Nippon Gakki Co. Ltd.

(currently Yamaha Corporation) was established in 1887 as a piano and reed

organ manufacturer by Torakusu Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture and was incorporated
on October 12, 1897. The company's origins as a musical instrument manufacturer are still reflected
today in the group's logo—a trio of interlocking tuning forks.[4][5]
After World War II, company president Genichi Kawakami repurposed the remains of the company's
war-time production machinery and the company's expertise in metallurgical technologies to
the manufacture of motorcycles. The YA-1 (AKA Akatombo, the "Red Dragonfly"), of which 125 were
built in the first year of production (1954), was named in honour of the founder. It was a 125cc,
single cylinder, two-stroke, street bike patterned after the German DKW RT125 (which
the British munitions firm, BSA, had also copied in the post-war era and manufactured as
the Bantam and Harley-Davidson as the Hummer). In 1955,[6] the success of the YA-1 resulted in the
founding of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd., splitting the motorcycle division from the company.
Also, in 1954 the Yamaha Music School was founded.[5]
Yamaha has grown to become the world's largest manufacturer of musical instruments (including
pianos, "silent" pianos, drums, guitars, brass instruments, woodwinds, violins, violas, celli,
and vibraphones), as well as a leading manufacturer of semiconductors, audio/visual, computer
related products, sporting goods, home appliances, specialty metals and industrial robots.[7]
Yamaha made the first commercially successful digital synthesizer, the Yamaha_DX7, in 1983.
In 1988, Yamaha shipped the world's first CD recorder.[8] Yamaha purchased Sequential Circuits in
1988.[9] It bought a majority stake (51%) of competitor Korg in 1987, which was bought out by Korg in
1993.[10]
In the late 1990s, Yamaha released a series of portable battery operated keyboards under the PSS
and the PSR range of keyboards. The Yamaha PSS-14 and PSS-15 keyboards were upgrades to
the Yamaha PSS-7 and were notable for their short demo songs, short selectable phrases, funny
sound effects and distortion and crackly sounds progressing on many volume levels when battery
power is low.[11]
In 2002, Yamaha closed down its archery product business that was started in 1959. Six archers in
five different Olympic Games won gold medals using their products.[12]
It acquired German audio software manufacturers Steinberg in January 2005, from Pinnacle
Systems.
In July, 2007, Yamaha bought out the minority shareholding of the Kemble family in Yamaha-Kemble
Music (UK) Ltd, Yamaha's UK import and musical instrument and professional audio equipment
sales arm, the company being renamed Yamaha Music U.K. Ltd in autumn 2007.[13] Kemble & Co.
Ltd, the UK piano sales & manufacturing arm was unaffected.[14]
On December 20, 2007, Yamaha made an agreement with the Austrian Bank BAWAG P.S.K. Group
BAWAG to purchase all the shares of Bösendorfer,[15] intended to take place in early 2008. Yamaha
intends to continue manufacturing at the Bösendorfer facilities in Austria.[16] The acquisition
of Bösendorfer was announced after the NAMM Show in Los Angeles, on January 28, 2008. As of
February 1, 2008, Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH operates as a subsidiary of Yamaha Corp.[17]
Yamaha Corporation is also widely known for their music teaching programme that began in the
1950s.
Yamaha electronics have proven to be successful, popular and respected products. For example,
the Yamaha YPG-625 was awarded "Keyboard of the Year" and "Product of the Year" in 2007
from The Music and Sound Retailer magazine.[18] Other noteworthy Yamaha electronics include
the SHS-10 Keytar, a consumer-priced keytar which offered MIDI output features normally found on
much more expensive keyboards.
Nippon Gakki Co. Ltd. (currently Yamaha Corporation) was established in 1887 as a piano and reed
organ manufacturer by Torakusu Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture and was incorporated
on October 12, 1897. The company's origins as a musical instrument manufacturer are still reflected
today in the group's logo—a trio of interlocking tuning forks.[4][5]
After World War II, company president Genichi Kawakami repurposed the remains of the company's
war-time production machinery and the company's expertise in metallurgical technologies to
the manufacture of motorcycles. The YA-1 (AKA Akatombo, the "Red Dragonfly"), of which 125 were
built in the first year of production (1954), was named in honour of the founder. It was a 125cc,
single cylinder, two-stroke, street bike patterned after the German DKW RT125 (which
the British munitions firm, BSA, had also copied in the post-war era and manufactured as
the Bantam and Harley-Davidson as the Hummer). In 1955,[6] the success of the YA-1 resulted in the
founding of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd., splitting the motorcycle division from the company.
Also, in 1954 the Yamaha Music School was founded.[5]
Yamaha has grown to become the world's largest manufacturer of musical instruments (including
pianos, "silent" pianos, drums, guitars, brass instruments, woodwinds, violins, violas, celli,
and vibraphones), as well as a leading manufacturer of semiconductors, audio/visual, computer
related products, sporting goods, home appliances, specialty metals and industrial robots.[7]
Yamaha made the first commercially successful digital synthesizer, the Yamaha_DX7, in 1983.
In 1988, Yamaha shipped the world's first CD recorder.[8] Yamaha purchased Sequential Circuits in
1988.[9] It bought a majority stake (51%) of competitor Korg in 1987, which was bought out by Korg in
1993.[10]
In the late 1990s, Yamaha released a series of portable battery operated keyboards under the PSS
and the PSR range of keyboards. The Yamaha PSS-14 and PSS-15 keyboards were upgrades to
the Yamaha PSS-7 and were notable for their short demo songs, short selectable phrases, funny
sound effects and distortion and crackly sounds progressing on many volume levels when battery
power is low.[11]
In 2002, Yamaha closed down its archery product business that was started in 1959. Six archers in
five different Olympic Games won gold medals using their products.[12]
It acquired German audio software manufacturers Steinberg in January 2005, from Pinnacle
Systems.
In July, 2007, Yamaha bought out the minority shareholding of the Kemble family in Yamaha-Kemble
Music (UK) Ltd, Yamaha's UK import and musical instrument and professional audio equipment
sales arm, the company being renamed Yamaha Music U.K. Ltd in autumn 2007.[13] Kemble & Co.
Ltd, the UK piano sales & manufacturing arm was unaffected.[14]
On December 20, 2007, Yamaha made an agreement with the Austrian Bank BAWAG P.S.K. Group
BAWAG to purchase all the shares of Bösendorfer,[15] intended to take place in early 2008. Yamaha
intends to continue manufacturing at the Bösendorfer facilities in Austria.[16] The acquisition
of Bösendorfer was announced after the NAMM Show in Los Angeles, on January 28, 2008. As of
February 1, 2008, Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH operates as a subsidiary of Yamaha Corp.[17]
Yamaha Corporation is also widely known for their music teaching programme that began in the
1950s.
Yamaha electronics have proven to be successful, popular and respected products. For example,
the Yamaha YPG-625 was awarded "Keyboard of the Year" and "Product of the Year" in 2007
from The Music and Sound Retailer magazine.[18] Other noteworthy Yamaha electronics include
the SHS-10 Keytar, a consumer-priced keytar which offered MIDI output features normally found on
much more expensive keyboards.
Other companies in the Yamaha group include:
 Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH, Vienna, Austria.
 Yamaha Motor Company
 Yamaha Fine Technologies Co., Ltd.
 Yamaha Golf Cart Company
 Yamaha Livingtec Corporation
 Yamaha Metanix Corporation
 Yamaha Music Communications Co., Ltd.
 Yamaha Pro Audio

Corporate mission
Kandō (感動) is a Japanese word used by Yamaha Corporation to describe their corporate mission.
Kandō in translation describes the sensation of profound excitement and gratification derived from
experiencing supreme quality and performance.[19] Some reasonable English synonyms are
"emotionally touching" or "emotionally moving".

Yamaha Music Foundation

The Yamaha Music Foundation is an organization established in 1966 by the authority of the
Japanese Ministry of Education for the purpose of promoting music education and music
popularization. It continued a program of music classes begun by Yamaha Corporation in 1954.[20]

Product
Main article: List of Yamaha products

YSP-2200//G: an award-winning innovation from Yamaha.

Yamaha expanded into many diverse businesses and product groups. The first venture into each
major category is listed below.[21]

 1897 Keyboard instruments (reed organ, pianos in 1900)

 1903 Furniture
 1914 Harmonicas
 1922 Audio equipment (crank phonograph first)
 1942 Guitars
 1955 Yamaha Motor Company (motorcycles and vehicles/watercraft, YA-1 motorcycle first)
 1959 Sporting goods (starting with archery)
 1959 Music schools
 1961 Metal alloys
 1965 Band instruments (trumpet first)
 1967 Drums
 1971 Semiconductors
 1984 Industrial robots
 2001 Yamaha Entertainment Group (record company)
 2010 Applications[21]
People abbreviated years
 1887 (Meiji 20) – On 18 February farmers in farm households It was born as the second son of. I
cited "Sugawara no Michizane" praised as an academic god and was named "Michio".
 From 1894 to 1895 (Meiji 27 – 28) – From 7 to 8 years old, I cotton-picked with my parent's help
and I grew up listening to the sound of looms.
 1901 (Meiji 34) – Maio, a 14-year-old, was born and had hands dexterous, so contractor (now
first-class architect (Concurrently serving as a carpenter's ruler), he was known for his severe
guidance. I entered a practicing (apprenticeship) under his parents.
 1908 (Meiji 41) – 21-year-old Michio, who finished his 7 years of practicing, focused on the
growing demand for footwork machine, We made a loom. This will be the cornerstone of the
later Suzuki Loom Machinery Works foundation. Hamana-gun Tenjin Machiya-ken Kanakajima
The two-story silkworm room received from the birthplace on the land borrowed to Kamishinada
was rebuilt, renovated as a factory, and started business based here.
 1909 (Meiji 42) (Bamanashi-gun, Tenjin village) Two-storey building received from the birthplace
on the land borrowed in Kamiakashima Kaminda Silkworm relocated the room and renovated it
as a factory. Started business based here, and founded Suzuki Loom Machinery Works as a
base for Suzuki.
 1936 (Showa 11) – Automobile Efforts to develop Also we completed prototype vehicles, but
research and development are suspended due to Greater East War.
 1946 (Showa 21 or later – Research on automobile development resumes development after the
war The development of resumed light four wheel is 1954 Power-free issue, Diamond-free issue,
CORDA No., and themotorcycle was also completed. Proceeded with production and gained
popularity.
 1954 (Showa 29) – Company name was changed from Suzuki Loom Machinery to Suzuki Motor
Industry Co., Ltd..
 1955 (Showa 30) – announced the light wheel "Suzuraito".
 1957 (Showa 32) – In February I will transfer the president's position to mmy son-in-law Shunzo
Suzuki (the second president) and take office as a counselor.
He died in Hamamatsu city on 27 October 1982 (Showa 57) – senility.

Episode
 Even though I devote myself to study on a daily basis under my boss, Russo-Japanese
War broke out at the age of 17 in the third year. With the influence of this war, the work of
construction almost disappeared, and the master tried to switch the industry from carpenter to
dish making. As a result, Michio also learns the knowledge and skill of loom making. * Master
Imamura turned his attention to the textile work that was a major export item at the time and
turned to making a foot cloth machine.
 I was fortunate to concentrate on the project because I was not able to comply with the
regulation of draft inspection with a low height, and it was fortunate that I was transferred to the
second replenishment soldier. I spent a few days to complete the first footwork machine with a
single wooden iron and gave it to my grandmother.
 There are more than 120 patent and utility model such as invention of Suzuki loom, but I was not
satisfied with the manufacture of looms alone, I dreamed of entering a new field. That leads to
the later development of automobiles.

References
Suzuki Shunzo – President of Suzuki Auto Industry 2nd Generation President, Mr. Michio Suzuki's
eldest daughter's son

 Suzuki Kojiro – President of Suzuki Auto Industry 3rd President, Michio Suzuki's Third Jungle
 Osamu Suzuki (businessman) – Maiden Matsuda, current Suzuki chairman and CEO
 Ono Hirotaka – former Director Senior Managing Officer, Osamu Suzuki's eldest daughter-in-
law, 2007 president's next president candidate, 12 December 2007 died of pancreatic cancer
 Suzuki Toshihiro – President of Suzuki currently, President of Osamu Suzuki eldest son
BOSTON (CBS) — Much of this country’s founding started right here in
Massachusetts, including the telephone.

Vincent Valentine runs the Telephone Museum in Waltham where he has the
original design from Alexander Graham Bell, which he developed in Boston in a
building right near Government Center.

The Telephone Museum in Waltham (WBZ)

“He dissected a human ear, saw the ear drum and said there’s got to be a way to
simulate the human ear and get the sound over electrical current,” according to
Valentine.

After a few years of work – Eureka! – that famous moment. It was March 10,
1876 when Bell spilled acid on his pants and called for his assistant, Thomas
Watson, who was in the neighboring room.

He said, “Watson, come here, I want you,” but he didn’t realize that the phone
was working at that point and Watson heard him in the other room and came in
and said, “I heard you.”

The design was called the “gallows phone.”

“Your voice would cause this diaphragm to vibrate, that vibration would move this
lever up and down, and that would move this magnet up and down, and the
movement of a magnet in a coil generates electric current, so you would have to
speak very loudly. You’d have to scream,” Valentine explained.

Within a few years, Boston-area entrepreneurs had invented a better transmitter

to allow for softer speaking, pay phones and telephone numbers, and the rest is
history.
Seventy years later in 1946, the microwave oven was invented here when an
engineer at Raytheon named Percy Spencer was testing a military-grade
magnetron and realized the peanut cluster bar in his pocket had melted.

He quickly discovered the waves from the magnetron had done it. Just a year
later, the first commercial microwave hit the market.

Raytheon’s first microwave (WBZ)

Much more recently, another step forward in convenience for our homes. The
“Roomba” was invented by iRobot, which is headquartered in Bedford.
The robot vacuum first invented in 2002 and has come a long way from the
prototype called “Scamp.”

“This is 2002. Had a very small microcontroller in it. You’re talking a hundred
lines of code, of software inside this robot — very small amount to deliver the
value you did — but if you now skip forward to the 900 series these have millions
of lines of code,” said Chris Jones, VP of technology at iRobot.
The modern Roomba (WBZ)

That extra processing means the newest models can actually map out your
house, create a blueprint, and clean 2,000 square feet.

“It’s able to recognize what it’s seeing or what it’s not seeing, recognizing,
helping it figure out where it is as it’s moving around the home,” Jones said.

Web Extra: How The Roomba Finds Its Way

One of the other advancements in the Roomba is that it’s now Wi-Fi-enabled, so
from your phone you can tell it which days you want it to clean and which times –
or you could just tell it, “clean.”
A motorcycle, often called a bike, motorbike, or cycle, is a two- or three-wheeled motor
vehicle.[1] Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long
distance travel, commuting, cruising, sportincluding racing, and off-road riding. Motorcycling is riding
a motorcycle and related social activity such as joining a motorcycle club and attending motorcycle
rallies.
In 1894, Hildebrand & Wolfmüller became the first series production motorcycle, and the first to be
called a motorcycle. In 2014, the three top motorcycle producers globally by volume
were Honda, Yamaha (both from Japan), and Hero MotoCorp (India).[2]
In developing countries, motorcycles are considered utilitarian due to lower prices and greater fuel
economy. Of all the motorcycles in the world, 58% are in the Asia-Pacific and Southern and Eastern
Asia regions, excluding car-centric Japan.
According to the US Department of Transportation the number of fatalities per vehicle mile traveled
was 37 times higher for motorcycles than for cars.[3]
The term motorcycle has different legal definitions depending on jurisdiction (see #Legal definitions
and restrictions).
There are three major types of motorcycle: street, off-road, and dual purpose. Within these types,
there are many sub-types of motorcycles for different purposes. There is often a racing counterpart
to each type, such as road racingand street bikes, or motocross and dirt bikes.
Street bikes include cruisers, sportbikes, scooters and mopeds, and many other types. Off-road
motorcycles include many types designed for dirt-oriented racing classes such as motocross and are
not street legal in most areas. Dual purpose machines like the dual-sport style are made to go off-
road but include features to make them legal and comfortable on the street as well.
Each configuration offers either specialised advantage or broad capability, and each design creates
a different riding posture.
In some countries the use of pillions (rear seats) is restricted.
he first internal combustion, petroleum fueled motorcycle was the Daimler Reitwagen. It was
designed and built by the German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Bad
Cannstatt, Germany in 1885.[4] This vehicle was unlike either the safety bicycles or
the boneshaker bicycles of the era in that it had zero degrees of steering axis angle and no fork
offset, and thus did not use the principles of bicycle and motorcycle dynamics developed nearly 70
years earlier. Instead, it relied on two outrigger wheels to remain upright while turning.[5]
The inventors called their invention the Reitwagen ("riding car"). It was designed as an expedient
testbed for their new engine, rather than a true prototype vehicle.[6][7]

Butler's Patent Velocycle

The first commercial design for a self-propelled cycle was a three-wheel design called the Butler
Petrol Cycle, conceived of Edward Butler in England in 1884.[8] He exhibited his plans for the vehicle
at the Stanley Cycle Show in London in 1884. The vehicle was built by the Merryweather Fire
Engine company in Greenwich, in 1888.[9]
The Butler Petrol Cycle was a three-wheeled vehicle, with the rear wheel directly driven by a 5⁄8 hp
(0.47 kW), 40 cc (2.4 cu in) displacement, 2 1⁄4 in × 5 in (57 mm × 127 mm) bore × stroke, flat
twin four-stroke engine (with magneto ignition replaced by coil and battery) equipped with rotary
valves and a float-fed carburettor (five years before Maybach) and Ackermann steering, all of which
were state of the art at the time. Starting was by compressed air. The engine was liquid-cooled, with
a radiator over the rear driving wheel. Speed was controlled by means of a throttle valve lever. No
braking system was fitted; the vehicle was stopped by raising and lowering the rear driving wheel
using a foot-operated lever; the weight of the machine was then borne by two small castor wheels.
The driver was seated between the front wheels. It wasn't, however, a success, as Butler failed to
find sufficient financial backing.[10]
Many authorities have excluded steam powered, electric motorcycles or diesel-powered two-
wheelers from the definition of a 'motorcycle', and credit the Daimler Reitwagen as the world's first
motorcycle.[11][12][13] Given the rapid rise in use of electric motorcycles worldwide,[14] defining only
internal-combustion powered two-wheelers as 'motorcycles' is increasingly problematic.
If a two-wheeled vehicle with steam propulsion is considered a motorcycle, then the first motorcycles
built seem to be the French Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede which patent application was filled
in December 1868,[6][7]constructed around the same time as the American Roper steam velocipede,
built by Sylvester H. Roper Roxbury, Massachusetts.[6][7] who demonstrated his machine at fairs and
circuses in the eastern U.S. in 1867,[4] Roper built about 10 steam cars and cycles from the 1860s
until his death in 1896.[13]
Summary of early inventions
Public tv broadcasts successfully tested

TV engineering staff at Panasonic's Tokyo laboratory.

Concentrated R&D effort launched
Many European engineers began research on television technology after Beard of England
transmitted moving pictures by cable. In 1935, Kenjiro Takayanagi at Hamamatsu Vocational
College built a functioning iconoscope, which was a major step in development of an actual
product. Fascinated by these developments, Matsushita immediately dispatched engineers to
study under Takayanagi at the end of 1935, when Panasonic's own R&D program was launched
at its Tokyo Laboratory. By 1938, the laboratory produced a prototype 12" set, and in May 1939,
successfully received test broadcasts from the Tokyo Broadcast Center. In July, the set was
shown to the general public for the first time at an electrical inventions exhibition organized by
the Japan Patent Office.
Panasonic's in-house newspaper published a special issue on Japan's first television broadcast,
reporting that "in a great success for the company, our television receiver proved capable of
receiving the Takayanagi type test broadcast."
Tokyo had been nominated to host the 1940 Olympic Games, and electrical manufacturers were
investing heavily in preparation for telecasts of the event. However, the Games were canceled
when war broke out, and television did not enter the average household until several years after
the war.
Panasonic's first experimental television receiver,1935.
William Bushnell Stout (March 16, 1880 – March 20, 1956) was a pioneering[1][2] American inventor,
engineer, developer and designer whose works in the automotive and aviation fields were
groundbreaking.[3][4][5][6] Stout designed an aircraft that eventually became the Ford Trimotor and was
an executive at the Ford Motor Company.[1][7]

Early years[edit]
William Bushnell Stout was born March 16, 1880 in Quincy, Illinois. He graduated from the Mechanic
Arts High School, in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1898. He then attended Hamline University, and
transferred in his second year to the University of Minnesota, being forced to quit due to extreme eye
problems. He married Alma Raymond in 1906. Stout was interested in mechanics, especially
aeronautics, founding the Model Aero Club of Illinois. In 1907 he became Chief Engineer for the
Schurmeir Motor Truck Company and in 1912, he became automobile and aviation editor for
the Chicago Tribune. In the same year he founded Aerial Age, the first aviation magazine ever
published in the United States. He was also a contributor to the Minneapolis Times under the pen
name, "Jack Knieff."[8]

Automotive career[edit]

Stout Scarab

In 1914, Stout became Chief Engineer of the Scripps-Booth Automobile Company. His "Cyclecar"
had caught the attention of Alvan MacCauley who subsequently brought Stout to Packard Motors in
Detroit. He had become General Sales Manager of the Packard Motor Car Company and in 1916,
when they started an aviation division, they asked Stout to become its first Chief Engineer. In 1919
he started the Stout Engineering Company in Dearborn, Michigan, complete with a research section
and later built the prototype Stout Scarab car in 1932. In 1934 he founded the Stout Motor Car
Company.[9] The "beetle-like" Scarab featured an all-aluminum tubular airframe covered with
aluminum skin, with the engine compartment at the rear, a sealed storage compartment in front of a
passenger compartment with reclining aircraft-type seats. The front or nose of the vehicle contained
the spare tire. Only nine Scarabs were ever built and although advanced, the public never
appreciated the innovative features of the vehicles.
In the mid-1930s, Stout in co-operation with L.B. Kalb of Continental Motors, a major manufacture of
lightweight air cooled aircraft engines, and did some extensive research and pre-production
development into rear engine drive automobiles which were powered by aircraft engines. Stout even
commissioned the well known Dutch auto designer John Tjaarda to design some streamlined car
bodies, although none of the car designs ever reached production.[10]
In the last years of World War II, Stout, in co-operation with Owen-Corning, began what was
called Project Y to build a one-off car for evaluation of ideas like a frame-less fiberglass body, belt
drive rear wheel drive, a suspension which kept the vehicle from leaning into turns by adjusting the
suspension using compressed air, and push button electric doors. When the vehicle was made
public in 1946, Stout picked the name Forty-Six for that year. Some firms considered producing the
Forty-Six, but as Stout stated he doubted there would be much of a market for a $10,000 dollar car,
the estimated price if it had been mass-produced.[11]

Aviation career[edit]

Ford Trimotor

Stout's aviation career began as a result of his success in his automotive efforts. He began to build a
number of all-metal aircraft designs, which, like the earliest aircraft designs of Andrei Tupolev in the
Soviet Union, was based on the pioneering work of Hugo Junkers. In February 1923, newspapers
carried stories of the test flights of the Stout Air Sedan with Walter Lees as the pilot. In 1924 his
company, the Stout Metal Airplane Company, was bought by the Ford Motor Company.
Stout developed a thick-wing monoplane, and his design of an internally braced cantilevered wing
improved the efficiency of aircraft. This led to the development of the famous "Batwing Plane" and
the all-metal "Torpedo Plane". After his career at Packard Motors, he left for Washington to serve as
the advisor to the United States Aircraft Board.
Stout developed an all-metal transport aircraft for mail use, the Stout 2-AT. His three engine follow-
on, the Stout 3-AT, was underpowered, and did not perform as well, leaving Stout out of the
engineering role in his company newly acquired by Ford. The redesigned 3-AT did form the basis for
the popular Ford Trimotor aircraft.
In August 1925, Stout inaugurated Stout Air Services, which operated the first regularly scheduled
airline in the United States. Stout also built the Liberty-powered all-metal monoplanes to initiate this
service. Later, between 1928 and 1932, the airline flew passengers and Ford cargo between
Dearborn, Chicago and Cleveland. In 1929, Stout sold Stout Air Services to United Airlines.
After the Great Depression in 1929 reduced sales of the Trimotor aircraft, Stout left Ford in 1930.
Although no longer with Ford, he continued to operate his Stout Engineering Laboratory. Stout also
invested in the short-lived Wichita, Kansas based Buckley Aircraft Company, developing the all-
aluminum Buckley LC-4.[12]
In 1930 Stout said: "Aviation in the U.S. has been stagnating for two years. We are all copying.
Aviation has shown no progress ... comparable to that made in radio and talking pictures. Think how
many copies have been made of the plane Colonel Lindbergh used on his flight across the Atlantic
... of other famous planes. None of us are building the plane that the public wants to buy, and that
proves we are standing still."[13]
In 1943 Stout sold the Stout engineering laboratory to Consolidated Vultee Aircraft
Corporation becoming the Stout Research Division of Consolidated. He was named the director
of Convair's research division through World War II.[14] While at Consolidated, Stout promoted three
designs for postwar production, including a flying car using a Spratt wing.[15]
Stout's other innovations included the Skycar, an automobile/airplane hybrid and a Pullman
Railplane and Club Car. He is also known as the originator of prefab housing and the sliding car
seat. All of these innovations were modern in design, incorporating many features new in both
appearance and function, features not yet available in vehicle design.

Death[edit]
Stout retired to Phoenix, Arizona and died on March 20, 1956, four days after his 76th birthday.[16] [N 1]

Publications[edit]
Stout self-published a small booklet (15 pp.) of poems, circa 1936. Two of the poems were in the
form of letters: On Receiving Word that Stan Knauss Was Joining the Air Corps (September 18,
1918) and On Stan Becoming a Father (December 4, 1930). His autobiography, So Away I Went!,
was published in 1951.

Legacy[edit]
Stout is remembered for his engineering credo, "Simplicate and add more lightness." This would
later become best known as the adopted maxim of Colin Chapman of Lotus Cars. It actually
originated with Stout's designer Gordon Hooton.[17] William B. Stout Middle School in Dearborn,
Michigan bears his name.

References[edit]
Notes[edit]
1. ^ Quote: "William Bushnell Stout, designer of the old Ford Tri-Motor plane, died of a heart attack at his
home here today. His age was 76."[16]
Sharp Corporation (シャープ株式会社 Shāpu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational
corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai.
Since 2016 it has been a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Foxconn Group.[4][5][6] Sharp employs more than
50,000 people worldwide. The company was founded in September 1912 in Tokyo and takes its
name from one of its founder’s first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was
invented by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1915.

History[edit]
Early years 1912-1945[edit]

Sharp’s former headquarters complex in Abeno-ku, Osaka

In 1912, Tokuji Hayakawa founded a metal workshop in Tokyo. The first of his many inventions was
a snap buckle named ‘Tokubijo’. Another of his inventions was the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil in
1915, from which the Sharp Corporation derived its name.[7] After the pencil business was destroyed
by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, the company relocated to Osaka and began designing the first
generation of Japanese radio sets. These went on sale in 1925.
The company was established as "Hayakawa Metal Works" in 1924, in Tanabe-cho, Osaka. In 1942,
the name was changed to "Hayakawa Electric Industry Company".

1945-1999[edit]

Sharp portable TV
Sharp MD-MS701H

In 1953, Hayakawa Electric started producing the first Japan-made TV sets (the "Sharp TV3-14T").
In 1964, the company developed the world’s first transistor calculator (the Sharp CS-10A), which
was priced at JP¥535,000 (US$1,400). It took Sharp several years to develop the product as they
had no experience in making computing devices at the time. Two years later, in 1966, Sharp
introduced its first IC calculator using 145 Mitsubishi-made bipolar ICs, priced at JP¥350,000 (about
US$1000). Its first LSI calculator was introduced in 1969. This was the first pocketable calculator
priced at less than JP¥100,000 (less than US$300), and turned out to be a popular item.[8] The
company was renamed Sharp Corporation in 1970.
Sharp produced the first LCD calculator in 1973. Sharp had a working relationship
with Nintendo during the 1980s, and was granted licensing rights for the manufacture and
development of the C1 NES TV (1983, later released in North America as the Sharp Nintendo
Television), the Twin Famicom (1986), the Sharp Famicom Titler (1989), and the SF-1 SNES
TV (1990). All of these units are considered collectors items on the secondary market. One of the
company’s main inventors of LCD calculators was Tadashi Sasaki.[9]
Sharp ventured into the high end stereo market in 1976 with the introduction of high end receivers,
amplifiers, speakers, turntables and cassette players. The Optonica line as it was called, consisted
of high quality and technically advanced components, that was expanded in 1979, to cover a
broader selection of high end equipment. During this run, Sharp introduced digital technology to
some of the Optonica products, along with the traditional analogue products, and offered a complete
selection of models ranging from low power high end receivers to very powerful models. The line
was again changed, in 1981, and moved mainly into digital high end, complete stereo systems with
advanced technological features setting the trend towards the digital age. The line was discontinued
after 1981, but the Optonica line was again re-introduced in the late 1980s for a high end line of
television receivers and higher quality mass market audio products such as VCR's, surround sound
receivers, CD cassette boom boxes, and portable cassette players.

2000-2012[edit]
Sharp’s Mobile Communications Division created the world’s first commercial camera phone, the J-
SH04, in Japan in 2000.
Since 2000, Sharp heavily invested in LCD panel manufacturing plants: Kameyama in 2004, Sakai in
2009. The Sakai plant is still the only 10th generation LCD manufacturing plant on the globe and
best fit for production of 60 inch or larger panels. However, the 2008 financial crisis and strong Yen
(especially against Won) significantly lowered world demand for Japanese LCD panels.
Furthermore, the switch to digital TV broadcasting was virtually completed in Japan by the middle of
2011. Via Japanese government issued coupons for digital TV sets, consumers were encouraged to
purchase digital TV sets until March 2011. This hit the Japanese LCD TV market, reducing it almost
by half from 2010. All of those events strongly hit Sharp's LCD business. As the result, the Sakai
LCD plant suffered a reduced operating rate until Q3 2012.
In June 2005 Sharp produced the largest LCD television at the time, with a display of 65 inches. It
went on sale in August 2005 in Japan.[10]
From 2005 to 2010 Sharp was the biggest mobile phone brand in Japan. Since then it has been
constantly switching places through financial quarters against rivals Fujitsu, Apple and Sony.
Sharp acquired a controlling stake in Pioneer Corporation in 2007.
At CES 2007, Sharp introduced a prototype largest LCD TV, with a screen size of 108 inches.[11] In
July 2008 Sharp announced that the model will go into production for the Japanese market.[12]
In 2008, Sharp collaborated with Emblaze Mobile on the Monolith, “…an ambitious project to design
the ultimate holistic mobile device”.[13] The project was never brought to market. Key software
developers were later picked up by other companies.
On 25 June 2009, Sharp and Pioneer agreed to form a joint venture comprising their optical
businesses, called “Pioneer Digital Design and Manufacturing Corporation”.[14]
In 2012 Sharp unveiled the largest production TV at the time, with a screen size of 80 inches. It is
part of the Aquos range and went on sale in Japan at around JP¥950,000.[15]

2012 - present[edit]
2012 was the 100th anniversary for Sharp but it announced the worst financial record in its history,
with a loss of JP¥376 billion (US$4.7 billion) in April 2012. In September, Sharp announced job
cuts.[16] In 2014, Sharp was able to stem losses and deliver a positive net income for its first quarter
results.[17]
In March 2012 the Taiwan-based electronics company Hon Hai, trading as Foxconn, agreed to
acquire a 10% stake in Sharp Corporation for US$806 million, and to purchase up to 50 percent of
the LCD displays produced at Sharp’s plant in Sakai, Japan.[18] In June 2012, Hon Hai chairman
Terry Gou paid money for Sakai plant and got 50% ownership of the plant. However, since the
announcement in March, Sharp’s share price continued declining and reached JP¥192 on 3 August.
Sharp deal’s price was originally JP¥550 per share. Both companies agreed to renegotiate the share
price, but they never came to an agreement.[19]
Sharp lead the market share of mobile phones in the Japanese market in April 2012.[20] Sharp
reportedly held 3rd place in mobile phone market share in the Japanese market in May
2015.[21][better source needed]
Sharp announced it accepted a US$100 million investment from Samsung in March 2013.[22]
In 2013 Sharp developed the most efficient solar cell, converting a record 44.4% of sunlight into
electricity.[23] In 2013, Sharp Corporation was the tenth-largest, by market share, television
manufacturer in the world.[24] In Japan it has been a long-time leader.[25]
After years of huge losses in its overseas TV business, Sharp sold its Mexico TV factory to Chinese
electronics manufacturer Hisense for $23.7 million in July 2015. The sale includes rights to use the
Sharp brand name and all its channel resources in North and South America, except Brazil. This
meant that Sharp has exited the TV market in the Americas (except Brazil).[26] It was a sign showing
Sharp's rapid decline in that market, where it once was one of the leading manufacturers
for LCD TVs a decade earlier.[27] Sharp's television market share in North America was 4.6% in
2015.[28] However Sharp remains the biggest television brand in the Japanese market.[25]
In October 2015 Sharp announced a smartphone that also works as a robot, called RoboHon. It will
be sold in 2016 in Japan.[29]
Sharp began selling the world's first commercially available TV with a 8K resolution in October
2015.[30] The 85-inch LV-85001 model costs JP¥16 million (US$133,000). Japanese public
broadcaster NHK will have test broadcasts at 8K starting 2016, with regular services expected by the
time of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.[31][32]
On 25 February 2016, Foxconn announced its intent to acquire a 66% controlling stake in Sharp for
700 billion yen (US$6.24 billion).[33] However, the deal was briefly delayed due to unforeseen
financial liabilities; on 30 March 2016, Foxconn announced that it had agreed to pay US$3.5 billion
for the stake instead, Foxconn wished to use the purchase to expand into direct-to-consumer
product sales rather than serving as a contract manufacturer.[34]
In September 2016 Sharp unveiled the Sharp INTELLOS Automated Unmanned Ground Vehicle (A-
UGV) at the ASIS International 62nd Annual Seminar and Exhibits (ASIS 2016) in Orlando,
Florida.[35]
On 28 April 2017, Sharp turned its first operating profit in three years, citing the restructuring efforts
by Foxconn.[36]
In June 2017, Sharp sued its Chinese licensee Hisense for damaging the reputation of its brand,
seeking an exit from its licensing agreement. Sharp accused the company of producing "shoddily
manufactured" televisions under the Sharp name, including products they believed were in violation
of U.S. safety standards for electromagnetic radiation, and the subject of deceptive advertising over
their quality. Hisense denied that it engaged in these practices, and stated that it planned to defend
itself in court and "will continue to manufacture and sell quality televisions under the Sharp licensed
brands."[37][38] In February 2018, Sharp dropped the lawsuit against Hisense.[39] In 2019 Sharp re-
acquired its own brand for use on TV's in the US market.[40]

Products[edit]
See also: List of Sharp mobile phones
Sharp J-SH07 mobile phone, 2001 (Japanese market)

Core technologies and products include: LCD panels, solar panels, mobile phones, audio-visual
entertainment equipment, video projectors, Multi-Function Printing Devices, microwave ovens, air
conditioners, cash registers, CMOS and CCD sensors, and flash memory.
The first commercial camera phone was also made by Sharp for the Japanese market in November
2000. Recent products include the ViewCam, the Ultra-Lite notebook PC, the Zaurus personal digital
assistant, Sidekick 3, and the AQUOS flat screen television.
Sharp manufactures consumer electronic products, including LCD televisions, sold under
the Aquos brand, mobile phones, microwave ovens, Home cinema and audio systems, air
purification systems, fax machines and calculators.[41]
For the business market, Sharp also produces projectors and monitors and a variety
of photocopiers and Laser Printers, in addition to electronic cash registers and Point of sale
technologies.[42]
For the private security industry, Sharp produces an Automated Unmanned Ground Vehicle (A-UGV)
named INTELLOS, which utilizes a navigation surveillance platform also developed by Sharp. The
system combines automation, mobility, and a variety of monitoring and detection capabilities to
extend the impact of a traditional security force.[43]
Sharp Solar is a supplier of silicon photovoltaic (PV) solar cells,[44][45] and offers a solar TV.[46] In Q1
2010 the company made the highest revenues from production of solar PV systems.[47]
This list of Indian inventions and discoveries details the inventions, scientific discoveries and
contributions of premodern and modern India, including both the ancient, classical and post classical
nations in the subcontinent historically referred to as India and the modern Indian state. It draws
from the whole cultural and technological history of India, during
which architecture, astronomy, cartography, metallurgy, logic, mathematics, metrology and mineralo
gy were among the branches of study pursued by its scholars.[1] During recent times science and
technology in the Republic of India has also focused on automobile engineering, information
technology, communications as well as research into space and polar technology.
For the purposes of this list, inventions are regarded as technological firsts developed in India, and
as such does not include foreign technologies which India acquired through contact. It also does not
include technologies or discoveries developed elsewhere and later invented separately in India, nor
inventions by Indian emigres in other places. Changes in minor concepts of design or style and
artistic innovations do not appear on in the lists.

Inventions[edit]
See also: History of science and technology in the Indian subcontinent, List of inventions and
discoveries of the Indus Valley Civilization, and Timeline of Indian innovation

Construction, Civil engineering and Architecture[edit]

 Iron pillar of Delhi:The world's first iron pillar was the Iron pillar of Delhi—erected at the time of
Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (375–413).[2] The pillar has attracted attention
of archaeologists and materials scientists and has been called "a testament to the skill of ancient
Indian blacksmiths" because of its high resistance to corrosion.[3]
 Stepwell: Earliest clear evidence of the origins of the stepwell is found in the Indus Valley
Civilization's archaeological site at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan[4] and Dholavira in India.[5] The three
features of stepwells in the subcontinent are evident from one particular site, abandoned by
2500 BCE, which combines a bathing pool, steps leading down to water, and figures of some
religious importance into one structure.[4] The early centuries immediately before the common
era saw the Buddhists and the Jains of India adapt the stepwells into their architecture.[4] Both
the wells and the form of ritual bathing reached other parts of the world with Buddhism.[4] Rock-
cut step wells in the subcontinent date from 200 to 400 CE.[6] Subsequently, the wells at Dhank
(550-625 CE) and stepped ponds at Bhinmal(850-950 CE) were constructed.[6]
 Stupa: The origin of the stupa can be traced to 3rd-century BCE India.[7] It was used as a
commemorative monument associated with storing sacred relics.[7] The stupa architecture was
adopted in Southeast and East Asia, where it evolved into the pagoda, a Buddhist monument
used for enshrining sacred relics.[7]
Hanuman and Ravana in Tholu Bommalata, the shadow puppettradition of Andhra Pradesh, India

 Squat toilet: toilets platforms above drains, in the proximity of wells, are found in several houses
of the cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa from the 3rd millennium B.C.[8]
Metrology[edit]
 Ruler: Rulers made from Ivory were in use by the Indus Valley Civilization in what today is
Northwestern India and Pakistan prior to 1500 BCE.[9] Excavations at Lothal (2400 BCE) have
yielded one such ruler calibrated to about 1/16 of an inch—less than 2 millimeters.[9] Ian
Whitelaw (2007) holds that 'The Mohenjodaro ruler is divided into units corresponding to 1.32
inches (33.5 mm) and these are marked out in decimal subdivisions with amazing accuracy—to
within 0.005 of an inch. They correspond closely with the "hasta" increments of 1 3/8 inches
 traditionally used in South India in ancient architecture. Ancient bricks found throughout the
region have dimensions that correspond to these units.'[10] Shigeo Iwata (2008) further writes
'The minimum division of graduation found in the segment of an ivory-made linear measure
excavated in Lothal was 1.79 mm (that corresponds to 1/940 of a fathom), while that of the
fragment of a shell-made one from Mohenjodaro was 6.72 mm (1/250 of a fathom), and that of
bronze-made one from Harappa was 9.33 mm (1/180 of a fathom).'[11] The weights and
measures of the Indus civilization also reached Persia and Central Asia, where they were further
modified.[11]
 Weighing scale: The earliest evidence for the existence of weighing scale dates to 2400 BC-
1800 BC in the Indus valley civilization prior to which no banking was performed due to lack of
scales.[12]
 Crescograph: The crescograph, a device for measuring growth in plants, was invented in the
early 20th century by the Bengali scientist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose.[13][14]
 Incense clock: The incense clock is a timekeeping device used to measure minutes, hours, or
days, incense clocks were commonly used at homes and temples in dynastic times. Although
popularly associated with China the incense clock is believed to have originated in India, at least
in its fundamental form if not function.[15][16] Early incense clocks found in China between the 6th
and 8th centuries CE—the period it appeared in China all seem to have Devanāgarī carvings on
them instead of Chinese seal characters.[15][16] Incense itself was introduced to China from India
in the early centuries CE, along with the spread of Buddhism by traveling monks.[17][18][19] Edward
Schafer asserts that incense clocks were probably an Indian invention, transmitted to China,
which explains the Devanāgarī inscriptions on early incense clocks found in China.[15] Silvio
Bedini on the other hand asserts that incense clocks were derived in part from incense seals
mentioned in Tantric Buddhist scriptures, which first came to light in China after those scriptures
from India were translated into Chinese, but holds that the time-telling function of the seal was
incorporated by the Chinese.[16]
Metallurgy and Metals manufacturing[edit]
 Crucible steel: Perhaps as early as 300 BC—although certainly by 200 BC—high quality steel
was being produced in southern India, by what Europeans would later call the crucible
technique.[20] In this system, high-purity wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed in a
crucible and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon.[20]

Close-up of wootz steel, pioneering steel alloy matrix developed in India.

 Wootz steel: Wootz steel is an ultra-high carbon steel and the first form of crucible steel
manufactured by the applications and use of nanomaterials in its microstructure and is
characterised by its ultra-high carbon content exhibiting properties such as superplasticity, high
impact hardness and held sway for over a millennium in three continents - a feat unlikely to be
surpassed by advanced materials of the current era.[21] Archaeological and Tamil
language literary evidence suggests that this manufacturing process was already in existence in
South India well before the common era, with wootz steel exported from the Chera dynasty and
 called Seric Iron in Rome, and later known as Damascus steel in Europe.[22][23][24][25] Reproduction
research is currently being undertaken by various scientists like Dr. Oleg Sherby and Dr. Jeff
Wadsworth and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have all done research, attempting to
create steels with characteristics similar to Wootz, but without success J.D Verhoeven and Al
Pendray attained some success in the reconstruction methods of production, proved the role of
impurities of ore in the pattern creation, and reproduced Wootz steel with patterns
microscopically and visually identical to one of the ancient blade patterns.[26]
 Seamless celestial globe: Considered one of the most remarkable feats in metallurgy, it was
invented in India in between 1589 and 1590 CE.[27][28] Before they were rediscovered in the
1980s, it was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce metal
globes without any seams, even with modern technology.[28][28]
Computers and programming languages[edit]
 J Sharp: Visual J# (pronounced "jay-sharp") programming language was a transitional language
for programmers of Java and Visual J++ languages, so they could use their existing knowledge
and applications on .NET Framework. It was developed by the Hyderabad-based Microsoft India
Development Center at HITEC City in India.[29][30]
 Kojo: Kojo is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) for
computer programming and learning. Kojo is an open-source software. It was created, and is
actively developed, by Lalit Pant, a computer programmer and teacher living in Dehradun,
India.[31][32]
 Universal Serial Bus: Co-Inventor of USB is an Indian-born American computer architect Ajay
Bhatt.
Science and Technology[edit]
 Plough: The earliest known instance of a ploughed field was found at Kalibangan [33]
 India ink: Known in Asia since the third millennia BCE, and used in India since at least the 4th
century BCE.[34] Masi, an early ink in India was an admixture of several chemical
components.,[34] with the carbon black from which India ink is produced obtained by burning
bones, tar, pitch, and other substances.[35][36][36][37] Documents dating to the 3rd century CE, written
in Kharosthi, with ink have been unearthed in East Turkestan, Xinjiang.[38] The practice of writing
with ink and a sharp pointed needle was common in ancient South India.[39] Several Jain sutras
in India were compiled in ink.[40]
 Iron and mercury coherer: In 1899, the Bengali physicist Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose announced
the development of an "iron-mercury-iron coherer with telephone detector" in a paper presented
at the Royal Society, London.[41] He also later received U.S. Patent 755,840, "Detector for
electrical disturbances" (1904), for a specific electromagnetic receiver.
 Microwave Communication: The first public demonstration of microwave transmission was made
by Jagadish Chandra Bose, in Calcutta, in 1895, two years before a similar demonstration by
Marconi in England, and just a year after Oliver Lodge's commemorative lecture on Radio
communication, following Hertz's death. Bose's revolutionary demonstration forms the
foundation of the technology used in mobile telephony, radars, satellite communication, radios,
television broadcast, WiFi, remote controls and countless other applications.[42][43]
 Murty Shearing Interferometer: Invented by M.V.R.K. Murty, a type of Lateral Shearing
Interferometer utilizes a laser source for measuring refractive index.[44][45]
 Mysorean rockets: The first iron-cased and metal-cylinder rockets were developed by Tipu
Sultan, ruler of the South Indian Kingdom of Mysore, and his father Haither Ali, in the 1780s. He
successfully used these iron-cased rockets against the larger forces of the British East India
Company during the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The Mysore Rockets of this period were much more
advanced than what the British had seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the
 propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missile (up to 2 km range). After
Tipu's eventual defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and the capture of the Mysore iron
rockets, they were influential in British rocket development, inspiring the Congreve rocket, and
were soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars.[46]

The Great Stupa at Sanchi (4th-1st century BCE). The dome shaped stupa was used in India as a
commemorative monument associated with storing sacred relics.

 Reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance: RISUG, formerly referred to as the

synthetic polymer styrene maleic anhydride (SMA), is the development name of a male
contraceptive injection developed at IIT Kharagpur in India by the team of Dr. Sujoy K Guha.
Phase III clinical trials are underway in India, slowed by insufficient volunteers.[47] It has been
patented in India, China, Bangladesh, and the United States.[47] A method based on
RISUG, Vasalgel, is currently under development in the US.[48]
 Shampoo: The word shampoo in English is derived
from Hindustani chāmpo (च ाँ पो [tʃãːpoː]),[49] and dates to 1762.[50] A variety of herbs and their
extracts were used as shampoos since ancient times in India. A very effective early shampoo
was made by boiling Sapindus with dried Indian gooseberry (aamla) and a few other herbs,
using the strained extract. Sapindus, also known as soapberries or soapnuts, is
called Ksuna (Sanskrit: क्षुण)[51] in ancient Indian texts and its fruit pulp contain saponins, a natural
surfactant. The extract of Ksuna, creates a lather which Indian texts identify
as phenaka (Sanskrit: फेनक),[52] leaves the hair soft, shiny and manageable. Other products used
for hair cleansing were shikakai (Acacia concinna), soapnuts
(Sapindus), hibiscus flowers,[53][54] ritha (Sapindus mukorossi) and arappu (Albizzia
amara).[55] Guru Nanak, the founding prophet and the first Guru of Sikhism, made references to
soapberry tree and soap in 16th century.[56] Washing of hair and body massage (champu) during
a daily strip wash was an indulgence of early colonial traders in India. When they returned to
Europe, they introduced their newly learnt habits, including the hair treatment they called
shampoo.[57]
 Toe stirrup: The earliest known manifestation of the stirrup, which was a toe loop that held the
big toe was used in India in as early as 500 BCE[58] or perhaps by 200 BCE according to other
sources.[59][60] This ancient stirrup consisted of a looped rope for the big toe which was at the
bottom of a saddle made of fibre or leather.[60] Such a configuration made it suitable for the warm
climate of most of India where people used to ride horses barefoot.[60]A pair of megalithic double
bent iron bars with curvature at each end, excavated in Junapani in the central Indian state
of Madhya Pradesh have been regarded as stirrups although they could as well be something
else.[61]Buddhist carvings in the temples of Sanchi, Mathura and the Bhaja caves dating back
between the 1st and 2nd century BCE figure horsemen riding with elaborate saddles with feet
slipped under girths.[62][63][64] Sir John Marshall described the Sanchi relief as "the earliest example
by some five centuries of the use of stirrups in any part of the world".[64] In the 1st century CE
horse riders in northern India, where winters are sometimes long and cold, were recorded to
have their booted feet attached to hooked stirrups.[59] However the form, the conception of the
primitive Indian stirrup spread west and east, gradually evolving into the stirrup of today.[60][63]
Genetics[edit]
 Pseudomonas putida: Indian (Bengali) inventor and microbiologist Ananda Mohan
Chakrabarty created a species of man made micro organism to break down crude oil.[65] He
genetically engineered[66][67][68][69][70][71] a new species of Pseudomonas bacteria ("the oil-eating
bacteria") in 1971.[72] United States Supreme Court granted Chakrabarty's invention patent even
though it was a living species. The court ruling decreed that Chakrabarty's discovery was "not
nature's handiwork, but his own..." The inventor Chakrabarty secured his patent in
1980[73](see Diamond v. Chakrabarty)
Games[edit]
 Chaturanga: The precursor of chess originated in India during the Gupta dynasty (c. 280-550
CE).[74][75][76][77] Both the Persians and Arabs ascribe the origins of the game of Chess to the
Indians.[76][78][79] The words for "chess" in Old
Persian and Arabic are chatrangand shatranj respectively — terms derived
from caturaṅga in Sanskrit,[80][81] which literally means an army of four divisions or four
corps.[82][83] Chess spread throughout the world and many variants of the game soon began
taking shape.[84] This game was introduced to the Near East from India and became a part of the
princely or courtly education of Persian nobility.[82] Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders and
others carried it to the Far East where it was transformed and assimilated into a game often
played on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.[84] Chaturanga
reached Europe through Persia, the Byzantine empire and the
expanding Arabian empire.[83][85] Muslims carried Shatranj to North Africa, Sicily, and Spain by the
10th century where it took its final modern form of chess.[84]
 Kabaddi: The game of kabaddi originated in India during prehistory.[86] Suggestions on how it
evolved into the modern form range from wrestling exercises, military drills, and collective self-
defense but most authorities agree that the game existed in some form or the other in India
during the period between 1500 and 400 BCE.[86]
 Ludo: Pachisi originated in India by the 6th century.[87] The earliest evidence of this game in India
is the depiction of boards on the caves of Ajanta.[87]
Pachisi, an ancient Hindu game represented in the caves of Ajanta. A variant of this game, called
Luodo, made its way to England during the British Raj.[87]

 Snakes and ladders: Vaikunta pali Snakes and ladders originated in India as a game based on
morality.[88] During British rule of India, this game made its way to England, and was eventually
introduced in the United States of America by game-pioneer Milton Bradleyin 1943.[88]
 Suits game: Kridapatram is an early suits game, made of painted rags, invented in Ancient India.
The term kridapatram literally means "painted rags for playing."[89][90][91][92][93] Paper playing cards
first appeared in East Asia during the 9th century.[89][94] The medieval Indian game of ganjifa, or
playing cards, is first recorded in the 16th century.[95]
Cloth and Material production[edit]
 Button: Ornamental buttons—made from seashell—were used in the Indus Valley Civilization for
ornamental purposes by 2000 BCE.[96] Some buttons were carved into geometric shapes and
had holes pierced into them so that they could be attached to clothing by using a thread.[96] Ian
McNeil (1990) holds that: "The button, in fact, was originally used more as an ornament than as
a fastening, the earliest known being found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley. It is made of a
curved shell and about 5000 years old."[97]
A Nepali Charkha in action

 Calico: Calico had originated in the subcontinent by the 11th century and found mention in
Indian literature, by the 12th-century writer Hemachandra. He has mentioned calico fabric prints
done in a lotus design.[98] The Indian textile merchants traded in calico with the Africans by the
15th century and calico fabrics from Gujarat appeared in Egypt.[98] Trade with Europe followed
from the 17th century onwards.[98] Within India, calico originated in Kozhikode.[98]
 Carding devices: Historian of science Joseph Needham ascribes the invention of bow-
instruments used in textile technology to India.[99] The earliest evidence for using bow-
instruments for carding comes from India (2nd century CE).[99] These carding devices,
called kaman and dhunaki would loosen the texture of the fiber by the means of a vibrating
string.[99]
 Charkha (Spinning wheel): invented in India, between 500 and 1000 C.E.[100]
 Chintz: The origin of Chintz is from the printed all cotton fabric of calico in India.[101] The origin of
the word chintz itself is from the Hindi language word चचत्र् (chitr), which means an image.[101][102]
 Muslin: The fabric was named after the city where Europeans first encountered it, Mosul, in what
is now Iraq, but the fabric actually originated from Dhaka in what is now Bangladesh.[103][104] In the
9th century, an Arab merchantnamed Sulaiman makes note of the material's origin
in Bengal (known as Ruhml in Arabic).[104]

Single roller cotton gin, in use c1820

 Palampore: प लमपोर् (Hindi language) of Indian origin[105] was imported to the western world—
notable England and Colonial America—from India.[106][107] In 17th-century England these hand
painted cotton fabrics influenced native crewel work design.[106] Shipping vessels from India also
took palampore to colonial America, where it was used in quilting.[107]
 Prayer flags: The Buddhist sūtras, written on cloth in India, were transmitted to other regions of
the world.[108] These sutras, written on banners, were the origin of prayer flags.[108] Legend
ascribes the origin of the prayer flag to the Shakyamuni Buddha, whose prayers were written on
battle flags used by the devas against their adversaries, the asuras.[109] The legend may have
given the Indian bhikku a reason for carrying the 'heavenly' banner as a way of signyfying his
 commitment to ahimsa.[110] This knowledge was carried into Tibet by 800 CE, and the actual flags
were introduced no later than 1040 CE, where they were further modified.[110] The Indian
monk Atisha(980-1054 CE) introduced the Indian practice of printing on cloth prayer flags to
Tibet.[109]
 Single roller cotton gin: The Ajanta caves of India yield evidence of a single roller cotton gin in
use by the 5th century.[111] This cotton gin was used in India until innovations were made in form
of foot powered gins.[112] The cotton gin was invented in India as a mechanical device known
as charkhi, more technically the "wooden-worm-worked roller". This mechanical device was, in
some parts of India, driven by water power.[99]
Well-biengs[edit]
 Indian clubs: The Indian club—which appeared in Europe during the 18th century—was used
long by India's native soldiery before its introduction to Europe.[113] During the British Raj the
British officers in India performed calisthenic exercises with clubs to keep in physical
condition.[113] From Britain the use of club swinging spread to the rest of the world.[113]
 Yoga: Yoga as a physical, mental, and spiritual practice originated in ancient India.[114]
Seiko Epson Corporation (セイコーエプソン株式会社 Seikō Epuson Kabushiki-gaisha) (Epson being
an abbreviation for "Son of Electronic Printer"),[2] or simply Epson, is
a Japanese electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers,
and information and imaging related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano, Japan,[3] the
company has numerous subsidiaries worldwide and manufactures inkjet, dot matrix and laser
printers, scanners, desktop computers, business, multimedia and home theatre projectors, large
home theatre televisions, robots and industrial automation equipment, point of sale docket printers
and cash registers, laptops, integrated circuits, LCD components and other associated electronic
components. It is one of three core companies of the Seiko Group, a name traditionally known for
manufacturing Seiko timepieces since its founding.

History[edit]
Origins[edit]
The roots of Seiko Epson Corporation go back to a company called Daiwa Kogyo, Ltd. which was
founded in May 1942[4] by Hisao Yamazaki, a local clock shop owner and former employee of K.
Hattori, in Suwa, Nagano, Japan. Daiwa Kogyo was supported by an investment from the Hattori
family (founder of the Seiko Group) and began as a manufacturer of watch parts for Daini
Seikosha (currently Seiko Instruments). The company started operation in a 230-square-metre
(2,500 sq ft) renovated miso storehouse with 22 employees.
In 1943, Daini Seikosha established a factory in Suwa for manufacturing Seiko watches with Daiwa
Kogyo. In 1959, the Suwa Factory of Daini Seikosha was split up and merged into Daiwa Kogyo to
form Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd: the forerunner of the Seiko Epson Corporation. The company has
developed many timepiece technologies. In particular, it developed the world's first portable quartz
timer (Seiko QC-951) in 1963, the world's first quartz watch (Seiko Quartz Astron 35SQ) in 1969, the
first automatic power generating quartz watch (Seiko Auto-Quartz) in 1988 and the Spring
Drive watch movement in 1999.
The watch business is the root of the company’s micromechatronics technologies and still one of the
major businesses for Seiko Epson today although it accounts for less than one-tenth of total
revenues.[5] The watches made by the company are sold through the Seiko Watch Corporation, a
subsidiary of Seiko Holdings Corporation.

Printers[edit]
In 1961, Suwa Seikosha established a company called Shinshu Seiki Co. as a subsidiary to supply
precision parts for Seiko watches. When the Seiko Group was selected to be the official time keeper
for the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, a printing timer was required to time events, and Shinshu
Seiki started developing an electronic printer.[6]
In September 1968, Shinshu Seiki launched the world's first mini-printer, the EP-101 ("EP" for
Electronic Printer,) which was soon incorporated into many calculators. In June 1975, the name
Epson was coined for the next generation of printers based on the EP-101 which was released to
the public. (EPSON:E-P-SON: SON of Electronic Printer).[7] In April of the same year Epson America
Inc. was established to sell printers for Shinshu Seiki Co.
The Epson HX-20

In June 1978, the TX-80 (TP-80), eighty-column dot-matrix printer was released to the market, and
was mainly used as a system printer for the Commodore PET Computer. After two years of further
development, an improved model, the MX-80 (MP-80), was launched in October 1980.[6] It was soon
described in the company's advertising as the best selling printer in the United States.[8]
In July 1982, Shinshu Seiki officially named itself the Epson Corporation and launched the world's
first handheld computer, HX-20 (HC-20), and in May 1983 the world's first portable color
LCD TV was developed and launched by the company.[9]
In November 1985, Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd. and the Epson Corporation merged to form Seiko
Epson Corporation.[10]
The company developed the Micro Piezo inkjet technology, which used a piezoelectric crystal in
each nozzle and did not heat the ink at the print head while spraying the ink onto the page, and
released Epson MJ-500 inkjet cartbridge (Epson Stylus 800 printer) in March 1993. Shortly after in
1994, Epson released the first high resolution color inkjet printer (720×720 dpi was considered as a
high resolution), the Epson Stylus Color (P860A) utilizing the Micro Piezo head technology. Newer
models of the Stylus series employed Epson’s special DURABrite ink. They also had two hard
drives. The HD 850 and the HD 860 MFM interface. The specifications are reference The WINN L.
ROSCH Hardware bible 3rd addition SAMS publishing.[11]
In 1994 Epson started outsourcing sales reps to help sell their products in retail stores in the United
States. The same year, they started the Epson Weekend Warrior sales program. The purpose of the
program was to help improve sales, improve retail sales reps' knowledge of Epson products and to
address Epson customer service in a retail environment. Reps were assigned on weekend shift,
typically around 12–20 hours a week. Epson started the Weekend Warrior program with TMG
Marketing (now Mosaic Sales Solutions), later with Keystone Marketing Inc, then to Mosaic, and now
with Campaigners INC. The Mosaic contract expired with Epson on June 24, 2007 and Epson is now
represented by Campaigners, Inc. The sales reps of Campaigners, Inc. are not outsourced as Epson
hired "rack jobbers" to ensure their retail customers displayed products properly. This frees up their
regular sales force to concentrate on profitable sales solutions to VAR's and system integrators,
leaving "retail" to reps who did not require sales skills.

Personal computers[edit]
Starting in 1983, Epson entered the personal computer market with the QX-10, a CP/M-
compatible Z80 machine. By 1986, the company had shifted to the growing PC compatible market
with the Equity line. Epson withdrew from the PC market in 1996.

21st century[edit]
In June 2003, the company became public following their listing on the 1st section of the Tokyo
Stock Exchange. As of 2009, the Hattori family and its related individuals and companies are still
major shareholders of Seiko Epson and have the power.[12] Even though Seiko Holdings and Seiko
Epson have some common shareholders including the key members of the Hattori family, they are
not affiliated. They are managed and operated completely independently. Epson has established its
own brand image but rarely uses Seiko.
In 2004, Epson introduced their R-D1 digital RangeFinder Camera, which supports Leica M mount
and Leica screw mount lenses with an adapter ring. This camera is the first digital rangefinder on the
market. Because its sensor is smaller than that of the standard 35 mmfilm frame, lenses mounted on
the R-D1 have the field view 1.53 times as long as that of the standard 35 mm camera. As of 2006
the R-D1 has been replaced by the R-D1s. The R-D1s is less expensive but its hardware is identical.
Epson has released a firmware patch to bring the R-D1 up to the full functionality of its successor—
the first digital camera manufacturer to make such an upgrade available for free.[citation needed]
In 2009, the company became fully owner of Orient Watch, the one of the
largest timepiece manufacturers in Japan.[13]
In September 2012, Epson introduced a printer called the Epson Expression Premium XP-800
Small-in-One. It has the ability to print wirelessly.[14] Furthermore, the name Expression has followed
various models of scanners.
In September 2015 Epson debuted a printer, the Epson ET-4550 which instead of print cartridges,
enables the user to pour the ink into separate inkwells from ink bottles.[15] In the third quarter of 2012,
Epson's global market share in the sale of printers, copiers and multifunction devices amounted to
15.20 percent.[16]
Epson is also involved in the smart glasses market. Since 2016 the company has three different
models. First up was the Epson Moverio BT-100 which was followed up by the Epson Moverio BT-
200. In 2016 the company also released the Moverio Pro BT-2000 which is an enterprise oriented,
upgraded version of the BT-200 with steroscopic cameras. The company also was the first to
release consumer smart glasses with see through optics that made them very popular under drone
pilots for being able to get a first person view while still being able to see the drone in the sky.[citation
needed]

ESC/P[edit]

Epson LX-300+ dot matrix printer

Main article: ESC/P

To control its printers, Epson introduced a printer control language, the Epson Standard Code for
Printers or (ESC/P), which became a de facto industry standard for controlling print formatting during
the era of dot matrix printers; whose popularity was initially started by the Epson MX-80.[6]

Robots[edit]
Main article: Epson Robots
Epson Robots is the robotics design and manufacturing department of Epson. Seiko Epson
produces some microcontrollers, such as the S1C63.
Ink cartridge controversies[edit]
In July 2003, a Dutch consumer association advised its 640,000 members to boycott Epson inkjet
printers. The Netherlands-based organisation alleged that Epson customers were unfairly charged
for ink they could never use. Later that month, however, the group retracted its call for a nationwide
boycott of Epson products and issued a statement conceding that residual ink left in Epson
cartridges was necessary for the printers to function properly.[17]
Epson designed ink to be left in the cartridges (and in fact they have done so ever since they
developed the piezo-electric head) due to the way the capping mechanism worked. If the capping
mechanism dries out, then the heads risk getting clogged, and thus an expensive repair will be
necessary. The reason that the Dutch consumer association retracted their statement was that, as
pointed out, Epson had made a statement regarding how many pages (at usually a 5% coverage of
an A4 sheet of paper) each cartridge could sustain for printing.[citation needed]
Nonetheless, Epson America, Inc. settled a class action lawsuit brought before the Los Angeles
Superior Court. It did not admit guilt, but they agreed to refund $45 to anyone who purchased an
Epson inkjet printer after April 8, 1999 (at least $20 of which must be used at Epson's E-Store).[18]
According to IDG News Service, Epson filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade
Commission (ITC) in February, 2006, against 24 companies that manufactured, imported, or
distributed Epson-compatible ink cartridges for resale in the U.S.[citation needed] On March 30, 2007, ITC
judge Paul Luckern issued an initial determination that the ink cartridges in question did infringe
upon Epson's patents.[19] The judge also recommended those companies and others to be barred
from manufacturing, importing, or reselling Epson cartridges in the U.S., said Epson.[citation needed]
In 2015 it emerged that Epson printers reported that cartridges are empty when in fact 20% of their
ink remains.[20]
Isaac Merritt Singer (October 27, 1811 – July 23, 1875) was an American inventor, actor, and
businessman. He made important improvements in the design of the sewing machine and was the
founder of what became one of the first American multi-national businesses, the Singer Sewing
Machine Company.[2]
Many others, including Walter Hunt and Elias Howe had patented sewing machines[3] before Singer,
but his success was based on the practicality of his machine, the ease with which it could be
adapted to home use, and its availability on an instalment payment basis.[4]

First inventions[edit]
In 1839, Singer obtained his first patent, for a machine to drill rock, selling it for $2,000 (or over
$50,000 in 2018 dollars) to the I & M Canal Building Company. With this financial success, he opted
to return to his career as an actor. He went on tour, forming a troupe known as the "Merritt Players",
appearing onstage under the name "Isaac Merritt", with Mary Ann Sponsler (one of his mistresses,
described below) also appearing onstage, calling herself "Mrs. Merritt".[citation needed] The tour lasted
about five years. He developed and patented a "machine for carving wood and metal" on April 10,
1849.
At 38, with Mary Ann and eight children, he packed up his family and moved back to New York City,
hoping to market his wood-block cutting machine there. He obtained an advance to build a working
prototype, and constructed one in the shop of A. B. Taylor & Co. Here he met G. B. Zieber, who
became Singer's financier and partner. However, not long after the machine was built, the steam
boiler blew up at the shop, destroying the prototype. Zieber persuaded Singer to make a new start
in Boston, a center of the printing trade. Singer went to Boston in 1850 to display his invention at the
machine shop of Orson C. Phelps. Orders for Singer's wood cutting machine were not, however,
forthcoming.
Lerow & Blodgett sewing machines were being constructed and repaired in Phelps' shop. Phelps
asked Singer to look at the sewing machines,[5] which were difficult to use and produce. Singer
concluded that the sewing machine would be more reliable if the shuttle moved in a straight line
rather than a circle, with a straight rather than a curved needle. Singer was able to obtain US Patent
number 8294 for his improvements on August 12, 1851.

Impact on garment industry[edit]

Singer's prototype sewing machine became the first to work in a practical way. It could sew 900
stitches per minute, far better than the 40 of an accomplished seamstress on simple work.[5] This
started the industrialisation of garment and textile manufacturing, as a shirt took an hour to make
compared to fifteen hours previously, but these still needed finishing by hand, and the finishers
worked alone on piecework terms at home, but mass over-production by factories' machines, led to
pressure on wages and to unemployment, a risk described in Karl Marx, Das Capital. In Scotland in
1861 there were 62,000 female dressmakers, thirty years later the USA had 300,000 mainly single
women. [2]
In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City killed 140 people, 62 jumping to their
deaths from upper floors, as doors were locked to keep out inspectors and union leaders. This led to
safer working practices although sweatshops continued. Women workers sewing car seat covers
in Ford Motor Company Limited's Dagenham plant, in the UK were getting 15% less pay than men
doing the same job in 1968. A three week strike helped win their case and in 1970, the Equal Pay
Act was passed. But in 2013, the East Midlands area in the UK still had 11,000 textile workers paid
below the national minimum wage.[2]
Textile and garment sewing is now a global industry and sweatshop factories are often employing
the poorest women, children and migrants, with few labour rights. A number of non-governmental
organisations are attempting to end worker exploitation in clothing industry globally, such as Clean
Clothes Campaign, Global Exchange, No Sweat, Stop Child Labour, Fairtrade, Fair Wear
Foundation especially raised public awareness of the exploration of sewing workers, both after the
2012 garment factory disaster in Dhaka Bangladesh resulted in 117 dead and 200 injured from at
least 1,600 people working on a nine storey factory on sewing machines, unable to escape the fire in
similar sweatshop circumstances to those in New York a century earlier.[2] And again after 24 April
2013, as more were killed at Dhaka's Rana Plaza, another multi-story factory which housed multiple
clothing manufacturing companies along with a bank and apartments, collapsed killing over 1,100
workers and injuring 2,000 more. So in November 2013, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in
Bangladesh, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the National Tripartite Action Plan,
agreed to work for new workplace safety standards for clothing manufacturing factories.[6].

I. M. Singer & Co[edit]

In 1856, manufacturers Grover & Baker, Singer, Wheeler & Wilson, all accusing each other of patent
infringement, met in Albany, New York to pursue their suits. Orlando B. Potter, a lawyer and
president of the Grover and Baker Company, proposed that, rather than squander their profits on
litigation, they pool their patents. This was the first patent pool, a process which enables the
production of complicated machines without legal battles over patent rights.[7] They agreed to form
the Sewing Machine Combination, but for this to be of any use, they had to secure the cooperation
of Elias Howe, who still held certain vital uncontested patents. Terms were arranged; Howe received
a royalty on every sewing machine manufactured.[citation needed]
Sewing machines began to be mass-produced. I. M. Singer & Co manufactured 2,564 machines in
1856, and 13,000 in 1860 at a new plant on Mott Street in New York. Later, a massive plant was
built near Elizabeth, New Jersey.[8]
Up to then, sewing machines had been industrial machines, made for garments, shoes, bridles and
for tailors, but in 1856, smaller machines began to be marketed for home use. However, at the then
enormous price of over $100 ($2,789 in 2018 dollars), few sold.[9]Singer invested heavily in mass
production utilizing the concept of interchangeable parts developed by Samuel Colt and Eli
Whitney for their firearms. He was able to cut the price in half, while at the same time increasing
his profit margin by 530%.[9] Singer was the first who put a family machine, "the turtle back", on the
market. Eventually, the price came down to $10 ($279 in 2018 dollars). According to PBS, "His
partner, Edward Cabot Clark, pioneered installment purchasing plans and accepted trade-ins,
causing sales to soar."[5]
Women were able to make items at home for their families or for sale and charitable groups began
to support poorer women to find useful skills and respectable employment in sewing, such as The
Ladies Work Society (1875), The Association for the Sale of Works of Ladies of Limited Means, The
Co-operative Needlewoman's Society and associated magazines, pattern books and group classes
began for the better off women who also wanted to have some form of useful, economic activity,
which a sewing machine at home now offered.[2]
I. M. Singer expanded into the European market, establishing a factory in Clydebank, near Glasgow,
controlled by the parent company, becoming one of the first American-based multinational
corporations, with agencies in Paris and Rio de Janeiro.[citation needed]
Later as The Singer Manufacturing Company and its competitors expanded, due to its affordability
(or purchase plan terms) by the 1940s there were 24,000 sewing classes a year running in the UK
alone, and the 1944 Education Act made practical dressmaking a compulsory subject for girls in all
state schools.[2] By the 1950s, there are Singer Teen-Age Sewing Classes and advertising
campaigns to encourage girls to make their own fashions to attract boys' interest.[2]

Family[edit]
Isaac Merritt Singer was born in 1811 in Schaghticoke, NY, USA [2] one of six children born to Adam
Singer (1772–1855) and his wife Ruth, née Benson. Isaac's siblings were John Valentine Singer
(1791–1877), Alexander[citation needed], Elizabeth (Singer) Colby (1801–1872), Christiana (Singer)
Cleveland (1804–1887), and Elijah Singer (1813–1860).[citation needed]
His parents divorced in 1821, and Isaac had been abandoned by his mother from the age of
ten [2] and finally ran away from home at the age of twelve,[5] [2] to join a traveling stage act the
Rochester Players [2], after finding bits of work as a joiner, lathe operator, and in a funfair.[2]
In 1830, at nineteen he married fifteen year old [2] Catherine Maria Haley (1815–1884). The couple
had two children, William (1834–1914) and Lillian (1841–1912), and he left her to join [2] the
Baltimore Strolling Players. In 1860, he divorced Catherine on the basis of her adultery with Stephen
Kent.[citation needed] His son William spoke up for his mother in the case and was snubbed by Singer,
including in his will (see above).[2]
Ever unfaithful, Singer began a 25 year [2] affair with Mary Ann Sponsler (b. 1818) in 1836, while still
married to Catherine. They had 10 children: Isaac Augustus Singer (27 July 1837 – 25 September
1902), Vouletti Theresa Singer Proctor (4 January 1840 – 14 December 1913), John Albert Singer,
Fanny Elizabeth Singer, Jasper Hamlet Singer, Mary Olivia Singer (1848–1900), Julia Ann Singer,
Caroline Virginia Singer, and two others who died at birth.[citation needed]
Financial success allowed Singer to buy a mansion on Fifth Avenue, into which he moved his
second family.[citation needed] He and Mary Ann had abandoned their joint acting company, the Merritt
Players, as his inventions were more successful.[2] He continued to live with Mary Ann, until she
spotted him driving down Fifth Avenue seated beside Mary McGonigal, an employee, about whom
Mary Ann already had suspicions.[citation needed] Singer also had an affair with her sister Kate
McGonigal.[2]
Mary McGonigal bore Isaac Singer five children, who used the surname Matthews: Florence L.,
Mary, Charles A., and two others who died at birth.[citation needed]
And Mary Ann, still calling herself Mrs. I. M. Singer, had her husband arrested for bigamy. Singer
was let out on bond and, disgraced, fled to London in 1862, taking Mary McGonigal with him.
In the aftermath, another of Isaac's families was discovered: he had a "wife", Mary Eastwood
Walters, a machine demonstrator, and had had a daughter [2], Alice Eastwood Walters, in Lower
Manhattan, who had adopted the surname Merritt. By 1860, Isaac had fathered and acknowledged
eighteen children, sixteen of them still then living, by four women.[citation needed]
In 1861, his longstanding mistress Mary Ann Sponsor took him to court for abusing her and daughter
Violette.[2] With Isaac in London, Mary Ann began setting about securing a financial claim to his
assets by filing documents detailing his infidelities, and claiming that, though she had never been
formally married to Isaac, they were wed under common law by living together for seven months
after Isaac had been divorced from his first wife, Catherine. Eventually, a settlement was made, but
no divorce was granted. However, she asserted that she was free to marry, and indeed she married
John E. Foster.[citation needed]
Isaac, meanwhile, had renewed acquaintance with Isabella Eugenie Boyer, a nineteen year old
Frenchwoman, said to be the model for the Statue of Liberty, [2] whom he had lived with in Paris
when he was staying there in 1860. She left her husband and married Isaac who was by now
fifty [2] under the name of Isabella Eugenie Sommerville on June 13, 1863, while she was
pregnant.[citation needed] They had six children [2]: Sir Adam Mortimer Singer (1863–1929), Winnaretta
Eugenie Singer (1865–1943), Washington Merritt Grant Singer(1866–1934), Paris Eugene
Singer (1867–1932), Isabelle-Blanche Singer (1869–1896), and Franklin Merritt Morse Singer (12
February 1870 – 12 August 1939).[citation needed]

Final years in Europe[edit]

Singer's grave in Torquay Cemetery

In 1863, I. M. Singer & Co. was dissolved by mutual consent with Edward Cabot Clark seeing
Singer's reputation as a risk to growth; but the business continued with Singer owning 40% of shares
and still on the Board, [2] as "The Singer Manufacturing Company," in 1887.
In 1871, Singer purchased an estate and settled with Isabella in Paignton, Devon, England.[2] He
commissioned a 110 roomed Oldway Mansion as his private residence, with a hall of mirrors, maze
and grotto garden[2]; it was rebuilt by Paris Singer, his third son from Isabella, in the style of
the Palace of Versailles. And the area became known locally as 'Singerton'. [2] It has been named by
the Victorian Society as a heritage building at risk of disrepair.[10]
Isaac Singer died in 1875, shortly after the wedding of his daughter by Mary Eastwood Walters,
Alice, whose dress had cost as much as a London apartment.[2] His funeral was an elaborate affair
with eighty horse-drawn carriages, and around 2000 mourners, to see him buried locally, at his
request in three layers of coffin (cedar lined with satin, lead, English oak with silver decoration) and a
marble tomb.[2]

Descendants[edit]
Son William Singer was, by marriage to Sarah Singer Webb, a brother-in-law of William Seward
Webb (1851–1926) and his wife, Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb (1860–1936). William's daughter,
Florence Singer, Isaac's granddaughter, married into the European nobility becoming Countess
von Dyhrn.[citation needed]
Daughter Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943), otherwise known as the Princess de Polignac, was
married twice, and was a vital patron of 20th-century music. She held open salons at her house in
Paris that were frequented by famous people including Marcel Proust, and where the wealthy
encountered new musicians, including Debussy. She left a legacy in the Singer-Polignac foundation
that helped young musicians.[citation needed]
Daughter Isabelle-Blanche Singer (1869–1896), was married in 1888 to French aristocrat Jean, Duc
Decazes et de Glücksbierg.[citation needed]
Son Paris Eugene Singer (b. Paris, 20 February 1867; d. London, 24 June 1932), was married to
Cecilia Henrietta Augusta ("Lillie") Graham (b. Perth Australia, 6 June 1867; d. Paignton, 7 March
1951). Singer Island, Florida, was named for him. He was a close friend of the Palm
Beach architect Addison Mizner. Paris had a son with Isadora Duncan, Patrick Singer, who died in
1913 in a drowning accident while a small child.[citation needed]
Grandchildren include Daisy Fellowes, Mortimer Merritt Singer (b. New York City, ~1870; d. New
York City ~1960, age 92), Herbert Monrose Singer (b. Paignton, 22 June 1888; d. London, 3
November 1941), Cecil Mortimer Singer (b. London, 16 July 1889; d. New York, 28 January 1954),
Paris Graham Singer, and Georges Farquar Singer (b. London, 28 February 1892; d. Daytona
Beach, Florida, 19 July 1955).[citation needed]
The appeal to novelty (also called argumentum ad novitatem) is a fallacy in which one
prematurely claims that an idea or proposal is correct or superior, exclusively because it is new and
modern. In a controversy between status quo and new inventions, an appeal to novelty argument is
not in itself a valid argument. The fallacy may take two forms: overestimating the new and modern,
prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be best-case, or underestimating status quo,
prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be worst-case.
Investigation may prove these claims to be true, but it is a fallacy to prematurely conclude this only
from the general claim that all novelty is good.
Chronological snobbery is a form of appeal to novelty, in which one argues that the only relevant
knowledge and practices are those established in the last decades. The opposite of an appeal to
novelty is an appeal to tradition, in which one argues that the "old ways" are always superior to new
ideas.
Appeals to novelty are often successful in a modern world where everyone is eager to be on the
"cutting edge" of technology. The dot-com bubble of the early 2000s could easily be interpreted as a
sign of the dangers of naïvely embracing new ideas without first viewing them with a critical eye.
Also, advertisers frequently extoll the newness of their products as a reason to buy. Conversely, this
is satirised as bleeding edge technology by skeptics (this may itself be an example of the appeal to
tradition fallacy).

Explanation[edit]
The appeal to novelty is based on the reasoning that in general people will tend to try to improve the
outputs resulting from their efforts. Thus, for example, a company producing a product might be
assumed to know about existing flaws and to be seeking to correct them in a future revision. This
line of reasoning is obviously flawed for many reasons, most notably that it ignores:

 motive (a new product may be released that is functionally identical to previous products but
which is cheaper to produce, or with modifications that have nothing to do with its core use, e.g.
aesthetic modifications on a technological product);
 cyclicality (the fashion industry continually rediscovers old styles and markets them as the next
new thing);
 population dynamics (the previous product may have been created by an expert who has since
been replaced by a neophyte);
 fallibility (while building the new product defects or negative side effects can be introduced
undetected, effectively rendering it inferior);
 difference between local and general improvement (a new product may be superior to its
previous counterpart in its core function but made lacking in other aspects, leading to a general
inferior state, e.g. a product dropping some features, or becoming restricted geographically);
 cost (the new product may be better in terms of performance but have low or no return on
investment if used to replace the older one).
Examples[edit]
 "If you want to lose weight, your best bet is to follow the latest diet."
 "The department will become more profitable because it has been reorganized."
 "Upgrading all your software to the most recent versions will make your system more reliable."
 "Things are bad with party A in charge, thus party B will bring an improvement if they're elected."
 "If you want to make friends, you have to wear the latest fashion and the trendiest gadgets."
 "Do X because it is Current Year."

Appeal to novelty fallacy: designation pitfalls[edit]

In some cases, there may exist one or more unnamed – but still universally acknowledged
– correlations between novelty and positive traits. For example, newer technology has a tendency to
be more complex and advanced than older. A correlation may, for example, exist between the
newness of a virus definition file and the security of a computer, or between the newness of a
computer and its speed and performance. In these precise cases, something may be more likely to
be superior whenever it is new and modern, though not exclusively because it is new and modern. In
some restricted cases, it may even be proven. Thus, what may seem like Appeal to novelty isn't
a fallacy in every case. It is only a fallacy if the invoked correlations are disputed if no correlation has
been examined, or if the correlations are claimed as proofs.
Whenever something undergoes some sort of continuous decay, valuing novelty is justified as long
as novelty restores some status quo with an anterior state (or improves on it). For instance, new
clothes are arguably superior to their identical worn out counterpart, as are newly produced body
parts to the old in the case of moulting. Much the same way, in aesthetics, for example in some arts
and music, the value can be held not by the actual product or its performance, but rather by the
sentiment of freshness and amazement that it causes; for example, many radio stations play only
that music which is currently selling well (or is predicted to sell well following its imminent release),
not that which has sold equally well only a few months before. The implication is that it is the
currency of the popularity that confers value, rather than any intrinsic quality of the music itself, or of
popularity at previous times. If it is the case, a novelty in itself – though not necessarily all forms of
novelty – is a key aspect of evaluation. In those cases, if a statement comparing two art forms does
mention their respective states of novelty, there is no fallacy (e.g. "Song A is currently a much better
bet for your party than song B.").
orever 21, stylized as FOREVER 21, is an American fast fashion retailer headquartered in Los
Angeles, California. Forever 21 began as the store called Fashion 21 with 900 square feet (84 m2)
in Highland Park, Los Angeles, in 1984, and has grown into the clothing lines Forever 21, XXI
Forever, Love 21 and Heritage with over 700 stores in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and the
UK.[2][3]
Forever 21 is known for its trendy offerings and low pricing.[4][5] the average store size is 38,000
square feet (3,500 m2).[3] The company sells accessories, beauty products, home goods
and clothing for women, men and girls. The company has been involved in various controversies,
ranging from labor practice issues to copyright infringement accusations to religion. The clothing is
sold to all ages, from toddler to adult.

History[edit]
Forever 21 in Hong Kong

Forever 21 in CF Markville, which closed in spring 2018 and was replaced by a Uniqlo.

Originally known as Fashion 21,[6] the store was founded in Los Angeles on 16 April 1984 by
husband and wife, Do Won Chang and Jin Sook Chang from Korea.[7] The store is located at 5637 N.
Figueroa Street in the Highland Park district of Los Angeles and is still in operation, bearing the
chain's original name.[7] Designs similar to those seen in South Korea were sold to and targeted at
the Los Angeles Korean American community. In its first year in operation, sales totaled $700,000
and, by 2013, there were more than 480 stores and a revenue of $3.7 billion.[8] In February 2014,
Forever 21 generated a revenue of $3.8 billion and in 2017, Forever 21 generated a revenue of $3.4
billion.[9] Originally, Forever 21 only sold clothes for women but later expanded to sell menswear.
Most Forever 21 stores now sell clothes for men and women, including plus size clothing for women.
On its website, it also sells girls' clothing and home/lifestyle products.[10]

Controversies[edit]
Employee relations and safety[edit]

Forever 21 in Montreal

 In September 2001, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and the Garment Worker Center,
workers’ advocacy groups, filed a lawsuit against Forever 21, charging them of violating labor
practice laws.[11] They claimed that 19 contracted employees received less than the minimum
wage, that the hours on time cards were reduced, that workers who complained to the state
were fired, and that the employees faced sweatshop-like working conditions.[11]Forever 21 denied
the accusations, asserting its commitment to fair labor practices and that "none of the workers
named in the suit were directly employed by the company".[11] A three-year boycott of Forever 21
was held throughout the United States by the garment workers and this movement was captured
in the Emmy Award-winning documentary, Made in L.A.[12][13] Although the charge was dismissed
by U.S. District Court Judge Manuel Real, Forever 21 responded with a defamation suit in
2002.[14] Attorney Robin D. Dal Soglio asserted that both Forever 21's reputation and its sales
were impacted by the allegations and protests.[14] On the other hand, Kimi Lee, the director of
one of the advocacy groups that represented the workers, maintained that the lawsuits were
justified due to complaints from 20 workers.[14] Both cases ended in a settlement in December
2004.[15]
 Five Forever 21 employees filed a class action lawsuit in January 2012, declaring they were not
compensated for the time they worked during their lunch breaks and the time spent on bag
checks.[16]
 After the Labor Department found that some of Forever 21's suppliers had violated various
federal laws on wages and record keeping, a subpoena was ordered in August 2012.[17] U.S.
District Court Judge Margaret Morrowordered Forever 21’s compliance after the retailer failed to
provide the documents.[18] The retailer claimed that it tried to meet with the Labor Department
and that it had provided the requested information.[17]
In July 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
recommended fines in excess of $100,000 for three different retail locations in Northern New
Jersey and Manhattan in New York City for "serious safety hazards", for which they had been cited
since 2010.[19]
Copyright controversies[edit]
 According to Forbes, 50 copyright violation lawsuits have been placed against Forever
21.[20][21] Diane von Fürstenberg sued the retailer insisting it copied four of her dresses.[22] Gwen
Stefani, Anna Sui and Trovata are among the designers who have also taken action against the
retailer.[21] During the Trovata case in May 2009, the jury agreed with Trovata. The two sides
reached a settlement.[23]
 Critics such as Susan Scafidi, a professor of copyright law at Fordham University, question
Forever 21’s design process and argue that it is replicating the designs of others.[13] Forever 21’s
Vice President of Merchandise, Lisa Boisset, was quoted in 2007 as saying that Forever 21
works with merchant designers and not with designers, but would not make those merchants
available for comment.[24] CEO Chang said that some of their merchants had disappointed
him.[13] Forever 21 has never been found guilty and the majority of cases have been resolved
through settlements.[21]
 On 8 January 2015, Canadian media reported on a local, family-owned business in Richmond,
British Columbia, Granted Clothing, whose designer noticed that their sweater designs had been
stolen and mass-produced for sale on Forever 21's website.[25] In April 2015, both parties
resolved the matter on "amicable terms", settling out of court.[26]
 On 28 January 2015, the software developers Adobe, Autodesk and Corel filed a joint lawsuit
against Forever 21 for allegedly using unlicensed copies of Photoshop, AutoCAD and PaintShop
Pro, respectively.[27]

n invention disclosure, or invention disclosure report, is a confidential document written by a

scientist or engineer for use by a company's patent department, or by an external patent attorney, to
determine whether patent protection should be sought for the described invention.[1] It may follow a
standardized form established within a company.[2]

eferences[edit]
1. ^ George C. Prendergast, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics: Strategies for Drug Discovery and
Development, Wiley-IEEE, 2004, ISBN 0-471-43202-4, page 312.
2. ^ M. Henry Heines, Patent Empowerment for Small Corporations, Greenwood Publishing Group,
2001, ISBN 1-56720-452-X, pages 122-123.
n invention disclosure, or invention disclosure report, is a confidential document written by a
scientist or engineer for use by a company's patent department, or by an external patent attorney, to
determine whether patent protection should be sought for the described invention.[1] It may follow a
standardized form established within a company.[2]

See also[edit]
 Inventor's notebook
 Lab notebook
o Electronic lab notebook
 Laboratory information management system
 LEDES invention disclosure data format
 Scientific management

References[edit]
1. ^ George C. Prendergast, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics: Strategies for Drug Discovery and
Development, Wiley-IEEE, 2004, ISBN 0-471-43202-4, page 312.
2. ^ M. Henry Heines, Patent Empowerment for Small Corporations, Greenwood Publishing Group,
2001, ISBN 1-56720-452-X, pages 122-123.
A Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic generator which uses a moving belt to
accumulate electric charge on a hollow metal globe on the top of an insulated column, creating very
high electric potentials. It produces very high voltage direct current (DC) electricity at low current
levels. It was invented by American physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1929.[1] The potential
difference achieved by modern Van de Graaff generators can be as much as 5 megavolts. A
tabletop version can produce on the order of 100,000 volts and can store enough energy to produce
a visible spark. Small Van de Graaff machines are produced for entertainment, and for physics
education to teach electrostatics; larger ones are displayed in some science museums.
The Van de Graaff generator was developed as a particle accelerator for physics research; its high
potential is used to accelerate subatomic particles to great speeds in an evacuated tube. It was the
most powerful type of accelerator of the 1930s until the cyclotron was developed. Van de Graaff
generators are still used as accelerators to generate energetic particle and X-ray beams for nuclear
research and nuclear medicine.
Particle-beam Van de Graaff accelerators are often used in a "tandem" configuration: first, negatively
charged ions are injected at one end towards the high potential terminal, where they are accelerated
by attractive force towards the terminal. When the particles reach the terminal, they are stripped of
some electrons to make them positively charged and are subsequently accelerated by repulsive
forces away from the terminal. This configuration results in two accelerations for the cost of one Van
de Graaff generator, and has the added advantage of leaving the complicated ion source
instrumentation accessible near ground potential.
The voltage produced by an open-air Van de Graaff machine is limited by arcing and corona
discharge to about 5 megavolts. Most modern industrial machines are enclosed in a pressurized
tank of insulating gas; these can achieve potentials of as much as about 25 megavolts.
A simple Van de Graaff generator consists of a belt of rubber (or a similar flexible dielectric material)
moving over two rollers of differing material, one of which is surrounded by a hollow metal
sphere.[citation needed] Two electrodes, (2) and (7), in the form of comb-shaped rows of sharp metal points,
are positioned near the bottom of the lower roller and inside the sphere, over the upper roller. Comb
(2) is connected to the sphere, and comb (7) to ground. The method of charging is based on
the triboelectric effect, such that simple contact of dissimilar materials causes the transfer of some
electrons from one material to the other. For example (see the diagram), the rubber of the belt will
become negatively charged while the acrylic glass of the upper roller will become positively charged.
The belt carries away negative charge on its inner surface while the upper roller accumulates
positive charge. Next, the strong electric field surrounding the positive upper roller (3) induces a very
high electric field near the points of the nearby comb (2). At the points, the field becomes strong
enough to ionize air molecules, and the electrons are attracted to the outside of the belt while
positive ions go to the comb. At the comb (2) they are neutralized by electrons that were on the
comb, thus leaving the comb and the attached outer shell (1) with fewer net electrons. By the
principle illustrated in the Faraday ice pail experiment, i.e. by Gauss's law, the excess positive
charge is accumulated on the outer surface of the outer shell (1), leaving no field inside the shell.
Electrostatic induction by this method continues, building up very large amounts of charge on the
shell.
In the example, the lower roller (6) is metal, which picks negative charge off the inner surface of the
belt. The lower comb (7) develops a high electric field at its points that also becomes large enough
to ionize air molecules. In this case, the electrons are attracted to the comb and positive air ions
neutralize negative charge on the outer surface of the belt, or become attached to the belt. The
exact balance of charges on the up-going versus down-going sides of the belt will depend on the
combination of the materials used. In the example, the upward-moving belt must be more positive
than the downward-moving belt. As the belt continues to move, a constant "charging current" travels
via the belt, and the sphere continues to accumulate positive charge until the rate that charge is
being lost (through leakage and corona discharges) equals the charging current. The larger the
sphere and the farther it is from ground, the higher will be its peak potential. In the example, the
wand with metal sphere (8) is connected to ground, as is the lower comb (7); electrons are drawn up
from ground due to the attraction by the positive sphere, and when the electric field is great enough
(see below) the air breaks in the form of an electrical discharge spark (9). Since the material of the
belt and rollers can be selected, the accumulated charge on the hollow metal sphere can either be
made positive (electron deficient) or negative (excess electrons).
The friction type of generator described above is easier to build for science fair or homemade
projects, since it does not require a high-voltage source. Greater potentials can be obtained with
alternative designs (not discussed here) for which high-voltage sources are used at the upper and/or
lower positions of the belt to transfer charge more efficiently onto and off the belt.
A Van de Graaff generator terminal does not need to be sphere-shaped to work, and in fact, the
optimum shape is a sphere with an inward curve around the hole where the belt enters. A rounded
terminal minimizes the electric field around it, allowing greater potentials to be achieved without
ionization of the air, or other dielectric gas, surrounding. Outside the sphere, the electric field
becomes very strong and applying charges directly from the outside would soon be prevented by the
field. Since electrically charged conductors do not have any electric field inside, charges can be
added continuously from the inside without increasing them to the full potential of the outer shell.
Since a Van de Graaff generator can supply the same small current at almost any level of electrical
potential, it is an example of a nearly ideal current source.
The maximal achievable potential is roughly equal to the sphere radius R multiplied by the electric
field Emax at which corona discharges begin to form within the surrounding gas. For air at standard
temperature and pressure (STP) the breakdown field is about 30 kV/cm. Therefore, a polished
spherical electrode 30 cm in diameter could be expected to develop a maximal
voltage Vmax = R·Emax of about 450 kV. This explains why Van de Graaff generators are often made
with the largest possible diameter.
Van de Graaff generator for educational use in schools

With sausage-shaped top terminal removed

Comb electrode at bottom that deposits charge onto belt

Comb electrode at top that removes charge from belt

The Westinghouse Atom Smasher, the 5 MeV Van de Graaff generator built in 1937 by the Westinghouse
Electric company in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania
This Van de Graaff generator of the first Hungarian linear particle accelerator achieved 700 kV during 1951 and
1000 kV during 1952.

A Van de Graaff particle accelerator in a pressurized tank at Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris

The concept of an electrostatic generator in which charge is mechanically transported in small

amounts into the interior of a high-voltage electrode originated with the Kelvin water dropper,
invented during 1867 by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin),[2] in which charged drops of water fall into a
bucket with the same polarity charge, adding to the charge.[3] In a machine of this type,
the gravitational force moves the drops against the opposing electrostatic field of the bucket. Kelvin
himself first suggested using a belt to carry the charge instead of water. The first electrostatic
machine that used an endless belt to transport charge was constructed during 1872 by Augusto
Righi.[1][3] It used an india rubber belt with wire rings along its length as charge carriers, which passed
into a spherical metal electrode. The charge was applied to the belt from the grounded lower roller
by electrostatic induction using a charged plate. John Gray also invented a belt machine about
1890.[3] Another more complicated belt machine was invented during 1903 by Juan Burboa[1][4] A
more immediate inspiration for Van de Graaff was a generator W. F. G. Swann was developing
during the 1920s in which charge was transported to an electrode by falling metal balls, thus
returning to the principle of the Kelvin water dropper.[1][5]
The reason that the charge extracted from the belt moves to the outside of the sphere electrode,
though it already has a high charge of the same polarity, is explained by the Faraday ice pail
experiment.[6]
The Van de Graaff generator was developed, starting 1929, by physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff
at Princeton University with a fellowship, with help from colleague Nicholas Burke. The first model
was demonstrated during October 1929.[citation needed][7][dead link] The first machine used an ordinary tin can,
a small motor, and a silk ribbon bought at a five-and-dime store. After that, he went to the chairman
of the physics department requesting $100 to make an improved version. He did get the money, with
some difficulty. By 1931, he could report achieving 1.5 million volts, saying "The machine is simple,
inexpensive, and portable. An ordinary lamp socket provides the only power needed."[8][9] According
to a patent application, it had two 60-cm-diameter charge-accumulation spheres mounted
on borosilicate glass columns 180 cm high; the apparatus cost only $90 during 1931.[10][full citation needed]
Van de Graaff applied for a second patent during December 1931, which was assigned
to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in exchange for a share of net income; the patent was later
granted.[citation needed]
During 1933, Van de Graaff built a 40-ft (12-m) model at MIT's Round Hill facility, the use of which
was donated by Colonel Edward H. R. Green.[citation needed]
One of Van de Graaff's accelerators used two charged domes of sufficient size that each of the
domes had laboratories inside - one to provide the source of the accelerated beam, and the other to
analyze the actual experiment. The power for the equipment inside the domes was from generators
that ran off the belt, and several sessions came to a rather gruesome end when a pigeon attempted
to fly between the two domes, causing them to discharge. (The accelerator was set in an airplane
hangar.)[citation needed]
During 1937, the Westinghouse Electric company built a 65 feet (20 m) machine, the Westinghouse
Atom Smasher capable of generating 5 MeV in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania. It marked the beginning
of nuclear research for civilian applications.[11][12] It was decommissioned in 1958 and was demolished
in 2015.[13]
A more recent development is the tandem Van de Graaff accelerator, containing one or more Van de
Graaff generators, in which negatively charged ions are accelerated through one potential
difference before being stripped of two or more electrons, inside a high-voltage terminal, and
accelerated again. An example of a three-stage operation has been built in Oxford Nuclear
Laboratory during 1964 of a 10 MV single-ended "injector" and a 6 MV EN tandem.[14][page needed]
By the 1970s, as much as 14 million volts could be achieved at the terminal of a tandem that used a
tank of high-pressure sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) gas to prevent sparking by trapping electrons. This
allowed the generation of heavy ion beams of several tens of megaelectronvolts, sufficient to study
light ion direct nuclear reactions. The greatest potential sustained by a Van de Graaff accelerator is
25.5 MV, achieved by the tandem in the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility in Oak Ridge
National Laboratory.[15]
A further development is the pelletron, where the rubber or fabric belt is replaced by a chain of short
conductive rods connected by insulating links, and the air-ionizing electrodes are replaced by a
grounded roller and inductive charging electrode. The chain can be operated at much greater
velocity than a belt, and both the voltage and currents attainable are much greater than with a
conventional Van de Graaff generator. The 14 UD Heavy Ion Accelerator at the Australian National
University houses a 15-million-volt pelletron. Its chains are more than 20 meters long and can travel
faster than 50 kilometres per hour (31 mph).[16]
The Nuclear Structure Facility (NSF) at Daresbury Laboratory was proposed during the 1970s,
commissioned during 1981, and opened for experiments during 1983. It consisted of a tandem Van
de Graaff generator operating routinely at 20 MV, housed in a distinctive building 70 m high. During
its lifetime, it accelerated 80 different ion beams for experimental use, ranging from protons to
uranium. A particular feature was the ability to accelerate rare isotopic and radioactive beams.
Perhaps the most important discovery made using the NSF was that of super-deformed nuclei.
These nuclei, when formed from the fusion of lighter elements, rotate very rapidly.
Lani
Inventionland is a Pittsburgh-based immersive work environment and idea incubator where projects
are brought to life through creativity and innovation.[1]
Inventionland was conceived by George Davison. Nathan Field served as the executive creative
coach, and Joey Warren acted as senior concept designer.[2] According to George Davison, his
intention in building Inventionland was to provide a creative work environment in which artists,
graphic designers, industrial designers and others could design, develop and create prototypes.[3]

Conception and Themed Sets[edit]

Inventionland officially opened in 2006, having taken 18 months from design to construction.[4] The
interior renovation took one year and cost $5 million.[5] At Inventionland, employees brainstorm and
lay out the process of tackling new product ideas, including product and patent research, sketches
and packaging considerations, building prototypes and pitching products to manufacturers. "Creative
use of space motivates and inspires creativity among employees. And I never want to get stale or to
get bored looking at a computer screen", George Davison said in an interview with the Daily Mail.[6]
Within Inventionland's 61,000 square-foot design facility are 16 themed sets, named and designed to
reflect the new-product invention activity within. Some of the sets include:

1. Motor Speeday: industrial and automotive products[4]

2. Discover Pirate Ship: toy department[7]
3. Crafty Cottage: sewing[7]
4. Animation Attic: [7]
5. Creativity Cabin[7]
6. Nursery Noook: Baby products[7]
7. Pet Shack: Animal products[7]
8. Inventalot Castle[4]
9. Creation Cavern: hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking[4]
10. Brainpower Ballpark: sports[4]
11. Treehouse[7]
12. Inventron 54 Robot: consumer electronics[4]
13. Home Sweet Home: household products[8]
14. Home Health Innovations
15. Concept Kitchen (giant cupcake): kitchen[9]
16. Animation Studio with one of the largest green screens in the tri-state area[9]
Inventionland also has three running waterfalls, lifelike trees and butterflies and grass-lined
sidewalks. Its manufacturing capabilities include metalworking, woodworking, molding, laser cutting,
prototyping, circuit board construction and more, which all take place in its state-of-the-art production
facility.[9]

Honors and awards[edit]

The January/February 2008 issue of I.D. Magazine recognized Inventionland as one of "40 Amazing-
Looking Design Offices".[10] Inventionland was also featured in the 2008 Ripley's Believe It or Not
Annual, "The Remarkable Revealed".[11]
In 2011, Inventionland was the recipient of a Creative Rooms in Business Award,[12] a regional
Pittsburgh award given annually and sponsored by Pittsburgh Design, Art and Technology (DATA).
In 2018, an article on Career Addict listed Inventionland as one of the top nine coolest offices in the
world.
Inventionland TV Special[edit]
On December 24, 2011, the History Channel aired Inventionland, a reality television special shot on
location at Inventionland and starring George Davison.[13] According to a company press release,
Inventionland was produced for History by JWM Productions,[14] and Jonathan Wyche served as the
producer. Patrice Shannon edited the show, and the online editor was Brian Newell.[15]
The Inventionland TV debut featured three inventors, Milton Branch, Curt Whiteside and Jason
Ramsey, who each developed a prototype for a new consumer product. The one-hour reality show
explored whether the inventors' product designs would function in a usable manner and/or be
suitable for licensing and merchandising. In the show, George Davison and five of his employees
tested various designs of each of the three inventions in a variety of settings, including
a NASCAR auto shop. Five Inventionland designers and builders were featured in the show (Jason
Rogge, Jarrod Campbell, Clay Carlino, Lucky Swartz, and Curtis Wierman).

Business[edit]
Davison Design & Development provides new product development services to inventors,
corporations and entrepreneurs using a nine-step process intended to bring new products and
inventions to market.[2] Davison Design & Development services include research, industrial design,
virtual reality, video, animation, product prototypes, packaging, presentation to manufacturers and
royalty management.[3]
Products designed by Davison Design & Development include the Hover Creeper, Meatball Baker,
Bread It breading stations, the BikeBoard, Pugz Shoes, the HydroBone for dogs and the 360° Wrist
Therapy Brace. Davison Design & Development says that it produces approximately 200 prototypes
per month, and its products have been sold in 1,000 retail stores and online venues.[4] The firm has
received several International Design Excellence Awards from the Industrial Designers Society of
America (IDSA), formerly sponsored by I.D. Magazine and BusinessWeek, now sponsored by the
Annual Design Review.[5] In 2007, Davison Design & Development received an honorable mention
in I.D. Magazine's 2007 design review competition.[6]

Awards[edit]
 Industrial design excellence award (IDEA) Silver Award for Design Strategy, Industrial Designers
Society of America (IDSA), 2006: The Hover Creeper.[7]
 IDEA Bronze Award for Medical and Scientific Products, IDSA, 2006: The BikeBoard Product
Line[8]
 IDEA Bronze Award, IDSA, 1996: Oil Filter Gripper[9]

Affirmative Disclosure Statements[edit]

In 1997, Davison Design & Development was one of eleven companies named in a Federal Trade
Commission consumer protection operation called "Project Mousetrap".[10] In 2006, Davison Design &
Development were ordered to pay $26 million in consumer redress.[11]
Davison Design & Development appealed, and ultimately settled, with the FTC in 2008, agreeing to
pay $10.7 million in cash, real estate and investment assets.[12] In keeping with the requirements of
the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999,[13] the judge set out the details of an "affirmative
disclosure statement" to be issued to future clients. Such disclosure statement must specify, among
other things, the number of consumers in the last five years who have made more income in
royalties or sales proceeds than they paid the company.[14]

Earliest inventions[edit]
Further information: Outline of prehistoric technology
The dates listed in this section refer to the earliest evidence of an invention found and dated
by archaeologists (or in a few cases, suggested by indirect evidence). Dates are often approximate
and change as more research is done, reported and seen. Older examples of any given technology
are found often. The locations listed are for the site where the earliest solid evidence has been
found, but especially for the earlier inventions, there is little certainty how close that may be to where
the invention took place.

Pre-Paleolithic[edit]
 ~23 to 5.3 million years ago (Ma), the Miocene epoch: Beds, composed of a sleeping platform
including wooden pillows[1]
Paleolithic[edit]
A few non-invention dates are included in italics, for context. This time period is characterized as an
ice age with regular periodic warmer periods – interglacial episodes – initially every 41,000 years
slowing to
 3.3-2.6 million years ago (Ma): Stone tools – found in present-day Kenya, they are so old that
only a pre-human species could have invented them.[2] The otherwise earliest known stone tools
(Oldowan) were found in Ethiopia[3] developed perhaps by Australopithecus garhi or Homo
habilis[4][5]
 2.3 Ma: Earliest likely control of fire and cooking, by Homo habilis[6][7][8]
 1.76 Ma: Advanced (Acheulean) stone tools in Kenya by Homo erectus[9][10]
 900-40 thousand years ago (ka): Boats
 790 ka: Hearths, at Gesher Benot Ya'akov, in Israel (latest possible invention of cooking)[7][8][11][12]
 400 ka: Pigments in Zambia[13]
 400-300 ka: Spears in Germany[14][15] likely by Homo heidelbergensis
 350-150 ka: Estimated origin of language [16]
 300 ka: Anatomically modern humans
 200 ka: Hafting with glue in Italy[17]
 170-83 ka: Clothing[18]
 164 ka: Heat treating of stone blades.[19]
 135-100 ka: Beads in Israel and Algeria[20]
 ~130-115 ka: Eemian interglacial period begins and ends, followed by the last glacial period[21]
 100 ka: Burial in Israel[22]
 90 ka: Harpoons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[23]
 77 ka: Bug-repellent bedding in South Africa[24]
 64–61 ka: Bone tool technology in South Africa, evidenced by the find of a spearhead along with
what may be an arrowhead, suggesting bow and arrow, and a sewing needle[25][26]
 49-30 ka: Ground stone tools – fragments of an axe in Australia date to 49-45 ka, more appear
in Japan closer to 30 ka, and elsewhere closer to the Neolithic.[27][28]
 40-50+ ka: Behavioral modernity
 44–42 ka: Tally sticks (see Lebombo bone) in Swaziland[29]
 40–20 ka: Cremation in Australia[30]
 40 ka: Cave painting in Spain and Indonesia[31]
 37 ka: Mortar and pestle in Southwest Asia.[32]
 36–9 ka: Weaving – Indirect evidence supports earlier end in Georgia[33] and/or Moravia.[34] The
earliest actual piece of woven cloth was found in Çatalhöyük, Turkey[35][36]
 35 ka: Flute in Germany[37]
 28 ka: Spun rope[38]
 28 ka: Phallus in Germany[39]
 16 ka: Pottery in China[40]
 15 ka: Bullroarer in Ukraine[41]
 14.5 ka: Bread in Jordan[42][43]
 14 ka: Dentistry in northern Italy[44]
 13–12 ka: Agriculture in the Fertile Crescent[45][46]
 13–11 ka: Domestication of sheep in Southwest Asia[47][48] (followed shortly by pigs, goats and
cattle)
Neolithic[edit]
Note the shift from Ma and ka to BC and AD – 8000 BC is approximately the same as 10 ka.

 11.7 ka: Last glacial period ends, followed by the Holocene

 11-8 ka: Domestication of rice in China[49]
 11 ka: Constructed stone monument – Göbekli Tepe, in Turkey[50]
 8000–7500 BC: Proto-city – large permanent settlements, such as Tell es-Sultan
(Jericho) and Çatalhöyük[51]
 7000 BC: Alcohol fermentation – specifically mead, in China[52]
 6500 BC: Evidence of lead smelting in Çatalhöyük in Turkey[53]
 6000 BC: Kiln in Mesopotamia (Iraq)[54]
 5000 BC: Copper smelting in Serbia[55]
 5th millennium BC: Lacquer in China[56][57]
 5000–4500 BC: Rowing oars in China[58][59]
 4500–3500 BC: Lost-wax casting in Israel[60]
 4400 BC: Copper Sewing needle in Naqada, Egypt[61]
 4000–3500 BC: Wheel: potter's wheels in Mesopotamia and wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia
(Sumerian civilization), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe (Cucuteni–
Trypillia culture).[62][63][64]
 3630 BC: Silk garments (sericulture) in China[65]
 3500 BC: Domestication of the horse[66][67][68]
 3200 BC: Sailing in ancient Egypt[69][70]

3rd millennium BC[edit]

 3000 BC: Writing – Cuneiform in Sumer, Mesopotamia (Iraq)[71] (also see proto-writing)
 3000 BC: Tin extraction in Central Asia[72]
 3000 BC: Bronze in Mesopotamia[73]
 3000 BC: Papyrus in Egypt[74][75]
 3000 BC: Comb in Persia.[76]
 3000 BC: Star chart in Korea.[77]
 2500 BC: Docks in Ancient Egypt[78][79]

2nd millennium BC[edit]

 2000 BC: Musical notation in Sumer[80]
 2000 BC: Chariot in Russia and Kazakhstan[81]
 2000 BC: Glass in Ancient Egypt[82]
 1700 BC: Alphabet in Phoenicia (Modern Lebanon)[83]
 1500 BC: Seed drill in Babylonia[84]
 1500 BC: Coins in Phoenicia (Modern Lebanon) or Lydia[85]
 1500 BC: Scissors in Ancient Egypt[86]
 1300 BC: Lathe in Ancient Egypt[87]

1st millennium BC[edit]

7th century BC[edit]
 600 BC Lighthouse in Egypt[88]
 Late 7th or early 6th century BC: Wagonway called Diolkos across the Isthmus of
Corinth in Ancient Greece
6th century BC[edit]

With the Greco-Roman trispastos("three-pulley-crane"), the simplest ancient crane, a single man tripled the
weight he could lift than with his muscular strength alone.[89]

 Late 6th century BC: Crank motion (rotary quern) in Carthage[90] or 5th century
BC Celtiberian Spain[91][92]
 c. 515 BC: Crane in Ancient Greece[93]
5th century BC[edit]
 5th century BC: Cast iron in Ancient China: Confirmed by archaeological evidence, the earliest
cast iron is developed in China by the early 5th century BC during the Zhou Dynasty (1122–256
BC), the oldest specimens found in a tomb of Luhe County in Jiangsu province.[94][95][96]
 5th century BC: Crossbow in Ancient China and Ancient Greece: In Ancient China, the earliest
evidence of bronze crossbow bolts dates as early as the mid-5th century BC in
Yutaishan, Hubei.[97] In Ancient Greece, the terminus ante quem of the gastraphetes is 421
BC.[98][99]
 5th–4th century BC: Traction trebuchet in Ancient China; appeared in the Mediterranean by the
6th century AD.[100]
 Before 421 BC: Catapult in Ancient Greece (incl. Sicily) or Phoenician Carthage[98][99]
 c. 480 BC: Spiral stairs (Temple A) in Selinunte, Sicily (see also List of ancient spiral stairs)[101][102]
4th century BC[edit]
 375–350 BC: Animal-driven rotary mill in Carthage.[103][104]
 4th century BC: Gears in Ancient China
 Approximately 350 BC: Greek hydraulic semaphore system, an optical communication system
developed by Aeneas Tacticus.
3rd century BC[edit]

An illustration depicting the papermaking process in Han Dynasty China.

 By at least the 3rd century BC: Archimedes screw in Ancient Greece[105]

 Early 3rd century BC: Canal lock in Ancient Suez Canal under Ptolemy II (283–246 BC)
in Hellenistic Egypt[106][107][108]
 3rd century BC: Cam during the Hellenistic period, used in water-driven automata.[109]
 3rd century BC: Water wheel and Liquid-driven escapement in Hellenistic kingdoms described
by Philo of Byzantium (c. 280 – 220 BC)[110]
 3rd century BC: Gimbal described Philo of Byzantium[111]
 3rd–2nd century BC: Blast furnace in Ancient China: The earliest discovered blast furnaces in
China date to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, although most sites are from the later Han
Dynasty.[94][112]
2nd century BC[edit]

The earliest fore-and-aft rigs, spritsails, appeared in the 2nd century BC in the Aegean Sea on small Greek
craft.[113] Here a spritsail used on a Roman merchant ship (3rd century AD).

 2nd century BC: Paper in Han Dynasty China: Although it is recorded that the Han Dynasty (202
BC – AD 220) court eunuch Cai Lun (born c. 50–121 AD) invented the pulp papermaking
process and established the use of new raw materials used in making paper, ancient padding
and wrapping paper artifacts dating to the 2nd century BC have been found in China, the oldest
example of pulp papermaking being a map from Fangmatan, Gansu.[114]
 150 BC Astrolabe invented in the Hellenistic world.
1st century BC[edit]
 1st century BC: Glass blowing discovered on the Lebanese coast.
 1st century BC: Segmental arch bridge (e.g. Pont-Saint-Martin or Ponte San Lorenzo)
in Italy, Roman Republic[115][116]
 1st century BC: Arch dam (Glanum Dam) in Gallia Narbonensis, Roman Republic (see also List
of Roman dams)[117][118][119][120][121]
 Before 71 BC (possibly 3rd century BC[122][123][124]): Watermill (grain mill) by Greek engineers in
Eastern Mediterranean (see also List of ancient watermills)[125][126]
 Before 40 BC: Trip hammer in China[127]
 Before 25 BC: Reverse overshot water-wheel by Roman engineers in Rio Tinto, Spain[128]

1st millennium AD[edit]

1st century[edit]
 1st century: The Aeolipile, a simple steam turbine is recorded by Hero of Alexandria.[129]
 1st century: Vending machines invented by Hero of Alexandria.
 1st century: Automatic doors invented by Hero of Alexandria.
2nd century[edit]
 118 AD: Wheelbarrow was found in a tomb at Chengdu, Sichuan province during Han
Dynasty China[130]
 132: Seismometer and pendulum in Han Dynasty China, built by Zhang Heng. It is a large metal
urn-shaped instrument which employed either a suspended pendulum or inverted
pendulum acting on inertia, like the ground tremors from earthquakes, to dislodge a metal ball by
a lever trip device.[131][132]
3rd century[edit]

Schematic of the Roman Hierapolis sawmill. Dated to the 3rd century AD, it is the earliest known machine to
incorporate a crank and connecting rodmechanism.[133][134][135]

 Early 3rd century: Woodblock printing is invented in Han Dynasty China at sometime before 220
AD. This made China become the world first print culture.[136]
 Late 3rd century: Crank and connecting rod (Hierapolis sawmill) in Asia Minor, Roman
Empire[133][134][135]
 Late 3rd–early 4th century: Turbine in Africa (province), Roman Empire[137][138][139]
4th century[edit]
 4th century: Fishing reel in Ancient China: In literary records, the earliest evidence of the fishing
reel comes from a 4th-century AD[140] work entitled Lives of Famous Immortals'.[141]
 347 AD: Oil Wells and Borehole drilling in China. Such wells could reach depths of up to 240 m
(790 ft).[142]
 4th century: Stirrups in Ancient China: The first dependable representation of a rider with paired
stirrups was found in China in a Jin dynasty tomb of about AD 322.[143][144][145] The stirrup appeared
to be in widespread use across China by AD 477.[146]
 4th–5th century: Paddle wheel boat (in De rebus bellicis) in Roman Empire[147]
5th century[edit]
 5th century: Horse collar in Southern and Northern Dynasties China: The horse collar as a fully
developed collar harness is developed in Southern and Northern Dynasties China during the 5th
century AD.[148] The earliest depiction of it is a Dunhuang cave mural from the Chinese Northern
Wei Dynasty, the painting dated to 477–499.[149]
 5th/6th century: Pointed arch bridge (Karamagara Bridge) in Cappadocia, Eastern Roman
Empire[150][151]
6th century[edit]

A Nepali Charkha in action

 after 500 AD: Charkha (spinning wheel): invented in India, between 500 and 1000 A.D.[152]
 563 AD: Pendentive dome (Hagia Sophia) in Constantinople, Eastern Roman Empire[153]
 577 AD: Sulfur matches exist in China.
 589 AD: Toilet paper in Sui Dynasty China, first mentioned by the official Yan Zhitui (531–591),
with full evidence of continual use in subsequent dynasties.[154][155]
7th century[edit]
 650 AD Windmill in Persia[88]
 672 AD: Greek fire in Constantinople, Byzantine Empire: Greek fire, an incendiary weapon likely
based on petroleum or naphtha, is invented by Kallinikos, a Lebanese Greek refugee
from Baalbek, as described by Theophanes.[156] However, the historicity and exact chronology of
this account is dubious,[157] and it could be that Kallinikos merely introduced an improved version
of an established weapon.[158]
 7th century: Banknote in Tang Dynasty China: The banknote is first developed in China during
the Tang and Song dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots are in merchant receipts of
deposit during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), as merchants and wholesalersdesire to avoid the
heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions.[159][160][161]
 7th century: Porcelain in Tang Dynasty China: True porcelain is manufactured in northern China
from roughly the beginning of the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century, while true porcelain was not
manufactured in southern China until about 300 years later, during the early 10th century.[162]
9th century[edit]

A Mongol bomb thrown against a charging Japanese samurai during the Mongol invasions of Japan after
founding the Yuan Dynasty, 1281.

 9th century: Gunpowder in Tang Dynasty China: Gunpowder is, according to prevailing
academic consensus, discovered in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists searching for
an elixir of immortality.[163] Evidence of gunpowder's first use in China comes from the Five
Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (618–907).[164] The earliest known recorded recipes for
gunpowder are written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in the Wujing Zongyao, a
military manuscript compiled in 1044 during the Song Dynasty (960–1279).[165][166][167]
 9th century: Algebra in Syria[168]
 9th century: University in Morocco[168]
 9th century: Numerical zero in Ancient India: The concept of zero as a number, and not merely a
symbol for separation is attributed to India.[169] In India, practical calculations are carried out using
zero, which is treated like any other number by the 9th century, even in case of division.[169][170]
10th century[edit]
 10th century: Fire lance in Song Dynasty China, developed in the 10th century with a tube of first
bamboo and later on metal that shot a weak gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel, its earliest
depiction is a painting found at Dunhuang.[171] Fire lance is the earliest firearm in the world and
one of the earliest gunpowder weapons.[172][173]
 10th century: Fireworks in Song Dynasty China: Fireworks first appear in China during the Song
Dynasty (960–1279), in the early age of gunpowder. Fireworks could be purchased from market
vendors; these were made of sticks of bamboo packed with gunpowder.[174]
 10th century: Dry docks in Song Dynasty China.[175]

2nd millennium[edit]
11th century[edit]
 11th century: Ambulance by Crusaders in Palestine and Lebanon[176]
 11th century: Early versions of the Bessemer process are developed in East Asia
 11th century: Endless power-transmitting chain drive by Su Song for the development an
astronomical clock (the Cosmic Engine)[177]
 1088: Movable type in Song Dynasty China: The first record of a movable type system is in
the Dream Pool Essays, which attributes the invention of the movable type to Bi
Sheng.[178][179][180][181]
12th century[edit]
 1119: Mariner's compass (wet compass) in Song Dynasty China: The earliest recorded use of
magnetized needle for navigational purposes at sea is found in Zhu Yu's book Pingzhou Table
Talks of 1119 (written from 1111 to 1117).[180][182][183][184][185][186][187] The typical Chinese navigational
compass was in the form of a magnetic needle floating in a bowl of water.[188] The familiar
 mariner's dry compass which uses a pivoting needle suspended above a compass-card in a
glass box is invented in Medieval Europe and the Islamic World no later than 1300.[189][190]
13th century[edit]
 1206: The camshaft, a shaft to which cams are attached, first described by Ismail al-Jazari
 13th century: Rocket for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century
China.[191]
 13th century: The earliest form of mechanical escapement, the verge escapement in Europe.[192]
 1275: Torpedo Concept by Hasan al-Rammah.[193]
 1277: Land mine in Song Dynasty China: Textual evidence suggests that the first use of a land
mine in history is by a Song Dynasty brigadier general known as Lou Qianxia, who uses an
'enormous bomb' (huo pao) to kill Mongol soldiers invading Guangxi in 1277.[194]
 1286: Eyeglasses in Italy[195]
 13th century: Explosive bomb in Jin dynasty Manchuria: Explosive bombs are used in 1221 by
the Jin dynasty against a Song Dynasty city.[196] The first accounts of bombs made of cast iron
shells packed with explosive gunpowder are documented in the 13th century in China and are
called "thunder-crash bombs",[197] coined during a Jin dynasty naval battle in 1231.[198]
 13th century: Hand cannon in Yuan Dynasty China: The earliest hand cannon dates to the 13th
century based on archaeological evidence from a Heilongjiang excavation. There is also written
evidence in the Yuanshi (1370) on Li Tang, an ethnic Jurchen commander under the Yuan
Dynasty who in 1288 suppresses the rebellion of the Christian prince Nayan with his "gun-
soldiers" or chongzu, this being the earliest known event where this phrase is used.[199]
14th century[edit]
 Early to Mid 1300s: Multistage rocket in Ming Dynasty China described in Huolongjing by Jiao
Yu.
 By at least 1326: Cannon in Ming Dynasty China[200]
 1378: Naval artillery in Korea[201]
 14th century: Jacob's staff invented by Levi ben Gerson
 14th century: Naval mine in Ming Dynasty China: Mentioned in the Huolongjing military
manuscript written by Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Bowen (1311–1375),
describing naval mines used at sea or on rivers and lakes, made of wrought iron and enclosed in
an ox bladder. A later model is documented in Song Yingxing's encyclopedia written in 1637.[202]

Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that
has a property of electric charge. In early days, electricity was considered as being unrelated
to magnetism. Later on, many experimental results and the development of Maxwell's
equations indicated that both electricity and magnetism are from a single
phenomenon: electromagnetism. Various common phenomena are related to electricity,
including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others.
The presence of an electric charge, which can be either positive or negative, produces an electric
field. The movement of electric charges is an electric current and produces a magnetic field.
When a charge is placed in a location with a non-zero electric field, a force will act on it. The
magnitude of this force is given by Coulomb's law. Thus, if that charge were to move, the electric
field would be doing work on the electric charge. Thus we can speak of electric potential at a certain
point in space, which is equal to the work done by an external agent in carrying a unit of positive
charge from an arbitrarily chosen reference point to that point without any acceleration and is
typically measured in volts.
Electricity is at the heart of many modern technologies, being used for:

 electric power where electric current is used to energise equipment;

 electronics which deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such
as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive
interconnection technologies.
Electrical phenomena have been studied since antiquity, though progress in theoretical
understanding remained slow until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even then, practical
applications for electricity were few, and it would not be until the late nineteenth century
that electrical engineers were able to put it to industrial and residential use. The rapid expansion in
electrical technology at this time transformed industry and society, becoming a driving force for
the Second Industrial Revolution. Electricity's extraordinary versatility means it can be put to an
almost limitless set of applications which include transport, heating, lighting, communications,
and computation. Electrical power is now the backbone of modern industrial society.[1]

History
Thales, the earliest known researcher into electricity

Main articles: History of electromagnetic theory and History of electrical engineering

See also: Etymology of electricity
Long before any knowledge of electricity existed, people were aware of shocks from electric
fish. Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of
the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish. Electric fish were again reported
millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians.[2] Several ancient
writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, attested to the numbing effect of electric
shocks delivered by electric catfish and electric rays, and knew that such shocks could travel along
conducting objects.[3] Patients suffering from ailments such as gout or headache were directed to
touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them.[4] Possibly the earliest and
nearest approach to the discovery of the identity of lightning, and electricity from any other source, is
to be attributed to the Arabs, who before the 15th century had the Arabicword for lightning ra‘ad (‫)رعد‬
applied to the electric ray.[5]
Ancient cultures around the Mediterranean knew that certain objects, such as rods of amber, could
be rubbed with cat's fur to attract light objects like feathers. Thales of Miletus made a series of
observations on static electricity around 600 BCE, from which he believed that friction rendered
amber magnetic, in contrast to minerals such as magnetite, which needed no rubbing.[6][7][8][9] Thales
was incorrect in believing the attraction was due to a magnetic effect, but later science would prove
a link between magnetism and electricity. According to a controversial theory, the Parthians may
have had knowledge of electroplating, based on the 1936 discovery of the Baghdad Battery, which
resembles a galvanic cell, though it is uncertain whether the artifact was electrical in nature.[10]
Benjamin Franklinconducted extensive research on electricity in the 18th century, as documented by Joseph
Priestley (1767) History and Present Status of Electricity, with whom Franklin carried on extended
correspondence.

Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia until 1600, when the
English scientist William Gilbert wrote De Magnete, in which he made a careful study of electricity
and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing
amber.[6] He coined the New Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber", from
ἤλεκτρον, elektron, the Greekword for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects
after being rubbed.[11] This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity",
which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.[12]
Further work was conducted in the 17th and early 18th centuries by Otto von Guericke, Robert
Boyle, Stephen Gray and C. F. du Fay.[13] Later in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin conducted
extensive research in electricity, selling his possessions to fund his work. In June 1752 he is reputed
to have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite in a storm-
threatened sky.[14] A succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of his hand showed
that lightning was indeed electrical in nature.[15] He also explained the apparently paradoxical
behavior[16] of the Leyden jar as a device for storing large amounts of electrical charge in terms of
electricity consisting of both positive and negative charges.[13]

Michael Faraday's discoveries formed the foundation of electric motor technology

In 1791, Luigi Galvani published his discovery of bioelectromagnetics, demonstrating that electricity
was the medium by which neurons passed signals to the muscles.[17][18][13] Alessandro Volta's battery,
or voltaic pile, of 1800, made from alternating layers of zinc and copper, provided scientists with a
more reliable source of electrical energy than the electrostatic machines previously used.[17][18] The
recognition of electromagnetism, the unity of electric and magnetic phenomena, is due to Hans
Christian Ørsted and André-Marie Ampère in 1819–1820. Michael Faraday invented the electric
motor in 1821, and Georg Ohm mathematically analysed the electrical circuit in 1827.[18] Electricity
and magnetism (and light) were definitively linked by James Clerk Maxwell, in particular in his "On
Physical Lines of Force" in 1861 and 1862.[19]
While the early 19th century had seen rapid progress in electrical science, the late 19th century
would see the greatest progress in electrical engineering. Through such people as Alexander
Graham Bell, Ottó Bláthy, Thomas Edison, Galileo Ferraris, Oliver Heaviside, Ányos Jedlik, William
Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Charles Algernon Parsons, Werner von Siemens, Joseph
Swan, Reginald Fessenden, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, electricity turned from a
scientific curiosity into an essential tool for modern life.
In 1887, Heinrich Hertz[20]:843–44[21] discovered that electrodes illuminated with ultraviolet light
create electric sparks more easily. In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper that explained
experimental data from the photoelectric effect as being the result of light energy being carried in
discrete quantized packets, energising electrons. This discovery led to the quantum revolution.
Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for "his discovery of the law of the
photoelectric effect".[22] The photoelectric effect is also employed in photocells such as can be found
in solar panels and this is frequently used to make electricity commercially.
The first solid-state device was the "cat's-whisker detector" first used in the 1900s in radio receivers.
A whisker-like wire is placed lightly in contact with a solid crystal (such as a germanium crystal) to
detect a radio signal by the contact junction effect.[23] In a solid-state component, the current is
confined to solid elements and compounds engineered specifically to switch and amplify it. Current
flow can be understood in two forms: as negatively charged electrons, and as positively charged
electron deficiencies called holes. These charges and holes are understood in terms of quantum
physics. The building material is most often a crystalline semiconductor.[24][25]
The solid-state device came into its own with the invention of the transistor in 1947. Common solid-
state devices include transistors, microprocessor chips, and RAM. A specialized type of RAM
called flash RAM is used in USB flash drives and more recently, solid-state drives to replace
mechanically rotating magnetic disc hard disk drives. Solid state devices became prevalent in the
1950s and the 1960s, during the transition from vacuum tubes to
semiconductor diodes, transistors, integrated circuit (IC) and the light-emitting diode (LED).
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. The invention process is
a process within an overall engineering and product development process. It may be an
improvement upon a machine or product or a new process for creating an object or a result. An
invention that achieves a completely unique function or result may be a radical breakthrough. Such
works are novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field. An inventor may be taking a big
step in success or failure.
Some inventions can be patented. A patent legally protects the intellectual property rights of the
inventor and legally recognizes that a claimed invention is actually an invention. The rules and
requirements for patenting an invention vary from country to country and the process of obtaining a
patent is often expensive.
Another meaning of invention is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social
behaviours adopted by people and passed on to others.[1] The Institute for Social Inventions collected
many such ideas in magazines and books.[2] Invention is also an important component of artistic and
design creativity. Inventions often extend the boundaries of human knowledge, experience or
capability.

hree areas of invention

Inventions are of three kinds: scientific-technological (including medicine), sociopolitical (including
economics and law), and humanistic, or cultural.
Scientific-technological inventions include railroads, aviation, vaccination, hybridization, antibiotics,
astronautics, holography, the atomic bomb, computing, the Internet, and the smartphone.
Sociopolitical inventions comprise new laws, institutions, and procedures that change modes of
social behavior and establish new forms of human interaction and organization. Examples include
the British Parliament, the US Constitution, the Manchester (UK) General Union of Trades, the Boy
Scouts, the Red Cross, the Olympic Games, the United Nations, the European Union, and
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as movements such
as socialism, Zionism, suffragism, feminism, and animal-rights veganism.
Humanistic inventions encompass culture in its entirety and are as transformative and important as
any in the sciences, although people tend to take them for granted. In the domain of linguistics, for
example, many alphabets have been inventions, as are all neologisms(Shakespeare invented about
1,700 words). Literary inventions include the epic, tragedy, comedy, the novel, the sonnet,
the Renaissance, neoclassicism, Romanticism, Symbolism, Aestheticism, Socialist
Realism, Surrealism, postmodernism, and (according to Freud) psychoanalysis. Among the
inventions of artists and musicians are oil painting, printmaking, photography, cinema, musical
tonality, atonality, jazz, rock, opera, and the symphony orchestra. Philosophers have invented logic
(several times), dialectics, idealism,
materialism, utopia, anarchism, semiotics, phenomenology, behaviorism, positivism, pragmatism,
and deconstruction. Religious thinkers are responsible for such inventions
as monotheism, pantheism, Methodism, Mormonism, iconoclasm, puritanism, deism, secularism,
ecumenism, and Baha’i. Some of these disciplines, genres, and trends may seem to have existed
eternally or to have emerged spontaneously of their own accord, but most of them have had
inventors. [3]

Process of invention
Practical means of invention

Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as one of the most influential inventors of
all time.

Idea for an Invention may be developed on paper or on a computer, by writing or drawing, by trial
and error, by making models, by experimenting, by testing and/or by making the invention in its
whole form. Brainstorming also can spark new ideas for an invention. Collaborative creative
processes are frequently used by engineers, designers, architects and scientists. Co-inventors are
frequently named on patents.
In addition, many inventors keep records of their working process - notebooks, photos, etc.,
including Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Evangelista Torricelli, Thomas Jefferson and Albert
Einstein.[4][5][6][7]
In the process of developing an invention, the initial idea may change. The invention may become
simpler, more practical, it may expand, or it may even morph into something totally different.
Working on one invention can lead to others too.[8]
History shows that turning the concept of an invention into a working device is not always swift or
direct. Inventions may also become more useful after time passes and other changes occur. For
example, the parachute became more useful once powered flight was a reality.[9]