1,000 Inventions and Discoveries

Modern Glass is 1851 – 1900 microscope clear condenser where it Barbed wire has not c 1870 been 1874 exposed Ernst Abbe Back- Joseph Glidden ground The image-forming lenses of How an invention is made of a microscope are spectrum can matter more than what important, but until about it is. Barbed wire is an example. 1870, nobody had thought Lines Early types cost so much to much about the optics that show make that few people used simply illuminate the object presence them. US farmer Joseph – the condenser. Early of Glidden saw some barbed wire microscopists used condensers, elements in 1873, and the following year but German physicist Ernst patented a new type that could Abbe’s was the first scientific be made cheaply by machine. design. Most microscopes now Soon his Barb Fence Company have Abbe condensers. was turning out miles of Dry cattle-controlling wire and photographic helping to make the USA’s Great Plains into great plate farming country. 1871 Dry plate Dry photographic plate Dry plates were useful to scientists. Richard Maddox Print made These show spark spectra (c 1915). from the plate Although wet plates in the road. To move, the cable Jeans What we call jeans did not produced excellent 1871, British doctor Richard cars grab the rope; to stop, they get their name for years. This 1910 photographs (✷ see page Maddox mixed some gelatine let go and apply their brakes. advertisement calls them overalls. 139), they were not safe or with silver bromide and spread convenient. Photographers it on glass. When it was dry, Jeans DNA searched everywhere for the the new coating stayed magic ingredient that would sensitive, could be developed 1873 1874 allow them to make dry plates. easily, and needed shorter They eventually found it in the exposure times. Modern Jacob Davis, Levi Strauss Johann Miescher kitchen cupboard: gelatine. In photography had arrived. In the 1850s, the US’s gold DNA, the key to genetics “Ivory” Cable car rush attracted people from and life, may seem like hairbrush everywhere. Levi Strauss had the latest thing, but it was 1873 a business that supplied them discovered in 1874. Swiss with everything they needed, scientist Johann Miescher was “Ivory” Andrew Hallidie including pants. Tailor Jacob a student when he found a new clothes-brush Davis started making denim substance, which he called Andrew Hallidie, a pants with riveted pockets, and nuclein, in the nucleus of white wire-rope maker in the suggested to Strauss that they blood cells. He later realized US, was shocked to see five could make lots of money. So that it was actually two horses killed as a horse-drawn Strauss provided cash to substances. Separating out the bus slid down one of San get started, Davis supplied the acid part, he called it nucleic Francisco’s steep hills. So he know-how, and in 1873 they acid. It is now known as used his ropes to create the got the first patent for jeans. deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. world’s first cable cars. It opened in 1873 and is still running today. Cable cars are pulled along by a constantly moving rope running in a slot 1872 In the US, the preserves Yellowstone, an 1873 Canada forms a new Mounted Police, later the Royal world’s first national 3,468 sq mile (8,983 sq km) police force to Canadian Mounted Police, will park is opened. The president, area in the Rocky Mountains, combat smuggling, horse theft, become famous as the Mounties, Ulysses S. Grant, signs a bill that as a permanent wilderness. and banditry. The Northwest who “always get their man.” 149

Science takeS control Paper wrapped Telephone TypewriTer This around a 1875 Sholes and cylindrical 1876 Glidden machine patten typed in capital letters only. Alexander Graham Bell Type bars See pages 152–153 for the hit the story of how Bell invented the telephone. paper from below Sound recording QWERTY keyboard 1877 Typewriter business took a back seat. The drawn into Thomas Edison layout of the keyboard was a cylinder, 1874 developed to stop fast typists compressed, In 1877, US inventor Thomas from jamming the burned, and the Edison was working on a Christopher Sholes, keys, and is still burned gases pumped recorder for telegraph signals. Carlos Glidden, used today. out. The first person to He noticed that paper indented Samuel Soulé think of it was French with the signals made sounds Four-stroke engineer Alphonse Beau de when pulled under a needle. So As an ex-newspaper editor, engine Rochas in 1862. His work was he made a machine with tinfoil Christopher Sholes knew forgotten and reinvented wrapped around a revolving exactly what a typewriter had 1876 by German engineer cylinder and a needle connected to do: write faster than a pen. Nikolaus Otto in 1876. to a thin metal disc. When he Many people had tried and Alphonse Beau de Rochas, Despite de Rochas’ spoke, the disc vibrated and failed to produce such a Nikolaus Otto earlier work, the cycle the needle indented waves on machine, but Sholes, helped by is still known today as the tinfoil. Turning the cylinder fellow US inventors Carlos Most gasoline and diesel the Otto cycle. again, Edison heard his own Glidden and Samuel Soulé, engines use the four- voice. He had invented sound succeeded. In 1873, he sold the stroke cycle. Fuel and air are recording. (✷ See also idea to Remington, a firm of Recording pioneers.) gunmakers. They launched the world’s first real typewriter in Sound recording 1874, after which their gun A phonograph from about 1885 shows recording at its simplest. Needle touches the cylinder here Handle for turning the cylinder 1874 British writer Madding Crowd. It describes the 1874 A group of artists own show. Journalist Louis Leroy, Thomas Hardy tragic relationships of heroine including Monet, shocked by pictures that capture establishes his reputation with Pisarro, and Renoir, rejected by real light and color, dubs them his fourth novel, Far from the Bathsheba Everdene with three the French Academy, hold their the Impressionists. 150 very different men.

Photographic outside and left the cream in Microphone 1851 – 1900 motion capture the centre. By 1883, Laval had built a steam-powered 1878 Two-stroke 1877 separator, 40 times faster than a engine modern washing machine. David Hughes Eadweard Muybridge 1879 Light bulb Returning to London after Eadweard Muybridge was making a fortune in the Dugald Clerk born in Britain but worked 1878 US, David Hughes set up as in the US. He was the first a full-time inventor. In 1878, Atwo-stroke engine uses person to record live motion Thomas Edison, Joseph Swan he discovered that loose more fuel than a four- photographically. A racehorse electrical contacts were stroke engine of the same owner had asked him to settle In 1878, both Thomas Edison sensitive to sound. Two barely power, but it also weighs less. an argument: did a galloping in the US and the chemist touching carbon rods placed Its mechanism is simpler, and horse ever lift all its hooves off Joseph Swan in Britain made on a table and connected to a each of its cylinders delivers the ground at once? In 1877, light bulbs. Both of them had battery and telephone earpiece power on every revolution, not Muybridge set up a row of trouble finding a filament that could reveal sounds as quiet as every other revolution, as in a cameras along a racetrack. As a would last long. Edison tried the tramp of a fly’s feet. These four-stroke. The first effective horse galloped by, it tripped platinum, but soon switched to sounds were so tiny that two-stroke engine was invented their shutters, making each carbon, which Swan had first Hughes called his invention a by Scottish engineer Dugald camera record a different part tried 20 years earlier. By 1880, microphone. Its real future was Clerk in 1879 and patented in of the movement. The answer both inventors had produced as part of a better telephone. 1881. It was designed to run to the question was “yes.” good light bulbs, which they on coal gas to power workshop showed off at the 1881 Paris Carbon rods Connecting machinery. Two-stroke engines Cream Electrical Exhibition. From wires are now used for things like separator then on, their lamps began scooters and lawnmowers, to be used everywhere. where lightness matters more 1878 than efficiency. Gustav de Laval microphone Two Wooden carbon rods touch base Skimmed milk isn’t skimmed to form one type of – it’s spun like clothes in a Hughes microphone. washing machine. The first cream separator using this RECORDING PIONEERS principle was invented in 1878 by Swedish engineer Gustav de The early recording industry solved its Laval. In its final form, his problems step by step. Tinfoil was not a good machine poured milk on to a recording medium. It was soon replaced by wax. set of spinning discs, which Edison produced cylindrical records on his forced the watery part to the phonograph, but they were slow and expensive to copy. Flat discs, which could be stamped out by the Threaded drive axle moves the thousand, dealt with that. But the problem of how tinfoil beneath the needle to make sounds louder was not solved until the arrival of electronics in the 1920s. Brass The phonoGraph The Graphophone Early 20th-century gramophone cylinder – Edison developed his Recordings on wax tinfoil is invention into a were first made by US The Gramophone wrapped sophisticated home inventors Chichester Flat disc records were invented around this entertainment device that Bell and Charles Tainter. in 1887 by a German engineer, could produce surprisingly Their machine recorded Emil Berliner, working in the good sound. He eventually on cylinders that were US. Because of their shape, they solved the problem of wax-coated. Although were easily mass-produced. copying cylindrical used mainly for dictation, And when renowned musicians recordings, but failed to sign it could produce started recording on them, their up many good musicians. excellent recordings. future was assured. 1875On Wednesday, swim the English Channel 1876Financed by wealthy ballet Swan Lake. In 1877, it is August 25, British without any buoyancy aid. He widow Nadezhda danced, with little success, by merchant navy captain Matthew completes the 21 mile (34 km) von Meck, Russian composer the Bolshoi Ballet under Webb becomes the first person to crossing in 21 hours 45 minutes. Peter Tchaikowsky writes the choreographer Wenzel Reisinger. 151

Science takeS control DOING AWAY WITH DISTANCE Helped by Thomas Watson, Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone It was Valentine’s day, 1876. A good day to tell the world about an invention that would help people communicate. It’s lucky Alexander Graham Bell didn’t leave it any longer. Two hours after he’d deposited papers describing his telephone to people at the US Patent Office, his rival, Elisha Gray, Bell’s box telephone warned them that he was about to incorporated a larger do the same. But Bell was first. magnet than others, which made it more sensitive. It was hard on Gray. Both men had similar ideas but Bell had an advantage: Bell demonstrated this he knew more about speech and hearing. telephone to Queen Bell’s father was a speech teacher and had Victoria. Publicity machine invented a way to help deaf people speak. Bell was an expert His grandfather had given speech lessons, at publicity. His so as Alexander grew up in Edinburgh, crude laboratory Scotland, he was surrounded by ideas instruments about speech and hearing. He even got became fine his dog to talk by making it growl, then objects of moving its mouth with his hands! polished brass, rich wood, and ivory when The family emigrated to Canada in they were to be demonstrated 1870. Bell went to Boston, where he opened a school for teachers of the to someone as important as deaf. He experimented with a harmonic telegraph, which sent messages as Queen Victoria. Bell made a dots and dashes similar to musical notes. Bell noticed that a strip of iron good impression on the Queen near an electromagnet mimicked the vibrations of a similar strip and when they met in 1878, despite making the mistake of electromagnet connected to it by touching her arm without permission to attract her attention to an incoming call. wires. He thought he might use this to transmit speech. With mechanic Thomas Watson, he tried hard to make Early telephone cable electric currents imitate sound Wired for sound waves. The original arrangement wasn’t sensitive enough, so Bell tried a As telephones became more needle dipping into acid. The needle was attached to a sheet of parchment popular, cities got choked with stretched on a frame, with a horn to concentrate sound on to it. Sound overhead wires, so some lines shook the parchment, which varied the resistance of the needle’s contact went underground. Early phone with the acid, which, in turn, varied the current. cables contained many paper- insulated wires in a lead sheath. 152

1851 – 1900 The first successful telephone contained acid. Bell may have called out to Watson because he had spilled some. simple but effeCtive By 1877, Bell’s instrument had become a pair of identical wooden “telephones,” each containing a bar magnet, a coil of wire, and a thin iron disc. The telephone didn’t work at first. But on Friday, Section through March 10, 1876, while Bell was fiddling with the transmitter 1878 telephone in one room and Watson was working on the receiver in another, Bell said, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” Bell And Watson came. He had heard Bell’s words, the first “butterstamp” ever spoken on a telephone. Bell’s earlier patent did not include the liquid transmitter that made the telephone transmission of speech possible, so he went back to his original design and improved it. By 1877, he had Close Call started a company and was giving demonstrations. An 1877 Bell advertisement shows early telephones in use. Bell grew rich from the telephone. He used some of his money to help Bell’s system contained no deaf people, and some to build a home in Canada. He made several more amplification, making inventions and became president of the National Geographic Society, distant calls faint. This turning its magazine into the publication we know today. But Bell will was remedied by always be remembered best for doing away with the distance that can the invention separate two people who need to talk. of the carbon microphone (✷ see page 151). 153

Science takeS control Saccharin supply system. It opened in Electric New York in September 1882, streetcar Cash register 1879 a year after Edison had demonstrated the idea in 1883 1879 Ira Remsen, London. Edison’s system Constantin Fahlberg provided brighter, safer lighting Magnus Volk James Ritty, John Patterson than gas, but it used direct Saccharin is very much current, which did not transmit Atram is an electric bus that Acash register records every sweeter than sugar and does over long distances. Because of runs on rails in the road. sale, preventing store not make people fat, so it is this, it lost out to alternating Many inventors created trams clerks from putting money into used a lot in food and beverages, current in the end. in the early 1880s. The German their own pockets. The first despite its disagreeable firm Siemens and Halske was one was invented by US tavern aftertaste. US chemist Ira Trolley car operating trams between keeper James Ritty in 1879. It Remsen and his student Frankfurt and Offenbach displayed the money paid on a Constantin Fahlberg discovered 1882 dial, and recorded it by it by accident in 1879. They eleCtriC streetCar This is a punching a paper roll. It wasn’t noticed that after one session in Werner von Siemens, model of a double-decker streetcar easy to use, and cash registers the lab everything they touched Leo Daft that operated in London in about caught on only after coal tasted sweet. They soon tracked 1915. Streetcars were a feature of merchant John Patterson down the chemical responsible Atrolley car has an many large cities by 1900. Some bought the idea. As well as for this and turned it into a electric motor and places abandoned them; others kept improving it, he set up the commercial product. takes its electricity from them. Now some cities are bringing world’s first professional sales overhead wires. The first back this form of transportation. force to sell it. Venn diagram was a converted horse cab, which German engineer Cash register Many early cash 1880 Werner von Siemens registers, like this one from 1935, demonstrated in 1882. had dials rather than keys. John Venn A few years later, US engineer Leo Daft gave Electric train Venn diagrams help with the vehicle its name and logic. They were invented built the first real trolley 1879 in 1880 in England by a car systems. Most trolley Cambridge University cars stopped running in Werner von Siemens instructor, John Venn, and use the 1960s, but because circles to stand for different they are clean and green As soon as good electric things. For example, suppose they could yet make a motors were available they there is one circle representing comeback in some towns. were used in trains. The first cats, another black things, and electric train was exhibited in a third green things. The cat Function Berlin, Germany, in 1879. Built circle would be drawn to of thyroid by German engineer Werner overlap the black circle, but not von Siemens, it ran in a circle, the green circle, to show that gland took only 30 people, and went some cats are black but no cats no faster than 4 mph (6 km/h). are green. The idea can be 1883 Within five years, real electric extended to much more trains and trams were running complicated statements. Victor Horsley in Germany, the US, and Britain. Public electricity The thyroid gland supply lies in the neck, wrapped around the voice 1882 box. In 1883, Victor Horsley (later Sir Victor) proved that Thomas Edison the gland’s job is to control how fast the body burns food Electric light bulbs were – called its metabolic rate. not much use without He did this by removing the electricity. One of their thyroid glands from monkeys. inventors, Thomas Edison, We now know that the thyroid knew this very well, so he gland makes a hormone that built the first public electricity speeds up the body’s cells. 1879 In Boston, Scientist. Christian Scientists 1881P. T. Barnum, James Earth.” Starring Jumbo the Massachusetts, believe that humans are spiritual, A. Bailey, and James Elephant from April 1882, it will religious leader Mary Baker Eddy not material, and value prayer L. Hutchinson form the circus become the most successful circus founds the First Church of Christ, above conventional medicine. known as “The Greatest Show on of its time in the United States. 154

in 1884, but the first tramway Induction InductIon motor 1851 – 1900 to take paying passengers was motor Tesla’s original probably one built in 1883 by motor did not look Windings British engineer Magnus Volk. 1883 much like the Rotor Running on narrow-gauge machines of today, Nikola Tesla but its operating Placed in this tracks along the sea front principle was rotating field, a at Brighton, England, An induction motor is an the same. conducting rotor will it is still in service. electric motor that has no He worked out spin. This is because the field electrical connections to the how to create a induces currents in the rotor, Wires collect part that rotates. This makes rotating magnetic field using turning it into a magnet, which electricity from it more reliable, because there stationary electrical windings. is pushed around as the field overhead are no sliding contacts. It was rotates. Induction motors now cables to power invented in 1883 by Serbian- power most of the world’s the streetcar electrically driven machinery. US engineer Nikola Tesla. Three-phase electricity supply 1883 Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse Athree-phase electricity supply uses three wires instead of two. It gives two different voltages from one set of wires, and can create the rotating magnetic field needed in an induction motor. The idea occurred to Nikola Tesla in 1883. US engineer George Westinghouse, looking for something better than Edison’s supply system, bought Tesla’s idea in 1888. Today nearly all household electricity is delivered by three-phase systems. Metal wheels Car has controls ran along rails at both ends so it does not have to turn around 1882 Judo begins in Japan his Kodokan School. Fighters in 1883 The volcanic island The explosion is heard 5,000 km when Kano Jigoro this unarmed combat sport try to of Krakatau in (3,000 miles) away. Thousands learns about a samurai form of master their opponent by turning Indonesia destroys itself in one are killed and dust pollutes the fighting called jujitsu and founds their own force against them. of the world’s biggest eruptions. atmosphere for years. 155

Science takeS control engine that he had designed Adder-lister The Bicycle The Rover in this 1888 (✷ see page 157). It got its first Burroughs machine advertisement has all the essential Artificial silk outing on November 10, 1886. had an intricate features of a modern bike. mechanism. 1884 Multistage Bicycle hub steam turbine 1885. It had gear Hilaire Chardonnet, more than 80 Joseph Swan 1884 keys, arranged in 1885 columns of nine, Artificial silk was the first Charles Parsons and a handle to operate the W. T. Shaw synthetic fibre. In about printer. The following year 1880 both Hilaire Chardonnet Asteam turbine is like a fan Burroughs formed the Cycling uphill is easier if you in France and Joseph Swan in in reverse. Steam rushes American Arithmometer can change into a lower Britain made “silk” by squirting through blades, making them Company. He continued to gear. British engineer W. T. Shaw cellulose nitrate solution spin. If there were only one set develop his machine, but it was one of the first people to through a nozzle. The product of blades, most of the steam’s was 1892 before it was good help cyclists, with his “crypto- was highly flammable, but both energy would be wasted, but in enough to sell. dynamic” gearing of 1885. inventors found a way of 1884 British engineer Charles Then, in 1902, British engineers converting it back into safer (later Sir Charles) Parsons Bicycle Henry Sturmey and James cellulose. Chardonnet got a invented a turbine with many Archer both invented similar patent for his process in 1884, sets of blades on one shaft. 1885 gears. These were brought and by 1891 had set up a These were graded in size to together by bicycle maker factory at Besançon to make capture most of the steam’s John Starley Frank (later Sir Frank) Bowden. artificial silk commercially. energy. Turbines like this are Like earlier designs, the now used everywhere to power Many inventors worked on Sturmey-Archer gear was housed Motorcycle ships and electric generators. bicycles in the 1870s and inside the bike’s rear hub. 80s. But the first design that 1884 Adder-lister looked like a modern bike was Edward Butler, 1885 made by British engineer Gottlieb Daimler John Starley in 1885. William Burroughs Several makers had The first motorcycle already produced chain- had three wheels. It was The first adding machine driven “safety bicycles”, designed by British engineer that printed its calculations but Starley was the first Edward Butler in 1884, was created by a US inventor to make both wheels although he didn’t build it who left school at 15. It took until 1887. Its engine was at William Burroughs four years about the same size, put the back and drove a single to produce his first machine, them in a diamond-shaped rear wheel. In 1885, German frame, and slope the front engineer Gottlieb Daimler which he completed in forks to the correct angle designed the first to make the wheel go in a two-wheeled straight line. His machine’s motorcycle. He name, the Rover, lives on in the built it purely Range Rover and Land Rover. because he wanted to test a new high- speed gas Motorcycle The Holden motorcycle, patented in 1897, had four cylinders driving the back wheel directly. 1884 The first women’s Tennis Club, Wimbledon, which 1884 US writer Mark sequel to his highly successful singles tennis was founded in 1877. Maud Twain writes his The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, championship is held at the Watson claimed the title from most popular book, Huckleberry uses vivid language and humour All England Croquet and Lawn Lilian Watson 6-8, 6-3, 6-3. Finn. This children’s novel, a to deal with violence and racism. 156

Gas mantle engineer Émile Levassor who followed instructions created 1851 – 1900 produced the first car with its by the keyboard, delivering 1885 engine at the front, driving the type almost ready to print. Wilhelm Maybach had designed rear wheels through a clutch Monotype dominated book an effective carburetor. They Carl Auer von Welsbach and gearbox. His 1891 model printing for more than 70 years. used it in a new high-speed was the forerunner of the cars engine, which was the first In the late 19th century, we drive today. Gasoline engine true gasoline engine and the many people used gas lamps. forerunner of those that power Electric lighting could have Monotype 1885 most cars today. swept these away, but in 1885, typesetting Austrian chemist Carl Auer Gottlieb Daimler, Rabies vaccine von Welsbach discovered how system Wilhelm Maybach to get more light from gas. 1885 He found that salts of thorium 1885 The gasoline engine evolved and cerium gave out an intense from engines that ran on Louis Pasteur light when deposited on Tolbert Lanston natural gas. These could not asbestos fibers and heated. run on liquid fuel, so the Rabies is an infection of the By the 1890s, gas lamps were One of the slowest operations carburetor, which turns nervous system, which wearing little knitted covers in traditional printing was gasoline into a mist and mixes people can catch from animal known as mantles over their setting up type. By the 1880s it with air, was an essential bites, and usually kills if not flames. When a lamp was lit, several inventors were trying component of a gasoline caught in time. The French the metals in its mantle gave to mechanize the process. engine. By 1885, German biologist Louis Pasteur out enough light to rival an First to succeed was US engineers Gottlieb Daimler and developed the first vaccine electric bulb. inventor Tolbert Lanston. against rabies by heating tissue His Monotype system from infected animals to create Car of 1885 had a keyboard a weakened virus. On 6 July, and a machine for 1885 casting type from molten 1885, he gave a dramatic metal. The caster demonstration of Karl Benz, its power by Gottlieb Daimler, vaccinating a boy who had been bitten Émile Levassor by a dog with rabies. The first car, the The boy lived. Motorwagen, was built in 1885 by German engineer Karl Benz. It was a three- wheeler with a single- cylinder engine. Soon Benz and others were making four- wheeled cars. In 1889, Gottlieb Daimler produced one with four gears. But it was French Steering column and indicator Chain drive to the wheels Car This Benz car, made in 1888, was sold by Emile Roger, Benz’s agent in Paris. It had a tubular metal frame, like a bicycle, and bodywork based on horse-drawn vehicles. The engine was at the rear, below the driver’s seat. 1884 The London Society law. Later, it will link with other 1884 The world system of to consider proposals about time for the Prevention of societies to form the National standard time zones zones made in the 1870s by Cruelty to Children is founded Society for the Prevention of is established. Delegates from 27 Canadian railroad planner and following the passing of a cruelty Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). nations meet in Washington D.C. engineer Sir Sandford Fleming. 157

SkyScraper The steel Skyscraper dissolved aluminum oxide in Moving the head moves the The Empire mast was molten cryolite (sodium tubes, but the liquid inside State Building designed as 1885 aluminum fluoride) and used lags behind. Hairs in the tubes in New York a mooring electricity to drag the detect the relative movement City is mast for William Jenney aluminum and oxygen apart. and tell the brain which way perhaps the airships The Hall-Héroult process has the head is moving. most famous Although tall buildings transformed aluminum from an skyscraper. can be built with brick exotic curiosity to the stuff of Linotype Completed in or stone, real skyscrapers need jumbo jets and soda cans. typesetting 1931, it has a steel frame. The first such 102 floors. building was designed by US Recording machine engineer William Jenney in on wax 1884. Built in Chicago, it was 1886 completed in 1885 and was 1886 10 storys high. Its steel frame Ottmar Mergenthaler took much of the weight of Chichester Bell, its stone walls. By the 1930s, Charles Tainter Until the 1970s, most this idea had been extended to newspapers were set in produce walls hung from the The first sound recordings type using a machine invented frame, called curtain walls. were made on foil wrapped by German-US engineer Ottmar around a grooved cylinder. A Mergenthaler in 1886. The Coca-Cola needle, moving up and down, Linotype machine used molten created “hills and dales” in metal, but instead of making 1886 the shape of the sound waves. individual letters like the These recordings were fragile Monotype machine (✷ see John Pemberton and inaccurate. In 1886, US page 157), it produced whole inventors Chichester Bell and lines of type – hence the name. In 1886, pharmacist John Charles Tainter patented a Newspaper printers liked it Pemberton of Atlanta, machine called the because it was quick to use and Georgia, invented a new drink. Graphophone, which recorded needed only one operator. Its ingredients included cocaine on waxed cardboard cylinders. from coca plants and caffeine The wax, together with a Steam from kola nuts, so he called it recording stylus that made a sterilization Coca-Cola. (The cocaine was v-shaped groove, gave better of surgical left out from 1903 onwards). sound. They were soon in use instruments When Pemberton put the drink for all recordings. into local shops, it became 1886 wildly popular. By 1892, the Function of Coca-Cola Company was born. the ear’s Ernst von Bergmann Inexpensive semicircular Once surgeons realized that aluminium canals infections were caused by germs (✷ see page 146), they 1886 1886 had to decide what to do about them. Should they kill Charles Hall, Marie Flourens, them with antiseptics or try to Paul Héroult Yves Delage keep them out of the operating room from the start? Today, the Aluminium is the most The semicircular canals of second approach is normal common metal on the inner ear are three practice. It was pioneered by Earth, but was once too fluid-filled tubes joined German surgeon Ernst von expensive to use. It is together at right angles. In Bergmann in 1886. He was found as aluminum oxide, 1824, French biologist Marie the first person to sterilize Flourens noticed that pigeons instruments and dressings with whose oxygen cannot moved strangely after a tube steam. He later made everything easily be removed was cut. In 1886, another else used in operations as by chemical French biologist, Yves Delage, germ-free as possible. means. In 1886, realized what was happening. both Charles Hall in the US and Paul Héroult in France 1886 French sculptor works, The Kiss. Originally placed 1886 US president Grover a gift from the people of France. Auguste Rodin in a set of doors called The Gates Cleveland accepts Marking the centenary of US creates the first version of what of Hell, it is based on a scene one of the world’s most famous independence, it stands will be one of his best known from Dante’s Divine Comedy. symbols, the Statue of Liberty, as 306 ft 8 in (93.5 m) high. 158

Comptometer problem by inventing a meets sea. The first fractal 1851 – 1900 universal language. The only curves were described by 1887 one that has had any success Italian mathematician Giuseppe Gramophone is Esperanto, invented in 1887 Peano, in 1887. They were Dorr E. Felt by Polish oculist Ludwik viewed as a mere curiosity 1887 Zamenhof. Based on European until the 1970s, when Polish The Comptometer was one languages, it has simple, mathematician Benoit Emile Berliner of two calculating machines regular rules. Some of these Mandelbrot investigated used in accounting offices from seem strange to English- them in more detail. The first recording machines the late 19th to the mid 20th speakers: plural nouns demand He used them to made cylindrical records. century. While its rival, the plural adjectives, for instance. create some In 1887, German engineer Burroughs machine (✷ see Despite this, more than stunning Emile Berliner, page 156), could produce 100,000 people can speak it. computer working in the USA, a printed record, the graphics. came up with a Comptometer was faster. Fractal curve better idea – Invented by US engineer Dorr Horn channelled discs. He E. Felt, it was first used in 1887 the sounds from coated metal 1887. As with the Burroughs the disc with wax, machine, numbers were Giuseppe Peano recorded entered using columns of keys sound by – one for units, one for tens, Afractal curve is a cutting and so on. The result was wiggly line that looks through the displayed in a set of windows the same however much it is wax, then etched for clerks to copy out by hand. magnified. An example is the metal to make a the coast of a country, permanent record. The cutter Esperanto which looks just as moved from side to side, not wiggly on a small- up and down as in earlier 1887 scale map as on machines. On playback, the the actual shore needle followed this “lateral- Ludwik Zamenhof where sand cut” groove more faithfully, giving better reproduction. International cooperation is More importantly, discs could hampered by the fact that people in different countries be stamped out speak different languages. Many by the thousand, people have tried to solve this making Berliner’s Gramophone the best choice for music lovers. Drive belt Handle was used to keep Disc was Steel needle the turntable played on a was lowered moving round onto the disc turntable Gramophone Early Berliner gramophones had no motor, so 1886 Scottish writer about a doctor who can turn 1887 Two more classic listeners had to turn a handle. The Robert Louis into a fiend. A “Jekyll and Hyde” fictional characters discs were the same size as a CD, Stevenson publishes The Strange will come to mean anyone with are born when Scottish writer but played for only about a minute. Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, two sides to their character. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes A Study in Scarlet featuring ace detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson. The story will be followed by many others. 159

Science takeS control Steam tricycle had to process their own pictures. US businessman Mail order The Sears, Roebuck 1887 George Eastman changed that catalog became a part of the with his Kodak camera. It was American way of life, allowing Leon Serpollet simple to use and came already people in rural areas to enjoy the loaded with film. After use, the fruits of the nation’s prosperity. At one time it looked as camera went back to Eastman, though steam, not who returned it, reloaded, Mail order gasoline, might be best for along with the pictures. With motor vehicles. Several his slogan “You press the 1887 inventors designed steam button, we do the rest,” tricycles in the 1880s. In 1887, Eastman became a rich man. Richard Sears, French engineer Leon Serpollet Alvah Roebuck overcame their chief problem Radio waves with a boiler that produced Richard Sears thought up instant steam. He built this into 1888 mail order while working a tricycle, then showed it off by for a US railroad company. driving it 282 miles (451 km) James Clerk Maxwell, Acquiring some unwanted from Paris to Lyon. Later, he Heinrich Hertz watches, he sold them by mail built steam cars. In 1903, one to other railroad workers. He reached 80 mph (130 km/h). In 1864, Scottish physicist used the profits to set up a James Clerk Maxwell company, which by 1887 had Pneumatic tire predicted the existence of produced the first mail-order electromagnetic waves moving catalog. He later formed a new 1888 at the speed of light. German company with repairman physicist Heinrich Hertz Alvah Roebuck. By 1894, the Robert Thomson, wanted to generate such waves Sears, Roebuck catalog was John Dunlop and see if they behaved like 507 pages thick. B ritish inventor Robert Thomson patented air-filled leather tires in 1845, but these were never as popular as solid rubber ones. The first High-voltage successful pneumatic tire power was patented in 1888 by Scottish vet John transmission Dunlop, after he experimented with 1887 Earpiece was hung on a Sebastian de Ferranti rubber tubing on hook to the wheels of his In the 1880s there were many son’s tricycle. The disconnect rival electricity systems. But finished product the phone British engineer Sebastian de Ferranti could see the future. was protected by Electricity would be generated a canvas cover. in big power stations outside Dunlop’s tire was cities, not little ones inside ideal for bicycles, them, and transmitted at high and later became Wire connected voltage. In 1887, he designed a essential for cars. the earpiece to giant power station at Deptford, just outside London, and cables the phone that could take 10,000 volts. The station’s directors pushed Kodak him out in 1891, and it was not completed to his plan. But camera Ferranti was right: high-voltage transmission is universal today. 1888 George Eastman autoMatic telephone exchange This 1905 phone was Until 1888, photography designed for use with a Strowger was difficult. Cameras exchange. Automatic dialling was were complicated, and users available for local calls only. 1888 Dutch painter Gauguin in the south of France. 1889 A baby is born in surname, earlier changed from Vincent van Gogh He cuts off part of his left ear and the town of Branau, Schicklgruber, is Hitler. The baby cracks under the strain of living later paints a portrait of himself 30 miles (50 km) north of is named Adolf. Fifty years on, he with French painter Paul with his head bandaged. Salzburg, Austria. His father’s will plunge the world into war. 160

light, to find out if light itself Automatic Strowger, fed up with his 1851 – 1900 was electromagnetic. He found telephone operator diverting calls to that electrical sparks produced exchange a rival, devised the first Tabulating waves that could be received successful automatic telephone machine on a distant loop of wire, 1889 switch. Callers could control producing more sparks. He had it from their own phone by 1889 discovered radio waves. Further Almon B. Strowger sending groups of electrical experiments showed that they pulses down the line. The first Herman Hollerith did behave much like light. Telephone exchanges automatic exchange opened Satisfied with these discoveries, are needed to connect at La Porte, Indiana, in 1892. As the population of the US complete by 1888, Hertz made phones to each other. At first, At first, callers generated the grew, classifying the people no further use of them. connections were made by control pulses by repeatedly took longer. Engineer Herman operators pushing plugs into pushing a button. Later, the Hollerith decided to mechanize sockets. Then, in 1889, Kansas more convenient rotary dial the 1890 census. Citizens were City funeral director Almon B. mechanism made this process recorded as holes punched in a automatic too. (See also card. Hollerith’s “tabulating” Getting connected.) machines then sorted and counted the cards at high speed. GETTING CONNECTED Telephones would noT work without exchanges. Your phone would have to be permanently connected to every other phone in the world, just in case you wanted to call it. In reality, connections are set up only when they are needed, by routing a call through a number of switches that connect you first to the exchange that handles the phone you want, then to that particular phone. An operator on a telephone exchange board connects callers to the number they ask for. Calling the operator Strowger’S SyStem Before automatic exchanges, all calls were Strowger’s basic idea was a remote- connected by operators. To make a call, controlled switch that could connect one you would lift the receiver and, on some phone to any of several others. It was systems, alert the operator by turning a operated by electric pulses from the user’s handle. You would then ask for the telephone line. Electromagnets and ratchets number you wanted and the operator moved a connector to one of 10 rows of would make the connection by contacts, then along the selected row to plugging your line into a switchboard. reach the exact phone required. 1889 French engineer other entries in a competition, 1889 In November, Phileas Fogg and travel around Gustave Eiffel builds pushing technology to its limits. US investigative the world in less than 80 days. a spectacular iron tower for the Not everyone likes it, but it will journalist Nellie Bly sets out to She does it in 72 days, 6 hours, Paris World’s Fair. It beats 100 become the emblem of Paris. beat Jules Verne’s fictional hero 11 minutes, and 14 seconds. 161

Science takeS control routine immunization with Gaslight baffled until British telegraph tetanus vaccine. If they suffer a photographic engineer Oliver Heaviside Halftone screen deep, dirty cut, they will need invented a new mathematical only a booster dose to ensure paper method that showed where the 1890 continued protection. problem lay. He published his 1891 results in 1892, and in 1900 Max Levy, Louis Levy Steam-powered US physicist Michael Pupin airplane Leo Baekeland used them to improve long- Black-and-white photos, distance lines by adding special with all their tones of gray, 1890 In the 1880s, photographers coils at regular intervals. are printed by the halftone made prints by daylight. This process. This turns them into Clèment Ader restricted their hours of work. Vacuum bottle dots – large ones in dark areas, The first photographic paper small ones in paler areas. In the French engineer Clèment that worked in artificial light – 1892 original process, the dots were Ader was very nearly the usually gaslight – was invented made by copying the photo first person to fly a plane. His by Belgian-US chemist Leo James Dewar with a camera that had a screen steam-powered aircraft, the Baekeland in 1891. He sold his carrying crisscross lines just Eole, managed a longer flight Velox paper to George Eastman Scottish physicist in front of the film. The first than the more famous Wright in 1898, helping to make James (later Sir successful halftone screen was brothers (✷ see page 175), but photography affordable for all. James) Dewar was one made in 1890 by US inventors it didn’t quite count. On of the first to make Max and Louis Levy. They October 9, 1890, Ader managed Long-distance oxygen so cold that it cemented together two sheets a 160 ft (50 m) “flight” near telephone turned into a liquid. of glass, each ruled with Paris, but the machine wasn’t cable But he had storage straight lines. Screens like this really flying because it wasn’t problems, because at were in use until the 1970s. under control. The experiment 1892 –183°C oxygen turns proved that a steam engine was back to gas. So he Tetanus just too heavy for flight. Oliver Heaviside, invented a special immunization Michael Pupin bottle, the Dewar flask. Surgical gloves It was made of two 1890 Early long-distance layers of glass, silvered 1890 telephone calls suffered like a mirror and with a Emil Behring, from blurring and distortion, vacuum between them. Kitasato Shibasaburo William Halsted an effect already noticed on Infrared radiation, or telegraph cables. It could radiant heat, was Tetanus, or lockjaw, is an By the 1880s, many surgeons make it impossible to reflected from the infection caused by germs were convinced that germs understand what silvering, while the in soil. These can breed inside were a threat to their patients. someone was saying. a cut, producing poisons that Sterilization and antiseptics Scientists were vacuum stopped make muscles contract and heat from being may cause death. In 1890, could help, but what about carried in German and Japanese the surgeon’s hands? They through air bacteriologists Emil were a source of infection, currents. Behring and Kitasato even when scrubbed, but Shibasaburo found could not be replaced by they could protect instruments. US surgeon animals from William Halsted found tetanus by the answer in 1890: injecting serum he invented the thin from another rubber gloves that all infected animal. surgeons wear today. Today, most people in the Double walls greatly West receive reduce heat transfer tetanus by air currents immunization Vacuum bottle Dewar flasks can be made of metal as well as glass. Tetanus vaccine, or This model of a metal flask has been cut toxoid, contains the open to reveal its double wall. Metal flasks poison produced by are not easy to make, but have the advantage of tetanus germs, being stronger and safer than glass flasks. made safe by heat or chemicals. 1890 Norwegian dramatist Hedda Gabler. Ignoring the 1891 New York City opens Tchaikowsky is guest conductor Henrik Ibsen conventions of 19th-century a new concert hall, during its first week. Most challenges accepted attitudes to financed by industrialist Andrew important American and visiting women with his realistic play drama, Ibsen creates a powerful Carnegie. Russian composer musicians will perform here. new form of theater. 162

viscose rayon This material 1851 – 1900 has a glamorous, glossy finish. By Moving picture Using a 1903, when these samples were Kinetoscope was nothing like made, it was beginning to rival going to the movies. Peering natural silk. through the eyepiece, the viewer saw a moving image that lasted about as long as a modern TV commercial. Viscose rayon Beijerinck did Film passed similar work in through in a 1892 1898. Both continuous loop discovered that Charles Cross, viruses were far Edward Bevan, smaller than Clayton Beadle bacteria and invisible under The first artificial silk was an ordinary expensive because it was microscope. made by a slow, dangerous method (✷ see page 156). In Moving 1892, three British chemists, picture Charles Cross, Edward Bevan, and Clayton Beadle, invented 1893 the viscose process. Cellulose is converted into nonflammable William Dickson, cellulose xanthate and dissolved Thomas Edison in caustic soda to form a yellow, sticky liquid. This is It is not clear squirted through nozzles and who invented reacts with further chemicals movies. A young to make a silky artificial fiber US engineer, called viscose rayon. William Dickson, who worked for Viruses Thomas Edison, has a good claim. 1892 Edison thought that phonograph Dmitry Ivanovsky, listeners might like Martinus Beijerinck something to watch, and asked Dickson Avirus is an infectious to provide it. particle that can multiply Dickson devised only inside a living cell. It is a machine, the basically just a set of genes Kinetograph, which wrapped in a protective took 40 pictures coating. It takes over a plant or each second on animal cell, forcing it to make a long strip of copies of the invader. The first film. The film scientist to realize that bacteria was then viewed, were not the only infective by one person at a time, agents was Russian micro- in another machine, the biologist Dmitry Ivanovsky. He Kinetoscope. It held only published a paper on a virus 50 ft (15 m) of film, so a infection of tobacco plants in movie lasted only 20 seconds. 1892. Dutch botanist Martinus 1892 In the US, a five- in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 1893 Norwegian painter anxiety and emotional torment. month struggle after workers’ wages are cut. Edvard Munch It will become one of the most between a big trade union and The strike ends violently with famous examples of the style bosses of the steel industry starts several deaths. produces The Scream, a painting known as expressionism. that conveys intense feelings of 163

Science takeS control way most words got printed. unknown, heavier gas. They Helium on Computers now store letter both found it in 1894. Its name Earth Zipper shapes in digital form. So, like “argon” is Greek for “inactive”. metal type, phototypesetting 1895 1893 itself is now a thing of the past. Movies William Ramsay Whitcomb Judson, Radio 1895 Gideon Sundback communication Helium, the gas that Auguste Lumière, is used to fill party Chicago engineer Whitcomb 1894 Louis Lumière balloons, was first found on Judson got tired of lacing Earth by William Ramsay in his boots, and invented a Guglielmo Marconi Movies did not become a 1895. He heated a mineral fastener that hooked them up truly theatrical experience called cleveite, which contains with one pull. He patented it in Italian inventor Guglielmo until French brothers Auguste uranium, and discovered that 1893, but it tended to come Marconi started and Louis Lumière invented it gave off a gas. The gas’s unhooked. Swedish engineer experimenting with radio the Cinématographe, the first spectrum contained a yellow Gideon Sundback realized that waves in 1894, when he was system that could show an line matching that of helium the hooks were the problem. only 19. Others, such as the audience a moving picture in the Sun, which proved its By 1914 he had developed the British and Russian physicists that ran for several minutes. identity. Swedish chemists modern fastener, with cups, not Oliver Lodge and Alexander Their machine acted as both Nils Langlet and Per Cleve hooks, locking together. It was Popov, did the same. But it camera and projector. It gave also found the gas at about used in 1923 for a boot called was Marconi who really got its first public performance on the same time. Later, Ramsay the Zipper, and the name stuck. radio going. Within a year December 28, 1895, in Paris. and British chemist Frederick he was sending signals The program of 12 short Soddy discovered that helium Bubonic 1.25 miles (2 km). By 1896 films, including one showing is produced whenever plague agent he was in Britain and had the radioactive elements decay. world’s first radio patent. Lumière factory workers, 1894 After much further caused a sensation. development, it was Kitasato Shibasaburo, Marconi’s “wireless Alexandre Yersin telegraph” that sent the distress signals from the Bubonic plague is a deadly sinking ship Titanic in 1912. disease carried by rat fleas. It has killed millions in Argon repeated epidemics. Thanks to the discoveries of Japanese 1894 and Swiss bacteriologists Kitasato Shibasaburo and Lord Rayleigh, Alexandre Yersin in 1894, we William Ramsay now know that it is caused by a type of germ known as Argon is a bacillus. It is usually called known Yersinia pestis in honor of as an inert gas Yersin’s contribution. because it does not react Phototypesetting chemically. It is used in lightbulbs because 1894 it makes the filament last longer. It was Eugene Porzolt discovered by British physicist Lord Rayleigh, Photography offers an who noticed that nitrogen alternative to metal type. from air was denser than Letters can be projected on to nitrogen from chemicals. film. The first phototypesetting Both he and British chemist machine, designed in 1894 William (later Sir William) by Hungarian engineer Eugene Ramsay thought that Porzolt, was a failure. But from atmospheric nitrogen might the 1960s, with computers be contaminated with an controlling the process, phototypesetting became the 1893 On December 23, Humperdinck’s tuneful opera 1894london’s Tower Barry, and powered by steam, it Richard Strauss Hansel and Gretel. The story, by Bridge, started in is London’s only moving bridge. conducts the first performance of Humperdinck’s sister Adelheid, is 1886, finally opens. Built by Sir Its twin towers will become a German composer Engelbert Horace Jones and Sir John Wolfe well known symbol of the city. based on a well known folk tale. 164

Liquid air His system, invented in 1895, X-rays 1851 – 1900 produced a continuous stream tube was shielded so that no 1895 of liquid air. He later distilled 1895 light could escape from it. He air to produce liquid nitrogen, worked out that the cathode Carl von Linde used as a coolant, and liquid Wilhelm Röntgen rays, hitting the glass of the oxygen, used in tube, were producing other If air is made cold enough, it steel making. German physicist rays that made the crystals turns into a liquid. The drop Wilhelm Röntgen glow. He did some further in temperature is produced by discovered X-rays in experiments, which showed compressing air, letting it cool, 1895 while he was that the rays could pass then letting it expand so that it investigating cathode through solid objects and cools still further. The first to rays (electrical affect photographic plates. do this on a discharges inside This led him to make the first large scale a tube containing ever X-ray picture. At first, was German very little air). Röntgen was not sure that he engineer He noticed that should announce his discovery. Carl von when the tube He was worried that other Linde. was working, some scientists might not believe crystals lying nearby him. But soon everyone was glowed, even though the talking about the new rays that made hidden things visible. Wheel guided the film into the mechanism Rotating shutter Lenses for red, X-rays Small animals like this Radiation from has red, green, and green, and rat made good subjects for early uranium blue images experimenters with X-rays. For blue apertures to Handle was 1896 give the film color turned to the first time, their skeletons show the could be seen without dissection. Henri Becquerel Movies The early film movie camera (left) Film wound French physicist Henri was hand-cranked. onto a spool Becquerel wanted to The projector see if crystals that glowed after (right) could exposure to sunlight gave out show films X-rays. In 1896, he found that in color. certain uranium salts affected a wrapped-up photographic plate when placed on it in sunlight. Becquerel thought that sunlight may have made the crystals produce X-rays, which went through the wrapping. Then he discovered that the experiment worked in the dark. The crystals gave out penetrating radiation all by themselves. 1895 In April, the song for the first time. Its title means 1896 The ancient Greek nations take part in the all-male Waltzing Matilda, by “carrying a bag of belongings, or Olympic Games are competition. It includes a new “Banjo” Paterson, is performed in swag”, and it tells the story of a revived in Athens by Pierre Fredi, event, the marathon, which is wandering laborer, or swagman. Baron de Coubertin. Fourteen won by a Greek shepherd. Winton, Queensland, Australia, 165

Science takeS control Sphygmomano- Doctors now listen to the flow meter with a stethoscope, a Surgical mask refinement added in 1905 by 1896 Russian surgeon N. S. Korotkoff. 1896 This allows them to measure Scipione Riva-Rocci the minimum pressure as well. Johannes von Mikulicz-Radecki The usual instrument for sphygmomano- measuring blood pressure, meTer This 1905 With sterilization of the sphygmomanometer, was instrument is similar instruments, and surgical invented in 1896 by Scipione to those used today. gloves in frequent use, one of Riva-Rocci, an Italian children’s The rubber bulb the last sources of infection in doctor. A cuff around pumps air into the the operating room was the the arm is inflated until arm cuff. surgeon’s own breath. In 1896, the blood stops flowing. a gifted Polish surgeon working The air pressure is then in Germany, Johannes von reduced until the flow Mikulicz-Radecki, blocked up just starts again, this loophole by placing gauze indicating the over his mouth to form the maximum first surgical mask. blood pressure. Toothpaste Blood pressure in a tube reading taken 1896 from here William Colgate Cathode ray Exhaust casing oscilloscope received the Toothpaste existed in spent steam the 19th century, but 1897 was packaged in jars. The experimental cathode ray tube first person to put it in a tube Ferdinand Braun (a glass tube containing very was US dentist Washington little air, in which a negative Sheffield. His Creme Dentifrice Electric waves are electrode, or cathode, gives off of 1892 was not very invisible, so the cathode electric particles) and added popular and it was ray oscilloscope, which magnetic coils to move the eclipsed four years displays electrical particles horizontally and later with the signals on a screen, is vertically in response to signals. marketing of a valuable tool. It was In this way Braun managed to Colgate Ribbon invented in 1897 by draw patterns on a screen Dental Cream by German physicist inside the tube. New York soap and Ferdinand Braun. candle maker William Colgate. He took the still- Diesel engine He changed the shape of the tube nozzle, and described the 1897 result with the successful slogan “Comes out a ribbon, lies flat on the brush.” TooThpasTe in a Tube People who Rudolf Diesel were accustomed to toothpaste from a jar seem to have had trouble with it when it came In 1892, German engineer out of a tube, but Colgate’s toothpaste behaved itself. Rudolf Diesel patented an engine that gave more power for less fuel. It compressed its fuel and air to a much higher pressure than a gasoline engine, making it so hot that it burned without the aid of a spark. In 1897, he built a fully developed engine, which 1896 Popular British features such as a women’s 1897 Vampires get a boost ancient Slavic religious belief that newspaper the Daily column, competitions, and from British writer a buried body that does not Mail is founded by media tycoon stories, and will soon change the decompose will leave its grave at Alfred Harmsworth. It includes nature of newspaper publishing. Bram Stoker’s horror novel night to drink human blood. Dracula. He bases it on the 166

1851 – 1900 Turbine ship The original steam turbine in the Turbinia was an Turbine ship extremely advanced piece of engineering for the end of the 19th century, and still looks impressive today. Parsons’ engine was a more 1897 compact and efficient powerplant than the older piston engine. Blades turned High-pressure Thrust block Charles Parsons by low- steam entered transmitted pressure turbine here push of Steamships changed forever steam propeller to when British engineer the ship Charles (later Sir Charles) Parsons launched Outer casing cut away Shaft turned the Turbinia, the first ship powered to show turbine blades ship’s propeller by his steam turbine. In 1897, he demonstrated it to the Blades turned by Blades turned by Royal Navy near Portsmouth, medium-pressure steam high-pressure steam England. Navy ships were powered by piston engines, delivered 25 horsepower from a and could move faster than any the first multiple-unit electric and Turbinia made them look single cylinder. Diesel engines atom, and realized that he had train. It was introduced on the ridiculous as it darted among can be expensive, heavy, and found something new. We now Chicago South Side Elevated them at the record speed of noisy, but are unbeatable where call the particles electrons. Railway in 1898, and was later 34 knots (43 mph or 69 km/h). fuel consumption really counts. used on New York’s Manhattan Tests in other ships confirmed Multiple-unit Elevated Railway. the turbine’s superiority. Electron electric train Transmission of Conditioned 1897 1897 malaria by reflex mosquito J. J. Thomson Frank Sprague 1898 1897 British physicist J. J. (later Instead of one powerful Ivan Pavlov Sir J. J.) Thomson was the locomotive at the front, many Ronald Ross first person to show that atoms electric trains have smaller Areflex is an automatic contain smaller particles. He driving motors at several points Malaria is a disease caused response, such as pulling studied cathode rays and, by along their length. This gives by tiny parasites living in a hand away from a hot object. subjecting the rays to electric better acceleration and more the blood. Patients suffer In 1898, Russian scientist Ivan and magnetic fields, he showed passenger space, but the recurrent chills and sweats. Pavlov started experiments that in 1897 that they consisted of motors have to work together Nobody knew how the led him to discover a more negatively charged particles. so that all the coaches speed parasites got there until British complicated kind of reflex. Thomson discovered that it up and slow down at the same bacteriologist Ronald (later Sir When investigating digestion in made no difference what rate. In 1897, US engineer Ronald) Ross studied infected dogs, he found that the sound materials he used, and he Frank Sprague managed to birds in India. He proved in of food being prepared made concluded that the particles control separate motors in 1897 that the parasites are their mouths water. He later existed in everything. He this way, and used them in carried by mosquitoes and found he could train them to believed that they were lighter injected when they bite. salivate whenever a bell was A year later three Italian sounded. Pavlov called this scientists showed that only kind of reflex conditional, one mosquito, the Anopheles, because it only happened after gives malaria to humans. learning, but it is now usually called a conditioned reflex. 1897 The world’s first over 42 km (26 miles). It will be 1898 Canadian adventurer first person to sail around the mass marathon is repeated every April, but women Joshua Slocum world single-handed. He set out run in the US from Hopkinton, will not be allowed to compete reaches Newport on the US’ from Boston in a 95-year-old boat Massachusetts, to Boston – just for another 75 years. northeast coast to become the more than three years earlier. 167

Science takeS control Radium was first made by German rigid Airship Airships like this chemist Felix Hoffman, whose were used by the Royal Naval Air Magnetic 1898 father may have taken the acid Service in World War I. recording for rheumatism. The compound Marie Curie, Pierre Curie was first marketed by the Fingerprinting 1898 German company Bayer See pages 170–171 for the in 1899. 1900 Valdemar Poulsen story of how Marie and Pierre Curie discovered Rudder Cabin for Francis Galton, Danish telephone engineer radium and made steered the the crew Edward Henry Valdemar Poulsen was radiotherapy airship left was called worried by one obvious defect possible. or right a gondola Fingerprints are a good way of the telephone. Unlike the of tracking down criminals, telegraph, it didn’t work Paper-clip Escalator but they only work because without someone there to there is a way of classifying answer it. So in 1898 he 1899 1900 them. Without this, a new invented the first print could not be compared telephone answering William Middlebrook George Wheeler, with those on record. British machine, the Charles Seeberger scientist Francis (later Sir Telegraphone. To do The most common kind of Francis) Galton, having so, he had to invent a paper-clip seems to have The first escalator, invented confirmed that every totally new technology – come from nowhere. It is known by US engineer Jesse Reno, fingerprint is different, magnetic recording. His as the Gem clip, and may have was just a sloping, moving devised a basic classification machine recorded telephone been made first by an English walkway with a grooved tread system. Police officer Edward messages on a reel of thin steel company called Gem. One to stop passengers from (later Sir Edward) Henry wire, and could also be used inventor who was involved, US slipping. It wasn’t even called developed this into the system for dictation. (✷ See also engineer William Middlebrook, an escalator. This name was widely used today. It was Recording with magnetism.) patented a paper-clip-making used by US engineer Charles published in 1900. Two years machine in 1899. The patent Seeberger to describe a design later, fingerprints made their Polonium drawings show it making a Gem. with folding steps originally first appearance in court. invented by George Wheeler. 1898 Aspirin Seeberger joined the Otis Elevator Company, which Marie Curie, Pierre Curie 1899 exhibited the escalator at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Later, Polonium is a very rare Felix Hoffman the company added the element. Highly radioactive, grooved tread from Reno’s it can be used to discharge Other drugs have design to complete the unwanted static electricity. partly replaced escalator we know today. The best source is pitchblende, aspirin as a painkiller, but 1,100 tons (1,000 tonnes) but it is still used for of this yield only 40 mg of treating strokes and heart polonium. Polonium was the attacks. Chemically related to a first element to be revealed by plant extract, salicylic acid, it its radioactivity, and it was discovered by radioactivity pioneers Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. They called it polonium after Marie’s native country, Poland. Aspirin Soluble aspirin from Bayer is seen here in its original packaging. 1899 What will become Missouri by US composer and 1899 Three years of war by Paul Kruger, start fighting one of the most pianist Scott Joplin. A later begin in South Africa with the British. Resentment had played piano pieces of all time, attempt by Joplin to break into when the Boers (descendants of built up over the huge influx of Maple Leaf Rag, is published in opera will prove unsuccessful. the original Dutch settlers), led Britons seeking gold there. 168

Rigid frame gave 1851 – 1900 the airship a smooth, sleek shape Rigid airship 1900 Nose was Ferdinand von Zeppelin strengthened to take The first airships were just the mooring cable elongated balloons with an engine and passenger RECORDING WITH MAGNETISM compartment. In 1900, German general Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin built the first airship with a rigid frame. Its lifting gas was held in separate gas bags inside the frame, allowing a more aerodynamic shape. Zeppelins, as they became known, were used as bombers in World War I. After this they carried passengers, until public confidence was destroyed in 1937 when the Hindenburg caught fire in a dramatic accident, killing 35 passengers. Propellers RecoRdings on wax weRe fRagile and quickly wore out. moved the The alternative, magnetic recording, also had problems, airship forwards including noise and distortion. Both were eventually conquered. Magnetic recording proved ideal for Quantum recording computer data and television pictures. Its theory use with computers has more recently developed into digital magnetic recording, which produces the 1900 near-perfect tapes used to Max Planck make CDs. In 1900, physicists had some problems. One was that the Valdemar Poulsen, inventor Ampex VR1000 video recorder from about 1956 light from red-hot objects was of magnetic recording not of the expected colour. Digital recorDing German physicist Max Planck From metal to plastic Since about 1950, computers have used magnetic found he could predict the Early magnetic recordings were made recording for storing data. Unlike sound, data can color correctly by assuming on steel wire or tape. During World be recorded without errors. Sound converted into that energy was radiated only War II, the first modern recorder, the digital form before recording gives a perfection in multiples of a fixed amount, Magnetophon, was developed by AEG and unknown to the pioneers. or quantum. This also BASF in Germany. Like all later machines, explained why the energy of it used coated plastic tape. electrons ejected from metals by light depended on the ViDeo recorDing color, not the brightness, of Video signals contain very high the light. Over the next 30 frequencies. An ordinary recorder would years, quantum theory allowed need to run very fast to record these. Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Video recorders, invented in 1956, have a Werner Heisenberg, and others recording head that scans the tape at a high to develop a new view of the enough speed to record these frequencies. world in which matter and energy could be both waves and particles (✷ see page 190). This has transformed physics. 1900 China sees the end society known as the Boxers. 1900 US tennis player tennis tournament for men. It of a long campaign After a year of terrorism, Western Dwight F. Davis will become known as the Davis against foreigners in the country, troops finally rescue besieged donates a cup to be awarded at Cup. Intended for amateurs, it led by a secret martial arts foreigners from Beijing. an annual international lawn- will later become professional. 169

Science takeS control partners in discovery Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium and make radiotherapy possible In 1891, Marie Sklodowska arrived in Paris, aged 23. She had done well in school in Poland and now, after eight years as a governess, she had saved enough money for college. She registered at the Sorbonne, the university in Paris, and became a student, studying physical science and mathematics. By 1894, Marie had her degree. Something else important happened that year, too. She met Professor Pierre Curie, and in 1895 they got married, forming one of science’s most fruitful partnerships. Marie decided to research the uranium radiation recently discovered by Henri Becquerel. She studied pitchblende, a Happy family Quadrant mineral containing uranium, and found that it produced Marie and Pierre Curie were electrometer more radiation than the uranium alone could account for. devoted to each other and their It clearly contained something more “radioactive,” as children as well as to science. built by she called it, than uranium. With Pierre, she dissolved They are seen here in 1904, Pierre pitchblende in chemicals to produce compounds they two years before Pierre’s Curie could separate out. Work stopped briefly in 1897 for tragic death, with their the birth of Marie’s first daughter. daughter Irene, who Ionization was then aged seven. chamber In the summer of 1898, the Curies found a new radioactive element, polonium, but there was more radiation still unaccounted for. Its source must be very radioactive indeed. Although they hadn’t isolated it yet, they dubbed it radium, announcing their discovery in December. After another four years’ work, Marie had produced just one-tenth of a gram of pure radium chloride. She became a Doctor of Glass flask used Ionization Science – the first woman in Europe by Marie Curie chamber made to do so – and in 1903 shared the by Pierre Curie Nobel prize for physics with Pierre and Becquerel. As the first woman to win a measuring radiation Nobel prize, Marie became famous. She The Curies had to build most of their research equipment and Pierre both got top jobs. for themselves. Radiation can In 1904, the Curies make air conduct electricity, had another and Pierre developed several daughter. Then, in highly sensitive measuring instruments that made use of this effect. 170

1851 – 1900 1906, tragedy struck. Pierre was hit by a Lasting fame speeding cart and was killed. Marie had to By 1927, when this photograph take over Pierre’s professorship at the was taken, Marie Curie had Sorbonne – another first for a woman – and earned her place at the Solvay continue the research by herself. With the Congress, a meeting of top help of a colleague, she finally produced physicists held in Brussels, pure radium in 1910. The following year she Belgium. She is sitting in the received a second Nobel prize. This time, front row, third from the left. there was nobody for her to share it with. Other famous names in the group include Bohr, Bragg, During World War I, Marie’s research took a back seat. After the war Einstein, Heisenberg, Lorentz, she toured the world, using her fame to drum up support for a new use Pauli, Planck, and Schrödinger. of her great discovery. Doctors had found that radium, the most powerful source of radiation then known, could treat cancer. Marie Curie had made radiotherapy possible. Although radium is now little used for this purpose, it remains to remind us of a remarkable woman. Extracting radium from pitchblende was a hard, tedious grind. Working under primitive conditions, the Curies had to treat several tons of the tarry, black rock with chemicals to get just a few milligrams of radium chloride. test resuLts The Curie Laboratory could test gamma ray sources. This certificate, signed by Marie, verifies a source equal to 10 mg of radium. 171

einvveenrtiyonos fnore In the fIrst 50 years of the 20th century, new inventions and discoveries transformed both everyday life and the world of science. Ordinary people got radio, lifesaving drugs, and cars. Scientists created a new physics which revealed the awesome energy hidden in matter. The modern world was nearly here. 172

Blood groups more interesting suspended 1901 – 1950 type, sometimes seen in 1901 amusement parks, has Brake disc also been used for serious “caliper” Karl Landsteiner transportation. The earliest housing successful example, which pads Early attempts at blood still survives, is the monorail transfusion often killed that runs along the built the first all-British four- the patient. In 1901, Karl Wupper River at wheeled car. Lanchester’s brake Landsteiner, an Austrian Wuppertal in must have been rather noisy, pathologist (someone who northwest because the pads were lined studies the effects of disease Germany. It with copper. Another British on body tissues), showed why. was designed in engineer, Herbert Frood, Unless carefully matched, the 1901 by Eugen substituted quieter, asbestos- red cells in one person’s blood Langen, a German lined pads in 1907. can destroy those of another. engineer better known He discovered three groups of for his work on Air conditioning human blood, which he called the internal A, B, and O. Only bloods of combustion 1902 the same group could be safely engine. mixed. He later found a fourth Willis Carrier group, AB, and other groups Disc have been discovered since. Acombination of high As well as ensuring safe brake temperature and high transfusions, blood grouping humidity is uncomfortable. can help eliminate suspects in This Lockheed When air is saturated with murder cases. disc brake was water vapor, sweat cannot made in about 1970. evaporate. US engineer Willis Monorail Carrier realized in 1902 that Safety razor a colleague and invented refrigeration could deal with 1901 “something that would be both heat and humidity. He 1901 used and thrown away.” It designed an “apparatus for Eugen Langen was the disposable razor blade, treating air”, in which air was King C. Gillette which fitted into a new safety cooled to the temperature at Monorails are railroads with razor. Men may not have liked which moisture condenses a single rail. The earliest King C. Gillette changed the having to buy new blades all out of it. The water was then was built in 1880, and had its life of men the world over the time (by 1904 Gillette had drained away, producing rail underneath the cars. The when he followed the advice of sold more than 12 million) pleasantly cool, dry air. but they did appreciate a razor that was safer and quicker to use than the old, open-bladed straight razor. Disc brake 1902 Frederick Lanchester Most modern cars have disc brakes. A steel disc is gripped between a pair of pads when braking is needed. The system was patented in 1902 by British car pioneer Frederick Lanchester, who, in 1896, also safety razor An otherwise well- shaved King C. Gillette sports a moustache on this 1930s packaging. 1901 On New Year’s Day, Commonwealth of Australia. It 1902 Britain’s most for services to science or art. the six separate has an independent government, exclusive club is Only 24 people can hold it at colonies of Australia become but it is still ruled by Britain’s formed as Edward VII founds the any one time. The first female states in a new federation, the Queen Victoria. Order of Merit, an honor given OM will be Florence Nightingale. 173

InventIons for everyone Frank Clarke’s 1902 automatic a much higher voltage to Cotton fabric tea maker to get it. It was contacts with a fixed gap stretched tightly Hormones perhaps a little ahead of the between them – a spark plug. over the framework technology. While you dozed, Ignition was now controlled 1902 clockwork struck a match that electrically. At the right of the wing lit a flame under a kettle. When moment, the high voltage William Bayliss, the water boiled, the steam caused a spark to jump the Cashing in Ernest Starling operated a mechanism that gap, igniting the fuel. on this, New tipped the kettle to pour water York retailer Morris Hormones are chemicals into the pot, and sounded an Propellers to push the Michtom began selling that control the body, such alarm – as if you’d need one! plane through the air plush-covered bears with shoe- as adrenaline, which makes the button eyes and jointed limbs, heart pound in times of stress. Spark plug Two wings linked calling them “Teddy’s Bears”. The first hormone was by struts braced to They were a huge success, and discovered in 1902 by British 1902 combine their strength their name soon became “teddy physiologists (people who study bears”. At about the same time, how living things work) William Robert Bosch, G. Honold German designer Margarete (later Sir William) Bayliss and Steiff started making similar Ernest Starling. They found Acommon problem bears. Although not technically that the digestive system puts a with early internal teddies, Steiff bears became the chemical into the bloodstream combustion engines number one best-sellers. when food reaches it, making was how to the pancreas secrete digestive ignite the fuel. Vacuum cleaner juice. They called the chemical One way was secretin. Starling later coined with sparks made 1902 the word “hormone” from the by passing electricity Greek for “setting in motion.” through moving Hubert Booth contacts inside the Tea-making cylinder. In 1902, a Early gadgets for removing alarm clock German engineer, dust just tried to blow it G. Honold, who worked away. When British engineer 1902 for electrical engineer Hubert Booth put a Robert Bosch, invented a Frank Clarke better method. He applied Although the British love their early morning tea, few can have risked Copper kettle Methylated- Teddy bear spirit stove 1902 Morris Mitchtom, Margarete Steiff Popular US president Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt became even more popular in 1902 when he went on a hunting expedition but refused to shoot a defenceless bear cub. Tea-making alarm clock Clarke’s tea maker was mechanical because in 1902 few homes had electricity. 1902 In April, French performance. Scottish soprano 1902 British empire (for men only) meant to promote composer Claude Mary Garden becomes famous builder Cecil Rhodes unity among English-speaking Debussy’s only opera, Pelléas et for her interpretation of the dies. His will creates a new nations. Rhodes Scholarships will Mélisande, receives its first female lead, Mélisande. scholarship to Oxford University later be open to women. 174

Engine positioned 1901 – 1950 off-center to Multistage balance the pilot rocket 1903 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was thinking about interplanetary flight as long ago as 1895. In 1903, he suggested a way of getting large objects into space, using rockets with several stages that would be jettisoned as their fuel was used up. All major rockets are now built this way. UP AND AWAY Takeoff and It took a century of thought landing skid and experiment to conquer the air. The two big problems were lift and handkerchief over his mouth AirplAne Striking features of control, and the obvious masters of and sucked the upholstery of the 1903 Wright Flyer included both were birds. One breakthrough a chair, the filth he collected pusher propellers at the back, and came with the observation that a bird’s tail convinced him that vacuum no cockpit. The plane was controlled is as important as its wings. The early pioneers cleaning would be much better. by wires that warped the wings. also realized that flapping wings were not His company, started in 1902, essential, which led to a practical aeroplane made cleaners, but they were Airplane driven by a propeller. so big they had to be parked outside the houses they cleaned. 1903 GeorGe CAyley A wealthy aristocrat, Cayley had Electrocardiogram Orville Wright, established the basic shape of the Wilbur Wright airplane by 1799. It had a fuselage 1903 carrying fixed wings and a tail. After Although people had been much research, he launched the first Willem Einthoven going up in balloons since human-carrying glider in 1853. 1783, they were not satisfied. Doctors routinely check a They wanted to fly like birds, otto lilienthAl patient’s heart by making not just drift with the wind. Lilienthal, a German engineer, a record of its electrical activity, The first real flight was made studied the flight of birds before called an electrocardiogram, or in North Carolina on going on to develop effective fixed- ECG. The first person to December 17, 1903. Watched wing gliders. In 1896, after thousands measure the heart’s electrical by his brother Wilbur, US of experimental signals was Dutch physiologist bicycle mechanic Orville flights, he died Willem Einthoven. Using a Wright kept their fragile plane in a crash. sensitive instrument that he airborne for 12 seconds. The built in 1903, he set about Wright brothers had at last oCtAve Lilienthal glider finding out how a normal solved the two great problems ChAnute built in about heart behaved. By 1913 he of flight: getting a machine to French-US engineer Chanute was in his 1891, seen here had identified the points take off and controlling it in the 60s before he got interested in flying. from underneath that doctors should look for. air. (✷ See also Up and away.) During the 1890s, he made thousands of successful glider flights, accumulating data that he passed on to the Wright brothers. 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst women. Ignored at first, the 1903 The Tour de France exciting stories for his paper. founds the Women’s “suffragettes,” as they are called, bike race is started Out of 60 riders, only 21 finish. Social and Political Union to are driven to violent methods, by French journalist Henri Maurice Garin wins after nearly campaign for votes for British such as burning empty buildings. Desgrange to provide a source of 95 hours in the saddle. 175

InventIons for everyone Function of 1905, while experimenting Laminated glass chromosomes with beetles, she discovered Lie detector that two structures, the X and 1905 1905 Y chromosomes, determine 1904 whether an animal is male or Édouard Bénédictus Nettie Stevens, female. Another American, Max Wertheimer, Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson, discovered The first cars had ordinary John Larson the same thing independently. glass windshields, which US biologist Nettie Stevens He suggested that chromosomes could slice people to ribbons Czech psychologist Max was the first to link cell were an essential part of the in a crash. French artist Wertheimer developed the structures with genetics. In mechanism of inheritance. Édouard Bénédictus came up first so-called lie detector in He was right. with an answer in 1905: two 1904, while he was still a sheets of glass with plastic student. In California, another Cat’s whisker Crystal sets glued between them. If the medical student, John Larson, were popular in the 1920s. glass broke, the plastic held worked with police to build a Placed in contact with a metal the fragments in place. With better one in 1921. Known as a whisker, a crystal such as galena better filling, laminated glass polygraph, it monitored blood (lead sulfide) could turn radio is still in use today. pressure, pulse, and breathing, waves into sound signals – but because these can change when only if the whisker was touching Cat’s whisker people lie. They sometimes one of the crystal’s sensitive spots. change when people are telling 1906 the truth, too, so not all courts Headphones accept lie detector tests. convert varying Greenleaf Pickard electric currents Thermos flask into sound waves In the 1920s, listening Wire connecting to the radio often 1904 the crystal set to meant fiddling with a the headphones “cat’s whisker.” The whisker Rheinhold Burger – a short piece of wire – triode valve The De James Dewar’s vacuum Forest Audion of 1907 was tickled the surface of a bottle (✷ see page 162), based on a light bulb. The crystal and enabled was far too delicate to take radio waves to work on a picnic. One of Dewar’s screw cap connects to the headphones. German students, Rheinhold Burger, hot cathode; the wires go physicist Karl Braun had saw how to make it more discovered this effect in useful. He enclosed the glass to the other electrodes. bottle in a metal case with about 1900, but it was protective rubber mountings “Cat’s Crystal US engineer Greenleaf and a screw cap. Burger sold whisker” Pickard who patented the idea to a German company the arrangement in and, after a competition to find a name, it was launched in 1906. His device 1904 as the Thermos flask. gave rise to one of the most important Theory of inventions of the 20th relativity century, the transistor. 1905 Triode valve Albert Einstein 1906 See pages 178–179 for the story of Lee De Forest how Einstein’s theories of Electronics started relativity shed in 1904, when light on British scientist John Newton’s Fleming found that a universe. vacuum tube containing two electrodes, one of them heated, passed 1904 The US celebrates Missouri, the World’s Fair, where 1905 Chicago lawyer professional people dedicated to the 100th air conditioning debuts, and the Paul P. Harris founds higher ethical standards in their anniversary of the Louisiana 1904 Summer Olympic Games, Rotary International, a worldwide work. Meetings “rotate” from Purchase by holding in St. Louis, where the US wins 21 events. group of business and office to office, hence the name. 176

current in one direction only. Vitamins enough. British biochemist 1901 – 1950 In 1906, US inventor Lee De Frederick (later Sir Frederick) Forest added a third electrode. 1907 Hopkins found that rats died Color photography By varying its voltage, he could when fed on artificial milk with Autochromes needed long exposures control the current between the Frederick Hopkins, only these ingredients but so most were of tranquil scenes. other two. De Forest called his Casimir Funk thrived if real milk was added. identified one of these in rice. device the Audion. We would He concluded in 1907 that the Finding that it was a chemical now call it a triode. He used it We all need carbohydrates, rats needed “accessory factors” called an amine, he proposed first to detect radio waves, but proteins, minerals, and in their diet. In 1912, Polish the name “vitamine.” Not all was soon using it to amplify fats, but these alone are not biochemist Casimir Funk vitamins are amines, but the and generate them as well. name, minus its “e,” has stuck. Sound radio 1906 Reginald Fessenden Marconi got the first radio patent in 1896 (✷ see page 164) but it took 10 years for radio to get a voice. Early stations could send out radio waves only in short bursts, but to transmit sound, continuous waves are needed. In 1906, Canadian-US engineer Reginald Fessenden invented an electric generator that worked at 1,000 times the frequency of an ordinary power outlet, creating continuous radio waves that could carry sound. His first broadcast, on Christmas Eve, 1906, was a program of speech and music. Color photography 1907 Auguste Lumière, Louis Lumière Before French inventors Auguste and Louis Lumière introduced their Autochrome process in 1907, photographers had to take three photographs to get one color picture. The Lumière brothers coated glass with red, green, and blue starch grains, filled the gaps between them with black, then added a coating that was sensitive to all colors. The starch acted as filters, giving three images in one shot. These combined to form a pleasing color picture. 1907 Irish people wanting first performance of J. M. Synge’s 1907 Italian educator known by her name. The independence for Playboy of the Western World at Maria Montessori Montessori method is based on their country are outraged by the the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. They begins teaching children in Rome children’s ability to learn by portrayal of Irish peasants in the with the system that will become themselves, with guidance. will later admire the play. 177

InventIons for everyone RIDDLES OF SPACE AND TIME Albert Einstein publishes his Theories of Relativity and sheds light on Newton’s universe Train is The time it takes a When Albert Einstein was a small boy in Germany, he saw his first traveling beam of light to travel pocket compass. It made a great impression on him. Whichever at nearly way he turned it, its needle always pointed the same way. Some outside the speed up to a mirror and down represents one of light tick of a clock force was controlling it. The incident helped set him searching for the truth about the universe. Man on the train sees a short “tick” For a while, Einstein couldn’t get a job because he had upset some important people. Train in Woman on the Train has moved forward Train has moved further When he did get work starting platform sees a by the time the light beam by the time the light beam position long “tick” hits the mirror reaches the detector in 1902, in Bern, Running late Switzerland, it was only Because relative motion cannot alter the speed of light, it must as a clerk in the Patent Office. But in his spare time he began to develop a make moving clocks slow down. revolutionary theory. In 1887, US scientists Albert Michelson and Edward Morley thought they would use light to measure the speed of Earth in its orbit through the aether, a theoretical medium thought to pervade all space. According to theory, light traveling in the same direction as Earth would slow down, German- just as a car looks slower when seen from the car behind. But the speed of US light didn’t change. Something was wrong with a basic theory of physics. physicist Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, published in 1905, Michelson rescued physics from this embarrassment. With the help of Failed expeRiment ideas from Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, Einstein Michelson and Morley used a turntable with two light modified the laws of physics to predict a constant speed beams crossing it. Mirrors combined the beams into a of light. The modifications left almost all the old laws pattern that would show up any difference in the of physics unchanged at ordinary speeds, but speed of light in the two directions. But, whichever showed how, at speeds approaching the speed of way they turned their table, they found no change. light, strange things happen to moving objects. As seen by someone moving at a different speed, their length in the direction of motion decreases, their US physicist mass increases, and any processes Edward Morley within them slow down. 178

At its simplest, the Special Theory says that 1901 – 1950 the mass of an object depends on its speed. If original genius a force acts on an object, it accelerates, but as Albert Einstein was a highly it speeds up, more energy goes into increasing original thinker who gave us a its mass and less into increasing its speed. This new view of the world. As well prevents it from reaching the speed of light. One as creating the Special and consequence is the equation E = mc2, which General Theories of Relativity, he says that mass and energy are interchangeable. contributed greatly to the quantum theory of matter. Although revolutionary, the Special Theory was incomplete. It did not deal with gravity. Black hole Einstein put this right in 1915 with his General Theory of Gravity, a warping of space and Relativity. Replacing Newton’s space and time with a unified time, affects everything – even space-time, it proposed that gravity was a property of space, light. Black holes create gravity not a force between bodies. It led to amazing predictions, so intense that light is trapped, such as the bending of light by gravity and the existence but they can be detected by of black holes, both of which have since been confirmed. their effects. In this picture, matter is being pulled away from a giant star. Young Albert was ill in bed when his father gave him a compass to keep him amused. Einstein later recalled his vivid realization that “something deeply hidden had to be behind things.” 179

Handle to Mangle for 1919 advertisement for an Electric engage the squeezing early washing machine washing mangle drive water out machine Faucet for of the letting out 1907 washing the water Electric motor Alva Fisher Lifting the lid mounted automatically under the tub Inventors tried for years to disconnected Tub was supported on find a way of reducing the a four-legged “dolly” hours spent over a steaming the motor washtub, but only electric Long drive power could offer real labour savings. The first electric belt washing machine, the Thor, Wooden tub was designed in 1907 by US engineer Alva Fisher. It had a ElEctric washing drum that turned back and machinE Early washing forth to tumble clothes clean. machines were often just Its motor was simply bolted hand-operated models with on to the outside, so it wasn’t an electric motor bolted on. all that safe with water Even in 1920, Beatty splashing around. Brothers of Canada, a pioneer of washing machines, Paper cup was still making this wooden-tub machine with its 1908 alarmingly exposed motor. Hugh Moore Wheels allowed the machine to be moved Nobody today would think of sharing an unwashed around easily cup with strangers, but water in places such as railroad stations once came from a faucet with a shared tin cup attached. In 1908, US inventor Hugh Moore designed a vending machine to deliver water in individual paper cups. He soon realized that selling cups was more profitable than selling water, and set up a company to make them. He chose the name Dixie in 1919. By the 1920s, paper “Dixies” were holding ice cream as well as drinks. Tea bag c 1908 Thomas Sullivan Tea bags seem to have been invented by accident. A likely date is 1908. The story is that New York tea merchant Thomas Sullivan started 1909 Leaders meet in New (NAACP) to fight for desegregation 1910 Movie newsreels the first of a weekly news York City to form and equal rights for blacks in begin as French compilation called Pathé Journal. the National Association for the America. It will still be a powerful film magnate Charles Pathé’s The crowing rooster of Pathé Advancement of Colored People organization in the 21st century. company, Pathé Frères, releases News will be known worldwide. 180

sending out tea samples Neon sign Electric starter 1901 – 1950 stitched into cloth bags. Rather than open these, people just 1910 1912 Stainless steel poured boiling water over them, and Sullivan was soon Georges Claude Charles Kettering 1913 getting orders for more. By 1920, proper tea bags were Several 19th-century In early cars, the driver had to Harry Brearley being used in the US, mainly inventors experimented with turn a handle at the front to large ones for the catering tubes containing gas at low start the engine. The handle British metallurgist Harry trade. Teabags were introduced pressure, and found that could kick dangerously. Henry Brearley hit on stainless to Britain by Joseph Tetley & electricity could make the gas Leland, head of Cadillac Motors, steel by accident while trying Company in 1953. light up. In 1910, French found this unacceptable, and to make a steel that would resist the heat inside a gun. neon Sign New techinques had physicist Georges Claude tried asked US engineer Charles He was in charge of the Firth to be invented before neon signs the gas neon, and found that it Kettering to create a self- could be widely used for advertising. produced an intense orange-red starter. Kettering succeeded Brown Laboratories glow. This was of little use for where earlier inventors in Sheffield, England, Fertilizer from lighting, but after the new had failed, and the 1912 an important steel the air tubes had been used at the Cadillac was the first car making center. In Paris Motor Show, an that could be started from 1913, after a series of 1909 advertising agency suggested the driver’s seat. experiments, he made that they could be made into some steel containing Fritz Haber, signs. By 1912, the first neon Cosmic rays about 13 per cent Carl Bosch sign was in place over a chromium. He found Montmartre barber’s shop. 1913 that it was of little use Plants need nitrogen. for guns, but realized Although air is four-fifths Continental Victor Hess that it was resistant nitrogen, plants cannot absorb drift to corrosion. Unlike it directly. Nitrogen-rich The pioneers of other scientists, who fertilizers are one answer, but 1912 radioactivity found had made similar by 1900, natural supplies, their instruments steels, Brearley saw its such as bird droppings, were Alfred Wegener responding to radiation potential for cutlery. beginning to run out. In 1909, from outside their labs. Its It was a local Sheffield German chemist Fritz Haber If you look at an atlas of the origin was a mystery until cutler who suggested succeeded in capturing world, you will see that US physicist Victor Hess the name that we now nitrogen from the air. He used South America and Africa sent balloons carrying use for it. heat and high pressure to make would fit together like jigsaw- measuring instruments it react with hydrogen, forming puzzle pieces. In 1912, German high into the atmosphere. Mark of stainless ammonia, which could be meteorologist Alfred Wegener By 1913, he had found steel makers Butler made into fertilizers and other said that this was not a that the radiation became of Sheffield products. By 1914, another coincidence. He said that all stronger as the balloons German chemist, Carl Bosch, the continents had once been went higher, suggesting Bone handle had found a way to increase joined together as a continent that the “rays” came from the yield of ammonia, and he called Pangaea, which began beyond Earth. US physicist StainleSS Steel This developed Haber’s method for to drift apart millions of years Robert Millikan confirmed tea knife of 1915 was large-scale use. The Haber- ago. His ideas were forgotten, this, and in 1925 coined one of the first that did Bosch process is now essential but in the 1960s, scientists the term “cosmic rays” for not need cleaning with to agriculture and much else. realized that he had been right. this radiation from the an abrasive after a meal. depths of the universe. Assembly line 1913 Henry Ford See pages 182–183 for the story of how Henry Ford adopted the assembly line to mass produce the world’s most successful car. 1911 On December 14, the South Pole. Powered only by 1912 On the night of voyage. By the next morning it Norwegian explorer dogs, they beat the motorized Sunday, April 14, is on the bottom of the Atlantic Roald Amundsen and his team expedition led by Robert Scott, Ocean. More than 1,500 people become the first people to reach which sadly never returns. the supposedly unsinkable Titanic die, but about 700 are saved. hits an iceberg on its maiden 181

InventIons for everyone A MOTOR FOR THE MULTITUDE Henry Ford adopts the assembly line to mass produce the world’s most successful car Man of vision In 1891, when the first modern Henry Ford looked to a car was built, Henry Ford was future in which efficient a young engineer working in production methods would make everyone Detroit, Michigan, not far from rich. His factory eventually had raw the farm where he had been born. materials going in at one end and finished Most people still worked on the land. cars coming out at the other. Ford would be one of the people who Tin Lizzie Between 1908 and 1927, helped to change this, transforming the US one of every two cars built in the world was a into an industrial nation. Model T. With its rugged construction and low By 1896, Ford had built his first car. In 1903, price, it was ideal for the still rural US. he set up the Ford Motor Company. At that time, cars were More cars individually built and very expensive, so they were strictly for the The Ford story does not, of course, end rich. Ford realized he with the Model T. Later designs could keep costs down by included the sleek Edsel, the sporty producing just one type of Mustang, and the GT40, designed car, and in 1908 he launched in Britain and built for serious racing. “a motor car for the great multitude” – the Model T. Demand for the “Tin Lizzie,” as it was nicknamed, was soon running Model T Tourer (1916) ahead of supply, and Ford moved to a new factory at Highland Park, just outside Detroit. Even here, people still had to walk from car to car to work on each one – and when they were walking Ford Edsel (1958) they were not working. Ford wanted to find a faster, less expensive production method. In the US meat industry, workers stood still while carcasses were moved slowly past them. Ford Mustang (1964) In 1913, Ford experimented with this “assembly line” idea for making part of the Model T. Output of the part went up by 300 percent, so he decided to make the Ford GT40 (1964) whole car on an assembly line. 182

1901 – 1950 Ford succeeded in his mission to bring mobility to the masses, and in doing so changed the American way of life. As well as providing pleasure on picnics, low-cost vehicles made every industry more efficient. Now, instead of wandering around Modern Manufacture the factory, workers spent all their time The first cars had their bodies adding parts to cars as they passed by. bolted onto a separate chassis, Each worker did only one operation, but today’s car body is a single, and their pace was set by the moving self-supporting steel shell. For line. By April 1914, Ford had cut the many years, the shell was hand- time it took to make a car from 12 welded together by skilled man-hours to one and a half. Soon the workers, but such heavy, factory was turning out a car every repetitive tasks are now done 24 seconds. The Model T became the by robots, like these at Ford’s world’s most successful car, with total sales reaching more than 15 million. plant in Ontario, Canada. The assembly line did have its disadvantages. Working in this way was stressful, so workers often left. Ford solved this problem by doubling his workers’ pay and reducing the hours they had to work. It seemed crazy, but it was just good business. Ford realized that his employees had a private life and didn’t just make cars. Thanks to his new methods, they would soon be buying them, too. 183

InventIons for everyone couldn’t carry it around. In happens near a massive star Intelligence test 1915, US inventor Maurice that has collapsed to a single Structure of the Levy attached a solid lipstick to point. Its gravity becomes so 1916 atom a sliding carrier inside a intense that within a certain metal tube with a lid. Lewis Terman 1913 The lipstick could distance (now called the be slid out for use, Schwarzschild radius), even Although nobody seems to Niels Bohr then put back light cannot escape. Black know whether intelligence safely inside its can really be measured, British physicist Ernest container to holes, as they are now intelligence tests are still in Rutherford pictured the protect handbags known, emit no light but use. Their results are expressed hydrogen atom as a heavy and pockets. can be detected by the as an “intelligence quotient,” nucleus with an electron Lipstick soon effect of their gravity or IQ, with an IQ of 100 orbiting around it. But classical became more on nearby stars. representing average physics said this could not be widely used. Lipstick As this early intelligence. The first widely right because the electron print shows, lip colour used test, the Stanford-Binet, would radiate energy and became popular when was published in 1916 by US stop orbiting. Danish physicist presented in convenient, psychologist Lewis Terman. Niels Bohr saved the situation solid form. A professor at Stanford in 1913 by showing that University, Terman based his electrons could radiate energy Domestic fooD mixer By test on earlier ones devised by only when jumping from a the 1930s, when many homes French psychologists Alfred higher to a lower orbit. The had electricity, appliances like Binet and Theodore Simon. radiation would appear as light food mixers were beginning to whose frequency depended on be more widely used. Domestic the size of the jump. food mixer Bra 1919 1914 Herbert Johnson Mary Jacob Bakers had been mixing dough Although a “breast by electricity for supporter” was patented in years before an 1893, the idea didn’t catch on until New York partygoer Mary effective mixer Jacob realized that whalebone reached the corsets and her new, slinky dress just didn’t go together. Black hole She sewed together a couple of handkerchiefs and some ribbon 1916 and wore that instead of the whalebone. In 1914, she Karl Schwarzschild changed her name to Caresse Crosby, patented the brassière, German astronomer Karl and started selling it. Although Schwarzschild published she was not very successful in his first scientific paper while this, she did manage to sell the still a schoolboy. In 1916, the idea to a big corset company, year of his death, he published and by the 1920s women a more important one. Using everywhere were wearing bras. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (✷ see pages Lipstick 178–179), he worked out what 1915 Maurice Levy Lipstick has been with us for centuries, but without a convenient package, women 1914 Archduke Ferdinand, resulting conflict escalates to 1916 A work that will Planets, is published by British heir to the Austrian involve 32 countries. It will become a favourite composer Gustav Holst. His and Hungarian thrones, is end in 1918, after 47 million assassinated on 28 June. The people have been killed. of concert goers and science- orchestral suite portrays the fiction producers alike, The planets’ astrological characters. 184

1901 – 1950 kitchen. Early domestic mixers a neat device could do the job, PuBlic Broadcasting were little more than motorized the Rawlplug became everyone’s service Using egg-whisks, but the Troy Metal favorite wall anchor. valves, not Products H-5, introduced in a crystal, 1919 and later called the Public this 1925 Kitchen Aid, was based on a broadcasting Ethophone professional mixer designed by radio gave US engineer Herbert Johnson. service superior Its built-in bowl revolved in the performance. opposite direction to the beaters, 1920 and this “planetary” action is Frame now used in most mixers. David Sarnoff, antenna was Guglielmo Marconi Wall anchor turned Although US engineer toward the 1919 Reginald Fessenden broadcast speech and music in required John Rawlings 1906, and US radio executive transmitting David Sarnoff proposed a “radio British builder John Rawlings music box” in 1915, real public station didn’t like the way other broadcasting only began in the Mahogany builders attached things to 1920s. By this time, electronics walls. They just chiseled out a had developed greatly, allowing case large hole, rammed in a lump big transmitters to be built. The of wood and put a screw in it. first regular service was started Tuning The attachment was weak, and in Britain by Guglielmo Marconi dials it messed up the wall. Rawlings in February 1920. In November realized that screws would grip 1920, US station KDKA began small, drilled holes if they were broadcasting from Philadelphia. surrounded by something that Governments in both countries expanded as they went in. After later stepped in to regulate the trying brass, he devised a wall new medium. (✷ See also Birth anchor made of fiber. Once he of broadcasting.) had convinced people that such BIRTH OF BROADCASTING To TransmiT sound, a radio transmitter needs to generate powerful, continuous, high-frequency waves. Reginald Fessenden pioneered these with high-speed electric generators, but it was the development of large electronic valves during World War I that really made broadcasting possible. The first listeners had to build their own receivers because the lack of regular broadcasts meant there was no market for ready-made radios. Listening to radio on a train in 1930 Broadcasting in Britain Broadcasting in the usa Marconi’s early radio broadcasts were Unhampered by red tape, and led by banned, but after public pressure, his visionaries such as David Sarnoff of company was allowed to broadcast for the Radio Corporation of America, US 15 minutes a week from a hut near broadcasting grew rapidly. By 1922, the Chelmsford, starting in February 1922. US had 600 stations, mainly financed In May, the station moved to London, by advertising, while Britain still had and October saw the birth of the British only one. But competition threatened Broadcasting Company. In 1927, this chaos, so in 1927 the industry finally became a public corporation, the BBC. came under government regulation. 1917 The Union of Soviet Congress of Soviets, controlled 1920 American women are With votes hanging in the balance, Socialist Republics, by the Bolsheviks under their finally given the right Tennessee finally votes to ratify the USSR, is formed following leader Vladimir Lenin, takes over to vote when the 19th Amendment the amendment, bringing the the Russian revolution. The the former Russian Empire. to the US Constitution is ratified. vote count to 36 states in favor. 185

InventIons for everyone Insulin Best, worked out a way to stop restore smooth running. Most the pancreas’s juices from cars used leaded gasoline until Self-adhesive 1921 destroying the hormone. Thanks the 1980s, when concerns bandage to their work, insulin is now about pollution caused a switch Frederick Banting, available for controlling diabetes. to fuels that didn’t need lead to 1920 Charles Best stop the knock. Leaded gasoline Earle Dickson Insulin is a hormone that tells Ice pop the liver to remove glucose 1921 Before ready-made dressings, from the blood. People whose 1923 cuts were covered with bodies cannot make enough Thomas Midgley Jr gauze stuck down with tape. insulin suffer from diabetes, in Frank Epperson Earle Dickson, of US surgical which blood glucose may reach In a properly adjusted car dressing manufacturer Johnson dangerous levels. It was known engine, the fuel and air Refreshing, flavored ice on a & Johnson, changed this in that insulin came from a gland burn smoothly rather than stick was patented by US 1920. Working in his kitchen, called the pancreas, but efforts exploding. When engineers salesman Frank Epperson in he took a strip of adhesive tape, to extract it from the pancreas made car engines more 1924, but its US brand name, laid down squares of gauze on of certain animals failed. The powerful by increasing the Popsicle, was registered a year it, covered it with fabric and organ’s digestive juices were pressure inside them, they earlier. The legend is that rolled it up for future use. His also released and digested the found that destructive Epperson invented the ice lolly invention was soon on sale as insulin before it could be explosions, or “knocking,” by accident in 1905, when he Band-Aid. In 1928, T. J. Smith extracted. Then, in 1921, became a problem. In 1921, US was a boy, by leaving a drink & Nephew introduced the Canadian doctor Frederick engineer Thomas Midgley Jr with a stirrer in it out on a cold similar Elastoplast to Britain. (later Sir Frederick) Banting, discovered that adding lead night. His patent describes assisted by a student, Charles compounds to the fuel could cylindrical ice pops made in Tube connects ordinary test tubes. the pump to InsulIn a needle This modern Traffic signal electric pump Dials for gives someone 1923 setting the with diabetes amount of insulin a convenient Garrett Morgan to be injected way to inject themselves Atraffic signal was installed with insulin, in London in 1868, but a slowly and more widely used signal was continuously. patented by US inventor Viewfinder Theremin 1920 Leon Theremin 35-mm camera The Leica was not a single-lens reflex, as The theremin was the first most 35-mm cameras are today, but gave good results. successful electronic musical instrument. Still played today, it produces those spooky wailing sounds popular in science-fiction films. It was invented in 1920 by Russian scientist Leon Theremin, who originally called it the etherophone. It is one of the few instruments played by waving the hands near it rather than touching it. The distance of the hands affects its tuning, giving total control over its unearthly notes. 1921 Nine years after the shrine to his memory is built in 1922 British archaeologist Tutankhamen in the Valley of the death of Emperor Tokyo. Its traditional wooden Howard Carter Kings. Unlike most tombs, this Meiji, who helped Japan become buildings will be destroyed in discovers the treasure-filled tomb one has not been looted, making a modern industrial nation, a an air raid 24 years later. of the Egyptian pharaoh it important to Egyptology. 186

Garrett Morgan in 1923. It had Frozen Food Numbers on Support for 1901 – 1950 three movable arms with STOP Frozen peas are only the scale the scale and GO written on them, good to eat if frozen indicated Sample Cotton swab mounted on a pole. Signals at just the right tenderness of peas were given by raising, moment. The was placed 1925 lowering, and swiveling the tenderometer, Blades inside in this arms to show or hide these developed in about the chamber chamber Leo Gerstenzang words. The signal also had a 1938 for the US were driven position that stopped all traffic, canning industry, by a motor Cotton-tipped to allow an orderly switch from could test peas to sticks for one direction to another. ensure that they Weight was cleaning up babies were neither too pushed were invented by Polish-US Frozen food tough nor too businessman Leo Gerstenzang tender to freeze. sideways by in 1925, supposedly after 1924 the peas to seeing his wife struggle with Handle was give a reading cotton balls and toothpicks. Clarence Birdseye turned to start They got their US brand name, Q-tips, in 1926. It had taken US naturalist Clarence the machine Gerstenzang several years to Birdseye got the idea perfect a machine that made for frozen foods on a trip to Chute for the new product, then packed Newfoundland, Canada, in crushed and wrapped it hygienically. 1912. It’s very cold there, and The sticks were originally made Birdseye saw people leaving pea waste of wood, but in 1958 a British freshly caught fish outside to invention, the paper lollipop freeze. He invented a machine stick, was substituted. Outside that froze fish between the US, a similar product is refrigerated metal plates, and in known by another brand name, 1924 helped found the General Cotton Buds. Seafoods Corporation. He was soon selling quick-frozen fruit Aerosol and vegetables as well as fish. His name lives on as the 1926 familiar brand name Birds Eye. Erik Rothheim, 35-mm camera Lyle Goodhue 1924 The first aerosol can was invented by Norwegian Oskar Barnack engineer Erik Rothheim in 1926. It was used for The first packaging paint and polish, precision but never really caught on. miniature camera More successful was an aerosol was the Leica, developed in 1941 by US designed by German mechanic chemist Lyle Goodhue. He Oskar Barnack. It went into production in 1924. Barnack found that the new can had started working on it was ideal for spraying much earlier, but was delayed cockroaches with insecticide by World War I. To make the Leica, he adapted to kill them. Millions of an instrument for testing these “bug bombs” 35-mm movie film, made were supplied to by the company he US troops in World worked for, Ernst Leitz. War II, and by He created the now 1946 aerosols standard frame size, were in 24 × 36 mm, simply by production for doubling the size of a domestic use. movie frame. Fifty years later, world production was numbered in billions. 1925 One of the first films made in Russia by Sergey 1926The first woman to two hours off the record as she to use the technique swim the English makes it from Cap Gris-Nez in of “montage” – telling a story by Eisenstein. His Battleship Channel unaided, US Olympic northern France to Kingsdown, rapid cutting between shots – is Potemkin will become a model swimmer Gertrude Ederle, knocks Kent, in 14 hours, 31 minutes. for many other film makers. 187

InventIons for everyone use liquid fuel, which allows Plant growth much more controllable motors hormones Film to be built. The first liquid- soundtrack fueled rocket was launched by 1926 US physicist Robert Goddard. 1926 Burning gasoline and liquid Friedrich Went oxygen, it lifted off Lee De Forest briefly from his The life of plants is Aunt Effie’s farm controlled by a number Sound for the first films was in Auburn, of different hormones. The first supplied by live musicians. Massachusetts, to be discovered was a group The only recordings available on March 16, known as auxins. Dutch were gramophone discs, and it 1926. It was botanist Friedrich Went, a was difficult to keep these in another 15 years professor at the University of step with the film. The obvious before the same Utrecht, found them in 1926 place for the recording was on idea was used in while studying how plants the film itself. The first person Adolf Hitler’s grow. He discovered that to succeed in putting it there deadly flying auxins were not only was US inventor Lee De Forest. bombs during responsible for stimulating His Phonofilm system of 1926 World War II. plant growth, but were also produced the first soundtrack – involved in the one-sided a narrow stripe down the side growth that makes plants Pop-up toaster of the film, recording sound bend towards the light. waves as a varying shade of 1926 gray. It was the forerunner of Liquid-fueLed rocket A the later, more successful Titan II rocket lifts off in Charles Strite Movietone system. January 1965 carrying an unmanned Gemini Burnt toast was normal Liquid-fuelled spacecraft. The 100 ft- with early electric toasters. rocket (30 m-) long rocket was They just kept toasting until powered by the liquid someone turned them off. The 1926 fuel hydrazine. first that turned off and popped the toast out automatically Robert Goddard Combustion was patented in 1919 by US tank where fuel inventor Charles Strite. It was The first rockets used solid mixed with designed for caterers. The fuel. They were really just oxidiser burned toaster as we know it, based on big fireworks. Modern rockets Strite’s design, did not reach the breakfast table until 1926, when the Waters Genter Company, later known as McGraw Electric, marketed the first Toastmaster. Expanding universe 1927 Edwin Hubble Until US astronomer Edwin Hubble started studying the sky in the 1920s, nobody suspected that there were countless galaxies beyond our own Milky Way. Having proved the existence of such galaxies, Hubble discovered in 1927 that 1926 The Showa (bright content to leave government to 1927 Indian lawyer the social status of the Dalits, or peace) period begins others until August 1945, when Bhimrao Ranji “Untouchables.” He will urge the in Japan with the enthronement he ends World War II by insisting Ambedkar begins a campaign of Dalits, traditionally given the of Emperor Hirohito. He is that Japan surrenders. direct action aimed at improving worst jobs, to take up Buddhism. 188

Internal clock for one person to pick up. A 1901 –1950 chainsaw light enough for one Belgian astronomer Georges 1927 person to wield didn’t appear Lemaître proposed a simple, until 1950, made by a but radical explanation: Curt Richter company founded by Lerp’s everything had originally been rival, Andreas Stihl. squeezed into an incredibly Anyone who has had jet- dense “primeval atom” that had lag knows that we have Big Bang theory exploded to create the universe a built-in clock that tells us we know. In 1948, Russian when to be active and when to 1927 physicist George Gamow sleep. The first scientist to revived Lemaître’s idea in an study this was US biologist Georges Lemaître, attempt to explain how the Curt Richter, head of the George Gamow chemical elements were psychiatric clinic at the Johns formed. British astronomer Hopkins University in Baltimore. In 1927, Edwin Hubble Fred Hoyle scornfully dubbed In 1927, he published the discovered that the universe this the Big Bang theory, and results of research into the is expanding. In the same year, the name stuck. (✷ See also biorhythms, or internal Starting with a bang.) PoP-uP toaSter By the 1960s, cycles, that govern animal toasters were looking more stylish, behavior. We now know they but their principle – releasing the apply to humans, too. toast after a set time – was the same. Chainsaw 1927 they were rushing away from Emil Lerp, Andreas Stihl Big Bang theory It is impossible to know what the Big Bang was like, us, with speeds that increased but this is an artist’s impression. the further away they were. The world’s first gas-engined The universe, far from being chainsaw let rip on Mount changeless, was expanding. Dolmar, Germany, in 1927. Cosmologists now accept this German engineer Emil Lerp’s as evidence for the Big Bang new, “portable” sawing machine that started it all. had a moving chain like a modern saw, but was too heavy  STARTING WITH A BANG When Albert einstein heArd Georges Lemaître’s Big Bang theory, George Gamow he exclaimed “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation (right) with of creation to which I have ever listened.” Although it doesn’t Swiss-US physicist explain where the “primeval atom” came from, an explosion Wolfgang Pauli about 15 billion years ago does account for the universe we see today. Backed up by recent evidence, the Big Bang is now the preferred picture of the beginning of time. evidence for the Big Bang Steady State theory The strongest evidence for the Big In the same year that George Gamow Bang is the expansion discovered by revived the Big Bang theory, British Hubble. The theory also predicts that astronomers Hermann Bondi, Thomas the universe should be filled with Gold, and Fred Hoyle proposed that low-level microwave radiation, and the universe had always existed in a this was found in 1965. Finally, about “steady state”. They suggested that as a quarter of the universe (by mass) is the universe expanded, new matter made of helium. Stars alone could filled the gaps to keep everything not have produced this amount, but looking the same. Recent discoveries the first fireball could. have made this theory seem unlikely. 1927 Australia’s architect Walter Griffin. Building 1927 Intrepid US aviator Atlantic single-handed in his parliament moves work had started in 1913. The Charles Lindbergh plane The Spirit of St Louis. from Melbourne to Canberra, a name derives from an Aboriginal lands safely at Le Bourget airport, The flight from Roosevelt Field, new city designed by US word meaning “meeting place”. near Paris, after crossing the Long Island, makes him a star. 189

BuBBle gum This Dubble Bubble gum Bubble advertisement from the 1940s is obviously 1928 aimed at children. Unlike chewing gum, bubble gum Walter Diemer has always been seen as mainly a product for Walter Diemer, a young children and teenagers. accountant working for the Fleer Chewing Gum Uncertainty Chloro- on Earth’s protective ozone Company in Philadelphia, principle fluorocarbons layer, so they have not been Pennsylvania, thought he could made since the late 1990s. improve on the company’s 1927 1928 electric razor Razors like product. In 1928 he produced this 1934 Schick allowed men to a gum that was so stretchy he Werner Heisenberg Thomas Midgley Jr, shave anywhere there was an could blow bubbles with it. He Albert Henne electrical outlet. had created bubble gum. His Elementary particles, such company started selling it as as electrons, are described Early refrigerators used Dubble Bubble. Diemer taught by the branch of physics chemicals like ammonia, the sales force how to blow the called quantum mechanics which is extremely smelly and perfect bubble, and the gum (✷ see page 169). This says poisonous. In 1928, it took US became a favorite worldwide. that a particle is not only a scientists Thomas Midgley Jr particle, but also a wave. One and Albert Henne just two Penicillin consequence of this is that days to find something better: nobody can know both the chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. 1928 momentum (mass × velocity) These compounds of chlorine, and position of a particle at the fluorine, and carbon had Alexander Fleming, same time. Momentum comes already been produced by Ernst Chain, Howard Florey from a spread-out wave, while Belgian chemist Frederic Swarts position comes from a in the 1890s, but Midgley and See pages 192–193 for the concentrated wave, and you Henne found a better way of story of how Ernst Chain can’t have both at once. making them. Unfortunately, and Howard Florey built on German physicist Werner they have a devastating effect Alexander Fleming’s lucky find. Heisenberg announced this “uncertainty principle” in 1927. Electric razor 1928 Jacob Schick Attempts to do away with wet shaving go back to 1908 or earlier, but the first Spare cutter Electric lead 1927 Thin meets fat as Hal Roach’s Hollywood Studio for 1928 British women only if they owned a house, were two stars, Stan finally get the same married to a man who owned a Laurel from Britain and Oliver their first film, Putting Pants on voting rights as men, after 10 house, or had a university degree Hardy from the US, team up at Philip. The comic duo will make years in which they could vote and were over 30. many more films together. 190

inventor to tackle the problem the fact that sliced bread Rubber 1901 – 1950 successfully was Lieutenant- quickly went stale. By 1928, cap holds Colonel Jacob Schick of the Rohwedder had perfected a electrodes Electrodes on scalp US Army. In 1928, he used machine that not only sliced, the profits from an earlier but also wrapped the bread into in place Wires connect invention, a razor that stored a handy, long-lasting package. electrodes to blades in its handle, to finance Within five years, most bread ElEctro- a recording his new electric razor. Despite in the US came sliced. instrument the Great Depression that hit EncEphalograph the US in the following year, Prestressed are lined up in one particular Schick’s dry shaver was soon concrete This modern EEG direction. Polaroid sunglasses, selling well. cap was made by which admit only vertically 1928 Neuramedical Supplies. polarized light, can reduce Cinemascope troublesome reflections from Eugène Freyssinet Multipin smooth horizontal surfaces like 1928 connector water and roads. US physicist Ordinary concrete tends plugs into Edwin Land perfected this Henri Chrétien, to crack under loads that the recorder material, which has many other Claude Autant-Lara stretch it. One elegant solution uses, in 1929. The thin plastic was invented in 1928 by Polaroid sheet, treated with optically Cinemascope squeezes a French civil engineer Eugène active crystals, quickly replaced wide image onto normal Freyssinet. He put stretched 1929 the bulkier polarizers that had movie film by distorting it with steel wires into concrete while been used earlier. a special lens. A similar lens on it was wet. When it had set, he Edwin Land the projector distorts the image released the wires so that they back again to produce a wide- squeezed the concrete together, Polaroid polarizes light. That screen picture. French physicist canceling out the forces that is, it blocks all light waves Henri Chrétien invented the would otherwise make it crack. except those whose vibrations lens in the late 1920s, and Prestressed concrete is now experimental films were made used to produce light, strong in 1928 by French film director structures of all kinds. Claude Autant-Lara. But Cinemascope really hit the Electro- screens in the 1950s, as movies encephalograph struggled to tempt audiences away from television. 1929 Sliced bread Hans Berger 1928 Electrodes placed on someone’s head can Otto Rohwedder reveal the electrical activity of their brain. This helps Devising a machine that doctors to diagnose disorders sliced bread can’t have such as epilepsy. An been that difficult, but US electroencephalograph, inventor Otto Rohwedder took or EEG, machine, 16 years to do it. One reason records the activity as was that in 1917, after five a set of squiggly lines. years’ work, he lost everything The first machine was built in a fire. More important was by German physiologist Hans Berger in 1929, after five years’ work with dogs and humans. No-one showed much interest in Berger’s work at first, but a local optical company, Carl Zeiss, was impressed by his device and helped him to build a better one. 1928 A groundbreaking Principles, is published after years 1929 In October, prices poured money into the market. new dictionary of of work by James Murray and on the New York The crash triggers a depression the English language, A New stock exchange collapse, ruining that lasts for years and makes English Dictionary on Historical others. It will be better known as thousands of people who had millions of people jobless. the Oxford English Dictionary. 191

InventIons for everyone THE ANTIBIOTIC MIRACLE Howard Florey and Ernst Chain build on Alexander Fleming’s find to develop a life saver It was September 1928. Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming was showing a friend some plates he used for growing bacteria. Suddenly he stopped. The plate in his hand was covered with bacteria, but there was also a patch of mold, and around the mold there were no bacteria. Fleming worked at Sir Almroth Wright’s vaccine laboratories in St. Mary’s Hospital, London. There, he grew more mold and made an extract he called penicillin. He tested it, used it to cure an eye infection, and wrote about it, but pursued it no further. He was more interested in vaccines. Penicillin, he thought, Alexander Fleming working in his lab at would be best used in laboratories. St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London Ten years later, German biochemist Ernst Chain, working at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford, England, suggested to his boss, Australian pathologist Howard Florey, that they should investigate penicillin. Florey decided to see if it would affect Culture dish showing the effect bacteria inside animals – something Fleming hadn’t tried. Chain’s job of penicillin on bacteria would be to isolate the active agent from the mould. HAppy Accident In May 1940, Florey injected eight mice with lethal bacteria. Then he Bacteria can be grown in injected four of them with penicillin. The next day, the untreated mice dishes filled with nutrient were dead, but the rest were fine. Florey phoned a colleague. “It’s a gelatin. Fleming had piles of these lying around, miracle,” he told her. which led to his lucky find. Florey wanted to test penicillin on human patients, AnimAl mAgic but to produce enough he had to Fleming thought turn his lab into a factory. Soon it was filled that penicillin with piping and chemical fumes. By February 1941, would be good he had enough penicillin for the first human for getting rid trial. Policeman Albert Alexander was gravely ill with a serious of unwanted infection. On February 12, 1941, he started receiving penicillin. The bacteria in the laboratory. But Florey and Chain saw its potential for curing disease, and were effect was spectacular. He almost recovered, but Florey didn’t have enough the first to try it on mice. penicillin to keep the treatment going, and Alexander died. Later, five 192

1901 – 1950 World War II added urgency to the development of penicillin. Thousands of servicemen were saved by the miracle drug as wound infections that would previously have been fatal were stopped in their tracks. World War II poster advertising penicillin more patients were given penicillin. All improved. Laboratory vessel Some were saved from death. Penicillin Florey decided to make a lot more penicillin. Nobody in wartime Britain Tin tank could help, so he went to the US. There, experts devised a better way of growing mold, and a drug company started producing penicillin in Science on bulk. It would be needed, because by December a ShoeString 1941 the US was at war. Florey and Chain had little money or time, so they Back in Britain, production at Florey’s lab was had to improvise. Early vessels for growing mold stepped up, chemical companies started helping, were made from cocoa tins soldered onto cookie and further tests were organized. By 1943, there tins, but later, glass equipment allowed large- was no doubt. Penicillin was a lifesaver. Thanks scale production. to Fleming, Chain, and Florey, the first antibiotic had arrived. Others followed within a few years. Early samples Together, they have saved millions of lives. Fermentation vessel 193

InventIons for everyone US grocer Clarence Saunders. Ohain thought up a similar in 1930. Seven years later, His Piggly Wiggly store in engine, it was immediately Colin Kininmonth and George Synthetic Memphis, Tennessee, cut costs taken up by a major plane Gray produced Sellotape, a rubber tires by letting customers take their company. The first jet plane, British competitor. purchases right off the shelves, a Heinkel HE-178, flew from 1929 something unheard of at the a German airfield in 1939, Radio time. The other vital two years before the first astronomy Walter Bock, ingredients, bulk buying and British jet flight. Eduard Tschunkur quick turnover, were added in 1931 1930 when another US grocer, Clear adhesive By the 1880s, scientists had Michael Cullen, opened his tape Karl Jansky, Grote Reber some idea of the chemical King Kullen store in an old composition of rubber, but their garage in Long Island, New 1930 Radio astronomy started at attempts to copy it failed. They York. Customers flocked to Bell Telephone Labs in the had more success when they this, the first true supermarket. Richard Drew US, where engineer Karl Jansky tried imitating its properties was tracking down radio rather than its chemistry. In Jet engine Cellophane appeared in the interference. One source of 1929, German chemists Walter late 1920s. One of its main interference eluded him until, Bock and Eduard Tschunkur 1930 uses was for wrapping items in 1931, after months of made a synthetic rubber good like flowers and fruit to make frustration, he pointed his enough for tires. This was Frank Whittle, them look attractive, so it antenna upward. The important in World War II, Hans von Ohain demanded a clear sealing tape mysterious interference was when Germany’s natural rubber to go with it. First to solve the coming from the stars. Another supplies were cut off. The jet engine was patented problem was US engineer US radio engineer Grote Reber in 1930 by a young British Richard Drew of the Minnesota built the first radio telescope, a Supermarket Royal Air Force pilot, Frank Mining and Manufacturing 31 ft (9.5 m) dish, in 1937. By (later Sir Frank) Whittle. He Company, now known as 3M. 1942 he had made the first 1930 had great difficulty convincing Having invented masking tape radio map of the sky. anyone that it would be useful. – an adhesive tape made from Michael Cullen Things were different in paper – in 1925, he coated Electronic flash Germany. When Hans von Cellophane with a similar The first essential of a 1931 supermarket is self-service. adhesive to produce This was invented in 1916 by Scotch Tape Harold Edgerton The flash in most of today’s cameras took 50 years to perfect. It started as a bulky device used when taking research photographs Jet engine The Gloster E28/39 was the Undercarriage Wings first plane to be equipped with the jet engine retracts designed for designed by Frank Whittle. It took to the during flight subsonic flight skies in April 1941, four years after Whittle’s first engine was started up, and two years after the first successful German jet flight. 1930 After 19 days’ solo Australia, from England. The feat, 1930 After the formation Montevideo, Uruguay. Only flying in a converted achieved after only 50 hours’ of the soccer 13 teams compete, which do De Havilland Moth, British aviator flying experience, wins Johnson a organization FIFA in 1904, the not include any from Britain. Amy Johnson reaches Darwin, £10,000 ($48,500) prize World Cup finally kicks off in Uruguay takes the cup. 194

of high-speed objects, such as He called it Criss-Cross. because it contains a heavier 1901 – 1950 bullets. US engineer Harold Nobody wanted to make the form of hydrogen, called Edgerton realized as early as game, so Butts went into deuterium. US chemist Full-color movie 1926 that a high voltage partnership with a retired Harold Urey discovered The Technicolor camera applied to a tube containing government official, James deuterium in 1931. He then was really three cameras xenon gas could produce very Brunot, who started making it realized that electrolysis in one. After processing, brief but intense pulses of light. in his garage. Renamed Lexico, of water releases more its three films were By 1931 he had devised a the game went on sale in 1946. hydrogen than deuterium, printed on to a single practical flash. Within two years, games leaving behind water enriched film for projection. makers Selchow & Righter had with deuterium. Using this Technicolor, invented by US Scrabble snapped it up and were selling process, he and engineer Herbert Kalmus. In it under yet another name – fellow chemist 1932, it was redesigned to 1931 Scrabble. The letter values Edward Washburn work with three colors. The were fixed by counting the created the first first full-color movies had Alfred Butts number of times each letter heavy water. They arrived. Although hampered by appeared on a page of the published their a huge camera taking three reels The world’s best known New York Times. discovery in 1932. of film at once, Technicolor was word game was invented in Scrabble The Scrabble board used for many classics, 1931 by an unemployed New contains 225 squares, of which Button-up including The Wizard of Oz. York architect, Alfred Butts. shirt 81 are “premium” High-speed squares that increase 1932 jet of hot a player’s score. Cecil Gee gases from the Ailerons engine pushes control British tailor Cecil the plane along banking Gee opened his and turning first shop in 1929 in London. His Heavy water customers didn’t want fussy shirts that had to be 1932 pulled on over their head. Nor did they like separate Harold Urey, collars attached with fiddly Edward Washburn studs. So in 1932 Gee designed a shirt with Heavy water has the same buttons all the way chemical properties as down, which could be ordinary water, but is nearly slipped on like a jacket, 11 percent heavier. This is and also had its collar sewn in place. After years of resistance by traditionalists, Gee’s design became the standard men’s shirt. Full-color movie 1932 Herbert Kalmus Several color movie processes were invented in the early 20th century, but most used only two colors, giving unrealistic results. One of these two-color processes was 1931 The Empire State outdone by taller buildings, but 1932 On May 20–21, the Atlantic Ocean, sealing her Building, the world’s American aviator reputation as a great pilot. She tallest skyscraper, is completed in with 102 storys, and a starring Amelia Earhart becomes the first sets a record time of 14 hours, New York. It will eventually be role in the film King Kong, it will woman to fly nonstop solo across 56 minutes in a Lockheed Vega 5B remain a tourist attraction. 195

Mars bar Forrest Ernest Walton, and was first of this, ordinary light Mars played on used successfully in 1932. The microscopes cannot reveal giant machine gave protons really tiny objects. In 1933, people’s guilt about enough energy to split up the German engineer Ernst Ruska eating candy by nuclei of lithium atoms, invented a microscope that releasing helium nuclei, which worked with much smaller marketing his new bar are also called alpha particles. waves. The waves were as a food, pointing out electrons. Although these were that it contained such Sulfonamide once regarded as particles, nutritious ingredients as drugs quantum physics (✷ see page eggs, milk, and butter. 169) shows that they are also 1932 waves. Using them, electron microscopes can now reveal Gerhard Domagk objects as small as molecules. Before antibiotics, Stereophonic sulfonamides sound were the only drugs that could kill a wide 1933 range of bacteria. The first, Prontosil, was Alan Blumlein, actually a bright red Harvey Fletcher dye, discovered in Stereophonic sound was 1932 by German developed independently on both sides of the Atlantic. bacteriologist In Britain, engineer Alan Blumlein, seeking realistic Mars bar Particle Gerhard Domagk. sound for large-screen films, accelerator Scientists later realized that obtained a patent covering 1932 this broke down in the body the fundamental principles 1932 to give a more potent drug, of stereophony in 1933. He Forrest Mars sulfanilamide. From 1936 also developed a microphone John Cockcroft, onward, after clinical trials technique for stereo recording The Mars bar started with Ernest Walton by British doctor Leonard and developed the basic the idea of turning malted Colebrook, this and other system that is used to make milk into confectionery. In Nuclear physicists can study related “sulfa” drugs began stereophonic discs. In the US, 1922, Forrest Mars suggested the structure of matter by to save thousands of lives. physicist Harvey Fletcher of this to his father, US candy firing subatomic particles such They are still used today Bell Telephone Laboratories maker Frank Mars, who created as protons and alpha particles when antibiotics fail. gave his first public a chocolate-covered nougat (helium nuclei) at other atoms demonstration in 1934, and caramel bar called Milky to smash them up and see what Electron in New York City. Way. After an argument with comes out. At first, the microscope his father, Forrest left for physicists had to use particles FM radio England in 1932. He set up his emitted naturally by radioactive 1933 own company in Slough, near materials like radium. Today, 1934 London, where he perfected they nearly always use particle Ernst Ruska the Mars bar, a version of his accelerators, which produce Edwin Armstrong father’s product cleverly energetic particles artificially. An image cannot contain adapted to British tastes. The first was built by British detail smaller than the The letters FM on a radio physicists John Cockcroft and waves used to form it. Because station stand for “frequency modulation.” This means that the transmitted frequency goes up and down slightly with the ups and downs of the sound wave it is carrying. It’s more complicated than the earlier “amplitude modulation,” or AM, system, but resists interference better. FM 1933 US President by means of regular radio 1933 Adolf Hitler is absolute rule of the National Franklin D. addresses. These “fireside chats” appointed Socialist (Nazi) Party. Violently Roosevelt begins speaking boost the public’s confidence in Chancellor in Germany. He uses suppressing all opposition, he directly to the American public their country’s leader his position to establish the establishes himself as a dictator. 196

was perfected in 1934 by US Hammond Cat’s-eyes 1901 – 1950 engineer Edwin Armstrong, organ who first demonstrated it using 1935 Percy Shaw invented them a transmitter on top of the 1934 in 1934, but they were not Empire State Building. Percy Shaw used until the following year. Laurens Hammond Their secret was in the rubber Front-wheel Cat’s-eyes are the little that housed the reflectors. drive car The sound of the Hammond reflectors set in the road Whenever a car ran over a cat’s- organ comes from lots of which make driving at night eye, a flexible “eyelid” wiped 1934 spinning magnetic wheels, one safer. Possibly inspired by real the reflectors clean, ready for cats’ eyes, British engineer the next driver. Shaw became Andrè Citröen, Dual keyboard a millionaire, but never left his André Lefèbvre allows a Swell pedal hometown in Yorkshire. controls Many modern cars have different sound the volume Polyethylene their engine connected for each hand of sound to the front wheels, avoiding 1935 lengthy transmission systems and giving them better grip. Eric Fawcett, A lot of inventors tried this Reginald Gibson in the early 20th century, but the first to succeed in a big Chemists Eric Fawcett way was French carmaker and Reginald Gibson Andrè Citröen, whose chief were part of a team at engineer was André Lefèbvre. British chemical company Their “traction avant” system ICI. They were investigating appeared in 1934, and car the reactions of the gas manufacturers Citröen have ethylene at high pressure. been making front-wheel In 1935, they found a white, drive cars ever since. waxy solid in one of their reaction vessels. It was a new Hammond organ One of the plastic, polyethylene. It was an Hammond’s great advantages was excellent insulator and easy to mold. ICI marketed the new that it was much smaller than a material in 1939 as Alkathene. traditional pipe organ. It could compete with the piano as an Gauge indicates instrument for the home. gas pressure Perspex for each note. Teeth on PolyetHylene the wheels create Chemists Fawcett 1934 pulsating currents in and Gibson used magnetic coils, and this apparatus in Rowland Hill, John Crawford these are mixed and their discovery of amplified to produce polyethylene. The first thick, clear plastic the final sound. US available in large sheets engineer Laurens was Plexiglas. Developed by Hammond built his German chemist Otto Röhm, first organ in 1934, it was introduced by the using a constant-speed Röhm & Haas companies in motor he had invented Germany and the US in 1931. earlier. Each wheel The following year two British could have only a chemists, Rowland Hill and whole number of John Crawford, discovered teeth, so the scales he how to make sheets of a got were slightly out of related, but more glasslike tune. His solution was material, polymethyl to add a wobble to methacrylate. Produced by every note, covering chemical company ICI, it went up the errors while on sale in 1934 under the more creating the unique user-friendly name of Perspex. Hammond sound. 1934 “Bollywood,” the Bombay Talkies, in Mumbai. It is 1934 In October, 100,000 Kai-shek. They begin a 6,000 mile Indian version of the brainchild of Indian producer Chinese communists (9,600 km) “long march” to Hollywood, gets started with the Himansu Rai and a London-based are driven out of Jiangxi Province safety in Shaanxi. It will take a opening of a major film studio, Indian playwright, Niranjan Pal. by Guomindang leader Chiang year – and only 8,000 will arrive. 197

InventIons for everyone Monopoly Radar 1935 1935 Charles Darrow Robert Watson-Watt This popular board game In 1935, the British was invented by US heating government, fearing war, engineer Charles Darrow. He asked Scottish engineer Robert based it on a less successful Watson-Watt if he could game invented in 1924 by produce a radio “death ray”. Elizabeth Phillips. His first Watson-Watt knew that radio board featured streets in could not destroy enemy Atlantic City, a favorite vacation aircraft, but thought it might spot. The tokens – dog, hat, be able to detect them. On and so on – were copies of February 26, using signals from charms on his wife’s bracelet. a BBC transmitter, he detected Manufacturers rejected the a distant bomber. After this, game at first, but it finally appeared he supervised the in time for construction of Christmas radar stations 1935. along the English RadaR coast. These One detection started working system helps just as the war with another: Germany began in radar used 1939. They helped to aim a the Royal Air searchlight Force win the in 1945. Battle of Britain. (✷ See also Seeing by radio.) Monopoly The British version of Monopoly, with London street names, appeared in 1936. Its advertising traded on its success in the US. Color film 1935 Leopold Mannes, Leopold Godowsky Color film was invented by two US classical musicians, Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky. Their film had three separate light-sensitive layers. Each layer formed an image in one of the three primary colors. Although its processing was complicated, the pictures it produced were so good that, in 1930, Kodak invited Mannes and Godowsky to work in its research laboratories. The result, Kodachrome, was launched on April 15, 1935. 1935 US composer George opera that will come to be 1936 On December 11, of the woman he has been Gershwin writes his thought of as his greatest work. Britain’s King forbidden to marry, Mrs Wallis Its lyrics are written by his Edward VIII tells the nation that Simpson. He settles in France folk opera Porgy and Bess, a elder brother, Ira. he must leave his throne for love and marries her the next year. unique blend of jazz, pop, and 198