Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Inventions, A Blessing

What is meant by the word “invention”? Essentially, anything that did not exist previously, whether it is a mechanical device or art, literature, or music, is an "invention". Inventions have been around since the start of time. They ease our work and make it better. They are certainly very use-ful. No one can deny that science and modern inventions have indeed been a blessing for mankind. We should be grateful to scientists and inventors like Thomas Edison, James Watt and hundreds of other pioneers who carried out innumerable experiments with zeal and perseverance for the inventions of various gadgets and appliances that have helped mankind. New inventions will continue to come in the future as well, making our lives even more simpler than before. 


  Allah has given us a brain which is capable of doing many things, one of those things is making an invention. From new modern-day conveniences like computers,televison and cell phones to the little things that we take for granted every day like electricity, running water, automobiles, telephones and airplanes, the world has evolved into what we know today thanks to the art of invention. Inventing has been continuously occurring for centuries. An invention may be based on an earlier idea or collaboration, or may be an entirely new breakthrough alltogether.Invention is closely related to, but different than discovery. A discovery is the first recognition of something that already existed in nature. Invention is the creation of something that has never existed before. Invention is also closely related to innovation. An innovation is a change in the way something is done. An innovation may make an invention accessible to more people, thereby increasing its use. But again, the original invention already existed. The innovation is a change that is made to the invention. Necessity is the mother of invention, due to life needs and people realized that inventions minimize the effort that people put to have their works done. So, people started to invent methods to make their lives easier. When we study the great inventions of the world, we find that they are either very simple, basic things like the wheel or very complex things like the computer but even the inventions that were not successful were not all failures either. Each invention shed some light on the good intentions of the inventor and their quest to improve the quality of life. One of the first inventions was a wheel, this was made by slicing up the tree-trunks. Eventually, time past and people began to make better and advanced wheels.  Some time later, the Sumerians were the first one to invent writing and it was known as 'cuneiform'. It was written on clay tablets. The writing was done by pressing the end of a reed into wet clay. As you can imagine, it was very difficult to write at that time. Then, as time past, the Egyptains made a better paper which was called Papyrus. Papyrus was made by flattening the stem of a reed. The  dried stems were stuck together in a criss-cross pattern. Scribes wrote with reed pens and black or red ink. Similarily, Graham Bell was the first one to invent a telephone. The telephone at first was mistkaken as a toy by people because none of them had ever herd about or seen anything so advanced according to that time. The telephone was a big leap into the world of inventions. In about 290BC, coins were intriduced. At first Roman coins were made of bronze but later copper and gold were also used. The coins all over empires made trading much easier as well. These coins were invented by the Romans. In the days before modern machines for invented for example radios, cameras, telephones and television, information was frequently spread by word of mouth than it is today. In 1905 an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson invented a popsicle. He accidentally left his favorite fruit drink with a stirrer in it outside on the porch overnight. When he awoke, the drink was frozen and he found a new delicious treat.  The earlier form of clocks was a sundail. We have discussed about the earlier inventions of man, but some of the newest inventions
are yet to be discussed about. Allan Chu is 17 years old and he has just invented a way to speed up the Internet. He was tired of how slow it can be so he took matters into his own hands. He invented an algorithm which will compress data and allow information over the internet to be presented to you much more quickly. An algorithm is a step by step mathematical procedure that solves a problem especially by a computer. Allan entered a math, science and technology competition and won first place and $3,000.JOSEPH RECHENDORFER was the first person to think of putting a piece of rubber onto the top of a pencil which makes it real easy to rub out mistakes. Joseph Niepce developed the world's first photographic image in 1827. Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the film camera in 1894. But the first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a white screen. Karl Benz invented the first gas powered car. The car had only three wheels. The first car with four wheels was made in France in 1901 by Panhard et LeVassor.  The first rocket was invented by the Chinese in the 13th century. False eyelashes were invented by the American film director D.W. Griffith while he was making his 1916 epic, "Intolerance". Griffith wanted actress Seena Owen to have lashes that brushed her cheeks, to make her eyes shine larger than life. A wigmaker wove human hair through fine gauze, which was then gummed to Owen's eyelids. "Intolerance" was critically acclaimed but flopped financially, leaving Griffith with huge debts that he might have been able to settle easily - had he only thought to patent the eyelashes. Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump." The fortune cookie was invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodlemaker.


It really is hard to measure the benefits of inventions to society. Every part of modern life has resulted in some way from an invention. The very inkpen that I am conveying you this message with is also itself an invention. Think about all the tools you have used today; each one of them has been invented by someone, including the wheel. Without inventions, our society would not be the advanced society it is today, and human beings wouldn’t be the dominant species on this planet and by inventing, people have literally changed civilization forever. 1Most of us have air conditioning in our houses because of an inventor, our roads are sealed with tar because of an inventor, and every aspect of the very society we as human beings are a part of is the result of an inventor. The only aspect of our lives that is untouched by inventions is the fresh food we eat, but even that wouldn’t get to our mouths as quickly if it wasn’t for the invention of farming equipment, trucks, or supermarket shelves. This tells us how much we use inventions in our daily life. Some of the 


greatest inventors of all time, including Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Steve Jobs and the Wright brothers, all had one thing in common: they wanted to make life a little easier and more convenient for the rest of us. 


 We do not sometimes realise that inventions are a blessing and give us a lot of comfort. We have become so used to inventions that we can't imagine life without them. When we study the great inventions of the world, we find that they are either very simple, basic things like the wheel or very complex things like the computer. Some inventions were silly, some deadly serious, but even the inventions that were not successful were not all failures either. Each invention shed some light on the good intentions of the inventor and their quest to improve the quality of life.

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