Discoveries that changed the life of mankind. In the lesson you need to find out: What caused such a rapid development of science in the 19th century? What discoveries changed people's lives? Project "discoveries and inventions that shook the world" project on the topic Discoveries in art that changed us

Popov, Mendeleev, Mozhaisky, Lobachevsky, Korolev, Nartov - we have known all these names since childhood. The contribution of our compatriots to the development of world science and technology is truly great. Today we decided to tell you about some revolutionary discoveries and inventions of Russian scientists who changed the world for the better!

The applied scientific discipline, which became the theoretical basis for operative surgery, was introduced by the Russian surgeon, naturalist and teacher Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov.

In the 1840s, as head of the department of surgery at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, Pirogov studied the surgical methods used in those years. Thanks to his research, he radically changed a number of surgical methods and even developed several completely new ones. One of the surgical techniques today bears the name of Pirogov - “Pirogov’s Operation.”

In search of the most effective method of training surgeons, Pirogov began to use anatomical studies on frozen corpses. It was thanks to these studies that a new medical discipline was born - topographic anatomy. A few years later, Pirogov published the world's first anatomical atlas.

Periodic law and periodic table of chemical elements

In March 1869, at a meeting of the Russian Chemical Society, a report by the Russian encyclopedist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev was published: “The relationship between properties and the atomic weight of elements.” This report gave birth to the periodic table of chemical elements, which each of us remembers from school.

The revolutionary nature of Mendeleev's discovery lay in the fact that the place of an element in the periodic table was determined by the comparison of the totality of its properties with the properties of other elements. Mendeleev's periodic law gave scientists an understanding of a pattern that allows them not only to determine the place of chemical elements in a system, but also to predict the existence of new elements and even give them characteristics.

The discovery of the periodic law prompted researchers to study the structure of the atom.

Russian biologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov devoted years of his life to research in the field of epidemiology of cholera, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

In 1882, Mechnikov was one of the first in the world to discover the ability of some blood cells (in particular, leukocytes) to dissolve foreign objects. Based on this discovery, the scientist developed the comparative pathology of inflammation and, subsequently, the phagocytic theory of immunity, which brought him worldwide recognition and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908.

In addition, Mechnikov is one of the founders of evolutionary embryology.

The founder of aerodynamics as a science is considered to be the Russian mechanic Nikolai Egorovich Zhukovsky.

In 1904, Zhukovsky discovered a law that allows one to determine the lifting force of an airplane wing, and then developed the vortex theory of a propeller. His report “On attached vortices” became a kind of impetus for the development of methods for determining the lifting force of an airplane wing.

Later, Zhukovsky headed the aerodynamic laboratory at the Moscow Higher Technical School and founded the Aeronautical Circle, whose members subsequently became such prominent aircraft designers and figures in Russian aviation as V.P. Vetchinkin, B.S. Stechkin, A.A. Arkhangelsky, G.M. Musinyants, B.N. Yuryev and others.

We owe the modern method of measuring blood pressure to a Russian doctor, employee of the Imperial Military Medical Academy, Nikolai Sergeevich Korotkov.

Saving the lives of wounded officers during the Russo-Japanese War, Korotkov was the first in world medical practice to use the sound method of measuring pressure. Previously, it was common to measure pressure using a device based on a mercury manometer. Korotkov noticed that by listening to blood vessels using a phonendoscope, it is possible to record sounds that alternate depending on the compression and loosening of the cuff of the device on the patient’s limb. This discovery allowed doctors to take readings using a revolutionary sound method.

By the way, the specific sounds that the doctor listens to and records when measuring blood pressure are called “Korotkoff sounds.”

The discovery of “stem cells” and methods of using them for medical purposes was a truly revolutionary breakthrough in medicine. The rejuvenating and healing effect that these cells have on the body can safely be called miraculous.

Today, the phrase “stem cell” is familiar to many, but few people know that this term was proposed for widespread use by the Russian histologist Alexander Aleksandrovich Maksimov back in 1909. Maksimov not only introduced the term, but also described hematopoietic stem cells and proved their existence.

Thanks to this discovery, Maksimov became a pioneer in the field of cell biology and set this science a certain vector of development for many years, right up to the present day. Maksimov's works are considered world scientific classics.

Professor of the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology Boris Lvovich Rosing is rightfully considered one of the inventors of television.

The fact is that back in 1907, Rosing received a patent for the “Method of electrically transmitting images over distances,” which he invented. The scientist proved the possibility of converting an electrical signal into visible image points using a cathode ray tube.

Rosing did not limit himself to the theoretical part. A few years later, at a meeting of the Russian Technical Society, he was the first in the world to demonstrate the transmission, reception and reproduction of images of static geometric figures on a CRT screen.

Georgiy Gamow's research is often called the beginning of Big Bang cosmology. His “hot universe” model considers the evolution of the universe to begin with a phase of dense hot plasma consisting of protons, electrons and photons. Nuclear reactions occurred in this hot, dense substance, favoring the synthesis of light chemical elements.

In his theory, Gamow predicted the existence of a cosmic background radiation, which, according to his calculations, should have existed along with hot matter at the dawn of the Universe.

Talented Russian scientists are directly involved in the development and creation of a prototype of another revolutionary technology - an optical quantum generator, or laser.

The first prototype of a modern laser, called a “maser,” was created in the 1950s by Soviet scientists Nikolai Gennadievich Basov and Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov. Around the same years, American physicist Charles Townes was also developing a similar technology.

It is noteworthy that in 1964, all three developers - Basov, Prokhorov and Townes - received the Nobel Prize "for their seminal work in the field of quantum electronics, which made it possible to create oscillators and amplifiers based on the principle of the maser and laser."

In conclusion, I would like to remind readers about one more thing - a little less significant from the point of view of world science, but certainly important and loved by millions of people - a Russian invention.

In 1985, Soviet programmer Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov invented the most famous and popular computer game in the world - Tetris.

Tetris first appeared on the Elektronika-60 microcomputer. At that time, Alexey Pajitnov was studying artificial intelligence and speech recognition. In his research, he used puzzles, in particular, the so-called “pentamino” - a puzzle in which figures consisting of five squares connected by sides must be placed into one rectangle.

Pajitnov automated the process of assembling the puzzle and transferred it to a computer, slightly modernizing it taking into account the computing power of the existing equipment. This is how “tetromino” appeared - the older brother of “Tetris”. Then the main idea of ​​the game was born: falling figures form rows of rectangles, which subsequently disappear from the screen. Very soon the game became popular not only in Moscow, but throughout the world.

20 discoveries and inventions that have qualitatively changed the life of mankind. Not necessarily large-scale, like the hadron collider, but unlike it, noticeably useful and necessary

ALCOHOL. Our ancestors invented alcohol - the “stealer of sanity” (6-10 thousand years BC) to overcome fear of the forces of nature. Judging by the popularity and widespread distribution of alcohol in the world, people are still terribly afraid of snow and rain. Especially men after their payday...

PACEMAKER. The first clinical trials of the pacemaker took place in 1927. It was on wires, and now it is implanted directly into a person, turning him practically into a robot. It turns out that the heart can be controlled - take note for unhappy lovers!

COMPUTER. Many people know that the first programmable computer was created by Georg Schutz from Stockholm and shown in 1855 at the Paris World Exhibition. But few people know that Georg Schutz was rumored to be our guy Zhora Schutz, so you could say the father of the computer is from Russia!

TELEPHONE. The first telephone was patented in 1876 in the USA by inventor Alexander Bell, and it did not have a bell (it was invented by another engineer 2 years later!), and the first subscriber was called using... a whistle. A sort of prototype of a special police phone.

PHOTO. The first decent photograph was taken in 1826 by the Frenchman Joseph Niepce using a camera obscura and was called... “View from the Window.” It’s amazing that cameras have been fantastically improved since then, but the views from the windows continue to be captured...

FRIDGE. It was invented by a doctor - in 1850, the American John Gorey invented a device that produces artificial ice. In 1927, the USA began industrial production of refrigerators; in the USSR it was 10 years late. But some of our 1937 refrigerators still work!

NUCLEAR POWER. People direct nuclear energy, the discovery of which physicists led by Rutherford fought, both for the positive - in nuclear submarines and power plants, and for the negative - remember Hiroshima. It's like a magic wand - depending on whose hands it falls into...

INTERNET. In 1969, by order of the US Department of Defense, only 4 (!) computers at different universities were united by a common micronetwork. Very slowly, other machines joined them, but in 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented a way to exchange texts on the Internet - and away we go, the World Wide Web was intertwined!

WHEEL. Supposedly invented in Mesopotamia (4 thousand years BC), the wheel was a seemingly simple wooden circle with a hole in the center, but became the basis for the construction of the most complex structures: from spinning wheels, mills and pottery wheels to a car with a flashing light.

HAIR DYE. It seems that the invention of hair dye is nonsense compared to the hadron collider? Why then did the Gauls, Saxons and even Neanderthals fight over this? Officially, paint was invented at the end of the 19th century, but the technology was “honed” in 1932, the same one that Marilyn Monroe and Dmitry Kharatyan gave the world.

DIAPERS. Magic panties that add sleep at night were invented in 1957 by American Victor Mills, who was tired of washing his grandchildren’s diapers. At first, everyone turned their noses up at the eccentric grandfather’s “plastic panties,” but he stubbornly experimented on his grandchildren - and finally made humanity happy! And it all started with laziness and lack of sleep!

PENICILLIN. They say that the scientist Alexander Fleming, who conducted experiments on bacteria in 1928, accidentally overlooked the cups with microorganisms, mold appeared there, and... And the scientist guessed that it was no coincidence that the bacteria died around the mold - it destroyed them! This is how penicillin was invented!

REMOTE CONTROLLER. It seems that the remote control is nonsense, and why write about it among the inventions of the airplane and the discovery of nuclear energy, but remember what happens in the house when it is lost? This “magic wand” was invented by the Americans in 1950 and improved by the British at the BBC. And among the Russians he became “pet No. 1”!

X-RAY. “Magic rays”, which allow one to view the human body from the inside, were discovered in 1895 by the German professor Wilhelm Roentgen. For the presentation, he took an x-ray of his wife's hand with a wedding ring! It’s a shame that X-rays were explored by the Russians 10 years before the Germans, but they got distracted by something...

AIRPLANE In 1881, the first aircraft was patented by the Russian inventor Mozhaisky, one problem - he could not take off. A truly flying airplane was designed by the American Wright brothers - in 1903 it flew 260 meters! However, in our country Baba Yaga flew on a mortar - maybe the championship is still ours?

TELESCOPE. In 1608, the Dutch spectacle maker Johann Lippershey first demonstrated the “magic trumpet”, and a year later Galileo looked straight into space with its help. When it seems that our Earth is a grain of sand in the Universe, you can always look through a microscope - it narrows your horizons...

A TELEVISION. TV is made by thousands of people, and it was not invented by just one. Our Vladimir Zvorykin (who, however, worked for the Americans) is considered the “father” of TV, who invented the iconoscope in 1923, but dozens of scientists had a hand in the “box”. By the way, at the beginning of the twentieth century. the idea of ​​TV was considered pseudoscientific. That's a good idea, by the way...

CONTRACEPTIVES. In Ancient Egypt, unfortunate women were forced to protect themselves... with crocodile dung and chew parsley. To the sexual happiness of mankind, the first rubber condom was invented in 1855, and a hundred years later hormonal contraceptives were invented, but many continue to chew parsley - just in case...

WATER PIPES. The invention of water supply (1 thousand years BC) is not only a technical step forward, but also a social one: the more water a person consumes, the more advanced he is. The first Russian water supply system made of wooden pipes appeared in Veliky Novgorod, and it was obviously not turned off in those days for summer maintenance...

ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION. It first bore fruit in 1978 in the UK - there scientists “gave birth” to a girl, Louise Brown, the world’s first test-tube baby. In the USSR this happened for the first time in 1986 - and again it was a girl, which is not surprising: women (even small ones!) are more curious and active than men!

Every year or decade, more and more scientists and inventors appear who give us new discoveries and inventions in various fields. But there are inventions that, once invented, change our way of life in a huge way, moving us forward on the path of progress. Here's just a dozen great inventions who have changed the world in which we live.

List of inventions:

1. Nails

Inventor: unknown

Without nails, our civilization would certainly collapse. It is difficult to determine the exact date of appearance of the nails. Now the approximate date of creation of nails is in the Bronze Age. That is, it is obvious that nails could not have appeared before people learned to cast and shape metal. Previously, wooden structures had to be erected using more complex technologies, using complex geometric structures. Now the construction process has been greatly simplified.

Until the 1790s and early 1800s, iron nails were made by hand. The blacksmith would heat a square iron rod and then beat it on all four sides to create the sharp end of the nail. Machines for making nails appeared between the 1790s and early 1800s. Nail technology continued to evolve; After Henry Bessemer developed a process for mass-producing steel from iron, the iron nails of yesteryear gradually fell out of favor, and by 1886, 10% of nails in the United States were made from soft steel wire (according to the University of Vermont). By 1913, 90% of nails produced in the United States were made from steel wire.

2. Wheel

Inventor: unknown

The idea of ​​a symmetrical component moving in a circular motion along an axis existed in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Europe separately at different periods of time. Thus, it is impossible to establish who and where exactly invented the wheel, but this great invention appeared in 3500 BC and became one of the most important inventions of mankind. The wheel facilitated work in the fields of agriculture and transportation, and also became the basis for other inventions, ranging from carriages to clocks.

3. Printing press

Johannes Gutenberg invented the manual printing press in 1450. By 1500, twenty million books had already been printed in Western Europe. In the 19th century, modifications were made and iron parts replaced wooden ones, speeding up the printing process. The cultural and industrial revolution in Europe would not have been possible if not for the speed with which printing allowed documents, books and newspapers to be distributed to a wide audience. The printing press allowed the press to develop, and also gave people the opportunity to educate themselves. The political sphere would also be unthinkable without millions of copies of leaflets and posters. What can we say about the state apparatus with its endless number of forms? In general, it is a truly great invention.

4. Steam engine

Inventor: James Watt

Although the first version of the steam engine dates back to the 3rd century AD, it was not until the advent of the industrial age in the early 19th century that the modern form of the internal combustion engine emerged. It took decades of design before James Watt made the first drawings, according to which burning fuel releases high-temperature gas and, as it expands, puts pressure on the piston and moves it. This phenomenal invention played a crucial role in the invention of other machines such as cars and airplanes, which changed the face of the planet we live on.

5. Light bulb

Inventor: Thomas Alva Edison

The invention of the light bulb developed during the 1800s by Thomas Edison; he is credited with being the main inventor of a lamp that could burn for 1500 hours without burning out (invented in 1879). The idea of ​​the light bulb itself did not belong to Edison and was expressed by many people, but it was he who managed to select the right materials so that the light bulb would burn for a long time and become cheaper than candles.

6. Penicillin

Inventor: Alexander Fleming

Penicillin was accidentally discovered in a petri dish by Alexander Fleming in 1928. The drug penicillin is a group of antibiotics that treats several infections in people without harming them. Penicillin was mass produced during World War II to rid military personnel of sexually transmitted diseases and is still used as a standard antibiotic against infections. This was one of the most famous discoveries made in the field of medicine. Alexander Fleming received the Nobel Prize in 1945, and newspapers of the time wrote:

“To defeat fascism and liberate France, he made more entire divisions”

7. Telephone

Inventor: Antonio Meucci

For a long time it was believed that Alexander Bell was the discoverer of the telephone, but in 2002 the US Congress decided that the right of primacy in the invention of the telephone belongs to Antonio Meucci. In 1860 (16 years earlier than Graham Bell), Antonio Meucci demonstrated an apparatus that was capable of transmitting voice over wires. Antonio named his invention Telectrophone and applied for a patent in 1871. This marked the beginning of work on one of the most revolutionary inventions that almost everyone on our planet has, keeping it in their pockets and on their desks. The telephone, which later also developed as the mobile phone, has had a vital impact on humanity, especially in the fields of business and communication. The expansion of audible speech from within one room to the entire world is an accomplishment unmatched to this day.

8. Television

Zvorykin with an iconoscope

Inventor: Rosing Boris Lvovich and his students Zvorykin Vladimir Konstantinovich and Kataev Semyon Isidorovich (not recognized as a discoverer), as well as Philo Farnsworth

Although the invention of television cannot be attributed to one person, most people agree that the invention of modern television was the work of two people: Vladimir Kosma Zvorykin (1923) and Philo Farnsworth (1927). It should be noted here that in the USSR, the development of television using parallel technology was carried out by Semyon Isidorovich Kataev, and the first experiments and operating principles of electric television were described by Rosing at the beginning of the 20th century. Television was also one of the greatest inventions, which was developed from mechanical to electronic, from black and white to color, from analogue to digital, from primitive models without a remote control to intelligent ones, and now to 3D versions and small home theaters. People usually spend about 4-8 hours a day watching TV and this has greatly affected family and social life and has also changed our culture beyond recognition.

9. Computer

Inventor: Charles Babbage, Alan Turing and others.

The principle of the modern computer was first mentioned by Alan Turing, and later the first mechanical computer was invented in the early 19th century. This invention has truly accomplished amazing things in more areas of life, including the philosophy and culture of human society. The computer has helped high-speed military aircraft take off, launched spacecraft into orbit, controlled medical equipment, created visual images, stored vast amounts of information, and improved the functioning of automobiles, telephones, and power plants.

10. Internet and World Wide Web

Map of the entire computer network for 2016

Inventor: Vinton Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee

The Internet was first developed in 1973 by Vinton Cerf with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Its original use was to provide a communications network in research laboratories and universities in the United States and to extend overtime work. This invention (along with the World Wide Web) was the main revolutionary invention of the 20th century. In 1996, there were more than 25 million computers connected to the Internet in 180 countries, and now we even had to switch to IPv6 to increase the number of IP addresses, since IPv4 addresses were completely exhausted, and there were about 4.22 billion of them.

The World Wide Web as we know it was first predicted by Arthur C. Clarke. However, the invention was made 19 years later in 1989 by CERN employee Tom Berners Lee. The web has changed the way we approach various fields, including education, music, finance, reading, medicine, language, etc. The web has the potential to surpass all the great inventions of the world.

1918 - Mass spectrometer

University of Chicago professor Arthur Dempster (1886-1950) revolutionized chemical analysis with an instrument that, within minutes, measures the weight of isotopes and detects the chemicals present. The Toronto inventor also discovered uranium-235, a fissile type of heavy metal atom. Later, the scientist participated in the Manhattan Project.

1921 - Tetraethyl lead

The efficiency of carburetor engines directly depends on the compression ratio, but increasing the compression ratio causes misfires -<детонацию>, and this in turn has a harmful effect on the operation of the engine. Thomas Midgley (1889-1944), a laboratory employee in Dayton (Ohio), spent 5 years researching fuel additives that stop detonation. This additive was lead, which was used until recently, until new alternatives gradually replaced this pollutant. Another invention of T. Midgley was freon, a fire-resistant cooler, which has now been replaced by new types of coolers.

1923 - Business management

Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966), long before Stephen Cowie and Tom Peters, pioneered modern corporate governance. This helped him save the corporation<Дженерал Моторс>from collapse and make it the most powerful in the world. He also applied a type of management with an independent board of directors, executive and financial committees - a balance of power that is now a thing of the past. He empowered business units that had proven financial performance to make decisions, a style that became widespread.
1923 - Multi-plane camera
Walt Disney (1901-1966) and Madame Roy's brother turned a small animation studio into a huge entertainment, from the adventures of Mickey the mouse to live-action films (<Фантазия>, <Золушка>, <Питер Пэн>). Disney's greatest contribution to cinema is considered to be the multi-plane camera. Whereas in the traditional method of animation the cells were located on top of each other, giving little depth to the image, the multi-plane camera placed each cell on a separate level and, thus, the elements of the scene could move independently, closer to reality.

1924 - Mutual fund

L. Sherman Adams, Charles H. Leroyd and Ashton L. Carr founded the Massachusetts Investors Trust, which became the first worldwide unrestricted investment fund with a capital of $50 thousand. Within 5 years, using brokerage channels to access the stock market, the fund increased its assets to $14 million Today, the volume of investments in mutual funds is $6.1 trillion.

1924 - Freezing food

Before Clarence Birdseye (1886-1956), cooking and cryogenics had nothing in common. After leaving college, Birdseye worked as a natural scientist for the American government. In Labrador, his attention was drawn to the method of freezing, which was used by the aborigines to preserve the taste of fresh fish. Experimenting with other foods, Birdseye perfected the freezing process and opened a frozen seafood company in New York in 1924. By 1934, Birdseye's frozen meats and vegetables were filling grocery store refrigerators across the country.

1925 - Bell Telephone Laboratories

Theodore Newton Vail (1845-1920), who retired after his second term as president of ATT, merged the technical departments of ATT and Western Electric. The research results were<обречены>for success: 6 Nobel Prizes and other awards. His name is associated with such achievements as the transistor, the push-button telephone, digital signaling and switching, optical communications and the digital signal processor. Today, Bell Labs has been reduced to a division of Lucent Technologies.

1926 - Rocket engine

Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945) - Clark University physicist. Inspired by H.G. Wells<Война миров>, he devoted much of his professional life to developing mathematical theories of rocket fuel and theorizing that a rocket engine could produce enough thrust to propel it into space. Goddard applied his theories to the launch of the first rocket, which took place in 1926 in a field near Auburn (Massachusetts). The rocket, which looked like a 3-meter projectile with a liquid-fuel engine in the nose, rose only 12 m. This short flight was the first giant step in rocket science.

1927 - Television

At the age of 15, Philo Taylor Farnsworth (1906-1971) presented his chemistry teacher with a project for electronic transmission of images over long distances. Four years later, he developed a cathode ray tube for imaging - a vacuum tube in which phosphorus glowed under the influence of electrons. In 1927, he was the first to transmit an electronic image - a horizontal line. In later life, Farnsworth worked on rocket control systems and nuclear fusion control, but his first invention remained his most significant.

1928 – Penicillin.

After serving in field hospitals for years. During the First World War, Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) persistently but unsuccessfully tried to find a means to combat infections that caused more casualties than weapons. One day, while cleaning out his cluttered laboratory and sorting out old medical glassware, he discovered that mold had killed the staph bacteria. In 1945, he became a Nobel laureate for the discovery of penicillin.

1929 - Synthetic rubber

Belgian Julius Nieuland (1878-1936), a graduate of the Catholic University of Notre Dame, was fond of clothing and artificial fabrics. In 1929, he discovered that acetylene could polymerize into an elastic substance. Two years later, DuPont, which funded the research, advertised the resulting material as neoprene. Synthetic rubber is still used today in cable insulation, diving suits, and refrigerator sealing.

1930 - Jet engine

Sir Frank Whittle (1907-1996), while still a cadet at the Royal Air Force War College, wrote a dissertation that radically changed the future of aircraft manufacturing. He predicted that propeller engines would be replaced by the aircraft engine, using a system of turbines and compressed air to ignite atomized fuel. Whittle patented his work in 1930, but it took another 10 years to get a turbine-powered aircraft into the air. In 1941, during a test flight, the first jet aircraft reached a speed of 595 km/h, which far exceeded the capabilities of a propeller-powered aircraft.

1933 - Frequency modulation

Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890-1954) - creator of modern radio. By 1913, he had found a way to amplify radio signals with a feedback loop. During World War I, he improved reception and tuning of signals using a superheterodyne circuit that converted high-frequency signals to intermediate-frequency signals. His main idea was that data should be transmitted using radio signals that vary in frequency rather than amplitude (AM). This idea made it possible to get rid of most of the interference characteristic of AM radio transmissions. Those who invested heavily in the development of amplitude modulation tried to stop Armstrong, but ultimately victory went to frequency modulation.

1933 – Drywall.

One of the smartest ideas in construction after brick, which was unveiled in 1933, is the plaster blank. This made it possible to reduce the huge costs of interior finishing work. The blank, which is a mixture of recycled paper and a cheap mineral - gypsum, has a low cost. As experts say, this is the dirt between two layers of garbage, for which money is paid. Product invented by U.S. Gypsum (<Гипс>), today many are produced, but the name remains the same - Sheetrock (drywall).

1934 - Investment appraisal

For most of history, investing has been about emotional choices.<куда инвестировать>. Benjamin Graham (1894-1976) and David Dodd (1895-1988), professors at Columbia University, during<большого краха>published a book<Анализ финансовой деятельности компаний>, which became the first rational basis for valuing the stock and bond markets. This work acts as a kind of bible for investors. Warren Buffett is Graham and Dodd's most famous student.

1934 – Nylon.

Due to staff shortages during the First World War, Wallis Hume Carozes (1896-1937), a student at Tarkio College, was assigned to head the chemistry department. He later achieved a professorship at Harvard and then worked at a research center<Дюпон>. There he created the first synthetic fiber. Karozes failed to see the success of nylon, which not only became a replacement for silk stockings, but also found widespread industrial use. In April 1937, in a state of depression, he committed suicide.

1937 - Blood Bank

Bernard Fantouche (1874-1940), captivated by the idea<запасов крови>similar to those provided for wounded soldiers during World War I, created the first blood bank at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

1937 - Pulse code modulation

Alec H. Reeves (1902-1971), engineer at International Telephone & Telegraph, ushered in the era of digital communications. Reeves developed a communications device that converted audio signals into electronic pulses, transmitted them over regular telephone lines, and then converted the pulses back into an analog signal at the receiving location.

1938 – Xerography.

Chester Floyd Carlson (1906-1968), a New York patent lawyer, was overwhelmed with the work of copying patent applications. In 1934, he began developing a device that could transfer an image from an illuminated photographic plate to a blank sheet of paper. After 4 years he succeeded. In 1946, he made a deal with the Haloid Co., which produced the first commercial copy machine.

1939 - Automatic transmission (AT)

Earl Thompson, owner of an old Fierce-Arrow with a noisy transmission, spent 30 years studying ways to smooth out gear shifts. As a result of his work, Hydra-Matic appeared - the first automatic control system. As soon as Oldsmobile used automatic transmission in its cars in 1940, it immediately received 25 thousand orders. Automatic transmissions were also used by American troops - they were installed in light tanks during the Second World War.

1939 - Helicopter

The practical implementation of Igor Sikorsky's (1889-1972) obsession with vertical flight caused changes in the way warfare, rescue and travel were conducted. Sikorsky, a Russian by birth, fled to the United States to escape the Bolsheviks and the revolution. There he founded the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corp. (now a division of United Technologies), where he developed the amphibious aircraft and the amphibious aircraft, both types of aircraft that pioneered air travel in South America. In 1931, he patented a helicopter design: a main rotary engine at the top and a vertical rotary engine in the tail, which provided unique maneuverability to the device - a great achievement of the project. In September 1939, he built the first VS-300 helicopter.

In 1935, Sir Robert Watson-Watt (1892-1973), a physicist from Scotland, was accepted into the government physics laboratory, where he developed the first radar technologies. Using a shortwave radio device, he determined how electromagnetic waves should be reflected from distant objects so that they could then be amplified and analyzed by a signal processing device. As a result, the first radar station (RLS) appeared, and with it all modern navigation systems.

1942 - Electronic computer

John W. Atanasoff (1903-1995), a physicist at Iowa State College, sketched the idea for the first computer on a napkin immediately after<вечера с виски и прогулки на автомобиле со скоростью 160км/ч>. The work resulted in such important and still used ideas as regenerative storage, binary arithmetic, and the addition of certain logic gates to create an electronic adding device. He completed his 300-kilogram table-sized device in 1942. Despite the fact that his ideas had already been applied to the ENIAC series computer, Atanasoff was recognized only after a patent hearing in 1973.

1945 - Nuclear energy.

In 4 days in August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, killing more than 200 thousand people. Nuclear explosions marked the end of World War II and the beginning of the nuclear age. In 1957, the world's first nuclear reactor was launched in the Shippingport (Pennsylvania) area, which supplied electricity to Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas. But hopes for a complete transition of the United States to nuclear power supply were destined to be dashed due to the accident in the Three Mile Island area in 1979.

1947 - Cell Phone

D.H. Ring, a Bell Labs employee, dreamed of creating a mobile communications system using low-power transmitters located in designated service areas. However, the decision of the US Federal Communications Commission to limit the number of radio frequencies for mobile communications delayed the development of the idea. The decision of the federal commission remained without revision until 1968.

1947 - Microwave oven

Percy L. Spencer (1894-1970), an engineer at Raytheon, brought the kitchen into the space age. In 1945, while standing near the operating magnetron tube, the main component of short-wave radars, Spencer noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket began to melt. He conducted an experiment with corn kernels, which he placed on a pipe, and made a discovery. In 1947, the world's first microwave oven, the Radarange, appeared.

1947 - Snapshot.

Through his work on light polarization, Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991) was able to reduce glare in glassware, lamps, and military safety glasses. After working with non-polarizing filters, Land invented a camera that developed photographs in seconds.

1947 - Transistor

John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain worked under the direction of William R. Shockley at Bell Labs. They noticed that when electrical signals were applied to the contacts of a germanium crystal, the output signal power was higher than the input power. All three received the Nobel Prize for their achievements in physics in 1956.

1947 - Tupperware

Earl Silas Tupper (1907-1983) began developing his commercial talent at the age of 10, when he delivered family-made products to homes. In 1938 he left the company<Дюпон>, where he served as an engineer, and founded Tupper Plastics Co. Tupper developed a method for producing rigid, defatted plastic from black polyethylene slag by refining it. This is how plastic products (Tupperware) appeared: plastic dishes, bowls and cups with sealed, waterproof lids. But his real achievement was the multi-level distribution organization he created from a growing army of housewives.

1948 - Long playing record (LP)

Peter Carl Goldmark (1906-1977) loved music. However, the cellist and pianist from Budapest did not like the short playing time of 78 rpm records. By slowing the record speed down to 33 1/3 rpm and using softer vinyl instead of shellac, Goldmark was able to increase the number of spiral grooves and double the playback time. The long-playing record, or LP, became something of a catalyst for the music industry, as it made it possible to record classical works in their entirety.

1949 - Magnetic core storage device

An Wang (1920-1990), physicist, born in Shanghai. He worked at the Harvard University Computing Laboratory, where he developed<устройство управления передачей импульсов>, the first way to store information on a computer without using large magnetic drums.
His real major breakthrough was the use of electricity to control the polarity of thousands of tiny ring-shaped ferrite magnets. Jay Forrester, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, modified magnetic core memory, after which it served as the basis for high-speed computer memory until it was replaced by microprocessors. Wang sold a memory patent to IBM for $400,000. He created his own company, Wang Laboratories, which was the first to produce desktop calculators and mini-computers. Wang Laboratories was actively developing, but after Wang's death it ceased to exist.

1952 - Thorazine (chlorpromazine)

Henri Laboriat (1914-1995), a French-born surgeon, spent many years searching for a way to reduce the suffering of patients after anesthesia. He found a solution: patients were given chlorpromazine (brand name Thorazine) before surgery. He also convinced the son-in-law of one of his colleagues, a psychiatrist, to use this remedy to treat mentally ill patients. As a result, patients who had only walked for a long time were able to communicate with people. The drug blocks dopamine (dopamine), which causes schizophrenia, and patients can live outside the psychiatric hospital. The US Food and Drug Administration approved this drug in 1952.

1954 - FORTRAN programming language

John W. Backus (1924) led a team of engineers at IBM that developed the first high-level programming language. By replacing abstract assembly language with English words and familiar algebraic symbols, Fortran emerged, which became the language of the physical sciences and is the basis of almost every programming language.

1954 - Vaccine against polio.

In 1952, Jonas Salk (1914-1995) and Albert Sabin (1906-1993) worked hard on a vaccine against polio, a virus that causes inflammation of nerve cells in the spinal cord and can cause paralysis, muscle wasting, and death. That same year, 52,000 Americans became infected with polio, of whom about 3,000 died. Salk, an expert on influenza diseases, used his acquaintance with D. Basil O'Connor, president of the National Trust, to create an antiviral vaccine by introducing a virus into the body in sufficient quantities to produce antibodies. Salk tested the effect of the vaccine on himself and members of his family and in March 1953 announced the results on the radio<Си-Би-эС>. A year later, vaccination of the population began, as a result, cases of paralytic outcome from polio fell from 13.9 per 100 thousand in 1954 to 0.5 in 1961. Salk became a hero. He later participated in the work on a vaccine against HIV infection.
Sabin considered oral vaccination more effective. In 1957, field trials of the vaccine were carried out. In June 1961, the American Medical Association approved the Sabin vaccine. From 1962 to 1964, more than 100 million Americans were vaccinated, and by the mid-1960s, the easy-to-use Sabin vaccine became the main vaccine. The disease was eradicated.

1955 - Fast Food

Ray Kroc (1902-1984), despite his thriving milkshake machine business, realized that he could make more money by making hamburgers. In 1955, he opened the first diner<Макдоналдс>in Des Plaines (Illinois). The Golden Arches changed the American landscape and turned restaurants into thriving businesses like Kemmons Wilson's hotels. Kroc became a national figure by making money out of nothing.

1956 - Container transportation

Malcolm McLean (1913-2001), a trucking magnate, was dissatisfied with the pace of shipping across the country and abroad. Changing the design of the truck trailer in the manner of a railway car and a ship's hold made it possible to speed up the loading procedure. The first container cargo ship left New Jersey in 1956, launching a new industry that set a precedent for FedEx.

1956 – Disk drive.

Reynold B. Johnson, an IBM employee, developed the IBM 305 RAMAC (Random Access Reader). The device consisted of 50 rotating magnetic disks with a diameter of 60 cm, which were located one above the other. The read-write mechanism moved between the disks, providing faster access to data than magnetic tape. After the device's capabilities were demonstrated at the World Fair in Brussels in 1958, magnetic tape media was abandoned.

1956 - Optical fiber.

Once, when Narinder Kapani was still living in India, a teacher told him that light can only travel when reflected in a straight line. Kapani took this statement as a challenge. In 1956, he experimentally derived the term<волоконная оптика>: A bundle of flexible glass rods coated with reflective material transmitted an image from one end to the other without distortion and with minimal loss of light. Later to<оптическим волноводам>the laser beam was also carried. However, the development of high-speed fiber optic communications took several decades.

1956 - Ampex VRX-1000.

Charles Paulson Ginsburg (1920-1992) began working for Ampex in 1952. Video recording devices of that time operated at an excessively high speed - 6 m/s, so the consumption of video tape was very high. In his Ampex VRX-1000 device, Ginsburg used recording heads that rotated at high speed, which significantly reduced the speed of the tape mechanism. Ginsburg's invention redefined the future of analog audio and video recorders.

1958 - Implantable electronic pacemaker.

Wilson Greatbatch (1919) accidentally installed the wrong resistor in a heart rate monitor. He noticed that the device's pulse signal began to imitate a heartbeat. After making design changes to the device, he assembled 50 electronic cardiac stimulators in his shed behind his house. Ultimately, the device was tested on dogs and humans.

1958 – Laser.

Three people claim to have each invented the laser, a device for amplifying light through stimulated emission of radiation. However, the patent for the invention belongs to Gordon Good. In the early days, the intense light beam was used to cut and drill metals and other materials. In 1964, Kumar Patel, an employee of Bell Labs, invented the dioxide laser, with which surgeons were able to perform highly complex operations using a photon beam instead of scalpels.

1959 - Triple anchor seat belt.

Nils Bohlin (1920-2002), a Swedish engineer, came to the post of head of the safety department of the Volvo automobile company from Saab Aircraft, where he took part in the work on the pilot ejection device. 14 years before the invention of air bags, he came up with the idea that using a seat belt to hold the upper and lower body of a seated person in place would reduce the number of injuries among drivers and passengers. But it didn't just end with the device: Bohlin had to spend years convincing both car manufacturers and the government to make the seat belt part of standard equipment in cars. According to representatives of the US Department of Transportation, seat belts save the lives of 12 thousand Americans every year.

1959 - Integrated circuit

Robert Noyce (1927-1990), an electrical engineer at Fairchild, and Jack S. Kilby (1923), an electrical engineer at Texas Instruments, are equally credited with creating the major invention of the information technology age. Without knowing each other, they solved the problem of minimizing the discrete elements of a computer circuit board and transferring them to a wafer of silicon (Noyce) and germanium (Kilby). This significantly increased the performance of the computer and at the same time reduced its cost. The two companies eventually agreed to share the patents, but Fairchild was the first to mass produce the chips. The integrated circuit remains the key achievement of the electronics era.

1962 - Telstar 1 satellite.

Thanks to this invention, we can call our cousin/brother in Vilnius, who in turn can watch the US Cup championship in American football. The first commercial communications satellite was designed by John R. Pierce (1910-2002) at Bell Labs. It took $3.5 million to put the satellite into orbit. The device was used to transmit television signals from Europe to the USA and transatlantic telephone communications. Pierce left Bell Labs in 1971 for Stanford University, where he taught and wrote science fiction novels under the name J. J. Capling. He introduced the term<транзистор>, but few people know about this.

1962 – Modem.

Without this device, the Internet is impossible. The device was developed in the 1950s and was intended to improve the quality of data transmission in the US northern air defense system. Using a modem, computers could communicate with each other, and the data was converted into analog signals that were transmitted over telephone lines. AT&T's first commercial modem, the Bell 103, appeared 40 years ago and transmitted data at 300 bps. Modern modems transmit data at speeds of a million bits per second.

1964 - Family of mainframe computers.

IBM's System/360 line of computers included a number of commercial computer models that all used a single programming language. Thus, clients who were promoted in the company only needed to take the software with them. Gene M. Amdahl, the creator of the System/360 line, left IBM in 1970 with the idea of ​​​​creating a competitive computer model.

1968 - Mouse

At a computer conference in San Francisco, Stanford Research Institute scientist Douglas Engelbart impressed a packed audience with his presentation of a prototype Windows program, teleconferencing, and a wooden device he called a mouse. Two decades later, Engelbart's invention has become a common PC accessory.

1969 – ATM.

For years, bankers have been talking about automated cash machines. Donald Wetzel, a former minor league baseball player and sales executive from IBM, was given credit to develop the first working model of an ATM. The vice president of product planning for Docutel, then a manufacturer of automated baggage handling equipment, installed the first ATM ATM at a Chemical Bank branch on Long Island, New York. The first ATMs operated in autonomous mode. Today, about 1.1 million ATMs are interconnected across the globe. Wetzel left Docutel and created companies that sold banking equipment.

1969 - Charge-coupled device

George Smith and Willard Boyle, scientists at Bell Labs, sketched out the idea of ​​a light-sensitive circuit that could record images in just an hour. Ultimately, the mechanism for storing and transmitting video without using video tape was used in video cameras, and by 1975, Bell Labs produced a broadcast camera. The same operating principle was applied to fax machines and telescopes.

1969 - Internet

Who knew that the military-industrial complex would become the godmother of online pornography? In order for scientists working for the US Armed Forces to communicate with each other via computer, the Arpanet network was created, consisting of two terminals at Stanford and the University of California at Los Angeles. Later, the State Science Foundation, using the same technology, created a network with greater bandwidth, which is still the basis of the Internet today. With the increasing commercialization of the network, Arpanet merged with the Internet.
1970 - Relational database
Edgar F. Ted Codd, a mathematician and graduate of Oxford University, researched computers and developed the concept of a relational database in 1970. Earlier databases were organized in a strict order; Codd's idea was that disparate groups of data could be combined using common fields. However, IBM management supported a more primitive system. However, the relational database is now the standard and the foundation of Larry Ellison's Oracle fortune.

1970 - CD.

James T. Russell (1931), a laboratory physicist at the Battelle Memorial Institute (Richland, Washington) and an audio enthusiast, tried in every possible way to improve the sound of his old vinyl records. He came up with the idea of ​​digitizing music and recording it on a photosensitive disk using light flashes. This would allow the computer to read music without physical contact with the source, which would immediately solve the problem of aging and wear. The first compact discs were from phonograph records. Russell went on to develop CD-ROM (memory reader) technologies, which are now widespread and allow the creation of not only music, but also DVD and software discs. Last year, 3 billion recording discs were sold.

1971 – Microprocessor.

Robert Noyce, a member of Fairchild's integrated circuit design program, co-founded the chip manufacturing company Intel. A group of specialists from this company, led by Marcian (Ted) Hoff (1937), took another step in the miniaturization of computers by placing the CPU on a single chip. The first model of microprocessor, developed for the Japanese calculator company Busicom, could perform 60 thousand operations per second, just like the 30-ton ENIAC computer created two decades earlier. Try today to give Intel a loan for the development of a microcircuit with the expectation of subsequently buying all the rights (except for the rights to microcircuits for calculators) for $60 thousand.

1971 – Answering machine.

In the 90s of the 19th century, Waldemar Paulsen patented the prototype of a modern answering machine - a telegraph, consisting of a telephone set, a steel wire and an electromagnet. However, a commercial model of the device suitable for sale on the market appeared 7 decades later. PhoneMate's first answering machine, the Model 400, weighed 4 kg and could store up to 20 messages on a reel-to-reel tape. Today, 67% of American households use lighter, cheaper models from PhoneMate.

1972 - Computed tomographic imaging.

For more than 7 decades, doctors used X-rays to penetrate the human body, but could only see the skeleton. Godfrey Honesfield and Allan Cormack, working separately, created a method in which crystals were used instead of X-ray film, a camera rotated around a person, and a computer compared the resulting multiple images. As a result, it was possible to obtain a detailed image of the internal organs of the human body. Shortly thereafter, chemistry professor Paul Lauterber published a paper proposing nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, which led to the development of nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, which provides three-dimensional images of internal organs.

1972 - Ethernet technology.

Robert Metcalfe, an employee at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, was responsible for organizing a single, high-speed network. His term (<стандарт локальных сетей>) refers to a system of wires and chips that allow computer systems to communicate with each other locally without jamming each other. His real achievement was Xerox's technology collaboration with Digital Equipment and Intel, which made Ethernet an industry standard and is now the most widely used technology for local area networks. In 1979, Metcalfe founded 3Com to implement Ethernet technology.

1972 - UNIX/C operating system.

The first operating system written in C that is still in use throughout the world. Bell Labs researchers Dennis Ritchie (1941) and Kenneth Thompson (1943) developed a system based on simple discrete commands that was used in multitasking devices and was supported by users: one user could run a spell check while another created a document. Currently, C programming exists in various forms and implementations. Today, UNIX continues to be used to manage most Internet servers and large economic systems.

1972 – Video games.

Nolan Bushnell (1943) came up with another way to keep young people busy: he created Pong, a crude electronic tennis game, a home version of which was released later. Bushnell's Atari game became the top seller in the video game market, but ultimately lost to the game<Пиццерия>. Now Sony and Microsoft have monopolies in the industry that Bushnell started, and their income in the United States exceeds that of the film industry.

1974 - Catalytic exhaust afterburner.

After the US Congress passed the Air Pollution Control Act (1970), Corning scientists Rodney Bagley, Irwin Lachman and Ronald Lewis began developing an idea that allowed automakers to reduce emissions. As a result, scientists have created a ceramic honeycomb coating that is used in car exhaust systems and converts 95% of pollutants into water vapor and carbon dioxide.

1976 - Recombinant DNA.

Robert Swanson, a 29-year-old entrepreneur, and Herbert Boyer, a professor at the University of California (San Francisco), have teamed up to commercialize Boyer's major advances in “recombinant DNA,” a technology that creates combinations of DNA molecules that can be of great benefit to humanity, like insulin. for diabetics, growth hormones for children and antibodies for cancer patients. Two members founded the first biotechnology company, Genentech. The company gained fame in 1980, when its profits amounted to $35 million. Swanson died in 1999. Today the company's market value is $17 billion and sales are $2.2 billion.

1976 - Personal computer.

Apple co-founders Steven P. Jobs (1955) and Stephen Wozniak (1950) made the PC as popular as sports cars, ushering in the PC era. But because the company never seriously pursued the business market, its successes were much more modest than those of its larger competitors, which always adopted Apple's innovations in design and marketing. Wozniak resigned in 1985. That same year, Jobs was forced to leave the company, but in 1997 he was invited to lead the company's transformation.

1977 - Cash management accounts.

After meeting with members of the Stanford Research Institute, Thomas Christie, chief accountant<Мерил Линч>, proposed the idea of ​​a single account, which included the issuance of a checkbook, foreign exchange market services, a Visa credit card and brokerage services. The idea remained without development, and the company<Мерил>I almost forgot about her. Ultimately, the idea spread widely, inspiring those who dreamed of creating megabanks.

1979 - Spreadsheet

Daniel Bricklin (1951) and Bob Frankston (1949) invented the computer program VisiCalc, which freed accountants and other professionals from hours of paperwork by making it easier to record financial data and speed up comparative analysis. The VisiCalc program was in some way a contribution to the computerization process, as it showed the real possibilities of using a PC. Due to legal problems, the VisiCalc program was sold to Lotus, which used a spreadsheet in version 1-2-3 of the program.

1984 - Liquid crystal display.

Liquid crystals, which exist between solid and liquid states, were discovered by the Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer in 1888. After 80 years, two independent groups of scientists from RCA Labs and Kent (Utah) created the first liquid crystal display based on a generalization of the results of the action of electric charges on crystals. In the early days, LCD screens were used in watches. By 1984, it was possible to improve the resolution of liquid crystals, which made it possible to transmit images, and not just text, and laptops and portable computers appeared.

1987 - Mevacor (“Mevacor”).

It took Merck scientists more than 35 years to create Mevacor, a drug that reduces cholesterol in the body. The tablet blocks the enzyme that is responsible for the formation of mevalonic acid, the acid does not affect the liver, and cholesterol is not produced. Led by P. Roy Vagelos, a Merck executive, scientists created Zocor, a second-generation drug, and showed that taking all cholesterol-lowering drugs reduces the risk of heart attack. In 1995, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Zocor as a heart attack preventative, greatly increasing demand for the drug from people who had already had a heart attack.

1991 - World Wide Web.

Tim Berners-Lee, a software consultant, developed the Enquire program, which provided a documented connection of computers around the world, making travel through cyberspace a reality. In 1993, Marc Andreessen created the Mosaic program, which allowed you to view images and text. Two years later, Netscape's search engine ushered in the era of Internet advertising.

1995 - Internet business.

Seduced by this new form of business, Jeffrey Bezos began selling books online on Amazon.com, and Pierre Omidyar launched Ebay, an online marketplace. Hundreds of other entrepreneurs followed suit, selling everything from bicycles to chewing gum.

2000 - Automated sequence determination device.

Using 300 high-speed DNA sequencing instruments, genetics guru J. Craig Venter revolutionized the scientific world: his company Celera Genomics managed to decipher the complete human genetic code in just over two years with a budget of $270 million. Studying genetic differences among people will allow scientists to better diagnose and ultimately treat diabetes and schizophrenia.