Palintonon stone throwing Greek catapult

The Greek catapult was developed by Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse around 350 BC.  Dionysius actually called the machine Katapaltai, and they are mentioned in the Siegecraft (Poliorkētika) treatise of Aeneas Tacticus.  Originally, because of their large bulk and problems with portability, they were used mainly in seige warfare.  Alexander the Great is thought to be the first to use them for cover fire for ground troops in addition to seige warfare, essentially introducing artillary to the military world.

While Rome is also known to have use artillary (the ballista and onegar mainly), their standard use in battle dates from the time of Julius Ceasar.

Catapults soon went out of use with the introduction of the trebuchet in Medieval times, and went out permanently with the widespread use of gunpowder shortly thereafter.  At this time, cannons became the weapon of choice in seige situations.

The catapults themselves were generally constructed of wood and were assembled on site by engineers.  There was usually not much in the way of materials transported, as most time wood could be chopped down from nearby trees for use in construction.

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Young inventor Thomas Edison lost in thought

Throughout history, people have made inventions that changed the world. Some got lucky and stumbled on something, some actually set out to make something, and still others improved upon existing technology to create something revolutionary. We’re going to show what we consider the top 6 world changing inventions, from how they were found, to how they ended up being used.

Penicillin

Penicillin was actually discovered a bit by accident. It is credited to scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928. He noticed that certain mold could kill bacteria, which proved that there was an antibacterial agent in the mold.

Fleming did not actually invent penicillin though – he merely made popular the knowledge that there was an anti-bacterial agent in the mold Penicillium notatum. It was originally noticed by French medical student Ernest Duchesne in 1896.

Sir Howard Florey as he appears on the Australian $50 note

Fleming, however, saw the potential importance of what he named penicillin. In a 1929 paper, he noted that the results he observed could have medical implications if the anti-bacterial agent could be isolated and produced in quantity.

Dr. Howard Florey and Andrey J. Moyer later perfected mass producing penicillin at around the time of World War II. Moyer obtained a patent for the process of it’s mass production.

As you can see, not all inventions are by design. Fleming merely noticed something that was interesting – he didn’t set out to find what many would consider a “miracle drug.” But once he made an observation, he made theorized what the implications of this discovery would be.

Further reading: Wikipedia

Electricity

While not a singular inventions like others, electricty is arguably the most important innovation ever. It was first noticed by ancient Greeks, who saw the static charge when you rubbed an object against fur. It was not used in the modern sense until quite a few year later, starting in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Benjamin Franklin the father of electricity

The list of scientists who did groundbreaking work with electricity reads like a who’s who list of famous inventors – Thomas Edison, Allessandro Volta (volt), Andre-Marie Ampere (amp), Georg Simon Ohm (ohms), Nikola Tesla, Samuel Morse, and Alexander Graham Bell, among others. Each of them contributed to our modern electrical technology.

The key each of them exhibits is they don’t try and do all the research themselves – they take an already existing and known principle and extend and apply those theories in new and revolutionary ways.

Further reading: Wikipedia

Light Bulb

Most people believe that the light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison. In fact, it was invented in 1809 by Humphry Davy, an English chemist. Unfortunately, it was not very useful, and wasn’t like our modern version of a light bulb.

What Edison did do was invent a carbon filiment that burned for up to 40 hours – a good bit longer than the one invented a year earlier that burned for around 13.5 (and the one before that was even less!). It is said that Edison tried and failed over 2000 times before finally perfecting the filiment.

Edison shows two things in his carbon filiment invention: first, he improved on an existing technology that had the potential to change the world, but lacked a certain aspect. The idea of an electric light was there – the practicality was not. He also showed what seperates your amateur inventer/scientist from your world class one – persistance. He didn’s succeed on his first, second, third, or 1999th try. But when he did, look at what happened.

Cotton Gin

The cotton gin (short for engine) was invented in 1792 by Eli Whitney. It is actually a rather simple device – it pulls the seeds out of the cotton fibers quickly and easily, and when it was introduced to the southern cotton farms, it increased the amount of cotton production 50 times. While Whitney filed the patent and hence has the credit, there is evidence that a cotton gin may have been built by a man named Noah Homes two years prior.

It was said that Whitney saw a cat clawing at a chicken through a coop and coming away with a paw of feathers, which then led to his idea. Few inventions have been so seemingly simple, and yet have had such economical and even social impacts for years after. The invention of this propelled southern cotton farms to the top of the American economy at the time, and made cotton a major cash crop.

It also can be argued that the invention led indirectly to the Civil War. Because of the increased production of cotton, slave labor was an increasingly valuable commodity. As more and more slaves were brought into the south, tension mounted, eventually resulting in the war. While it is very probably that a Civil War would have happened eventually, it is entirely possible that it would have taken years longer, during which more powerful weapons would have developed, and could have set the entire Nation back years.

The Telephone

Where would we be without the telephone. While the credit for the invention can be disputed, Alexander Graham Bell is generally given credit for it. Oddly, the device that allows us to communicate with anyone in the world met with some resistance from major corporations, who still preferred press releases.

While Bell may not have been the first to invent it, he was one of the men responsible for thrusting it into the public eye. Unlike many other inventions, he had to fight tooth and nail to get credit for it’s use. The moral of this is to never give up when you believe in your invention – even if it is a difficult road, it’s worth it in the end.


Printing press

In the 1440s, Johann Gutenberg came out with an invention called the printing press. Previously, books were copied down mainly by monks in monastaries, which made them quite rare. Gutenberg’s invention in effect brought the written word to the masses.

In many ways, this brought on a complete revolution. A lasting effect was on the scientific community. Suddenly, scientists working in different locations could popularize their findings with their peers, opening the doors to the scientific revolution. No longer would each scientist have to reinvent the wheel, but instead could build on the research of his peers and predecessors.

It also gave a greater degree of accountability to authors. Since previously each individual page was copied by hand, a text written by one author could vary from book to book. You could never be sure that you were reading the same version as someone else. It also led to greater education for the masses, since now books were more widely available.

Gutenberg may not have set out to revolutionize the way that language was used, but ended up doing just that.

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Bull Lyre invented by Ancient Sumarians of Iraq

The bull lyre is one of three excavated from the royal cemetery of Ur. Each lyre had a different animal head protruding from the front of the sound box to denote its pitch: the bull lyre was bass, the heifer lyre was tenor and the stag lyre was alto, with all three being made of wood. The bull lyre stood roughly 1.2 meters high. The sound box was defined by a broad border of mosaic in shell, lapis lazuli and red paste, and this border continued onto the rectangular upright arms. The strings were tied to the crossbar and strung down over the bridge to connect at the base of the sound box. Researchers believe the notes constituted the same scale as Queen Shub-Ad’s harp and were achieved by the tension of the strings rather than the length.

The Sumerians were also believed to have invented their own system of writing, as well as the wheel. However, it can be difficult to give distinct credit because other civilizations have also “invented” the wheel and systems of writing, without prior contact to the Sumerians. As such, it can be assumed that they were invented independently of one another.

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First, if you are still a student, then there are numerous contests that will provide scholarships, and sometimes cash, for winning. Check out the collegiate inventors competition and the NCIIA.


If you are out of college and you still would like funding, you can do a few things to help make your idea a reality. First, starting a business and obtaining a business loan is a very good way to get financial backing. The downside is that you will need to pay this back eventually, so if your idea fails, you could be on the hook for thousands of dollars.

Government grants are another method of getting money. The upside is that you can get a good bit of money, and you don’t have to pay it back. However, grants like this can be extremely competative, and you have to make sure that your invention covers an area where a grant is currently open.

If you have some connections, you can also try to contact a venture capital firm – they will invest and fund your invention in order to bring it to market. The downside of this is that they’ll want a share in the profits, and they may want to become more involved, which can comprimise your original vision.

While it is difficult to get financial help to make your invention a reality, it is definately not impossible.

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When the conquistadores invaded in 1518, they ran across Aztec prostitutes chewing gum on the corners.


The actual discovery of chewing gum came a few hundred years earlier, however, by the Mayans. They found that chicle, a thick milky liquid that oozes out of cuts made in the wild sapodilla tree and then hardens into gum, was extremely tasty when chewed. As with many other popular pastimes, the importance of chicle to the Maya is clearly from their mythology: The culture hero Kukulkan (”the Feathered Serpent”), who conquered the Maya and changed their way of life to such an extent that he became worshiped as a god, was a great chewer of gum.

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Along with the ancient Mayans, the ancient Indians are thought to be one of the earliest civilizations that thought in terms of billions of years. While most ancient civilizations had thought thousands of years into the future, the Hindus have scriptures dealing with events spanning billions of years.

Relating to this is a Hindu concept of the creation of the world. A 9th century Hindu scripture, The Mahapurana by Jinasena claims that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end. And it is based on principles.


Amazingly, they even had theories regarding the sun and Earth. Aryabhata, it so happens, was apparently quite sceptical of the widely held doctrines about eclipses and also about the belief that the Sun goes round the Earth. As early as the sixth century, he talked of the diurnal motion of the earth and the appearance of the Sun going round it.

A Mathematician named Pingala also developed a numbering system similar to what we refer to as the binary system. They were also the first to use 0 as a placeholder in numbers such as 809 and 89. While the Babylonians had a concept that was similar to zero, it was merely used as a placeholder and was often just a blank space.

While the Indians had many more innovations than the ones above, these were a few that are notable.

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While not an invention in the literal sense – it was not a creation per se – Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity was, and is, one of the most ground breaking science breakthroughs of all time. This was made in 1905, and built on the three century old Galileo principle of relativity. Some of the central assertions to this theory are that time and space are relative to the observer, the speed of light is the maximum attainable velocity in the universe, and that mass and energy are interchangeable according to the equation E=mc^2.


While Einstein cannot be credited with the invention of the atomic bomb, the famous equation above is the theoretical basis of it. Energy (E) = mass (m) x the speed of light in a vacuum (c^2). The most famous consequence of this was its application in the atomic bomb – By measuring the mass of different atomic nuclei and subtracting from that number the total mass of the protons and neutrons as they would weigh separately, one could obtain an estimate of the binding energy available within an atomic nucleus. This could be (and was) used in estimating the energy released in the nuclear reaction, by comparing the binding energy of the nuclei that enter and exit the reaction.

Einstein also gave the solution to the question, “Why is the sky blue”, in 1911, through a formula that explained how light scattered off of air molecules.

In 1916, Einstein expanded his Special Theory of Relativity to include a General Theory of Relativity. This theory is primarily concerned with large scale effects of gravitation. This has been one of the cornerstones of cosmology and our understanding and view of the universe – primarily that large celestial bodies produce curvatures in space-time, which forms a gravitational field. From a planets gravitational pull of its moons to black holes, the General Theory of Relativity is incredibly broad.

The Bose-Einstein Condensate is a state of matter formed by bosons cooled to temperatures very near to absolute zero. It was proposed by Einstein in 1925 and built upon the work of Satyendra Nath Bose, hence the name.

Einstein was an incredible individual who changed the way we see and explain our universe – even over 50 years after his death, this theories are still in use and referenced.

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British inventor William Sturgeon was the inventor of a device that would be the foundation for later electronic communications. This invention was called the electromagnet. The power of this was demonstrated when he used a seven once piece of iron with wires wrapped around it to lift nine pounds – the electric current was generated by a single cell battery.
Then, in 1830, Joseph Henry, an American, sent an electronic current over one mile of wire to which caused a bell to ring. This can be thought of as the moment that the telegraph was born. Next up was Samuel Morse.

In 1835, while he was a professor at New York University, Morse proved that signals could be transmitted via wire. By using pulses of currents to deflect an electromagnet, he was able to move a marker and produce written code on a piece of paper – commonly known as Morse Code. The following year, the device was modified to include dots and dashes. In 1838 he gave a public demonstration, but it was not until 1843, five years later, that he received $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles.

The first public message sent was on May 1, 1944, when Henry Clay was nominated at the Whig party national convention. Morse’s partner, Alfred Vail, wired this news to the capital, thus making it the first ever news dispatched via electronic telegraph.

The message sent, “What hath God Wrought?” was sent from the old Supreme Court Chamber to Baltimore opened the line telegraph line on May 24, 1844. Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of one of Morse’s friends, chose the message from Numbers XXIII, 23. The early Morse telegraph produced a paper printout of dashes and dots, which were then translated by an operator.

By this time Morse and his partners began to receive private funding to extend the line to Philadelphia and New York. Smaller telegraph companies also began to spring up throughout the US. In 1851, another landmark accomplish occurred – trains were dispatched using the telegraph. Western Union also began business in this year, and in 1861 completed the first transcontinental telegraph line.

Originally, Morse code was printed on paper. Eventually this advanced to trained operators who could receive transmission by ear, and tape was discarded in favor of human operators, who could transmit up to 50 words per minute.

Advancements continued with the Telegraph, but it all started with a British inventor.  Samuel Morse applied what was already known in a different, and ultimately brilliant fashion.

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During the Zhou reign, Chinese territory nearly doubled, in large part due to the introduction of iron weapons to the Chinese military. They were also the first to use horsemen and chariots for war – as such, warfare progressed from a more respectful upper class fight to brutal foot soldier war.  They also started building clay walls around their cities to protect from barbarian invasions.



Perhaps the biggest advancements came in the realm of philosophy and culture.  The Zhou dynasty is home to the Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism schools of thought.  Poetry an dprose were created, and iron was also introduced to agriculture, allowing for increased productivity.

The Zhou dynasty also introduced the concept of irrigation, copper coins, chop sticks, and developed a more robust trading system.

Zhou Dynasty Innovations & Advancements

Artisanry:
- perfection of bronze casting, development of lost wax technology
- gold and silver inlays in metal and wooden/lacquered objects
- begin of iron casting technology and widespread use of iron tools during Warring States Period
- development of warfare technology like iron weapons, armament, chariots and fortifications
- engineering technology for irrigation, drainage, waterways, canals, dikes, dams
- development of music temperation by pipes and bells
- dyeing of yarns and woven materials like silk and linen
- glass production
- multi-color lacquering of wooden or bamboo objects
Astronomy, Astrology, Geography, Physics:
- perfection of the calendar
- regular observation of the starry sky and recording of irregular astronomical events
- maps of the starry sky; first geographical maps
- division of China into the Nine Provinces
- discovering of magnetism
Mathematics:
- description of basic arithmetics and fractions
- calculating with chips or tallies
- geometry and trigonometry
Agriculture:
- amelioration of ploughing methods
- use of fertilizers and pesticides
Medicine:
- descriptions of healing methods like acupuncture and moxibustion

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Given that the Egyptians gave to us the wonderous pyramids, it should come as no surprise that they also had a number of inventions that were no small feats.  The Egyptian civilization spanned thousands of years, and during that time they made numerous advances in the fields of agriculture, academia, and astrology.

As simple as it may seem, the advent of black ink was very important.  Ink and papyrus were more convienent than having to carve something into stone, and as evidenced from the numerous scrolls recovered, the Egyptians ink was extremely durable, lasting thousands of years.



Any society that thrives for an extended period of time must have at least a somewhat advanced system of agriculture.  Egypt was no different, inventing the first ox-drawn plow.  These were seen as early as 2500 BC.  This relates to two other areas that most people don’t consider the Egyptians experts in – blacksmithing (for making the plows) and husbandry.

As other ancient civilizations did, the Egyptians also had their own calendar system.  What differentiated theirs was that it happened to be 365 days long, and included leap years.  238 BC was the year that the Egyptions derived that every fourth year would have 1 extra day.

Relating again to ink, Egyption papyrus was the first paper of its kind.  It was made by taking fibers from the papyrus plant, and was the precursor to what we call paper.

Although the construction of the pyramids will likely remain a mystery, there is one obvious fact that cannot be overlooked – it took a lot of people working together to build them.  As such, the Egyptians can be said to be the first people to employ a large scale, organized labor force.  Taking into account that constructing even a single pyramid can take several decades, it was truly impressive how they were able to manage so many people for such an extended period of time.

The Egyptians were one of the premier civiliations of ancient times – it should come as no surprise that they had numerous inventions that we still see today.

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