Machines that Made a Difference Quiz

Answer: Artificial pacemaker

In the 1890s, it had been discovered that the human heart could be made to contract by applying an electrical impulse to it. Several decades later, Mark Lidwill and his associate Edgar Booth created an external pacemaker using a salt conductor and needle inserted into a sick baby's heart. It was plugged into a light socket, and led to the development of pacemakers that could be implanted under the skin.

Answer: Microwave oven

Utilsing technology developed for World War 2 at Raytheon Corp, Percy Spencer discovered that magnetrons could be used to heat foods with low-density microwave energy. He then experimented with foods in a metal box and microwaves. Following a series of successful experiments, he filed a patent for the invention in 1945.

Answer: Gridiron pendulum

In 1722, John Harrison invented the 'grasshopper escapement' mechanism that enabled clocks to be clean (early clocks required the use of lubricants that caused dirty build-up and needed regular cleaning) and precise in their time-keeping. In further experiments, he discovered that the use of the gridiron fomration, using two different metals, regulated the pendulum's swing by compensating for changes in ambient temperature.

Answer: Computer mouse

Engelbart developed the computer mouse in the early 1960s and displayed it at the Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco in 1968, demonstrating how the user could place the cursor on the screen in order to insert code. It didn't become popularised until the ball mouse was developed by Bill English, and in the mid-80s when the optical mouse was released by Apple.

Engelbart, a graduate of Oregon State College, served for two years in the US Navy as a radar technician. He received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. from University of California, Berkeley.

Answer: Black box flight recorder

While working at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation's Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne (Aus), Warren conceived of the idea of a cockpit voice recorder during the investigation of the world's first commercial jet airliner. It took some time for the concept to be accepted internationally, but once it became a standard feature, funding became available that enabled further development of the so-called black box.

Answer: Flattened paper

The winepress Guttenberg used produced a better quality of paper than was previously available. While the world's first mass-produced book is thought to be 'Nung Shu', using wooden blocks to print the type, Johannes Gutenberg replaced the wood with metal, developing a more durable and precise method of printing, with moveable type. He also used a different ink, more suited to attaching to metal. In 1452, Gutenberg produced the first printed Bibles using his press; each page had 42 lines, and some letters were even in colour.

Answer: Seismograph

The simple device, it used a brass urn to detect the movement generated by an earthquake. A pendulum in the centre of the urn was triggered by movement, and as it moved, it nudged one of eight directional rods, which in turn knocked a ball into the mouth of a vessel below (incidentally shaped like a toad).

While unable to ascertain the strength of earthquakes as modern seismographs do, this simple machine successfully indicated an earthquake that had taken place in a town some 400 miles from the location of the seismograph.

Answer: Spinning Jenny

This machine built on the efficiency benefits derived from the invention of the flying shuttle some years earlier, and replaced the traditional spinning wheel. The invention meant that by spinning one wheel with the hand, the operator could spin eight threads at once. Hargreaves patented the idea in 1770. Around the same time, Richard Arkwright developed a water-powered frame that allowed virtually-perpetual motion to move the spinning wheel.

Answer: Steam engine

While a primitive steam turbine was known to have existed in ancient Greece, it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that the concept of using a steam-powered engine to solve every-day problems was applied. Steam had previously been used to rid mines of water, but Savery's was the first to use an engine for this purpose.

There were lots of accidents with the naive design however, and it was more than half a century later that James Watt improved its functionality by adding a condenser. Watt later teamed up with Matthew Boulton and this duo developed a series of other steam-powered machines that lead to the popularisation of steam engines.

Answer: Geared waterwheel

Although the waterwheel was significantly improved in the 18th and 19th centuries, they existed as long ago as 300 BC in Greece and Egypt. The first clear design for a geared one, however, was by the Roman military engineer Vitruvius. Interestingly, it was his description of the perfect human body that led to Da Vinci's drawing of the Vitruvian man.

Various types of waterwheels have existed throughout history (including horizontal, breastshot and stream, among others) and have been used for power generation, milling grain and fibre, and crushing ore. Modern hydro-electic dams use the same principles to create electric power.