400
c bc
Picture Library Martin Copeland
Jacket Editor Maud Whatley
Jacket Designer Laura Brim
Jacket Design Development Manager
Sophia MTT ,
new worlds new ideas
Publishing Director Jonathan Metcalf
Associate Publishing Director Liz Wheeler ........................ 72
Art Director Phil Ormerod 1401 – 1750
Delhi office
Jacket Managing Editor Saloni Talwar
Jacket Designer Suhita Dharamjit
HARDBACK EDITION revolutionary changes
Senior Editor Marie Greenwood 104
.....................
Senior Art Editor Clare Shedden
1751 – 1850
Designed and Edited by Bookwork
Editor Louise Pritchard
Art Editor Jill Plank
Assistant Editor Annabel Blackledge
Designer Kate Mullins
Picture Research Marie Osborn science takes control
Picture Library Sally Hamilton, ..................... 138
Rose Horridge, Sarah Mills 1851 – 1900
Production Kate Oliver
DTP Designer Siu Yin Chan
US Editor Margaret Parrish
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Contents
inventions Hardback edition first published in
the United States in 2002
This updated edition first published in
for everyone
the United States in 2014 by
..................... 172 DK Publishing, Inc., 375 Hudson Street
1901 – 1950
New York, NY 10014
14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
001–256610–7/14
&
information
Copyright © 2002, 2006, 2014
Dorling Kindersley Limited
uncertainty
.................... 212 All rights reserved under International and
1951 – 2014 Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
index of inventions & without the prior written permission of the
....................... 252 copyright owner. Published in Great Britain
by Dorling Kindersley Limited.
discoveries
A Cataloging in Publication record is available
From the Library of Congress
index of inventors & ISBN 978-1-4654-2038-1
...................... 254
Printed and bound in China
discoverers
Discover more at www.dk.com
P &
icture credits
.............. 256
acknowledgments Smithsonian
Institution
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Introduction
Three million years of creativity and curiosity have produced
tens of thousands of inventions and discoveries. Those that
successfully met basic human needs – from the need to survive to
the need to know – have played a big part in shaping our world.
O
ur world is very principle that already existed, needing only
different from the to be found. But it is often difficult to tell
world of our ancestors. where invention ends and discovery
Tens of thousands of begins. Whatever they are, few inventions
inventions and or discoveries are made overnight. There is
discoveries have usually a period of preparation before they
transformed the way we do things and the emerge. Even then, they take time to act.
way we think. An invention is something An invention may take years to displace
new, created by arranging things in some existing methods. A discovery may take
novel way. A discovery is a thing or generations to change habits of thought.
W ?
hen did it happen
This is not a book of “firsts”. I have listed
It is often difficult to most inventions and discoveries under the
date when they were first made public.
But some dates relate to the beginning of
tell where invention something that only later became well
known, or to a later stage of something
that took time to influence people. It can
ends and discovery also be difficult to say exactly who
invented or discovered something. Often,
when the time is right, many people come
begins, and neither up with the same idea. And making an
idea work can be more important than
simply thinking of it. At the top of each
happens overnight. invention or discovery, I have named the
people who I think contributed most to it.
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Below, where possible, I have We may soon know enough
mentioned others who helped
or attempted something similar.
Some stories are too interesting to control the machinery
to squeeze into a small space.
I have given these either a
separate box or two whole of life itself, making the
pages. These longer stories
show how complicated
inventing or discovering can future less certain.
be, and how it can change
people’s lives. Other aspects of
these lives appear at the foot of
most pages in a timeline, which
records events in the wider world. and discoveries have had a lasting effect.
Some, such as windmills or the theory of
F
aster and Faster continental drift, vanished for a while but
Over the centuries, inventions and were born again. Others, such as pottery,
discoveries followed two main trends. have never been replaced. Inventions and
Ancient ideas became modern science as discoveries like these were used or
measurement and mathematics improved remembered because they met basic human
on observation and argument, and the way needs. Until recently, these needs have not
things were made changed radically as changed. But we may soon know enough to
scientific techniques displaced traditional control the machinery of life itself, changing
crafts. These trends continue at an ever our basic needs and making the future less
greater rate today. You may notice that while certain. I hope that this book will help you
the first section of the book covers nearly to understand how we got where we are
three million years, the last covers only fifty. now, and maybe even help you to guess
Despite this rapid change, many inventions where we are going next.
5
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learning the
basics
B that either
y making tools
change their environment or
help them to cope with it,
human beings can survive
where other animals cannot.
It took hundreds of thousands
of years for people to make
the basic inventions and
discoveries that underpin
what we now call technology.
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Stone tools Use of fire drill The bow drill
(right) is Egyptian. The
c3,000,000 c1,400,000 drill (left) is a recent
bc bc pump drill from New
Guinea, which was used
to drill holes in wood.
The main difference between People discovered the value
ourselves and most other of fire long before they
animals is that we use tools. found out how to make it. Drill was kept
The oldest known tools, found Fires can be started naturally upright by a
piece of wood
in Africa, were made more than by friction, lightning, or
or stone held
two million years ago. They are sunlight striking on top of it
simply lumps of stone that through a drop
have been shattered with of water. The
another stone to make a sharp first people
edge for chopping meat or to use
wood. The people who made Cord attached to
them would also have made the ends of the
crosspiece is also
tools from wood, but none
fixed to, and
have survived. wrapped around,
the shaft
fire simply kept these
natural flames going.
Hand axe They used fire for
The best stone for warmth and to cook
tools was flint. Wooden
This flint hand food. Better still, fire crosspiece
could be used to clear was pumped
ax, from about
1000–5000 bc, away bushes and trees tduornw nthwea rsdh atfot
was found in so that the grass grew
via the cord
Saint Acheul, thicker, attracting
near Amiens,
animals for people to
France.
catch and eat. Stone weight
was used to
If flakes are Mining apply more
chipped off, flint pressure to
naturally forms the bit
c40,000
sharp edges bc
Early people
made full use of
Drill
everything around them,
Hand axe
including rocks, which
c35,000
they used to make tools and to bc
c1,800,000
bc extract minerals. After a time,
the good rocks on the surface
were all used up, and people The earliest drills were
Over a period of more than had to start digging to find probably pointed stones
one million years, the first what they wanted. The first that people spun between
crude stone tools evolved into mines were just shallow pits, the palms of their hands.
beautifully shaped blades. but miners were eventually Later, sticks were spun like this
Their makers flaked away the forced underground. One of to make fire (✷ see page 11).
surfaces of a large flint pebble the minerals they wanted was People also discovered that
until its sides were sharp, for red ochre, which was used as a they could spin the drill faster
Drill shaft,
cutting or scraping, and one pigment for ritual purposes by wrapping a cord around it,
the end of
end was pointed, for piercing. and for cave paintings. The which was tying the ends of the cord to a
The remaining blunt end fitted oldest known underground equipped wooden bow, and pushing this
snugly into the hand, which is mine was used for collecting with a cast- back and forth. This bow drill
iron bit
why the blades are called red ochre. It is at Bomvu Ridge was used in some parts of the
hand axes. in Swaziland, Africa. world until recent times.
c1,600,000bc northern Europe and North c50,000bc is now Arizona, The rock weighs
America. Most of it will have about 440,000 tons and forms a
Earth enters its most recent ice gone by 10,000 bc, leaving A huge meteorite, the size of a huge crater 0.75 miles (1.2 km)
age. Ice will eventually cover behind a changed landscape. building, falls on Earth in what wide and 490 ft (150 m) deep.
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Learning the basics
Bow and arrow
in bone or wood. This impact and increasing the
allowed people to create length of their swing. Hand
more precise tools, such axes (✷ see page 7) could be c30,000bc
as needles, and to used to clear away bushes, but
engrave decoration on axes with hafts could be used
larger objects. to chop down trees. Bows and arrows were
depicted in cave paintings
Fish hook Spear thrower
from 30,000 bc onward, but
Fishing line is
no actual examples survive
made from
c35,000 c35,000
natural plant bc bc today. By 18,000 bc, arrows
creeper were equipped with flint
points, making them deadly
The earliest method of By creeping along quietly, to animals. Later, the bow
catching a fish was with a early hunters could often came into use as a major
piece of stone, pointed at both get close enough to an animal military weapon and became
ends, baited, and tied to a line. to throw a spear at it and kill it. deadly to people, too.
This gorge, as it is called, But sometimes the animal
Cave painting
simply jammed in the fish’s would run away. What the
throat. The first real fish hooks hunters needed was a way of
c30,000
were developed by the earliest throwing spears from farther bc
Fish hook This “modern” humans, the Cro- away. The spear thrower was a
modern fish hook Magnons. They caught their piece of wood or antler with a
from Hawaii was fish using a barbed bone hook, notch at one end to hold the Dramatic paintings made by
made in much the
one of the many small, spear. It enabled hunters to people living more than
same way as the
first fish hooks. specialized tools they made hurl their weapons farther and 30,000 years ago lay forgotten
using the versatile burin that increased their chances of until 1879, when a little girl,
they had perfected. killing their prey. Maria de Sautuola, visited the
Handles Bricks are molded from Roof structure built from
mud and baked in the sun branches and reeds
for tools
Barb
prevents the
c35,000
fish from bc
escaping,
once caught
Attaching a wooden handle
to a blade may not sound
like a breakthrough, but it
Hook made
was. People could not hit
from ivory
things very hard with a tool
held in their hands because
it hurt. Nor could they
swing the tool very quickly
because their arms were too
short. A handle, or haft,
helped them to overcome
both these limitations,
protecting their arms from
Engraving tool
house After 20,000
c35,000 years of development,
bc
houses began to be
made of brick. This
is a model of a
As long as 40,000 years ago, house from the
people were making 6th century
delicate objects and works of bc.
art using stone engraving tools
called burins. Made by forming
a sharp edge on a flake of flint,
a burin could be used to
scratch lines and cut grooves
c35,000bc between Siberia and Alaska, c27,000bc Venus of Willendorf, one of the
which is exposed by the low earliest known sculptures of a
The first people to enter the sea level. The bridge will later In what will become Germany, an human. It has exaggerated female
Americas travel over a land bridge disappear as ice melts worldwide. unknown sculptor carves the proportions and is painted red.
8
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