Category Scientist & Invensions

               The inconsequential number zero was a major invention which has had a tremendous impact on the history of mankind because it made the development of higher mathematics possible. Without the invention of zero higher mathematics would not have been developed to its present status.

               Although it is not known with certainty who invented it, yet there is no controversy about the claim that it was invented in India around 2nd-3rd century A.D. Right from the beginning of civilization, man has tried many different methods to write numbers. For this purpose, Greeks used letters of their alphabet and Egyptians, appropriate pictures. Romans used a complicated system. They used ‘X’ to represent 10, ‘C’ to mark 100 and ‘M’ for 1000. For 1 they used ‘I’, for 5 ‘V’, for 50 ‘L’ and for 500 ‘D’. They represented 4 by ‘IV’. If they had to write 1648, they wrote ‘MDCXLVIll’. This was indeed a complicated method.

               However long before the birth of Christ, the Hindus in India had invented a far better number system but without zero.

               Later zero was invented. Unlike many ancient systems, today we have a zero to represent nothing. It was introduced in the modern role by Hindu mathematicians. It was brought to Europe about the year 900 A.D. by the Arab traders, and is called the Hindu-Arabic System. In this system, all numbers are written within the nine digits – 1, 2, 3, 4, .5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and the zero (sunya). Here each figure has a value according to the place in which it is written. The Romans didn’t have a zero in their system.

               Zero has some peculiar properties. When it is added or subtracted from any number, the result remains the same. When any number is multiplied by zero, it becomes zero. It is the only number which can be divided by any other number, but it cannot divide any other number. The expression 0/0 is neither meaningless nor meaningful. In fact, it is indeterminate. Zero is similar to all other natural numbers.

               In a nutshell, zero is a number smaller than any finite positive number, but larger than any finite negative number. Division by zero is an undefined operation. It may be regarded as the identity element for addition in the field of real numbers.

               The invention of zero became the turning point in the development of culture and civilization – without which progress of modern science, industry and commerce was inconceivable.

            A hospital is an institution devoted to the care and treatment of sick people. Do you know when and how did hospitals come into being?

            The history of hospitals began in Babylonia, Greece and India. These early hospitals were temples. Very little medicines were given to patients. Hospitals existed in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 437 B.C. and were established in India somewhat earlier during the time of Buddha. Eighteen hospitals built by Emperor Ashoka in 3rd century B.C. are said to have some characteristics similar to modern hospitals.

            The advent of Christianity gave impetus to the establishment of hospitals. Their growth accelerated during the crusades which began by the end of the 11th century.

            Three persons – Florence Nightingale, Louis Pasteur, and Lord Lister contributed most to the growth of hospitals in modern times. Florence Nightingale known as the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ was a great reformer of hospital conditions and re-organizer of nurses training programmes.

            Louis Pasteur contributed a lot in germ theory and Lord Lister put his research in practice. Developments in anaesthesia made it possible to perform major and more difficult operations.

            The first hospital in North America was built in Mexico City in 1524 by Cortez. The French established a hospital in Canada in 1639 at Quebec City.

            During the 20th century, outstanding contributions have been made by scientists in the field of medicine and surgery. As a result, the number of hospitals has greatly increased. Today we have private hospitals, military hospitals, general hospitals and also specialized hospitals for mental diseases, tuberculosis, heart diseases, cancer and eye disorders etc.

            The largest hospital in the world is the District Medical Centre in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. It covers 478 acres and includes five hospitals, with a total of 5600 beds. At present China has the greatest number of hospitals — 61929 in 1989.

An elevator or a lift is a car that moves in a vertical shaft carrying passengers or freight from one floor to another in a multi-storeyed building. Most modern elevators are propelled by electric motors with the help of a counterweight through a system of cables and pulleys. Do you know who invented the elevator?

Elevator was not invented by one man or in a single day. Its development is a result of combined efforts made by several people.

The practice of lifting loads by mechanical means during building construction goes back to Roman times. The Roman architect-engineer Vitruvius Pollio in the 1st century B.C. had described lifting platforms that used pulleys and capstans, operated by humans, animals or water power. In 1800 A.D. steam power came to be used to operate such devices in England. In the early 19th century, a hydraulic lift was introduced. These lifts were used only to hoist freights because they were most unreliable.

In 1853, Elisha Graves Otis introduced a safety device and gave birth to the first passenger elevator. This was put into service in the Haughwout Department Store in New York City in 1857. It was powered by steam. It climbed five floors in less than a minute. Improved versions of the steam – driven elevators came into use in the next three decades, but the most significant progress was made after 1889. In 1894, push button operations were introduced. After that many design improvements were made.

Once the problems of safety, speed and height were overcome, attention was turned to convenience and economy. Soon more sophisticated elevators came to cater to the need of tall buildings. Their speeds were increased to 365 m per minute. Automatic operations were also introduced by the 1950s, eliminating the need of operators.

Continue reading “When was the elevator invented?”

               Hippocrates, a Greek physician, is known as ‘the father of medicine’. He was born on the island of Cos where he later founded the first school of medicine. He lived between 460 BC to 377 BC. Modern medical students make a promise to be ethical in their work which is known as the Hippocratic Oath.

               Doctors at the Hippocratic School of medicine were taught that diseases were the result of improper functioning of parts of the body, rather than of possession by demons as was believed superstitiously in those days. But Hippocrates and his followers did not know about the structure of the human body. They believed that diseases were caused by the imbalance of four vital fluids — blood, bile, phlegm and black bile. Hippocrates also pointed out that malaria and certain other diseases were associated with particular localities or climate conditions. 

               Hippocrates and other members of the school have written more than 50 books on medicine. Some of the descriptions of diseases in these books are very clear and accurate. In his writings, some of which may in fact be by other members of his circle, is found the important theory which tells that every disease is related to the natural law just like everything else and therefore should be carefully observed and treated accordingly. But this theory is not wholly accepted in modern medical science. However, no other medical books as scientific as these were written until modern times.