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Category Inventions

How toaster works?

Toast is tasty for breakfast or a snack. And with a toaster, it’s so easy to make.

First, you put a slice of bread in each toaster slot. A rack holds it in place. Then you push down the lever. The lever is connected to the rack and to a spring. The spring unwinds, but a hook holds the rack down. The heat turns on. The coils inside each slot glow orange.

The heat from the coils toasts the bread. It also heats a metal switch. The switch is made from two types of metal. One type expands from the heat. The other does not. As one half of the metal expands, the switch bends. When it bends, it moves a small bar. This bar pushes against the hook. The rack is released. The spring makes the rack and the toast pop up!

 

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How refrigerator works?

Just a few minutes after you put warm food in a refrigerator, the food feels cooler. The refrigerator carries the heat from the food into the room outside.

How does a refrigerator do this? When a liquid changes to a gas it evaporates. As it evaporates, it takes heat from the things around it. Also, when a gas changes to a liquid, it condenses, and gives off heat. 

Refrigerators are cooled by a special liquid that is easily turned into a gas and then back to a liquid. First, the cool liquid is pumped to tubes inside the refrigerator, where it evaporates. As the liquid changes to a gas, it takes heat from the air inside the refrigerator. This makes the refrigerator cooler.

Then the warm gas is pumped into tubes outside the refrigerator, where it condenses. As the gas changes back to a liquid, it gives off heat. When the liquid cools, it is pumped back into the refrigerator. There it evaporates again. In and out it goes, carrying heat from the refrigerator and keeping the food cold.

Do you ever feel chilled when you get out of the bath or after swimming? This is because the water on your skin is evaporating off your body. It goes into the air where you can’t see it. As this happens, it takes heat away from your body, making you feel chilled.

Water vapour in the air sometimes clings to objects. On a hot day water vapour sticks to a cold glass of water. As more vapour sticks to the glass, it condenses, forming droplets of water on the outside of the glass.

 

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How thermometer works?

Are you hot or cold? A thermometer will take your temperature. There are many different kinds used for different purposes. Take your pick.

One type of thermometer has a thin glass tube partly filled with liquid. When the air is warm, the liquid in the tube becomes warm and rises. It rises because heat makes a liquid expand, or take up more space. The warmer it gets, the more space it needs. When the temperature drops, the liquid contracts, or takes up less space, so it moves down the tube. The liquid in many thermometers is a silver-coloured metal called mercury. Some thermometers are filled with coloured alcohol.

A digital thermometer has a metal probe. When the thermometer is turned on, a battery inside sends around an electric current. If the probe is warm, the current will move easily. If the probe is cool, the current will not move as easily. The thermometer shows a temperature reading based on how easily the current moves.

Doctors often use an IR thermometer to detect infrared rays from a person’s eardrum. The hotter you are, the more radiation the thermometer detects. The thermometer converts the amount of radiation to a temperature reading.

 Standard thermometer contains a liquid that moves up when it becomes warm. The liquid drops down when it cools. The lines indicate the temperature.

The lines and numbers on the thermometer indicate degrees. They tell you how much the temperature changed. Degrees are marked with the symbol º. The number 0 ºC is the temperature at which water freezes. This is the same temperature as 32 ºF. The letter C stands for Celsius, and the letter F stands for Fahrenheit.

 

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Who are inventors?

Inventors are men and women who make things that make our life easier.

Many inventions are simple. In 1865 in the U.S.A., S.E. Pettee invented a machine for making paper bags. And Earle Dickson invented the first ready-to-use bandage in 1920.

Some inventions take many years to develop. The great Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of his ideas about 500 years ago. He drew an aeroplane, a parachute, and a helicopter. It was more than 300 years before any of these were made.

The American Thomas A. Edison invented the frst light bulb in 1879. But several other men worked on similar designs before Edison did.

To keep their ideas safe and prove they thought of it first, inventors apply for a patent. The patent gives the inventor the right to make his invention or sell his idea. Edison had ore patents than anyone else – he has 1,093!

 

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Which are the inventions we see at home?

Every day we use things that make our lives easier. We flip a switch to turn on the lights. We turn on the tap and fill a glass with water. Our clothes have zippers and snaps that make getting dressed easier. We have alarm clocks to wake us.

What would life be like without lamps or zippers? How would you clean your teeth without a toothbrush or dental floss? Our homes are filled with all sorts of helpful inventions.

The refrigerator allows the modern household to keep food fresh for longer than before. Freezers allow people to freeze food and extend its expiry date for even longer periods.

A washing machine is a machine that uses water to wash laundry, such as clothing and sheets. Bendix Corporation introduced the first domestic automatic washing machine in 1937. Imagine this; this very common household appliance was not available prior to that date!

A television set, more commonly called TV, is a device used for the purpose of viewing television broadcast. It was introduced in 1920 in mechanical form.

However, the modern color television was not introduced until 1940.

The Television has become commonplace in our homes, offices, and institutions, particularly as a prime source for advertising, entertainment, and news.

 

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Who invented the computer mouse?

The computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart in the 1960s, and patented in 1970. Dr Engelbart who died on July 2, 2013 also invented a number of other interactive information systems that helped make the computer a user-friendly tool. Before pioneers like specialized machines those only trained scientists could operate.

The computer mouse was popularised by its inclusion as standard equipment with the Apple Macintosh in 1984.

Why was it called ‘mouse’? The object’s shape and tail-like cord suggested the name.

A year after the mouse was invented, a researcher named Jack Kelley created the first mouse pad.

 

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WHO INVENTED THE GRAMOPHONE?

In 1888, the German-American inventor Emile Berliner (1851-1929) invented a system of sound recording that could be mass produced. He devised a flat disc, called a gramophone record. On the disc, a groove ran in a spiral from the outer edge of the disc to the centre. Side-to-side, rather than up-and-down movements of the stylus recorded and played the sound vibrations. Once one disc had been made, it could be used as a mould to make a metal die, which could then stamp out exact copies of the disc in large numbers.

Early attempts to design a consumer sound or music playing gadget began in 1877. That year, Thomas Edison invented his tinfoil phonograph, which played recorded sounds from round cylinders. Unfortunately, the sound quality on the phonograph was bad and each recording only lasted for only one play.

Edison’s phonograph was followed by Alexander Graham Bell’s graphophone. The graphophone used wax cylinders, which could be played many times. However, each cylinder had to be recorded separately, making the mass reproduction of the same music or sounds impossible with the graphophone.

On November 8, 1887, Emile Berliner, a German immigrant working in Washington D.C., patented a successful system for sound recording. Berliner was the first inventor to stop recording on cylinders and start recording on flat disks or records.

The first records were made of glass. They were then made using zinc and eventually plastic. A spiral groove with sound information was etched into the flat record. To play sounds and music, the record was rotated on the gramophone. The “arm” of the gramophone held a needle that read the grooves in the record by vibration and transmitted the information to the gramophone speaker.

Berliner’s disks (records) were the first sound recordings that could be mass-produced by creating master recordings from which molds were made. From each mold, hundreds of disks were pressed.

Berliner founded “The Gramophone Company” to mass manufacture his sound disks (records) as well as the gramophone that played them. To help promote his gramophone system, Berliner did a couple of things. First, he persuaded popular artists to record their music using his system. Two famous artists who signed early on with Berliner’s company were Enrico Caruso and Dame Nellie Melba. The second smart marketing move Berliner made came in 1908 when he used Francis Barraud’s painting of “His Master’s Voice” as his company’s official trademark.

Berliner later sold the licensing rights to his patent for the gramophone and method of making records to the Victor Talking Machine Company (RCA), which later made the gramophone a successful product in the United States. Meanwhile, Berliner continued doing business in other countries. He founded the Berliner Gram-o-phone Company in Canada, the Deutsche Gramophone in Germany and the U.K based Gramophone Co., Ltd.

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WHAT WAS THE EARLIEST SOUND RECORDING?

In 1877, the American inventor Thomas Edison (1847-1931) experimented with a machine called a “phonograph”, which converted sound vibrations into grooves on a cylinder covered with tinfoil. A sharp needle, called a stylus, was attached to a diaphragm at the narrow end of a large horn. When sound waves travelled into the horn, they made the diaphragm vibrate, causing the needle to move up and down, and cutting a groove of varying depth in the tinfoil. If this process was reversed, so that the needle was made to run over the grooves, it caused the diaphragm to vibrate. Vibrations passed through the horn, pushing air in front of them, to reach the listener’s ear as sound. Later, wax-coated cylinders were used instead of tinfoil, to give a better result.

The history of sound recording – which has progressed in waves, driven by the invention and commercial introduction of new technologies — can be roughly divided into four main periods:

  • the “Acoustic” era, 1877 to 1925
  • the “Electrical” era, 1925 to 1945
  • the “Magnetic” era, 1945 to 1975
  • The “Digital” era, 1975 to the present day.

Experiments of capturing sound on a recording medium for preservation and reproduction began in earnest during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. Many pioneering attempts to record and reproduce sound were made during the latter half of the 19th century – notably Scott’s Phonautograph of 1857 – and these efforts culminated in the invention of the phonograph by Thomos Edison in 1877. Digital recording emerged in the late 20th century and has since flourished with the popularity of digital music and online streaming services.

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WHO INVENTED THE LOCOMOTIVE?

A Locomotive is an engine that can travel under its own power, not pulled by horses, for example. But we usually think of it as running on tracks, or tramways, as they were first called. In 1804, Richard Trevithick (1771-1833), an English inventor, designed a train to pull coal wagons in a Welsh colliery. Trevithick was convinced that steam engines had a great future and later travelled to Peru and Costa Rica, where he introduced steam engines into the silver mines.

In 1802, Richard Trevithick patented a “high pressure engine” and created the first steam-powered locomotive engine on rails.  Trevithick wrote on February 21, 1804, after the trial of his High Pressure Tram-Engine, that he “carry’d ten tons of Iron, five wagons, and 70 Men…above 9 miles…in 4 hours and 5 Mints.”  Though a ponderous-sounding journey, it was the first step toward an invention that would utterly change man’s relationship to time and space. 

George Stephenson and his son, Robert, built the first practical steam locomotive.  Stephenson built his “travelling engine” in 1814, which was used to haul coal at the Killingworth mine.  In 1829, the Stephenson built the famous locomotive Rocket, which used a multi-tube boiler, a practice that continued in successive generations of steam engines.  The Rocket won the competition at the Rain-hill Trials held to settle the question of whether it was best to move wagons along rails by fixed steam engines using a pulley system or by using locomotive steam engines. The Rocket won the £500 prize with its average speed of 13 miles per hour (without pulling a load, the Rocket attained speeds up to 29 miles per hour), beating out Braithwaite and Erickson’s Novelty and Timothy Hackworth’s Sans Pareil.  The Stephenson incorporated elements into their engines that were used in succeeding generations of steam engines.

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WHAT DO THE NUMBERS BEFORE STEAM TRAIN NAMES MEAN?

Steam locomotives are described by the arrangement of their leading, driving and trailing wheels. In fact, only the driving wheels are connected to the cylinders that provide the engine’s power. So a 2-8-2 has two leading wheels, eight driving wheels and two trailing wheels.

Under the Whyte notation for the classification of Steam locomotives, 2-8-2 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles and two trailing wheels on one axle, usually in a trailing truck. This configuration of steam locomotive is most often referred to as a Mikado, frequently shortened to Mike.

At times it was also referred to on some railroads in the United States of America as the McAdoo Mikado and, during the Second World War, the MacArthur.

The notation 2-8-2T indicates a tank locomotive of this wheel arrangement, the “T” suffix indicating a locomotive on which the water is carried in side-tanks mounted on the engine rather than in an attached tender.

The 2-8-2 wheel arrangement allowed the locomotive’s firebox to be placed behind instead of above the driving wheels, thereby allowing a larger firebox that could be both wide and deep. This supported a greater rate of combustion and thus a greater capacity for steam generation, allowing for more power at higher speeds. Allied with the larger driving wheel diameter which was possible when they did not impinge on the firebox, it meant that the 2-8-2 was capable of higher speeds than a 2-8-0 with a heavy train. These locomotives did not suffer from the imbalance of reciprocating parts as much as did the 2-6-2 or the 2-10-2, because the center of gravity was between the second and third drivers instead of above the centre driver.

The first 2-8-2 locomotive was built in 1884. It was originally named Calumet by Angus Sinclair, in reference to the 2-8-2 engines built for the Chicago & Calumet Terminal Railway (C&CT). However, this name did not take hold.

The wheel arrangement name “Mikado” originated from a group of Japanese type 9700 2-8-2 locomotives that were built by Baldwin Works for the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge Nippon Railway of Japan in 1897. In the 19th century, the Emperor of Japan was often referred to as “the Mikado” in English. Also, the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado had premiered in 1885 and achieved great popularity in both Britain and America.

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