Skip to main content

Home/ 8th Grade Inventor Research 2014/ Group items tagged the

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
justin creed

Post-It Notes Were Invented By Accident - 1 views

www.todayifoundout.com/...otes-were-invented-by-accident

invented history google

shared by justin creed on 09 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • There were actually two accidents that lead to the invention of the Post-It note.  The first was by Spencer Silver.  According to the former Vice President of Technical Operations for 3M Geoff Nicholson (now retired), in 1968, Silver was working at 3M trying to create super strong adhesives for use in the aerospace industry in building planes.  Instead of a super strong adhesive, though, he accidentally managed to create an incredibly weak, pressure sensitive adhesive agent called Acrylate Copolymer Microspheres.
  • It did have two interesting features, though.  The first is that, when stuck to a surface, it can be peeled away without leaving any residue. 
  • Specifically, the acrylic spheres only stick well to surfaces where they are tangent to the surface, thus allowing weak enough adhesion to be able to be peeled easily.  The second big feature is that the adhesive is re-usable, thanks to the fact that the spheres are incredibly strong and resist breaking, dissolving, or melting.   Despite these two notable features, no one, not even Silver himself, could think up a good marketable use for it.  Thus, even with Silver promoting it for five years straight to various 3M employees, the adhesive was more or less shelved. Finally, in 1973, when Geoff Nicholson was made products laboratory manager at 3M, Silver approached him immediately with the adhesive and gave him samples to play with. 
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Silver also suggested what he saw as his best idea for what to use the adhesive for, making a bulletin board with the adhesive sprayed on it.  One could then stick pieces of paper to the bulletin board without tacks, tape, or the like.  The paper could subsequently be easily removed without any residue being left on the sheets.  While this was a decent idea, it wasn’t seen as potentially profitable enough as annual bulletin board sales are fairly low.
  • Now enter the second accident by chemical engineer Art Fry.  Besides working at 3M as a Product Development Engineer and being familiar with Silver’s adhesive thanks to attending one of Silver’s seminars on the low-tack adhesive, he also sung in a church choir in St. Paul, Minnesota.
  • One little problem he continually had to deal with was accidentally losing his song page markers in his hymn book while singing, with them falling out of the hymnal.  From this, he eventually had the stroke of genius to use some of Silver’s adhesive to help keep the slips of paper in the hymnal.
  • Fry then suggested to Nicholson and Silver that they were using the adhesive backwards.  Instead of sticking the adhesive to the bulletin board, they should “put it on a piece of paper and then we can stick it to anything.”
  • This initially proved easier said than done, in terms of practical application.  It was easy enough to get the adhesive on the paper, but the early prototypes had the problem that the adhesive would often detach from the paper and stay on the object the paper was stuck to, or, at least, leave some of the adhesive behind in this way.  There was no such problem with the bulletin boards Silver had made because he had specifically made them so that the adhesive would bond better with the board than the paper. Two other 3M employees now entered the scene, Roger Merrill and Henry Courtney.  The two were tasked with coming up with a coating that could be put on the paper to make the adhesive stay bonded to it and not be left behind on whatever the paper was stuck to when it was removed, a task at which they were ultimately successful at achieving. Interestingly, because management at 3M still didn’t think the product would be commercially successful, they more or less shelved it for three years, even though the Post-It notes were extremely popular internally at 3M labs during that span.    Finally, in 1977, 3M began running test sale runs of the Post-It note, then called “Press ‘n Peel”, in a certain areas in four different cities to see if people would buy and use the product.  It turned out, no one much did, which confirmed in the minds of the executives that it wasn’t a good commercial product.
  • Luckily for offices the world over, Nicholson and Joe Ramey, Nicholson’s boss, didn’t feel like giving up yet.  They felt the marketing department had dropped the ball in that they hadn’t given businesses and people samples of the product to use to let them see for themselves how useful the notes could be.  So a year after the initial flop, 3M tried again to introduce the Post-It note to the world, this time giving huge amounts of free sample Post-It note pads away in Boise, Idaho, with the campaign deemed “The Boise Blitz”. 
  • This time, the re-order rate went from almost nothing, in the previous attempt, to 90% of the people and businesses that had received the free samples.  For reference, this was double the best initial rate 3M had ever seen for any other product they’d introduced.  Two years later, the Post-It note was released throughout the United States.
  • So after 5 years of constant rejection for the adhesive and another seven years in development and initial rejection, Post-It notes were finally a hit and have since become a mainstay in offices the world over, today being one of the top five best selling office supply products in the world.
  • Ever wonder why the standard color for Post-It notes is yellow?  It turns out this was kind of an accident as well.  The official story from some at 3M is that it was because it created a “good emotional connection with users” and that it would “contrast well stuck to white paper”.  However, according to Geoff Nicholson there was no such thought given to the color.  The real reason Post-It notes were yellow was simply because the lab next door to where they were working on the Post-It note “had some scrap yellow paper – that’s why they were yellow; and when we went back and said ‘hey guys, you got any more scrap yellow paper?’ they said ‘you want any more go buy it yourself’, and that’s what we did, and that’s why they were yellow. To me it was another one of those incredible accidents. It was not thought out; nobody said they’d better be yellow rather than white because they would blend in – it was a pure accident.”
  • Another obstacle in the initial launch of Post-It notes was that, because it was a completely new type of product, it required the construction of new machinery to mass produce the Post-It note pads, which was initially prohibitively expensive for a product seen by many within 3M as destined for commercial failure.
  • While most Post-It notes only have a thin strip of adhesive, you can buy Post-It notes that are completely covered in the back with the adhesive.  One example of a place this type of note is used is at the U.S. postal service.  These full adhesive backed notes are used there on forwarded mail.
  • Post-It notes received an upgrade in 2003 when 3M launched a new version of the Post-It note with super sticky glue that has better adhesion to vertical surfaces.
  • Spencer Silver holds a total of 22 patents, including the patent for the “low-tack, reusable, pressure sensitive adhesive” used in Post-It notes (Patent#: 3,691,140).  Silver is still working at 3M today in their special adhesives department.  He also has a doctorate in organic chemistry, which he received two years before inventing the adhesive used in Post-It notes.  On the side, his favorite past time is painting using pastels and oils, which he apparently is extremely accomplished at.
  •  Post-It notes are occasionally used in art-work.  One such famous example was in 2008 when Shay Hovell used 12,000 Post-It notes to create a replica of the Mona Lisa.  The most expensive Post-It note art piece was done by R.B. Kitaj and sold for £640 (about $1000) in 2000.
  • Art Fry received his early education in a one room schoolhouse.  He studied chemistry at the University of Minnesota and was hired while still in school at the “Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company”, which later was re-named 3M.  He retired from 3M in the early 1990s.
Heather Purpera

Molecular Expressions: History of the Compact Disc - 0 views

micro.magnet.fsu.edu/...cd.html

inventor history notes molecular expressions google compact disc picture

shared by Heather Purpera on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • History of the Compact Disc Starting in the mid 1980's, compact discs (CD) began to take over both the audio and computer program market. Much of this can be attributed to a general acceptance of certain specifications regarding compact discs, known as the "Color Books." Originally designed and developed by both Sony and Phillips, the concept of the Color Books was patented and standards were developed. These are a collection of five books that describe the specifications and standards CD technology follows. This led eventually to the current audio CD technology (Figure 1).
  • The first book, written in 1980, was named the "Red Book" and outlined the specifications regarding CD Digital Audio. This was the common CD used in stereo systems, and was capable of holding up to 99 tracks, for a total of roughly 74 minutes of audio information.
  • The second book was written in 1983 and is known as the "Yellow Book", comprising the basis of the Compact Disc - Read Only Memory (CD-ROM). This became the standard for computer-based compact discs, and meant that any computer system that had a CD-ROM drive, could read this format. It is capable of holding around 650 million bytes of data. CD-R's were developed under the same standards, but the actual CDs were comprised of different material. While the generic CD-ROM discs uses aluminum in their construction, the CD-R discs uses gold, which makes color a distinguishing feature.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The third book, known as the "Green Book," covered CD-Interactive technology, is used to synchronize both audio and data tracks on a CD-ROM in order to provide things such as full motion video combined with interactivity. Published in 1986, Phillips Interactive primarily marketed this technology.
  • The fourth, the "Orange Book", is merely an outline for the coming generation of writable CD technology, primarily CD-E. (Compact Disc - Erasable) This is meant to replace, or be used in the same matter as floppy discs, only providing a much larger medium to store data. The technology is available today, but know otherwise as CD-RW. (Compact Disc - ReWritable) Much like a floppy disc or hard drive, data can be written and rewritten to these discs, allowing for a very large yet portable medium of data storage.
  • The last book known as the "White Book," is a plan for the future of compact disc technology. It outlines what is known as video compact discs, and contains the standard of data compression that is used to display large amounts of audio and video on a home computer. This concept more or less morphed into what is now known as DVD (Digital Video Drives,) a technology produced primarily by Sony, Phillips and Toshiba. While not compatible with the standard CD-ROM drives used in computers, it did achieve what the White Book had outlined for the future.
  • While an overview of how compact disc technology developed and became so popular is presented, it fails to explain how the technology works. There are, however, relatively simple processes accounting for how a compact disc is read and how the CD-ROM drive translates that into data your computer can understand. First is the construction of the compact disc. It is built from a layer of polycarbonate plastic, covered in a color-dyed layer of aluminum, and followed by a protective layer of lacquer. Figure 2 shows a cross section of a compact disc, illustrating the different layers and providing a general idea behind its construction.
  • When a compact disc is written to, tiny rivets are made in the surface of the disc called stripes or pits. The areas between these pits are called lands, which together make up a pattern where data is written. From there, a CD-ROM drive uses a read head to interpret these patterns, which is done by focusing a laser beam on the surface of the disc. While the CD is spinning, this laser comes in contact with the lands and pits. If the laser comes in contact with a pit, the light is reflected off in all directions. However, if the light comes in contact with a land, it reflects back into the read head, triggering an electric impulse. Figure 3 illustrates the difference between a land and a pit, and how the light is reflected in each situation.
  • A pattern is developed from these electric impulses, and the CD-ROM drive returns this pattern to the computer as a string of 1s and 0s. This binary or digital data is in turn interpreted by the software controlling the CD-ROM drive, and then translated into something the computer can use, be it an executable program, an image, or a sound file.
Heather Purpera

CD History - 0 views

www.mh-audio.nl/tips%5Ccdhistory.htm

inventor history notes google picture

shared by Heather Purpera on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • It was Philips Industries, a Dutch-based electronics giant (known in the music world as owner of the PolyGram labels), that made the first announcement, on May 17, 1978. Working with Japan's Sony Corporation, Philips announced that they would have a marketable compact disc and appropriate hardware ready "in the early 1980s." That promise was kept on October 1, 1982, when the compact disc was introduced in Japan by CBS/Sony, with 112 different CD titles and a CD player (Sony's CDP-101). The last few months of 1982 were hectic, with Sony selling over 20,000 CD players and Hitachi also posting sales in the 6,000 per month range for their player. Prices for these initial players ran from about $700 to about $1000. The discs themselves, priced at about $15-20, could not be pressed fast enough to meet demand. Sony's research on who was buying the discs in Japan indicated it was young (20s, early 30s) men with a particular interest in sound quality. Perhaps it was this research that led others to believe, as the rest of the world looked on in curiosity to what was happening in Japan, that CDs would fill a niche for high quality sound enthusiasts and little else. By the end of 1982, CBS/Sony and Epic/Sony had issued 122 CD titles.
  • The stories about compact discs published in Billboard during early 1983 are fascinating. The lead story on January 29 has PolyGram mulling over how to package the CD in the US when it's released later in 1983, leaning toward the (in retrospect, ill-fated) "long box," the 6"x12" cardboard box which they convinced the industry to adopt at the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) meeting the next week. (Many at the meeting were considering a 12"x12" box!)
  • In February, Sony announced a "firm" suggested retail price of $1000 for their CD player and $16.98 for discs when they would be introduced later that year in the US. February 23, 1983 marked the debut of the compact disc in Europe, with PolyGram's Hans Gout noting that, "The sooner the Compact Disc replaces the conventional black vinyl LP, the better." By early March, Sony and CBS Records in the US were supplying free compact disc players and discs to selected radio stations here, mostly with Classical and Album-Oriented Rock formats. The March 12 issue of Billboard also notes that Capitol Record Shop, a Hartford, Connecticut, record store, had begun importing CDs from Japan and Europe, with 24 titles at a price tag of $24.95 each. At the time the owner was interviewed, he had only sold a total of one disc.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Several months of delays and anticipation dragged by, until in late June, 1983, CBS finally shipped the first CD "prepacks" to a select 35 accounts. Each prepack had a total of 12 titles, with no more than a total of 1000 prepacks altogether in the first shipment. Among the individual titles were Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, Billy Joel's The Stranger, Michael Jackson's Thriller, and Toto's Toto IV. Other titles were jazz and classical. The CD era had begun in the United States.
  • Within about a month, CBS had issued several other pop/rock titles, including Boston's Don't Look Back, Earth Wind & Fire's Raise!, ELO's Discovery, Journey's Escape, Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees, Barbra Streisand's Guilty, and Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run. These had the CBS logo (and mastering numbers in the DIDP 50000 series). Later, these were reissued with Columbia logos, but these remain as examples of the earliest American CD releases
  • After the introduction of the CD here, most of the stories in the trade press center around the acute shortage of pressing plants. At that time, there were two major plants, PolyGram's Hanover, West Germany plant, and Sony's plant in Japan. (Almost all the CDs sold under US labels for the first few years were either made in Japan or West Germany.) Sales figures for the US in 1983 totalled about 30,000 players and 800,000 discs. Still, no one really knew if the CD would succeed.
Heather Purpera

History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, The bases of digital ... - 0 views

history-computer.com/...compact_disc.html

history james compact disk modern

shared by Heather Purpera on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Compact Disk of James Russel The first workable digital compact disc device, the precursor on now ubiquitous CD/DVDs, was invented in the late 1960s by the American physicist James Russell
  • James T. Russell was born in Bremerton, Washington in 1931. He was always a smart boy and at the age of six he devised a remote-control battleship with a storage compartment for his lunch (obviously the young James enjoyed the food :-)
  • In 1953, Russell earned his Bachelor degree in physics and graduated from Reed College in Portland. Afterwards he went to work as a Physicist in General Electric's nearby labs in Richland, where his wife Barbara worked as a chemist. At GE, working for the Hanford Nuclear Plant, and appointed as a "designated problem-solver" for GE experimental unit, Russell initiated many experimental instrumentation projects. He was among the first to use a color TV screen and keyboard as the main interface between computer and operator. He also designed and built the first electron beam welder. In 1950s and early 1960s, Russell, who was an avid music listener (he was found of classical music—Beethoven, Chopin, Mussorgsky, Offenbach. etc.), quite frustrated with the wear and tear of his vinyl records and their poor sound quality, tried to improve the record player. Initially he tried using a cactus needle, instead of steel one, for a stylus, but with no success. "After each record you had to resharpen the needle," he recalled.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • In 1965, the Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute opened its Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland, to took over management of Hanford's lab, and James Russell joined the effort as Senior Scientist. Thus he gained an audience for his more far-fetched ideas and immediately began to pepper Battelle with proposals for new commercial concepts. The optical digital technology was initially met with skepticism, as it was not believed that one could digitize sound. "Here I was at Battelle, enmeshed in the scientific community, and one of the first things I had to demonstrate was that you could digitize music and reproduce it" he said. "Music into numbers? Come on now, Russell."
  • ple to convert into an audible or visible transmission.
  • Through the 1970s, Russell continued to refine the CD-ROM, adapting it to any form of data. However, like many ideas far ahead of their time, the CD-ROM found few interested investors at first. In 1971, Eli S. Jacobs, a New York venture capitalist, pioneered the commercialization by forming Digital Recording Corporation to further enhance the product for the consumer video market, and hired Russell and a team of technicians to come up with a video disk. Their efforts led to a 20-minute video disc in 1973.
  • "The vision I had in mind was of television programs on little plastic records. The networks, instead of putting programs on television, would print records. And if you wanted to watch your favorite programs you'd get them in the mail and put in the disk whenever you want," Russell said. "Jacobs thought, if we can do it, hey great, we've got the whole world by the tail. And if we can't, well at least you know where you are." In 1974 Digital Recording Corporation announced an optical digital television recording and playback machine, the first device to digitize a color image, at a Chicago trade show. The response from large potential investors was rather cool. Philips Electronics representatives visited Russell's Battelle lab in the summer of 1975, and they discounted the entire premise of his work. "They said: It's all very well for data storage, but you can't do that for video or audio." recalled Russell. Philips had just released its laser disc, an analog optical video player, and they were convinced that analog was the only way. "Philips put $60 million into development of the laser disc. We were advised that nobody would tell them they had made a mistake."
  • Sony launched its CDP-101—the first commercialized CD player in 1982. Sony and Philips paid royalties from CD player sales to Battelle and to Optical Recording Corporation. Time-Warner and other disc manufacturers settled with the Optical Recording Corporation in 1992, paying $30 million for patent infringement. The court determined that Optical Recording had the sole rights over the technology mentioned in the patents. But because the patents properly belonged to Russell's employer, he never got a cent out of either deal. By 1985, Russell had earned 26 patents for CD-ROM technology. He then founded his own consulting firm, where he has continued to create and patent improvements in optical storage systems, along with bar code scanners, liquid crystal shutters, and other industrial optical instruments. His most revolutionary recent invention is a high-speed optical data recorder and player that has no moving parts. Russell earned another 11 patents for this "Optical Random Access Memory" device.
  • James Russell has more good ideas before breakfast than most people do all their life
  • Heather Purpera on 10 Jan 14
     
    Information and facts on the inventor 
Tuffer Jordan

Wecome to NWS&T Magazine Online - 0 views

depts.washington.edu/...index.php

CD inventor

shared by Tuffer Jordan on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The Puget Sound Engineering Council selected Russell as the 2005 Industry Engineer of the Year. And despite all of his accomplishments, it wasn't until Joe Decuir of Seattle's chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., (IEEE) saw a story about Russell in the local newspaper that he suggested Russell's name to the committee last fall.
  • In the mid 1950s, he was frustrated with the sound quality of LPs, which started wearing out after only a dozen plays. He even tried using a cactus needle to play records because the jewel needle wore out the vinyl faster and didn't sound as clear. Russell wanted a way to capture the complexity and nuances of classical music without damaging the recording. And the idea that sparked a multi-billion dollar industry was about to take shape in Russell's mind.
  • In fifth grade, he started building radios out of parts he scrounged from the neighbors. In high school, he took a job setting up a commercial radio station, even though he didn't know how to hook up most of the equipment. "But I learned– rapidly,” he laughs.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • After graduating from Reed College with a degree in physics in 1953, Russell took a job with General Electric in the Hanford Nuclear Plant doing experimental work.
  • Battelle took over the Hanford Laboratories in 1965 and gave Russell a lab and time to work on some of his imaginings, including the crazy idea that sound could be converted to strings of numbers and reproduced using light.
  • He had come up with a way of using a laser to read digital bits of information, which later became the most widely-used way to read just about everything. By using a light to read the data, the record would never wear out. The data are encoded as microscopic pit marks on the surface of the disk, which, when spun, can be read to reproduce high-quality sound.
  • The original goal was to record television shows, not music, because adding visuals would be more difficult. If television couldn't be recorded digitally, Russell and his backers decided they would at least know where they stood. In 1973, they were successful, but they were ahead of their time. Amazingly, no one wanted to buy a license for the precursor to the DVD.
  • By 1991, about 25 years after he came up with the idea, CDs were outselling their predecessors, audio tapes, in record stores nationwide.
  • But all he can do is shrug ruefully, "I didn't invent the CD, I invented the technology.”
  • Today, Russell has more than 50 patents to his name. He continues his work from the basement of his Bellevue home where he and Barbara have lived for more than a decade.
  • The first devices were called Optical Digital Data Storage –the term CD is actually a trademark of Philips. The original storage units were made of glass plates, about the size of large index cards, which could be read as a laser scanned over them.
    • Tuffer Jordan
      Tuffer Jordan on 16 Jan 14
       
      Russell didn't get fame nor riches for his invention.
  • Now, sales of the mirror-like plastic discs are in the billions every year, but the man behind it all has gotten neither fame nor riches. The company that held the patents sold the rights for a song. Now, Russell has a few artifacts from the early days, a scrapbook full of pictures, and a handful of plaques and trophies to show for all his
    • Tuffer Jordan
      Tuffer Jordan on 16 Jan 14
       
      In the fifth grade, Russell started building radios out of parts he scrounged form the neighbors.
    • Tuffer Jordan
      Tuffer Jordan on 16 Jan 14
       
      Russell came up with a way of using a laser to read digital bits of information, which later became the most widely-used way to read just about everything.
  • Tuffer Jordan on 10 Jan 14
     
    James T. Russell invented the CD! 
Heather Purpera

Pioneers of Music - 0 views

courses.washington.edu/...music.html

inventor history notes music

shared by Heather Purpera on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • James T. Russell James T. Russell (Left), born in Bremerton Washington, is a very influential inventor in the music industry. Russell, an avid music fan, frustrated by the poor quality of his records, set out to create a means of playing music that would have better longevity. With this goal in mind, Russell created the first “digital-to-optical recording and playback system,” what we know now as the compact disc. He used light to read the product instead of actually touching the material. The invention was finished in the late 1960s, and was originally patented by 1970. By 1985, Russell had over 26 patents on the invention, and sold the licenses to companies like Phillips Electronics, to produce the compact disc.
  • The music industry has been changed and has had great advancements throughout history. One of the main forms of advancement stems from the ways in which the industry has faced recording, and publication. Society has seen the industry veer from the standard eight-track, to the record, to the tape, to CD, to MP3, etc., and with each new advancement, the entire industry changes. It isn’t uncommon for a person to see many changes of medium within a lifetime. With each change comes better quality, more innovation, and more possibility for further progression.
  • The Compact Disc The invention of the CD has had one of the most influential, and timely effects on the music industry. The CD came into the technology scene in the 1980s. Philips Electronics N.V first produced it in 1980. The invention originated in the computer industry in 1980, and took over the floppy disk. It could contain the same amount of information as 1,000 floppy disks, thus it became a very popular alternative. Soon, it also became influential in the music industry in 1982, when technology was invented that allowed the disc to hold audio files with a far better sound quality than was prior possible. The compact disc is read by a laser beam, which leads to a more accurate and qualified playback. In addition, compact discs allowed the user to skip between songs with out using the fast forward/ rewind button, a feature that wasn’t available on the magnetic cassette tape.
Nathanael Nix

How a Pop-Bottle Invention Resulted in the Cell Phone | Martin Cooper | Big Think - 0 views

bigthink.com/...ion-resulted-in-the-cell-phone

cell phone history inventor cell phone martin cooper MartinCooper cellphone-facts

shared by Nathanael Nix on 15 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • For 100 years, people who wanted to talk to other people were wired to their homes, they were latched – or chained to their desks and really didn’t have much in the way of freedom. That we were, in fact, giving people communications in their vehicles: even then, it’s not much better than being tied to your desk. You’re still trapped in your car. So we found out from people, like the Superintendent of Police in Chicago, who told us that he had a real problem. His officers had to be in communication, the only way they could talk was to be in their cars, and yet the people they were protecting were walking on the streets. He asked us, “How can I have my officers connected and still mingling with the people?” And we discovered this was true of people managing airports, people managing businesses, real estate people. So, we became aware of the fact that real communications is portable communications. Put the device on the person. 
  • I was four years old, lived in Winnipeg, Canada, where it’s very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. And I look at these boys with a magnifying glass. And they were burning a piece of paper by focusing the rays of the sun onto this paper through a magnifying glass. And I just had to know how that worked. And so I did the obvious thing, I took a soda pop bottle and broke it and tried to make a magnifying glass out of it. And that’s when I realize now, that I had discovered that I was going to be an engineer because I want to know how everything works and I always have. 
  • When I was nine years old, I invented—at least I think I invented—a train that could travel through a tunnel from one end of the country to the other. And what was unique about this train was two things. I had learned about friction, and so we had to get rid of friction. And so I thought, why don’t we support this train on a magnetic field? Because I knew two magnets, when they are close together, force themselves apart. And the second thing is if we’re going to get rid of all friction, we have to get rid of the air. So, this train traveled in a tunnel that was totally evacuated. It was in a vacuum. And amazingly enough, they are just starting to build trains like that, maybe without the vacuum, but with magnetic levitation. So, maybe it wasn’t such a dumb idea after all. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Science has been a part of my life from the time I was four years old... just knowing how things work, having a curiosity. And my curiosity has been limitless and that’s quite a handicap because there are times in your life when you have to specialize. But I literally want to know everything and only in recent years have I finally realized that I’m never going to know everything. In fact, the older I get, and the more stupid I find out that I am. But science, the understanding of how things work, what things are, has been crucially important to me. So, I started out with fantasy; I’ve always loved science fiction. I’ve always known that I was going to be an engineer, so I went to a technical high school so that I could take every kind of shop and learn how to work with my hands, learned about materials, and I always knew that I was going to go to an engineering school and get an engineering degree. 
  • Science can be interesting. Science can be fun. If, in fact, teachers learn how to present science in that way and learn how to make people curious and make it enjoyable, I think more people will get involved. But it’s not important that everybody become a scientist. Everybody doesn’t have to be a mathematician. Make it interesting enough so the people that have that interest, that have that talent do latch onto the wonderful world that will open up if they dig into science and mathematics. The teaching of science, mathematics, of anything—there really is no difference from a game. If you make a game dull, if you make it uninteresting, if you don’t have something that grabs people... then they won’t get interested and they’ll go do something else. So, I don’t see why teaching should be any different than creating games. Creating a curriculum ought to be the same as creating a game. Make it interesting, make it fun, make it a challenge; all of those things. All of the attributes of playing a game are the things that draw people into learning and I think that’s what we ought to do. We ought to somehow coalesce the concept of teaching with the concept of game playing, and we’re going to find that a lot more of our youngsters are going to get interested in learning and specifically about science, mathematics, technology.
  • Nathanael Nix on 15 Jan 14
     
    This is a good website about Martin Cooper and the Cell Phone invention, it even has a pretty nifty video about him.
jacob sullivan

Fountain pen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Fountain_pen

fountain pen history

shared by jacob sullivan on 14 Jan 14 - Cached
  • A fountain pen is a nib pen that, unlike its predecessor the dip pen, contains an internal reservoir of water-based liquid ink. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits it on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action. Filling the reservoir with ink may be achieved manually (via the use of a Pasteur pipette or syringe), or via an internal filling mechanism which creates suction (for example, through a piston mechanism) to transfer ink directly through the nib into the reservoir. Some pens employ removable reservoirs in the form of pre-filled ink cartridges. A fountain pen needs little or no pressure to write.
  • liest historical record of a reservoir pen dates to the 10th century. In 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the caliph of the Maghreb, demanded a pen that would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen that held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib, which could be held upside-down without leaking, as recorded i
  • hat some form of pen with an ink res
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • wenter descr
  • In Deliciae Physico-Mathematicae
  • ibed a pen made from two quills
  • es Stephen Perry devised a
  • In 1828 Josiah Mason improved a cheap, efficient slip-in nib in Birmingham, England, which could be added to a fountain pen and in 1830, with the invention of a new machine, William
  • was squeezed through a small hole to the writing point. In 1663 Samuel Pepys referred to a metal pen "to carry ink".[2] Noted Maryland historian Hester Dorsey Richardson (1862–1933) documented a reference to "three silver fountain pens, worth 15 shillings" in England during the reign of Charles II, ca. 1649–1685.[3] By the early 1
  • 1734 notation made by Robert Morris the elder in the ledger of the expenses of
  • way to mass manufacture robus
  • steel-nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham. Thousands of skilled craftsmen and -women were employed in the
  • previously could not afford to write, thus encouraging the development of education and literacy.
  • These were sold worldwide to many wh
  • industry. Many new manufacturing techniques were perfected, enabling the city's factories
  • mid-19th century
  • most inks were highly corrosive and full of sedimentary inclusions. The Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru received a French patent on May 25, 1827 for the invention of a fountain pen with a barrel made from a large swan quill.[6] In 1848 American inventor Azel Storrs Lyman patented a pen with "a combined holder and nib".[7][8] From the 1850s there
  • was a steadily accelerating stream of fountain pen patents and pens in production. However, it was only after three key inventions were in place that the fountain pen became a widely popular writing instrument. Those were the iridium-tipped gold nib, hard rubber, and free-flowing ink. Waterman 42 Safety Pen, with variation in materials (both red and black rubbers) and retracting nibs. The first fountain pens making use of all these key ingredients appeared in the 1850
  • The ear
  • n Kitab al-Majalis wa
  • 'l-musayarat, by Qadi al-Nu'man al-Tamimi (d. 974).[1] No details of the construction or mechanism of operation of this pen are known, and no examples have survived.
  • triston1 on 14 Jan 14
     
    wikipedia fountain pens
  • jacob sullivan on 15 Jan 14
     
    more information
Heather Purpera

The First CD Invented - 0 views

www.thisisthefirst.com/...38-the-first-cd-invented

invented inventor history notes google

shared by Heather Purpera on 15 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • James Russell invented the compact disc in 1965. James Russell was granted a total of 22 patents for various elements of his compact disc system. However, the compact disk did not become popular until it was mass manufactured by Philips in 1980.             The first working prototype was produced in 1979. At the time of the technology's introduction it had more capacity than computer hard drives common at the time. The reverse is now true, with hard drives far exceeding the capacity of CDs.
  • n 1979, Philips and Sony got together to manufacture the compact disc.
  • The team leaders of this project were Kees Immink and Toshitada Doi. Philps handled the manufacturing process along with the Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation (EFM), while Sony too care of the error connection method, better known as CIRC. However, Philips claims that this invention was not a one man's job but a collective contribution by members of both the companies who worked together as a team.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Audio CDs and audio CD players have been commercially available since October 1982.            Mass adoption didn't happen immediately -- CDs wouldn't overtake cassette tapes until the late 1980s. The first album to sell 1 million copies in the CD format and outsell its vinyl version was Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms," released in 1985.
  • This disc was taken over by nearly all markets across the globe, especially the Europe and the United States consumer market. The first successful CD to be launched was Brothers in Arms in 1985.A compact disc (CD) is a popular form of digital storage media used for computer files, pictures, and music. The plastic platter is read and written to by a laser in a CD drive. It comes in several varieties including CD-ROM, CD-R, and CD-RW.  As with most new technologies, one reason for the slow spread of CDs was their steep price tags. The Sony CDP-101 player sold for the equivalent of $730 when it first hit Japanese shelves in 1982. Accounting for inflation, that's about $1,750 today. The audio CDs themselves were $15, which is $35 in 2012 dollars.
  • Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimeters (4.7 in) and can hold up to 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or 700 MB (actually about 703 MB or 737 MB) of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimeters (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio or delivering device drivers.
Max N.

Milton Bradley info - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Milton_Bradley

milton bradley

shared by Max N. on 14 Jan 14 - Cached
  • Bradley grew up in a working-class household in Lowell, Massachusetts.
  • completing high school he found work as a draftsman before enrolling at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1856, he secured employment at the Watson Company in Springfield, Massachusetts.
  • company was shuttered during the recession of 1858, he entered business for himself as a mechanical draftsman and patent agent
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • pursued lithography and in 1860, he set up the first color lithography shop in Springfield, Massachusetts
  • moved forward with an idea he had for a board game which he called The Checkered Game of Life, an early version of what later became The Game of Life.
  • 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame along with George Ditomassi of Milton Bradley Company. Through the 20th century the company he founded in 1860, Milton Bradley Company dominated the production of American games, with titles like Candyland, Operation, and Battleship. The company is now a subsidiary of Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based Hasbro.
  • In search of a lucrative alternative project in which to employ his drafting skills, Bradley found inspiration from an imported board game given to him by a friend. Concluding that he could produce and market a similar game to American consumers, Milton Bradley released The Checkered Game of Life in the winter of 1860.
  • Bradley personally sold his first run of several hundred copies in one two-day period in New York; by 1861, consumers had bought over 45,000 copies.
  • While the structure of play used in The Checkered Game of Life differed little from previous board games, Bradley's game embraced a radically different concept of success. Earlier children's games, such as the popular Mansion of Happiness developed in Puritan Massachusetts, were concerned entirely with providing an attractive venue from which to promote moral virtue. But Bradley preferred to define success in secular business terms consistent with America's emerging focus on "the causal relationship between character and wealth." This approach, which depicted life as a quest for accomplishment in which personal virtues provided a means to an end, rather than a point of focus, complemented America's burgeoning fascination with obtaining wealth in the years following the Civil War.
  • Bradley established a set of rules to play croquet in 1866. Bradley was one of the marketers of the zoetrope, a spinning slotted drum with pre-printed images to create the illusion of motion pictures. Though this was not definitely known as of November 2010, Bradley might have been awarded the patent for the one-arm paper cutter.
    • Katie Gatliff
      Katie Gatliff on 14 Jan 14
       
      Milton also created the paper cutter and the rules to croquet
  • Katie Gatliff on 14 Jan 14
     
    this is really good information. wish i had looked on Wikipedia sooner
Morgan Pearson

Lemelson-MIT Program - 0 views

web.mit.edu/...bohlin.html

inventor history

shared by Morgan Pearson on 09 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Nils Ivar Bohlin
  • born in 1920 in Harnosand, Sweden
  • 1939 he completed his B.S. in mechanical engineering at Harnosand Laroveik.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • he was in charge of the development of ejection seats
  • ired as a safety engineer for AB Volvo in Gothenburg, Sweden.
  • . Safety belts were in use at the time, but the most prevalent design used a single strap with a buckle over the stomach. This design risked injury to body organs in high-speed crashes.
    • Morgan Pearson
      Morgan Pearson on 09 Jan 14
       
      Really good information and details on what happened while Nils Bohlin was inventing the three-point seat belt.
  • Bohlin aimed to find an alternative design that would not only protect both the upper and lower body, but would also be comfortable and simple to use.
  • The design held both the upper and lower body in place, and was simple enough that the driver could buckle up with one hand.
  • In 1958, Bohlin was h
  • by 1963 all Volvos came equipped with front seat belts, and the company decided to make the design free for use by all car makers.
  • In 1959, Volvo became the first auto maker to introduce Bohlin’s three-point safety belt design.
  • The report claimed that the belt had already saved thousands of lives, reducing the risk of injury or death in car accidents by as much as 75 percent.
  • It persuaded a number of other national governments to do the same
  • Since its introduction, the three-point shoulder/lap safety belt has changed very little in its overall design.
  • As of today, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates the belts reduce the risk of deaths in car crashes by at least 45 percent.
  • Bohlin retired from Volvo in 1985.
  • In 1974 Bohlin was awarded The Ralph H. Isbrandt Automotive Safety Engineering Award.
  • honored in 1979 and in 1985 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington, D.C. In 1995, he received a medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. In 2002, he was inducted into the (U.S.) National Inventors Hall of Fame. On the day he was to be honored for this achievement, Bohlin died at age 82.
  • Morgan Pearson on 09 Jan 14
     
    Information on Nils Bohlin while inventing the seat belt.
Katlyn Humphries

History of Procter & Gamble | Toilet Paper Encyclopedia - 0 views

encyclopedia.toiletpaperworld.com/...proctor-and-gamble

shared by Katlyn Humphries on 14 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Febreze
  • Old Spice
  • Secret
  • ...56 more annotations...
  • Charmin
  • Children’s Pepto
  • Clearblue Easy
  • Dreft
  • Pampers
  • Pampers Kandoo
  • Max Factor
  • Puffs
  • Duracell
  • Camay
  • Ivory
  • Old Spice
  • Safeguard
  • CoverGirl
  • Pampers UnderJams
  • Braun
  • Gillette Complete Skincare
  • Cascade
  • Ivory
  • Always
  • Tampax
  • Aussie
  • Clairol
  • Head & Shoulders
  • Herbal Essences
  • Infusium 23
  • Pantene
  • Align
  • Pepto-Bismol
  • Prilosec OTC
  • Bounty
  • Mr. Clean
  • Swiffer
  • Crest
  • Crest Glide
  • Crest Whitestrips
  • Scope
  • Oral-B
  • Gillette Fusion
  • Gillette M3Power
  • Gillette SatinCare
  • Gillette Venus
  • Pringles
  • 1907-1920 William Cooper Procter, son of William Alexander, takes over as Head of the company. Crisco is invented and introduced, and the company’s candles are discontinued with the development of the electric light bulb!Over the next three decades, Procter & Gamble develops many more products. Tide detergent, Drene shampoo, Duncan Hines Cake Mix, and Crest toothpaste are just a few of the products that brought the company much wealth, during that time.
  • 1850 Procter & Gamble begin printing the “Moon and Stars” on their packaged products, as their unofficial trademark.
  • 1859 Procter & Gamble reaches the one million-dollar mark!
  • 1862 Numerous contracts were awarded to P&G, during the Civil War, to supply soap and candles to the Union armies.
  • 1890 William Alexander Procter, younger son of Mr. Procter, becomes the first President of the company. That same year, he builds one of the American industry’s first research labs for products.
  • 1837 William Procter (a candle maker from England) and James Gamble (a soap maker from Ireland) immigrate to Cincinnati, Ohio and begin selling their products. A formal partnership is signed on October 31, 1837.
  • 1957-1961 P&G enters the paper product industry with the acquisition of Charmin Paper Mills, and Pampers are brought to the test market. The original Charmin “family” included paper towels, facial tissue and bath tissue, however; P&G discontinued all but bath tissue for their product market.
  • 1973 Procter & Gamble patents a new manufacturing technique to produce softer Charmin tissue.
  • 1978 Charmin becomes available in all 50 states, and the new 6-roll package is introduced.
  • 1994-1997 Charmin’s products just keep coming! The Charmin Mega Roll, the double roll, the triple roll, and the “Big Squeeze” mega size roll are created.
  • 1999 Procter & Gamble introduces its biggest upgrade in 10 years-the new, most absorbent Charmin toilet tissue with the same softness.
  • 2002 P&G develops Naturella feminine pads specifically for needs of low-income women in Latin America.
  • 2006 To aid the global crisis of unsafe drinking water in developing countries, P&G launches the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program using their PUR water system.
  • Katlyn Humphries on 14 Jan 14
     
    List of their brands that they've joined or created
Katie Gatliff

Milton Bradley | The Play and Playground Encyclopedia - 2 views

www.pgpedia.com/milton-bradley

milton bradley encyclopedia history inventor google board game

shared by Katie Gatliff on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • With the advent of the American Civil War, Milton saw the interest in games fade until he created the idea of a small kit of games for the soldiers to play during periods of inactivity. His kit included chess, checkers, backgammon, dominoes, and his Checkered Game of Life. The kits were sold directly to the soldiers as well as charitable organizations who distributed them to the soldiers.
  • Milton's success with games monetarily carried his interest in supporting the new kindergarten movement. However, with the 1870 recession, his partners were no longer willing to support these extra costs. Milton chose to continue his support of the kindergarten movement and his friend, George Tapley, bought out the partners and became president. This left Milton free to invent new games and educational materials.
  • This foresight paid off by the early 1900s. Kindergartens were spreading across the United States and the teachers were buying Milton's art supplies, multiplication sticks, toy money, movable clock dials, story books, school furniture, and educational games. Milton Bradley Company's education department went from operating at a loss to being a major source of earnings for the company.1
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • On this solid basis, Milton continued to produce games and puzzles, such as word games, trivia knowledge games, biblical games, traditional games, rebus-based games, and an early type of Monopoly called “The Way to Make Money.” Additionally, Milton researched and codified the rules for croquet that was included with his croquet sets. Those rules became the standard in America.
  • Milton continued to produce games, especially parlor games and jigsaw puzzles.
  • When Milton died in 1911, the company was temporarily led by Ralph Ellis before it was co-chaired by Milton's son-in-law Robert Ingersoll and George's son, William Tapley. By 1920, Milton Bradley Company had five manufacturing sites in Springfield.
  • Katie Gatliff on 10 Jan 14
     
    i highlighted the stuff about when Milton was alive but you can go back in and look at the history about the company
bailey spoonemroe

William Wrigley | Chewing Gum - 0 views

chewinggum.umwblogs.org/william-wrigley

william gum inventor history notes

shared by bailey spoonemroe on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • William Wrigley
  • Perhaps one of the most famous names in the gum industry is William Wrigley.  Wrigley was the son of a soap salesman from Philadelphia, and at the age of thirteen, he was also selling soap.  At the age of 30, he moved to Chicago to open a new branch of his father’s company and came up with an idea to provide “premiums” to vendors who purchased a certain amount of soap.  These premiums included baking powder, cookbooks, and umbrellas. 14.  The baking powder sales surpassed the popularity of the soap, so Wrigley made that his primary product and offered gum as a premium, the very same development from John Curtis.  Once again, the premium’s popularity surpassed that of the product, and Wrigley entered the gum industry.  Wrigley hired the Zero Gum Company to manufacture gum for him, and it was here that the Wrigley’s industry started.  He introduced a series of branded gums in 1983, including Juicy Fruit and Spearmint.  In 1898, he founded William Wrigley Jr. Company. 15.  
  • While this type of industry-making is nothing new or special, what set Wrigley apart from his competitors, including the Adams company, was his marketing and advertising.  Wrigley is famously quoted as saying, “Anyone can make gum. The trick is to sell it.”16.  And sell it he did.  Wrigley began by doing a modest advertising campaign in 1906 in Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, with successful results.  The campaign then evolved to massive billboards, placards in streetcars and subways, and one of the first electric signs,
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • including a massive one in Times Square (the electricity bill of which was an annual $100,000).
  •   The billboards then evolved to a linked line of 117 signs along the railroad between Atlantic City and Trenton, New Jersey advertising Wrigley’s Spearmint.  Between 1915 and 1917, Wrigley sent free samples of gum to everyone with a telephone book, a total of more than 8.5 million, and in another campaign, every child received two sticks of gum when they turned two, reaching 750,000 children. 17.  A brand-recognition study in the 1920s found that 65% of people listed Wrigley as their “top-of-mind” choice for chewing gum, while the nearest competitor scored only 10%. 18.  Wrigley’s advertising campaigns were what truly made gum popular throughout the country and a billion dollar industry.
  • Ben Lews on 16 Jan 14
     
    How he started selling gum
  • bailey spoonemroe on 17 Jan 14
     
    good info look at highleded info on the inventer
Mary Gilliam

The ADVENTISTS - 0 views

www.theadventiststhefilm.com/...johnharveykellogg.html

inventor history notes google

shared by Mary Gilliam on 13 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The Sanitarium continued to grow in fame until the Great Depression, when economic hardtimes forced Kellogg to sell it. He eventually opened another Sanitarium in Florida, but it never achieved the fame of the Battle Creek Sanitarium.
  •  In 1900 John Harvey Kellogg wrote The Living Temple, his attempt to correlate physiology and health care with St. Paul’s admonission, “Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” Several Adventist leaders, including Ellen White, disapproved of the book’s theology. There were also disagreements concerning the health mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Kellogg advocated one large, world-famous center while Ellen White urged several smaller centers to spread the health message farther. By 1907, after much arguing and negotiation, Kellogg removed the Battle Creek property from Seventh-day Adventist ownership and was cut off from the church.
  • John Harvey, along with his brother Will, founded Sanitas Food Company in 1897. When Will wanted to add sugar to the Corn Flakes recipe, the brothers argued and fell out. In 1906 Will started his own company, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which eventually became the Kellogg Company.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • At its heighth, in 1906, with over 7,000 guests, including 1800 staff members, the Sanitarium became a destination for both wealthy and middle-class American citizens. It drew prominent people like Amelia Earhart, Johnny Weismuller, John D. Rockefeller and Warren Harding. Influential visitors like Mary Todd Lincoln and Sojourner Truth promoted Kellogg’s enthusiasm for health and wellness among the general population. It was nicknamed "The San" by its clients.
  • He promoted the Adventist principles of a low-fat, low-protein diet with an emphasis on whole grains, fiber-rich foods, and, most importantly, nuts. Kellogg also recommended a daily intake of fresh air, exercise, and the importance of hygiene. He offered classes on food preparation for homemakers.
  • In 1876 John Harvey Kellogg (1852 – 1943) became the superintendent of the Western Health Reform Institute. He renamed it the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a word he coined to infer a health-inducing institution. 
  • Mary Gilliam on 13 Jan 14
     
    Good website about John Harvey!
savannah krantz

Max Factor - Biography on Bio. - 0 views

www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/...max-factor.html

max factor inventor biography

shared by savannah krantz on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
    • savannah krantz
      savannah krantz on 13 Jan 14
       
      great info on max factor and how his story began.
  • His most notable clients were Mary Pickford, Jean Harlow, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Judy Garland, all of whom became regular visitors at his salons.
  • In 1918, he developed his 'colour harmony' face powder range, which allowed him to create make up for each individual based on their skin tones, due to the wide range of shades on offer.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Creating false eyelashes, the eyebrow pencil, lip gloss, and pancake make up, Factor created a whole new language for screen cosmetics.
  • He died on 30 August 1938 at the age of 59.
  • His son Frank took the name Max Factor JR and continued to be involved with the company until the 1970s, seeing the company create make up shades for US Marines during the second world war, offer male products such as shampoo and aftershave and launch its first female fragrance in 1955.
  • In the 1970s, the third generation of Factors rose to senior positions but wanted to focus on their own interests, leading the firm to first be bought by Revlon and then Proctor & Gamble in 1991.
  • Credited as the father of modern make up
  • It was in 1927 that Max Factor introduced his first cosmetics to be sold to non-theatrical consumers.
  • Another key development in the make up world was the invention of waterproof mascara for the film 'Mare Nostrum' in 1926.
  • By the 1920s, Max's sons were heavily involved in the business with Davis working as general manager and Frank helping his father to develop new products.
  • As his local fame spread, actors from the emerging film industry also came to Max for make-up advice.
  • Max Factor travelled to the United Sates in 1902 and took his family to the St. Louis World's Fair.
  • They never returned.
  • Thus, the motion picture industry, then beginning in Hollywood, beckoned. He settled in Los Angeles with his family in 1909 and got a job with the Pantages Theatre.
  • By 1914, he was perfecting make up for the movies.
  • He formed flexible greasepaint, which was the first make up created for film.
  • samantha horton on 10 Jan 14
     
    some information about him
Trey Mcintyre

Air conditioning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Air_conditioning

Air Conditioning history

shared by Trey Mcintyre on 14 Jan 14 - Cached
  • Air conditioning (often referred to as aircon, AC or A/C) is the process of altering the properties of air (primarily temperature and humidity) to more favourable conditions. More generally, air conditioning can refer to any form of technological cooling, heating, ventilation, or disinfection that modifies the condition of air.[1]
  • An air conditioner is a major or home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to change the air temperature and humidity within an area (used for cooling and sometimes heating depending on the air properties at a given time). The cooling is typically done using a simple refrigeration cycle, but sometimes evaporation is used, commonly for comfort cooling in buildings and motor vehicles. In construction, a complete system of heating, ventilation and air conditioning is referred to as "HVAC".
  • Air conditioning can also be provided by a simple process called free cooling which uses pumps to circulate a coolant
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • ng. Common storage media are deep aquifers or a natural underground rock mass accessed via a cluster of small-diameter, heat exchanger equipped boreholes.
  • he heat pump is added-in because the temperature of the storage gradually increase during the cooling season, thereby declining in effectiveness. Free cooling and hybrid systems are mature
  • The basic concept behind air conditioning is said to have been applied in ancient Egypt, where reeds were hung in windows and were moistened with trickling water. The evaporation of water cooled the air blowing through the window, though this process also made the air more humid (also beneficial in a dry desert climate). In Ancient Rome, water from aqueducts was circulated through the walls of certain houses to cool them. Other techniques in medieval Persia involved the use of cisterns and wind towers to cool buildings during the hot season. Modern air conditioning emerged from advances in chemistry during the 19th century, and the first large-scale electrical air conditioning was invented and used in 1902 by Willis Haviland Carrier. The introduction of residential air conditioning in the 1920s helped enable the great migration to the Sun Belt in the US.
Chad Amico

Post-it note - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Post-it_note

inventor history notes

shared by Chad Amico on 14 Jan 14 - Cached
  • In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M in the United States, was attempting to develop a super-strong adhesive, but instead he accidentally created a "low-tack", reusable, pressure-sensitive adhesive[1][2] that has been characterized as "a solution without a problem"
  • Fry then developed the idea by taking advantage of 3M's officially sanctioned "permitted bootlegging" policy.[5] 3M launched the product in stores in 1977 in four cities under the name "Press 'n Peel", but its results were disappointing.[6][7] A year later, in 1978, 3M issued free samples to residents of Boise, Idaho, and 94 percent of the people who tried them said that they would buy the product.[6] On April 6, 1980, the product debuted in US stores as "Post-It Notes".[8] In 1981, Post-its were launched in Canada and Europe.[9]
  • In 2003, the company came out with Post-it Brand Super Sticky notes, with a stronger glue that adheres better to vertical and non-smooth surfaces.[10] Standard Post-it Brand notes have only partial adhesive coating on the back, along one edge.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The Yellow Stickee Diary of a Mad Secretary", by Rosa Maria Arenas, is the mini graphic journal of an office worker/artist, exhibited July 7 - August 25, 2013, at the Michigan Institute of Contemporary Art (MICA) Gallery in Lansing, Michigan. The 41 drawings displayed are a tiny percentage of the more than 2000 original drawings that constitute the Yellow Stickee Diary Project which Arenas created while working temp jobs from 1994 to 2005. Printed with archival inks on archival paper, the reproductions include "stickee sized" (3" x 5") framed prints and enlargements of the original drawings (which were all done on post-it notes).
  • Rebecca Murtaugh, a California artist who uses Post-it notes in her artwork, in 2001 created an installation by covering her whole bedroom with $1000 worth of the notes, using the ordinary yellow for objects she saw as having less value and neon colors for more important objects, such as the bed.[10]
  • One such work, by the artist R. B. Kitaj, sold for £640 in an auction, making it the most valuable Post-it note on record.[14]
  • Analogues of Post-it notes have also been used in technology in the form of desktop notes which are computer applications developed to allow users to put virtual notes on their computer desktop. These computerized versions of Post-it notes include 3M's own "Post-it Brand Software Notes", "Stickies" in Mac OS, "Sticky Notes" in Windows,[15] or other non-free applications like ShixxNOTE.[16] Additionally, some web applications have developed Post-it sort notes for online use.
Nathanael Nix

Who invented the cell phone? Cell Phone Inventor Martin Cooper - 0 views

www.cellphonereviews.com/who-invented-the-cell-phone

inventor history cell phone cooper phone martin MartinCooper cellphone-facts cell

shared by Nathanael Nix on 15 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • It was April 3, 1973 that the first working prototype of the cell phone was introduced. This was also the day of the first cell phone call being placed by Mr. Cooper. This first prototype was a Motorola Dyna-Tac Phone. The Dyna-Tac cell phone was: 9x5x1.175 inches Had 30 circuit boards Weighed 2.5 pounds A talk time of 35 minutes A recharge time of 10 hours Its only features were talk, listen,and dial
  • Martin Cooper is now the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of a company called Array Communications Incorporated. The main mission of his company is to free the people of the constraints of specific places in which calls can be made, and to do away with the copper wires that constrain them.
  • Array Communications has developed a core adaptive antenna that will increase the basic coverage of any cellular system. They have also created a personal broadband system called i-Burst. This system allows for mobile access to the internet that is affordable for everyone. Martin Cooper had a vision for the nation. He desired mobile capabilities that freed the individual from the constraints of even the wireled landline phones. The race for mobile took serious strides in the 1960′s and 1970′s when Motorola and Bell vied to translate technology to actual application.
  • Nathanael Nix on 15 Jan 14
     
    This is a good website about who invented the cell phone, Martin Cooper. It has some very good facts and information about him and the cell phone.
bailey spoonemroe

Chewing Gum - American Dental Association - ADA.org - 0 views

www.ada.org/5097.aspx

gum american dental association org inventor history notes

shared by bailey spoonemroe on 17 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • What is chewing gum? Chewing gum in various forms has been around since ancient times.  The Greeks chewed sap from the mastic tree, called mastiche.  On the other side of the world, the ancient Mayans favored the sap of the sapodilla tree (called tsiclte).  Native Americans from New England chewed spruce sap—a habit they passed on to European settlers.  Today, the base used for most gum products is a blend of synthetic materials (elastomeres, resins and waxes in various proportions).  However, chewing gum is as popular as ever. 
  • What does chewing gum do? The physical act of chewing increases the flow of saliva in your mouth.  If you chew after eating, the increased salivary flow can help neutralize and wash away the acids that are produced when food is broken down by the bacteria in plaque on your teeth.  Over time, acid can break down tooth enamel, creating the conditions for decay.  Increased saliva flow also carries with it more calcium and phosphate to help strengthen tooth enamel. Clinical studies have shown that chewing sugarless gum for 20 minutes following meals can help prevent tooth decay.  In the future, look for chewing gum that delivers a variety of therapeutic agents that could provide additional benefits to those provided by the ability of gum to mechanically stimulate saliva flow. For instance, some gum might contain active agents that could enhance the gum’s ability to remineralize teeth and reduce decay, or enable gum to help reduce plaque and gingivitis.
  • Does chewing gum replace brushing and flossing? No, chewing gum is an adjunct to brushing and flossing, but not a substitute for either. The ADA recommends brushing twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste and cleaning plaque from between your teeth once a day with dental floss or other interproximal dental cleaners.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • What is in chewing gum and how is it made? Chewing gum typically consists of: Gum base Artificial sweeteners (such as aspartame, sorbitol or mannitol) Softeners (glycerin or other vegetable oil products) Flavorings and colorings The process for making chewing gum has six basic steps: Gum base ingredients are melted together Other ingredients are added until the warm mix thickens like dough Machines called extruders are used to blend, smooth and form the gum The gum is shaped (flattened or molded into tablet shapes and coated) The gum is cooled for up to 48 hours in a temperature controlled room The gum is packaged. Source: National Association of Chewing Gum Manufacturers.
  • bailey spoonemroe on 17 Jan 14
     
    ADA association  REALLY GOOD GUM FACTS!!!
1 - 20 of 279 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page