Magnetism

Electromagnetic Devices and Inventions

The discovery of electromagnetism led to a large number of inventions and devices. Being able to turn magnetism on and off, the great strength of electromagnets, and being able to vary the magnetism by varying the electrical current are characteristics of electromagnetism used in many inventions. Some devices reverse the characteristics to create another class of devices.

Questions you may have include:

• How is the strength of an electromagnet used?

• How is moving something though varying magnetic strength used?

• How can some inventions be reversed?

Lifting and dropping objects

The magnetic strength of an electromagnet depends on the number of turns or wire and the current through the wire, and the size of the iron core. This allows electromagnets to be made much larger and stronger than a natural magnet, such that they can pick up very large objects.

Also, when you turn off the electricity to an electromagnet, the magnetism is also turned off. Thus, an electromagnet can be used to pick up a piece of iron and then drop it someplace else.

Crane uses electromagnet to pick up junked car

Strong electromagnets are often used in areas of heavy industry to move large pieces of iron or steel. They are commonly employed in junkyards, where a crane with a huge electromagnet is used to pick up, move and drop old, junked cars.

Creating motion

Changing the electrical current through an electromagnet changes its strength and even direction of its magnetic field. This effect can be used to create controlled motion of objects, which in turn can result in some interesting results.

Loudspeaker

The loudspeakers in your radio, TV or stereo system use varying electric current through an electromagnet to create sound. The electric current varies at a fast rate, causing the strength of the magnetic field to vary. This results in moving the loudspeaker membrane or cone back and forth rapidly, resulting in sound and even music.

Cut-out of a loudspeaker

Take a look at a loudspeaker and see the coil of wire and electromagnet in its back area. Some loudspeakers use a solenoid instead of an electromagnet.

Electric motor

An electric motor is an even more clever application of electromagnets. Suppose you put some electromagnets on a wheel and put some permanent magnets around the wheel. The electromagnets could be made to attract and repel the surrounding magnets, causing the wheel to turn.

Look at an electric motor and see the internal wheel made of electromagnets and the outer shell made of permanent magnetic material.

Creating electricity

You can reverse many of these inventions. You have seen that changing an electric current can change the magnetic field and cause varying motion of an object. By reversing that, you can move a magnet to create an electrical current.

This is a result of an amazing duality principle that you will see many times in science, in that you can reverse ideas or inventions.

Loudspeaker becomes microphone

Suppose you took a loudspeaker or an earphone and vibrated its membrane with sound? The movement of the coiled wires or solenoid in the magnetic field would work just the opposite of a loudspeaker, and a varying electrical current would be created. You would now have a microphone.

Creating electricity with a magnet

Now if electric current moving though a wire creates a magnetic field, could just the opposite—a wire moving through a magnetic field—cause electric current? The answer is yes.

If you take a N and S magnet and pass a wire through their magnetic field, electric current will flow through the wire.

Moving a magnet through coils of wire creates electricity

Electric motor creates electricity

If you took an DC electric motor and spun the rotor, its wires would cut through the magnetic fields and create electricity. An electric generator is simply an electric motor that you are spinning.

Phonograph

The grooves in a phonograph record cause the needle to vibrate. Electronic amplifies the signal and rapidly turns the current to the loud speaker on and off. This results in playing of the sound that was previous recorded into those grooves.

In conclusion

Electromagnetic devices and inventions include a large magnet to lift up and drop automobiles, the loudspeaker, electric motor, microphone, electric generator, and phonograph. Some devices use the opposite effects as others. The loudspeaker and microphone are examples of this.

Interesting Facts About Electricity

Strangely enough, fish were the only source people had of electricity thousands of years ago. Lightning was not seen as electricity, but rather was perceived as the power of the gods made manifest. Certain species of eels, rays and even catfish, then and now, possess the defensive power to generate electric shocks and ancient people thought these shocks could cure you of headache or gout. They did not, however, use the term ‘electricity’ for what they were experiencing.

The word ‘electricity’ did not appear until 1600 when it was used to describe a static force that was created by vigorously rubbing amber with a cloth. The word ‘electricity’ actually is derived from ‘electron,’ the Greek word for amber.

Practical advances in the use of electricity did not appear until the late 1800s with the myriad electrical inventions of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, among others. In the period between 1600 and 1900, most people who even thought about electricity perceived it as a mystical magical force, rather than as a natural aspect of the universe. In 1771, Luigi Galvani shocked the world by making the legs of dead frogs twitch and jerk by applying an electrical stimulus from a simple home-made battery.

Though Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley never mentioned electricity by name in her 1819 novel, most of her readers were quite familiar with the then-well-known, but unproved, concept of resuscitation from the dead via the application of electricity. Frankenstein’s creature walked and struggled to talk because of the power of electricity.

Rudyard Kipling added to the mythology of electricity with his 1907 poem “Sons of Martha.” The poem is celebration of people who provide for the physical needs of others; its recitation is used by several engineering colleges as a rite of passage for their graduates. Specifically, Kipling’s lines about those who “finger death at their gloves end” when connecting electrical wiring reinforce the image of the person who knows how to handle electricity as a fearless mage.

By the middle of the 20th century, though, electricity became commonplace enough that the lack of it became the dramatic magical device for most people. Power outages were the centerpieces for many films and novels about the thin veneer of civilization that would be shattered by such a simple matter as the lights going out, the most dramatic being the E. M. Forster novel “The Machine Stops.”

Fish, amber, frogs’ legs, Frankenstein, Kipling and blown fuses — that’s quite a progression for one of the natural forces of the universe. Now there are many electrician schools available to teach you about electricity and how to help others use it in modern day life.

A Brief History of Electricity

In the history of electricity, no single defining moment exists. The way we produce, distribute, install, and use electricity and the devices it powers is the culmination of nearly 300 years of research and development.

Efforts to understand, capture, and tame electricity began in the 18th century. For the next 150 years, dozens of "natural scientists" in England, Europe, colonial America, and later the United States analyzed electricity in nature, but producing it outside of nature was another matter.
That didn't happen on any large scale until the late 19th century. Setting the stage for widespread commercial use of electricity were international researchers engaged in pure scientific research, and entrepreneurial businessmen who made their own major discoveries or produced, marketed, and sold products based on others' ideas.

Prominent contributors to today's electrically energized world (listed in alphabetical order) include:

* Andrè-Maire Ampére (1775-1836), a French physicist who developed the Systéme International d'Unités (SI).

* Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), inventor of the telephone. A mostly home-taught member of a Scottish family interested in issues of speech and deafness, Bell followed his father, Alexander Melville Bell, as a teacher of the deaf. In the 1870s, funded by the fathers of two of his students, Bell studied how electricity could transmit sound.

* Ferdinand Braum (1850-1918), a German physicist who shared a Nobel Prize with Guglielmo Marconi for contributions to the development of radiotelegraphy.

* Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), a reclusive, unpublished English scientist whose work was replicated several decades later by Ohm.

* Thomas Doolittle, a Connecticut mill worker who, in 1876, devised a way to make the first hard-drawn copper wire strong enough for use by the telegraphy industry, in place of iron wire. The young commercial electric and telephone industry quickly took advantage of the new wire.

* Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931), the most productive electrical explorer. He invented the electric light bulb and many other products that electricians use or install.

*Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), an American diplomat and natural philosopher, he proved that lightning and electricity were the same.

* Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), an Italian physician and physicist, his early discoveries led to the invention of the voltaic pile.

* Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), an Italian physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his invention of a system of radiotelegraphy.

* Georg Simon Ohm (1789-1854), a German physicist and the discoverer of Ohm's Law, which states that resistance equals the ratio of the potential difference to current.

* Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a Serbian-American inventor who discovered rotating magnetic fields. George Westinghouse purchased Tesla's patent rights.

* Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (1745-1827), an Italian physicist who invented the electric battery. The electrical unit "volt" is named for Volta.

* George Westinghouse (1846-1914), an able adapter of other people's research, purchased their patents and expanded on their work. His first patent was received for a train air brake. In 1869, he formed the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. Eventually, he held 360 patents and founded six companies. He lost control of his companies in the 1907 panic, but went on working for them for another three years.

The experiences of electricity's founding fathers parallel in many ways the electronic technology breakthroughs of the past half-century that have brought us a whirlwind of innovation in computer hardware, software, and Internet communications. Just as a wave of electrical inventions dramatically changed the world as the 20th century progressed, so can we anticipate a steadily escalating rate of innovation in these emerging electronic disciplines beyond the dawn of the 21st century.

Emergence of a profession
Edison, Westinghouse, and other inventors and builders of electrical equipment competed to show the wonders of their new inventions. In 1881, Lucien Gaulard of France and John Gibbs of England arranged the first successful alternating-current electrical demonstration in London.
Expositions and world's fairs became popular places to showcase new inventions involving electricity. Almost as soon as they moved from the drawing board to operational status, electrical devices and systems were on display, to the delight of admiring crowds throughout the United States, England, and Europe.

Electricians were hired to build and operate these installations. The first successful use of electricity at one of these events occurred at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Four years later, the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago used 10 times more electricity than the Paris Exposition. Says David E. Nye in Electrifying America (MIT Press, 1997):

"The Chicago fair employed 90,000 Sawyer-Mann incandescent lamps using alternating current, installed by Westinghouse for $5.25 each, and 5,000 arc lights installed by General Electric. To understand what these figures meant, consider that in 1890 there were only 68,000 arc lights and 900,000 incandescent lamps in the entire United States."

Columbian Exposition visitors could ride on or see electrified sites that included three cranes, elevators in some buildings, water fountains, an on-site railroad/streetcar system built by General Electric, and moving sidewalks.

Organizers of the electricity-themed 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., were challenged to improve on the Columbian Exposition.

Two of the Pan-American Exposition's buildings were dedicated to electricity. The 400-foot Electric Tower, studded with 40,000 lights; and the Electricity Building, with a display of electrical appliances.

Meanwhile, electricity had made an appearance at the annual expositions held from 1857 to the late 1890s in St. Louis, Mo., then the fourth-largest city in the United States. The St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Fair took place each summer at Fairgrounds Park on the city's north side, and each winter in the Exposition and Music Hall in downtown St. Louis.

Organizing the profession
Electricians meeting in conjunction with these expositions in St. Louis and Buffalo found enough in common to form the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA).
In the fall of 1890, experienced linemen and wiremen working on the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Fair met to share common professional experiences. A year later, on November 21, 1891, 10 electricians representing about 300 workmen in eight cities met and formed the IBEW. The group included three from St. Louis and one each from Chicago; Indianapolis and Evansville, Ind.; Duluth, Minn.; Toledo; Philadelphia; and Milwaukee.

At about the same time, electrical contracting firms in Buffalo, New York City, Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica formed the United Electrical Contractors Association of New York State. This association invited electrical contracting firms from all over the United States to a meeting on July 17, 1901, at the New York State Building at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Forty-nine men came from 18 cities in eight states, including nine from St. Louis, two each from Detroit and Philadelphia, and one each from Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh. From this meeting, displaying the latest advances in electrical use, NECA emerged.

NECA's longtime members
Although some of the companies involved in NECA's formative years have gone into other lines of business and/or have been absorbed into other companies, a number of others remain active in the electrical-contracting business today. Century-old electrical-contracting firms with longtime NECA include:
* Hatzel & Buehler, Inc., of New York City was founded by John D. Hatzel and Joseph Buehler, master electricians at Thomas A. Edison's Pearl Street generating station, in 1884, to offer outside and inside wiring. J.D. Hatzel attended NECA's founding meeting and served as a NECA president. In the early 1930s, the grandfather of current Hatzel & Buehler president William A. Goeller purchased the firm from John Hatzel's estate.

* Herbert A. Holder Company, Inc., of Boston, was founded in 1892 by Herbert A. Holder Sr. "Holder is Boston's oldest union shop," says Michael Grable, vice president and general manager. For 80 years, it was located on Broad Street in the center of Boston's financial district." Herbert A. Holder Jr. inherited the company from his father. About 1970, Willard Bain, my father-in-law and a longtime Holder employee, asked to purchase the company." Today Willard's son, Paul W. Bain, serves as president and shares management responsibilities with Grable.

* Briner Electric Company of St. Louis opened when Charles J. Briner founded the company in 1895. In 1897, he and his brother, Fred E. Briner, formed a partnership-C.J. and F.E. Briner Electric Company. In 1902, the Briners formed a separate partnership that today would be called a joint venture with William Koeneman, John Casey, and William and Louis Nolker, creating Guarantee Electric Company for the specific purpose of working on the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. After the World's Fair, William Koeneman bought out his partners to gain control of Guarantee.
Briner Electric continued as a separate company, which the Briner family sold in 1962 to Thomas J. Fogarty and Paul Lyons. Briner Electric now is owned and operated by Fogarty's sons, T. Michael Fogarty, president; and his younger brother, John J. Fogarty, vice president.

* An employee, Fred J. Oertli, purchased Guarantee from the family of William Koeneman in 1946. Today his sons direct Guarantee, Fred G. "Junior" Oertli, as vice chairman, and his younger brother, Charles W. "Chuck" Oertli, chairman and chief executive officer.

* Jack Enright and Theodore H. Joseph founded E-J Electric Installation Co. of New York City, in 1899. Jack Enright died in 1913. Jac Mann became Joseph's partner; today members of Mann's family le ad the company. For more information on E-J Electric, see Electrical Contractor, June 1999.

* One early contracting firm lasted to celebrate its centennial but has since gone out of business. Henry Newgard & Co. of Chicago was founded in 1882. In an early advertisement, Newgard described its services as "installer of electric lights, speaking tubes, electric bells, burglar alarms, and gas lighting." The firm ceased operations in the mid-1990s.
Corporate Pioneers
Following is a representative sample of the oldest power companies and manufacturers of electrical supplies:

* Siemens AG, of Münich, Germany, was the first of several companies founded by Carl, Werner, and Wilhelm Siemens. The firm was established in 1847 as Siemens & Halske OHG. Today Siemens AG is an electrical-engineering and electronics company.

* General Cable Corporation, of Highland Heights, Ky., was incorporated in New Jersey in 1927. General Cable brought together the assets of several companies formed in the 19th century, including Phillips Wire and Safety Company and George Westinghouse's Standard Underground Cable Company. Companies that became part of General Cable supplied insulated cable in 1844 to Samuel Morse; wire to the Statue of Liberty in 1886 (and again in 1986), 145 miles of cable that contractors laid under New York City sidewalks in 1892, and 3,000-volt cable for Chicago's 1893 Columbia Exposition.

* Pacific Gas and Electric Co., based in San Francisco, Calif. PG&E is the result of mergers involving dozens of companies, including a number that started selling gas. As electricity became available, they sold it, too. In 1852, Peter and James Donahue founded San Francisco Gas Company, the city's first gas supplier. Oakland Gas Light, founded by John A. Britton in 1855, established a small electrical plant in 1877 and changed its name to Oakland Gas and Light Company. In June of 1879, George H. Roe formed California Electric Light Company, the first exclusively electric firm in the PG&E family of companies.

* In 1901, Britton and Roe's companies merged to form California Gas and Electric Corporation. In 1890, with the backing of J.P. Morgan, Edison started studying expansion into California. Roe went to New York and purchased the right to use Edison's patents within a 100-miles radius of San Francisco.

* Westinghouse Electric Company, one of 56 companies (including Rockwell International) founded by George Westinghouse. In 1885, Westinghouse imported a Gaulard-Gibbs transformer from England and an AC generator from Siemens Brothers, the English subsidiary of Siemens AG. He and his engineers modified this equipment and proved the economic value of his alternating-current concept over Edison's direct-current system. As an experiment, Westinghouse electrified the small village of Barrington, Mass., for two weeks in 1886.

*Westinghouse subsequently grew to become one of the world's largest companies, but it has suffered financial embarrassment and many divestitures. The firm's three remaining divisions are Westinghouse Electric Co., which provides products and services for the nuclear-power industry; The Westinghouse Government Service Co., a United States Defense Department subcontractor; and The Westinghouse Government Environmental Service Company, based in Monroeville, Pa.

* Thomas A. Edison and a number of investors founded General Electric Light Bulb Company/Edison General Electric Company in 1887, to promote and sell electric light bulbs. In 1892, the assets of General Electric Light Bulb and other Edison companies were acquired for the newly incorporated General Electric Company. GE has made and sold many products using one or more of Edison's 1,093 American patents. "More than half of Edison's patents related to electricity," says Dr. Robert A. Rosenberg, director of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. "Besides the electric light bulb, Edison worked on photography (in 1877), the phonograph, the telegraph, and telephone." General Electric Company's corporate headquarters today is in Fairfield, Conn.

* Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company, founded in St. Louis in 1890 by Alexander and Charles Meston with the financial support of attorney and entrepreneur John Wesley Emerson. Still based in St. Louis, Emerson has 60 divisions and over 100,000 employees.

* Cutler-Hammer, founded in 1893 by Chicago inventor and business man Harry H. Cutler to manufacture manual starter boxes. The company now is part of Eaton Corporation of Cleveland.

Inventors and Inventions from 1851-1900 - the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

BAEKELAND, L.H.
Leo Hendrik Baekeland (November 14, 1863 - February 23, 1944) was a Belgian-born American chemist who invented Velox photographic paper (1893) and Bakelite (1907), an inexpensive, nonflammable, versatile, and very popular plastic.




BATTERY
A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy. Each battery has two electrodes, an anode (the positive end) and a cathode (the negative end). An electrical circuit runs between these two electrodes, going through a chemical called an electrolyte (which can be either liquid or solid). This unit consisting of two electrodes is called a cell (often called a voltaic cell or pile). Batteries are used to power many devices and make the spark that starts a gasoline engine.
Alessandro Volta was an Italian physicist invented the first chemical battery in 1800.

Storage batteries are lead-based batteries that can be recharged. In 1859, the French physicist Gaston Plante (1834-1889) invented a battery made from two lead plates joined by a wire and immersed in a sulfuric acid electrolyte; this was the first storage battery.

The dry cell is a an improved voltaic cell with a cylindrical zinc shell (the zinc acts as both the cathode and the container) that is lined with an ammonium chloride (the electrolyte) saturated material (and not a liquid). The dry cell battery was developed in the 1870s-1870s by Georges Leclanche of France, who used an electrolyte in the form of a paste.

Edison batteries (also called alkaline batteries) are an improved type of storage battery developed by Thomas Edison. These batteries have an alkaline electrolyte, and not an acid.

BASKETBALL The game of basketball was invented by James Naismith (1861-1939). Naismith was a Canadian physical education instructor who invented the game in 1891 so that his students could participate in sports during the winter. In his original game, which he developed while at the Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association), Naismith used a soccer ball which was thrown into peach baskets (with the basket bottoms intact). The first public basketball game was in Springfield, MA, USA, on March 11, 1892. Basketball was first played at the Olympics in Berlin Germany in 1936 (America won the gold medal, and Naismith was there).

BELL, ALEXANDER GRAHAM
Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847, Edinburgh, Scotland - August 2, 1922, Baddek, Nova Scotia) invented the telephone (with Thomas Watson) in 1876. Bell also improved Thomas Edison's phonograph. Bell invented the multiple telegraph (1875), the hydroairplane, the photo-sensitive selenium cell (the photophone, a wireless phone, developed with Sumner Tainter), and new techniques for teaching the deaf to speak. In 1882, Bell and his father-in-law, Gardiner Hubbard, bought and re-organized the journal "Science." Bell, Hubbard and others founded the National Geographic Society in 1888; Bell was the President of the National Geographic Society from 1898 to 1903.


BLUE JEANS
Levi Strauss (1829-1902) was an entrepreneur who invented and marketed blue jeans. Trained as a tailor in Buttenheim, Bavaria, Germany, Strauss went to San Francisco, USA from New York in 1853. Strauss sold dry goods, including tents and linens to the 49ers (the people who came to the California gold rush, which began in 1849). In 1873, Strauss and Jacob Davis, a Nevada tailor, patented the idea (devised by Davis) of using copper rivets at the stress points of sturdy work pants. Early levis, called "waist overalls," came in a brown canvas duck fabric and a heavy blue denim fabric. The duck fabric pants were not very successful, so were dropped early on. His business became extremely successful (and still is), revolutionizing the apparel industry.

BRAILLE TYPEWRITER
The Hall Braille typewriter (also called a Braillewriter or Brailler) was invented in 1892 by Frank Haven Hall. Hall was the Superintendent of the Illinois Institution for the Blind. The Hall Braille typewriter was manufactured by the Harrison & Seifried company in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Hall introduced his invention on May 27, 1892, at Jacksonville, Illinois. It types raised Braille dots onto paper.

BUNSEN BURNER
The laboratory Bunsen burner was invented by Robert Wilhelm Bunsen in 1855. Bunsen (1811-1899) was a German chemist and teacher. He invented the Bunsen burner for his research in isolating chemical substances - it has a high-intensity, non-luminous flame that does not interfere with the colored flame emitted by chemicals being tested.



BURBANK, LUTHER
Luther Burbank (1849-1926) was an American plant breeder who developed over 800 new strains of plants, including many popular varieties of potato, plums, prunes, berries, trees, and flowers. One of his greatest inventions was the Russet Burbank potato (also called the Idaho potato), which he developed in 1871. This blight-resistant potato helped Ireland recover from its devastating potato famine of 1840-60. Burbank also developed the Flaming Gold nectarine, the Santa Rosa plum, and the Shasta daisy. Burbank was raised on a farm and only went to elementary school; he was self-educated. Burbank applied the works of Charles Darwin to plants. Of Darwin's The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Burbank said, "It opened up a new world to me."


CARVER, GEORGE WASHINGTON
George Washington Carver (1865?-1943) was an American scientist, educator, humanitarian, and former slave. Carver developed hundreds of products from , potatoes, pecans, and soybeans; his discoveries greatly improved the agricultural output and the health of Southern farmers. Before this, the only main crop in the South was cotton. The products that Carver invented included a rubber substitute, adhesives, foodstuffs, dyes, pigments, and many other products.


CASH REGISTER
The mechanical cash register was invented (and patented) in 1879 by James Ritty (1836-1918). Ritty was an American tavern keeper in Dayton, Ohio. He nicknamed his cash register the "Incorruptible Cashier," and started the National Manufacturing Company to sell them. When a transaction was completed, a bell rang on the cash register and the amount was noted on a large dial on the front of the machine. During each sale, a paper tape was punched with holes so that the merchant could keep track of sales (at the end of the day, the merchant could add up the holes).

John H. Patterson (1844-1922) bought Ritty's patent and his cash register company in 1884. Patterson renamed the Dayton, Ohio, company the National Cash Register Company. Patterson improved Ritty's cash register by adding a paper tape that kept a printed record of all transactions.

In 1906, Charles F. Kettering (and employee of NCR) developed an electric cash register (Kettering later worked for General Motors and invented the electric car ignition).

The National Cash Register Company was later called NCR, until the company was bought by ATT in 1991; it was given back the name NCR in 1996, when it was split off from ATT.

CELLULOID
Celluloid is a plastic made from cellulose (it is derived from plants). This very flammable material was invented in 1869 by the American inventor John Wesley Hyatt (it was invented to be a substitute for the elephant ivory used for billiard balls). Celluloid was one the first plastics invented; it can be damaged by moisture.

COCA-COLA
John Pemberton (1830-1888) invented Coca-Cola on May 8th, 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He had invented many syrups, medicines, and elixirs before, including a very popular drink called French Wine of Coca, which contained French Bordeux wine, cocaine, and caffeine (from the kola nut). When Atlanta banned alcohol consumption in 1885, Pemberton had to change the formula of his French Wine of Coca, omitting the French wine. He added sugar, citric acid and essential oils of many fruits to the drink, and the original Coca-Cola was created (named for its main ingredients, cocaine and the kola nut). It quickly became a very popular soda fountain drink. Pemberton became partners with Frank Robinson and David Roe, but the partnership soon quarreled. Pemberton sold his interest in Coca-Cola. Cocaine is no longer an ingredient of Coca-Cola, but caffeine, sugar, citric acid, and fruit oils remain (although the formula is a closely-guarded secret).

COTTON CANDY
Cotton candy is a soft confection made from sugar that is heated and spun into slim threads that look like a mass of cotton. It was invented in 1897 by William Morrison and John C. Wharton, candymakers from Nashville, Tennessee.

DISHWASHER The first dishwasher was patented in 1850 by Joel Houghton; his machine was a hand-turned wheel that splashed water on dishes - unfortunately, it wasn't very effective at washing dishes. The first working automatic dishwasher was invented by Mrs. Josephine Garis (W. A.) Cochran, of Shelbyville, Illinois, in 1889. Her dishwasher was a wooden tub with a wire basket in it - the dishes went in the basket, and rollers rotated the dishes. As a handle on the tub was turned, hot, soapy water was sprayed into the tub, cleaning the dishes. Cochran's machine was first shown at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois. At first, her machine was only bought by some restaurants and hotels. Cochran's small company was eventually associated with the KitchenAid company. The dishwasher didn't become widespread as a labor-saving machine until the 1960s.

DORTICUS, CLATONIA JOAQUIN Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus was an African-American inventor who received many patents. He invented an apparatus for applying dyes to the sides of the soles and heels of shoes (patent # 535,820, March 19, 1895), a machine for embossing (contouring the paper of) photographs (patent # 537,442, April 16, 1895), a device that helped develop photographs (patent # 537,968, April 23, 1895), and a leak stopper for hoses (patent # 629,315, July 18, 1899).

EASTMAN, GEORGE George Eastman (1854-1932) was an American inventor who made many improvements in photography. Eastman invented the dry plate method in 1879; this was an improvement in the wet plate process photographic process). He founded the Eastman Dry Plate company in 1881, located in Rochester, New York. Eastman and William Walker invented flexible roll film in 1882, eliminating the necessity of using cumbersome glass plates for photography. Eastman produced the first simple, all-purpose, fixed-focus camera in 1888, which sold for $25.00; this was the first KODAK Camera . By 1900, Eastman Kodak was producing a camera that cost only one dollar. Early cameras took round pictures. To get the film developed, the photographer had to send the entire camera to the Rochester factory. The company name was changed to Eastman Kodak Company in 1892, and is still one of the largest photographic companies in the world.

EDISON, THOMAS ALVA Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) was an American inventor (also known as the Wizard of Menlo Park) whose many inventions revolutionized the world. His work includes improving the incandescent electric light bulb and inventing the phonograph, the phonograph record, the carbon telephone transmitter, and the motion-picture projector. Edison's first job was as a telegraph operator, and in the course of his duties, he redesigned the stock-ticker machine. The Edison Universal Stock Printer gave him the capital ($40,000) to set up a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, to invent full-time (with many employees). Edison experimented with thousands of different light bulb filaments to find just the right materials to glow well, be long-lasting, and be inexpensive. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for quite a while. This incandescent bulb revolutionized the world.

ELEVATOR BRAKE In 1854, at the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York, Otis demonstrated how safe his elevator was by cutting the elevator's cable with an ax, and the elevator car stayed where it was in the shaft. Otis' invention spurred the development of skyscrapers, changing the look of cities around the world forever.

ESCALATOR An escalator is a moving stairway that helps people move easily from floor to floor in building. The escalator was invented by the American inventor Jesse W. Reno in 1891. On his "inclined elevator," passengers rode on an wedge-shaped supports attached to a conveyor belt at an incline of about 25 degrees. The original elevator had a stationary handrail (which was soon replaced with a moving handrail). Horizontal steps were added to the escalator by Georg A. Wheeler and Charles D. Seeberger (who bought Wheeler's patent) in the late 1890's. The Otis company later bought the patents for the escalator and marketed it worldwide. The word escalator was first used at the Paris Exposition of 1900, when the Otis Company exhibited the moving stairway.

FOUCAULT, JEAN Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (1819-1868) was a French physicist who invented the (1852) and the Foucault pendulum (1851). A gyroscope is essentially a spinning wheel set in a movable frame. When the wheel spins, it retains its spatial orientation, and it resists external forces applied to it. Gyroscopes are used in navigation instruments (for ships, planes, and rockets). Foucault was the first person to demonstrate how a pendulum could track the rotation of the Earth (the Foucault pendulum) in 1851. He also showed that light travels more slowly in water than in air (1850) and improved the mirrors of reflecting telescopes (1858).

FOX, SAMUEL Samuel Fox (1815 - 1887), an English inventor and manufacturer, invented the steel ribbed in 1852 (the ribs of the umbrella hold the fabric in place - wood or whale bone had been used as ribs before Fox's invention). Fox started the "English Steels Company," which manufactured his new umbrella.

FROEBEL, WILHELM A. Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (also written Fröbel) (1782-1852) was a German educator and educational reformer who invented the kindergarten (which means "garden of children"). He opened the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg (near Keilhau) in 1837. Froebel founded a kindergarten training school at Liebenstein, Germany in 1849. After some conflicts and mistaken charges of treason, the German government banned the establishment of kindergartens in 1851. In 1860, the government repealed the ban, and kindergartens re-opened (unfortunately, this was after Froebel's death). Froebel's kindergartens included pleasant surroundings, self-motivated activity, play, music, and the physical training of the child.

FOUNTAIN PEN Lewis E. Waterman was an American inventor and insurance salesman who developed a relatively leak-proof fountain pen; he patented his new invention in 1884 and revolutionized writing. Before his fountain pen, pen tips had to be tipped into ink after every few words. Waterman put an ink reservoir in the pen above the pen's metal nib (point). This reservoir would hold enough ink for a few pages of writing. There were many problems in developing the fountain pen, especially the difficulty of controlling the flow of the ink. Putting a sealed reservoir above the nib wouldn't let the ink flow, but if it wasn't sealed, all the ink would flow at once. Waterman used capillary action to replace the ink in the rubber sac with air so that the ink flowed smoothly but did not flow all at once. Also, the metals in the ink dissolved the steel pen nib, so Waterman used an iridium-plated gold nib. Waterman was also the first person to place a clip on the cap of the pen.

GOODE, SARAH S. Sarah E. Goode was a businesswoman and inventor. Goode invented the folding cabinet bed, a space-saver that folded up against the wall into a cabinet. When folded up, it could be used as a desk, complete with compartments for stationery and writing supplies. Goode owned a furniture store in Chicago, Illinois, and invented the bed for people living in small apartments. Goode's patent was the first one obtained by an African-American woman inventor (patent #322,177, approved on July 14, 1885).

GYROSCOPE A gyroscope is essentially a spinning wheel set in a movable frame. When the wheel spins, it retains its spatial orientation, and it resists external forces applied to it. Gyroscopes are used in navigation instruments (for ships, planes, and rockets). (1819-1868), a French physicist, invented the gyroscope in 1852.

HOT DOGS Hot dogs began as sausages sold in buns. They were first sold from carts by German immigrants on the streets of New York City in the 1860s. The bun replaced a plate and made the hot dog easier to carry and eat. Sauerkraut was provided as a relish on the hot dog.

HYATT, JOHN WESLEY Celluloid is a plastic made from cellulose (it is derived from plants). This very flammable material was invented in 1869 by the American inventor John Wesley Hyatt (it was invented to be a substitute for the elephant ivory used for billiard balls). Celluloid was one the first plastics invented; it can be damaged by moisture.

IRON, ELECTRIC The electric iron was invented in 1882 by Henry W. Seeley, a New York inventor Seeley patented his "electric flatiron" on June 6, 1882 (patent no. 259,054). His iron weighed almost 15 pounds and took a long time to warm up. Other electric irons had also been invented, including one from France (1882), but it used a carbon arc to heat the iron, a method which was dangerous.

JEANS Levi Strauss (1829-1902) was an entrepreneur who invented and marketed blue jeans. Trained as a tailor in Buttenheim, Bavaria, Germany, Strauss went to San Francisco, USA from New York in 1853. Strauss sold dry goods, including tents and linens to the 49ers (the people who came to the California gold rush, which began in 1849). In 1873, Strauss and Jacob Davis, a Nevada tailor, patented the idea (devised by Davis) of using copper rivets at the stress points of sturdy work pants. Early levis, called "waist overalls," came in a brown canvas duck fabric and a heavy blue denim fabric. The duck fabric pants were not very successful, so were dropped early on. His business became extremely successful (and still is), revolutionizing the apparel industry.

JUDSON, WHITCOMB L. Whitcomb L. Judson was an American engineer from Chicago, Illinois, who invented a metal zipper device with locking teeth in 1890. Judson patented his "clasp-locker'' on Aug. 29, 1893; later in 1893, he exhibited this new invention at the Chicago World's Fair. He never succeeded in marketing his new device. The zipper was improved by the Swedish-American engineer, Gideon Sundbach, and was named by the B.F. Goodrich company in 1923. Judson died in 1909, before his device became commonly used and well-known

KINDERGARTEN Kindergarten (which means "garden of children") was developed by Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (also written Fröbel) (1782-1852). Froebel was a German educator and educational reformer who opened the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg (near Keilhau) in 1837. Froebel founded a kindergarten training school at Liebenstein, Germany in 1849. After some conflicts and mistaken charges of treason, the German government banned the establishment of kindergartens in 1851. In 1860, the government repealed the ban, and kindergartens re-opened (unfortunately, this was after Froebel's death). Froebel's kindergartens included pleasant surroundings, self-motivated activity, play, music, and the physical training of the child.

LATIMER, LEWIS H. Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928) was an African-American inventor who was a member of Edison'sresearch team, which was called "Edison's Pioneers." Latimer improved the newly-inventedincandescent light bulb by inventing a carbon filament (which he patented in 1881).

LECLANCHE, GEORGES The dry cell is a an improved voltaic cell (battery) that has a cylindrical zinc shell (the zinc acts as both the cathode and the container) that is lined with an ammonium chloride (the electrolyte) saturated material (and not a liquid). Although called dry, dry cells are not entirely dry, but they are less bulky and more easily transported than earlier batteries. The dry cell battery was developed in the 1870s-1870s by Georges Leclanché (1839-1882), a French engineer, who used an electrolyte in the form of a paste in his new battery.

LIGHT BULB The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc. Much later, in 1860, the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was determined to devise a practical, long-lasting electric light. He found that a carbon paper filament worked well, but burned up quickly. In 1878, he demonstrated his new electric lamps in Newcastle, England. In 1877, the American Charles Francis Brush manufactured some carbon arcs to light a public square in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. These arcs were used on a few streets, in a few large office buildings, and even some stores. Electric lights were only used by a few people. The inventor Thomas Alva Edison (in the USA) experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for 40 hours. Edison eventually produced a bulb that could glow for over 1500 hours. In 1903, Willis R. Whitney invented a treatment for the filament so that it wouldn't darken the inside of the bulb as it glowed. In 1910, William David Coolidge (1873-1975) invented a tungsten filament which lasted even longer than the older filaments. The incandescent bulb revolutionized the world.

LUNDSTROM, J.E. Safety matches were invented by Johan Edvard Lundstrom of Sweden in 1855. Lundstrom's new match was the first simple and safe way to make a fire. His new safety match could only be lit by striking the match against the specially-prepared surface that came attached to the box. Lundstrom put red phosphorus on the rough striking paper (on the outside the match box); the other fire-starting chemicals were on the match's head. Previous matches gave long-time users an ailment called "phossy jaw;" this was a painful and deadly disease caused by the older matchs' yellow phosphorus that ate into the users' jaws.

MARCONI, GUGLIELMO Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) was an Italian inventor and physicist. In 1895, Marconi invented the (wireless telegraphy), building machinery to transmit and receive radio waves. His first transmission across an ocean (the Atlantic Ocean) was on December 12, 1901. Marconi won the for Physics in 1909.

McCOY, ELIJAH Elijah McCoy (1843 or 1844-1929) was a mechanical engineer and inventor. McCoy's high-quality industrial inventions (especially his steam engine lubricator) were the basis for the expression "the real McCoy," meaning the real, authentic, or high-quality thing.

McCOY, ELIJAH Elijah McCoy (1843 or 1844-1929) was a mechanical engineer and inventor. McCoy's high-quality industrial inventions (especially his steam engine lubricator) were the basis for the expression "the real McCoy," meaning the real, authentic, or high-quality thing.

MOTORCYCLE The earliest motorcycle was a coal-powered, two-cylinder, steam-driven motorcycle that was developed in 1867 by the American inventor . A gas-powered motorcycle was invented by the German inventor Gottlieb Daimler in 1885. His mostly wooden motorcycle had iron-banded wheels with wooden spokes. This bone-crunching vehicle was powered by a single-cylinder engine.

NAISMITH, JAMES James Naismith (1861-1939) was a Canadian physical education instructor who invented the game of basketballin 1891. He developed this indoor game so that his students could participate in sports during the winter. In his original game, which he invented while at the Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association), Naismith used a soccer ball which were thrown into peach baskets (with their bottoms intact). The first public basketball game was in Springfield, MA, USA, on March 11, 1892. Basketball was first played at the Olympics in Berlin Germany in 1936 (America won the gold medal, and Naismith was there). Naismith was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978.

NOBEL, ALFRED Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896) was a Swedish inventor and industrialist. Nobel invented many powerful and relatively safe explosives and explosive devices, including the "Nobel patent detonator" (it detonated nitroglycerin using a strong electrical shock instead of heat, 1863), dynamite (1867), blasting gelatin (guncotton plus nitroglycerin, 1875), and almost smokeless blasting powder (1887). Nobel also made inventions in the fields of electrochemistry, optics, biology, and physiology. Nobel left much of his fortune to award prizes (the Nobel prizes) each year to people who made advancements in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology/Medicine, Literature, and Peace.

OTIS, ELISHA GRAVES Elisha Graves Otis (1811-1861) was an American mechanic and inventor. Otis invented the elevator brake, which greatly improved the safety of elevators. He used a ratchet on a spring to catch the elevator in the event of an accident (like a broken cable). In 1854, at the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York, Otis demonstrated how safe his elevator was by cutting the elevator's cable with an ax, and the elevator car stayed where it was in the shaft. Otis' invention spurred the development of skyscrapers, changing the look of cities around the world forever. Otis also invented a railway safety brake and improvements to turbine engines and brass bed frames.

PAPER CLIP The paper clip was invented in 1899 or 1890 by a Norwegian patent clerk called Johann Vaaler. His original paper clip was a thin spring-steel wire with triangular or square ends and two "tongues." Vaaler patented his invention in Germany and later in the USA (1901). The modern-shaped paper clip was patented in April 27, 1899 by William Middlebrook of Waterbury, Connecticut, USA.

PASTEUR, LOUIS Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) was a French chemist and inventor. Pasteur studied the process of fermentation, and postulated that fermentation was produced by microscopic organisms (other than yeast), which Pasteur called germs. He hypothesized that these germs might be responsible for some diseases. Pasteur disproved the notion of "spontaneous generation " which stated that organisms could spring from nothing; Pasteur showed that organisms came form other, pre-existing organisms. Applying his theories to foods and drinks, Pasteur invented a heating process (now called pasteurization) which sterilizes food, killing micro-organisms that contaminate it.

PLANTE, GASTON In 1859, the French physicist Raymond Gaston Planté (April 22, 1834-1889) invented a battery made from two lead plates joined by a wire and immersed in a sulfuric acid electrolyte; this was the first storage battery. Storage batteries are batteries that can be recharged.

POTATO CHIPS The potato chip was invented in 1853 by George Crum. Crum was a Native American/African American chef at the Moon Lake Lodge resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA. French fries were popular at the restaurant and one day a diner complained that the fries were too thick. Although Crum made a thinner batch, the customer was still unsatisfied. Crum finally made fries that were too thin to eat with a fork, hoping to annoy the extremely fussy customer. The customer, surprisingly enough, was happy - and potato chips were invented!

PUSHPIN The push pin("a thumbtack with an elongated handle that makes it easier to put in and remove") was invented by the Pennsylvanian inventor Edwin Moore in 1900. Moore started a company producing these useful pins in 1900. After years of growing, his company incorporated on July 19, 1904, and was called the "Moore Push-Pin Company." The company 1912 through 1977, the Company was located in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

RADIO The radio was invented by Nikola Tesla. The radio was promoted and popularized by in 1895. The first radio transmission across an ocean (the Atlantic Ocean) occurred on December 12, 1901.

RAYON Rayon is a cellulose-based fiber that is made from wood pulp or cotton waste. Rayon is used as a substitute for silk. It was invented around 1855 by the Swiss chemist Georges Audemars; the process was refined in 1864 by the French chemist and industrialist Comte (Count) Hilaire Bernigaud de Chardonnet (1839-1924). Rayon was first commercially produced in 1910 by Avtex Fibers Inc. in the United States - it was called "artificial silk" at first, but the name was changed to rayon in 1924.

RECORD Records, used to record sound, were invented in 1877 by , who invented the first machine to record and play back sounds (the phonograph or record player). Early records were cylindrical, but flat disks soon replaced them.

RENO, JESSE W. Jesse W. Reno was an American inventor who developed the first escalator in 1891. An escalator is a moving stairway that helps people move easily from floor to floor in building. On his "inclined elevator," passengers rode on an wedge-shaped supports attached to a conveyor belt at an incline of about 25 degrees. The original elevator had a stationary handrail (which was soon replaced with a moving handrail).

REVOLVING DOOR The revolving door was invented in 1888 by Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. in high-rise buildings, regular doors are hard to open because there is a slight vacuum caused by air flowing upwards through stairwells, elevator shafts, and chimneys. Van Kannel's new type of door was easy to open in tall building (and also saved heat in the winter). Van Kannel patented the revolving door on August 7, 1888.

RILLIEUX, NORBERT Norbert Rillieux (March 17, 1806-October 8, 1894) was an African-American inventor and engineer who invented a device that revolutionized sugar processing. Rillieux's multiple effect vacuum sugar evaporator (patented in 1864) made the processing of sugar more efficient, faster, and much safer. The resulting sugar was also superior. His apparatus was eventually adopted by sugar processing plants all around the world.

ROENTGEN, WILHELM VON X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen (1845-1923). Roentgen was a German physicist who described this new form of radiation that allowed him to photograph objects that were hidden behind opaque shields. He even photographed part of his own skeleton. X-rays were soon used as an important diagnostic tool in medicine. Roentgen called these waves "X-radiation" because so little was known about them.

ROPER, SYLVESTER HOWARD Sylvester Howard Roper (1823-1896) was an American inventor from New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Roper developed a coal-powered, two-cylinder, steam-driven wooden motorcycle in 1867. Roper also developed a steam-driven car. Roper died at the age of 73 while testing a new motorcycle.

SAFETY MATCHES Safety matches were invented by Johan Edvard Lundstrom of Sweden in 1855. Lundstrom's new match was the first simple and safe way to make a fire. His new safety match could only be lit by striking the match against the specially-prepared surface that came attached to the box. Lundstrom put red phosphorus on the rough striking paper (on the outside the match box); the other fire-starting chemicals were on the match's head. Previous matches gave long-time users an ailment called "phossy jaw;" this was a painful and deadly disease caused by the older matchs' yellow phosphorus that ate into the users' jaws.

STRAUSS, LEVI Levi Strauss (1829-1902) was an entrepreneur who invented and marketed blue jeans. Trained as a tailor in Buttenheim, Bavaria, Germany, Strauss went to San Francisco, USA from New York in 1853. Strauss sold dry goods, including tents and linens to the 49ers (the people who came to the California gold rush, which began in 1849). In 1873, Strauss and Jacob Davis, a Nevada tailor, patented the idea (devised by Davis) of using copper rivets at the stress points of sturdy work pants. Early levis, called "waist overalls," came in a brown canvas duck fabric and a heavy blue denim fabric. The duck fabric pants were not very successful, so were dropped early on. His business became extremely successful (and still is), revolutionizing the apparel industry.

SWAN, JOSEPH WILSON The first practical electric light bulb was made in 1878 simultaneously (and independently) by Joseph Wilson Swan and Thomas Alva Edison . Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was an English physicist who was determined to devise a practical, long-lasting electric light. After many years of experimentation, he found that a carbon paper filament worked well, but burned up quickly. In 1878, he demonstrated his new electric lamps in Newcastle, England.

TELEPHONE The telephone (meaning "far sound") is the most widely used telecommunications device. It was invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell (with Thomas Watson). Bell patented his invention on March 1876 (patent No. 174,465). His device transmitted speech sounds over electric wires, and his idea has remained one of the most useful inventions ever made.

TESLA, NIKOLA Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a Serbian-American inventor who developed the radio, fluorescent lights, the Tesla coil (an air-core transformer that generates a huge voltage from high-frequency alternating current), remote-control devices, and many other inventions; Tesla held 111 patents. Tesla developed and promoted the uses of alternating current (as opposed to direct current, which was promoted fiercely by Thomas Edison and General Electric). Tesla briefly worked with Thomas Edison . The unit of magnetic induction is named for Tesla; a tesla (abbreviated T) is equal to one weber per square meter.

TOILET PAPER Joseph Gayetty invented toilet paper in 1857. His new toilet paper was composed of flat sheets. Before Gayetty's invention, people tore pages out of mail order catalogs - before catalogs were common, leaves were used. Unfortunately, Gayetty's invention failed. Walter Alcock (of Great Britain) later developed toilet paper on a roll ( instead of in flat sheets). Again, the invention failed. In 1867, Thomas, Edward and Clarence Scott (brothers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) were successful at marketing toilet paper that consisted of a small roll of perforated paper . They sold their new toilet paper from a push cart - this was the beginning of the Scott Paper Company.

TRACTOR The tractor is a high power but low-speed vehicle that is used in farming, construction, road building, and other work projects. Some tractors move on wheels, others move on a continuous track. The first gasoline-powered tractor was made in 1892 by John Froehlich, a blacksmith from Iowa. The first mass-produced tractors were sold by C.W. Hart and C.H. Parr of Charles City, Iowa.

TYPEWRITER The first typewriter was invented in 1867 by the American printer and editor Christopher Latham Sholes (Feb. 14, 1819 - Feb. 17, 1890). Sholes' prototype had the user hit a key (for each letter and number), which struck upward onto a flat plate, producing a carbon impression of the letter or number on the paper. He made the prototype using the key of an old telegraph transmitter. There was no way of spacing the letters, no carriage return, and no shift keys; these features would be added to later models. Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soulé also worked in the Kleinstuber Machine Shop with Sholes, and they helped with his inventions. Their first patent was obtained on June 23, 1868. Sholes and Glidden sold the rights to their invention to the investor James Densmore, who eventually had the machine commercially manufactured. Their first commercial model was called the "Sholes & Glidden Type Writer," and was later called the Remington typewriter. It was produced by the gunmakers E. Remington & Sons in Ilion, NY, from 1874-1878. The first author to submit a typed book manuscript was Mark Twain. Sholes' typewriter was the beginning of a revolution in communication.

VAALER, JOHANN The paper clip was invented in 1899 or 1890 by a Norwegian patent clerk called Johann Vaaler. His original paper clip was a thin spring-steel wire with triangular or square ends and two "tongues." Vaaler patented his invention in Germany and later in the USA (1901). The modern-shaped paper clip was patented in April 27, 1899 by William Middlebrook of Waterbury, Connecticut, USA.

VACUUM CLEANER John S. Thurman invented the gasoline powered vacuum cleaner (which he called the "pneumatic carpet renovator") in 1899. His vacuum was patented on Oct. 3, 1899 (patent #634,042). It may have been the first motorized vacuum cleaner. Thurman had a run a horse drawn, door-to-door carpet vacuuming service in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, charging $4 per visit (which was a large amount of money at the time).

VON ROENTGEN, WILHELM X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen (1845-1923). Roentgen was a German physicist who described this new form of radiation that allowed him to photograph objects that were hidden behind opaque shields. He even photographed part of his own skeleton. X-rays were soon used as an important diagnostic tool in medicine. Roentgen called these waves "X-radiation" because so little was known about them.

WATERMAN, LEWIS E. Lewis E. Waterman was an American inventor and insurance salesman who developed a relatively leak-proof fountain pen; he patented his new invention in 1884 and revolutionized writing. Before his fountain pen, pen tips had to be tipped into ink after every few words. Waterman put an ink reservoir in the pen above the pen's metal nib (point). This reservoir would hold enough ink for a few pages of writing. There were many problems in developing the fountain pen, especially the difficulty of controlling the flow of the ink. Putting a sealed reservoir above the nib wouldn't let the ink flow, but if it wasn't sealed, all the ink would flow at once. Waterman used capillary action to replace the ink in the rubber sac with air so that the ink flowed smoothly but did not flow all at once. Also, the metals in the ink dissolved the steel pen nib, so Waterman used an iridium-plated gold nib. Waterman was also the first person to place a clip on the cap of the pen.

X-RAY X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen (1845-1923). Roentgen was a German physicist who described this new form of radiation that allowed him to photograph objects that were hidden behind opaque shields. He even photographed part of his own skeleton. X-rays were soon used as an important diagnostic tool in medicine. Roentgen called these waves "X-radiation" because so little was known about them.

ZIPPER Whitcomb L. Judson was an American engineer from Chicago, Illinois, who invented the zipper. Judson patented his "clasp-locker'' on Aug. 29, 1893; later in 1893, he exhibited this new invention at the Chicago World's Fair. He and Lewis Walker founded the Universal Fastener Company to manufacture these fasteners. They never succeeded in selling Judson's new device. Judson died in 1909, before his device became commonly used and well known. The zipper was improved in 1913 by the Swedish-American engineer, Gideon Sundbach (a former employee of Judson). Sundbach was successful at selling his invention, which he called the "Hookless 2." He sold these fasteners to the US Army, who put zippers on soldiers' clothing and gear during World War I. The word zipper was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, whose company sold rubber galoshes equipped with zippers. Goodrich is said to have named them zippers because he liked the zipping sound they made when opened and closed.