Great British Inventions
An invention, according to United States patent law, is a new, useful, or improved-upon machine, art, process or composition of matter not known before or used by others. Many inventions have served as a basis upon which subsequent others were created that we use every day and which have made our lives not only easier, but safer as well. Many inventions used today were created, or influenced, by the British. Most of Britain's best inventions were in the areas of technology, which both influenced and were influenced by the Industrial Revolution.
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The Light Bulb
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It is a commonly-held misconception that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. This honor instead goes to Joseph Swan, who began working on the light bulb in 1870, finally receiving a British patent for it in 1878, a year before Edison got his patent in 1879. The light bulb allowed for longer, safer working hours than candlelight could provide, and greater productivity. The light bulb also allows us to pursue many nighttime leisure activities such as reading and the national pastime of baseball. There is a downside to electricity too, as a major source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. comes from power plants.
The Steam Engine
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Before steam power was harnessed to run machines, they were run by water or hand. The steam engine changed this process and history; it sparked the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th Centuries. The first crude steam engine was built in 1698 by Thomas Savery, improved upon by Thomas Newcomen and further improved by James Watt. It was Watt who, in 1848, turned the steam engine into the piston-and-cylinder steam engine that drove the Industrial Revolution. The steam engine meant that factories no longer had to locate near an energy source; they could move anywhere. This led not only to industrialization but to an acceleration in urbanization.
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The Train and Subway
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Both the train and subway were spin-offs of Watt's steam engine. The first steam-engine train was built by Richard Trevithick in 1804 and improved upon by George Stephenson in the late 1820s with the invention of his "Rocket," which was used in the first passenger railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Not only have railways transported millions of people and tons of materials and goods, but in the United States, they were one of the main catalysts of westward expansion. The first subway system was opened in London in 1863 and is now a mode of transportation used worldwide by tens of millions of people daily. Subways today are one of the most, if not the most, efficient ways to travel within a city.
Penicillin
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Penicillin was the world's first antibiotic. It was invented by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Antibiotics kill bacteria, and before penicillin, people with relatively simple wounds and infections could not be treated and often died. Fleming had served in the army medical corps in WWI, where he saw many soldiers die from infections. Penicillin has been used for a wide range of infections including diphtheria, scarlet fever and pneumonia. In WWI, 18 percent of American soldiers died of pneumonia, but in WWII, because of penicillin, only one percent died from it.
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References
- United States Patent and Trademark Office: Glossary
- University of Dayton: Steam Engine
- Historic UK: Britain On Track to Mark 200 Years of Steam Trains
- Rainhill Civic Society: The Rainhill Locomotive Trials of 1829
- Transport For London: History
- River Academic Journal: Alexander Fleming's Remarkable Discovery of Penicillin
Resources
- Photo Credit Bulb image by kryptajuliett from Fotolia.com
