Ian
priscilla 1Innovations That Changed The World
September 20th 2010 02:25
As reported on Newsweek, even the best ideas require the right people to see their potential and get behind them.
If everything falls in place, that idea can change the lives of everyone on the planet.
Below are a sample of Innovations That Rocked the World, read the full article here.
Humans have known about electricity for centuries, but it had to be harnessed and made portable before it could transform everyday life. The spread of long-distance networks around the turn of the 20th century allowed electricity to power everything from a lightbulb to microchip. In this 1882 engraving from Harper’s, workers lay New York City’s electrical system.
It’s hard for most of us to imagine how drastically our diets would change if not for artificial cooling. Chemical refrigeration—typically done by compressing ammonia vapor—was initially used in slaughterhouses and soon spread to restaurants, grocery stores and homes. The result: a drastic improvement in diet and food variety for people the world over. In this photo, Delco officials examine the first B-9 refrigerator—one of the earliest household models—at a Dayton, Ohio, plant. It retailed for about $700.
When Henry Ford began producing his Model T in 1908, he wanted to find a way to make production faster, cheaper, and more efficient, and embarked on a five-year quest that culminated in 1913, by which time Ford’s plant in Dearborn, Mich. (shown here) could roll another car off the line every three minutes. Assembly lines have since allowed for drastic increases in output in every sector.
Dustin Hoffman’s Ben Braddock should have paid attention in The Graduate when the future was explained to him, "One word: plastics." Even though plastics are only about 100 years old—bakelite was introduced around 1909, while polystyrene entered mass production in the early 1930s—the cheap, malleable, and often quite strong substance is a dominant element in modern life. This photo displays a range of 1920s bakelite products, including clocks, radios, and cigarette lighters. They're also an environmental challenge, because plastic products aren’t biodegradable and have begun filling up landfills—and the oceans—with trash.
Computers are nothing new, but their impact was limited to industrial giants until the machines became small and cheap enough that almost anyone could buy one. With the introduction of the Commodore and Apple II in the late 1970s, computing power was suddenly available to the masses. The brave new world of the personal computer saw waves of new businesses and new companies, some of which are among the world’s most important (from Microsoft, the third-largest U.S. company by market capitalization, to Google, the 13th largest). Here a computer store manager in Cambridge, Mass., shows the memory board for the Apple II, visible behind him, in a 1978 image.
If everything falls in place, that idea can change the lives of everyone on the planet.
Below are a sample of Innovations That Rocked the World, read the full article here.
Long-Distance Electrical Transmission
Refrigeration
The Assembly Line
Plastics
Personal Computers
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