HISTORY72 - Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World

Introduction

Picking the top 10 inventions that changed the world is, of course, a very argumentative subject.   I thought it would be fun to try, and then challenge you to come up with your own list and rationale. 

 

First off, I eliminated some obvious choices, like the wheel and fire, because these “inventions” cannot be associated with a particular individual or group of persons.  The same for inventions such as tools, the calendar, the clock, nails/screws, the compass, electricity, etc.

Even with this “known-inventor ground rule,” I found it impossible to choose a top 10 specific inventions.  So, I cheated.  You will note that one of my top 10 is really a group of related inventions.  Many of the others have intimately-related predecessor and successor inventions, in effect therefore, representing a class of inventions.  (No specifics here; I’ll leave it to you to figure out what I’m talking about.)  Finally, I decided that I couldn’t ignore an entire critical science, so I added it at the end as an 11^th “invention.” 

For each of my top inventions, I will summarize the history, identify appropriate predecessor and successor inventions, state my rationale for including the invention on my list, and perhaps relate my personal experiences with the invention.

I will list my principal sources at the end.

So here are my top inventions in approximate historical order:

1.       Printing Press

Printing (graphic communication by multiplied impressions) has a long history.

In 3000 BC and earlier, the Mesopotamians used round cylinder seals for rolling an impress of images onto clay tablets.  In other early societies in China and Egypt, small stamps were used to print on cloth.

In the second century AD, a Chinese court official named Ts’ai Lun is credited with inventing paper.

Woodblock printing in China dates back to the 9^th century.  Woodcut is a relief printing technique in which text and images are carved into the surface of a block of wood. The printing parts remain level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with a knife or chisel. The woodblock is then inked and the substrate pressed against the woodblock.

In the 11^th century, a Chinese man named Pi-Sheng developed type characters from hardened clay, creating the first movable type.  The fairly soft material hampered the success of this technology.

In the 13^th century, type characters cast from metal (bronze) were developed in China, Japan and Korea. The oldest known book printed using metal type dates back to the year 1377.  It is a Korean Buddhist document, called Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters.

The oldest known European woodblock printing specimen dates from the beginning of the 15^th century.  Books were still rare since they needed to be laboriously handcopied by scribes. The University of Cambridge had one of the largest libraries in Europe – constituting just 122 books.

German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press around 1436.  Gutenberg’s machine improved on the already existing presses and introduced them to the West.  His newly devised hand mold made possible the precise and rapid creation of small metal movable type pieces with raised backwards letters, in large quantities, arranged in a frame, and coated with ink, that could be pressed to a piece of paper.  This allowed books to be printed more quickly.  The first book to be mass produced was the “Gutenberg Bible” in 1455, when 180 copies were printed.

By 1500, Gutenberg presses were operating throughout Western Europe, with a production of 20 million materials, from individual pages to pamphlets and books.

Drawing of the Gutenberg printing press.

 

In the 19^th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale.

The printing press not only allowed the mass production of newspapers and pamphlets, but it also lowered the price of printed materials, making books and newspapers accessible to many, and fostering literacy around the world.  The printing press is therefore part of the foundation upon which modern civilization was built.

Since Gutenberg, there have been many improvements in printing.

The Rotary Press, invented by Richard March in 1843, was the natural successor of the Gutenberg Printing Press. It worked by curving the images to be printed around cylinders. This allowed for paper to be continuously fed through the press and was a lot faster.

Offset printing was invented in 1875, and works by transferring (or “offsetting) the inked image from a plate to a rubber blanket, and then to the printing surface.  Offset Printing remains almost unchanged today and is the most popular way of printing large runs of books, magazines, posters and other large format prints.

Since the 1950s, printing can be accomplished in the comfort of your own home.  Inkjet Printing was invented in 1951 and requires no direct contact with paper.  Ink is applied by spraying it through jets.

In 1969, Laser Printing was invented to produce high-quality images by passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively charged cylinder within the printer.  It then collects electrically charged powdered ink to transfer the image to the paper.

By the late 1980s, color printers were readily available to consumers.

In 1991, in the dawn of the digital age, printing got faster and more easily accessible to everyone.  Digital Printing made it possible to print straight from a digital file to any “connected” printer.

The earliest Three-Dimensional (3D printer) originated in 1981, when Dr. Hideo Kodama invented one of the first rapid prototyping machines.  3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a digital 3D model.  Material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer control, with material being added together (such as plastics, liquids or powder grains being fused), typically layer by layer.  In recent years, 3D printing has developed significantly and can now perform crucial roles in many applications, with the most common applications being medical and industrial applications, and the construction of common household items.

Since reading is my primary avocation, I really appreciate the invention of the original printing press and its improvements. 

2.       Telescope

Inspired by early Dutch efforts, in 1609, Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo became the first person to point a telescope skyward. 

Galileo made his first optical telescope by using a convex objective lens in one end of a leaden tube and a concave eyepiece lens in the other end, an arrangement that came to be called a Galilean telescope. Although that telescope was small and the images fuzzy, Galileo was able to make out mountains and craters on the moon, as well as a ribbon of diffuse light arching across the sky - which would later be identified as our Milky Way galaxy. 

Galileo demonstrating his telescope in 1609.

  

After Galileo, astronomy flourished as a result of larger and more complex telescopes.  With advancing technology, astronomers observed the planets and moons in our solar system and discovered many faint stars, enabling the calculation of stellar distances.

In the 19^th century, using a new instrument called a spectroscope, astronomers gathered information about the chemical composition and motions of celestial objects.

Twentieth century astronomers developed bigger and bigger telescopes and, later, specialized instruments (to observe infrared, ultra-violet, x-ray, and gamma ray radiation) that could peer into the distant reaches of space and time.

Today’s and future telescopes are designed to explore the solar system, measure the age and size of the universe, search for our cosmic roots, chart the evolution of the universe, and unlock the mysteries of galaxies, stars, planets, and life itself.

We live in exciting astronomical times.  It seems that the recently-launched James Webb Space Telescope is making new discoveries every day about our universe, and our place in it!

3.       Telephone

In 1837, American inventor Samuel Morse invented a single-wire telegraph system based on earlier European telegraphs.  Morse’s telegraph, with the depression of a key at the transmission end of the wire, sent a series of “dots” and “dashes” to the receiving end of the wire, where the message need be decoded, using Morse code that Morse and his assistant co-invented.  Morse helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy that revolutionized long-distance communication.

Although a highly successful system, the telegraph was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time.

During the 1870s, American inventor Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone while attempting to improve the telegraph.  His goal was to create a device that could transmit the human voice along electrical cables, and to transmit multiple messages over the same wire at the same time.  The possibilities of being able to talk down an electrical wire far outweighed those of a modified telegraph system, which was essentially based on just dots and dashes.

“Mr. Watson, come here, I want you,” were the immortal first words ever spoken on a telephone.  Alexander Graham Bell said them on March 10, 1876, to his assistant Thomas Watson.  This moment would change communications forever.

On October 9, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell conducted a two-way test of his telephone over a two-mile distance between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

Bell’s telephone quickly improved with the development of telephone networks, exchanges and rotary dialing, pay phones, long distance, party lines, touch-tone phones, cordless phones, digital phones, and mobile phones.  With the arrival of the mobile phone in the 1980s, personal communications were no longer shackled to cables.

Telephone development continued with cell phones, and today’s smart phones and even smart watches.  The clever invention of the cellular network supported the revolution of the telephone industry.  From bulky mobile phones to ultrathin handsets, mobile phones have come a long way.  John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola demonstrated the first handheld device in 1973, starting a technological revolution we still live in today.

The smart cell phone has changed and developed so rapidly in the past decades that it seems as though almost anything you can imagine is possible for the future. The convergence of all our tech gadgets into one mobile device will continue to advance.  Experts believe that the majority of the hardware and the software can be moved to “the cloud” and the product will mainly be comprised of the input and the display.

Telephone cellular networks were first proposed and described by my Uncle Douglas Ring in 1947 at Bell Labs.  It would be decades before technology developments made his dream come true.

4.       Camera

The forerunner of the photographic camera was the camera obscura, a natural optical phenomenon that occurs when an image of a scene on the front side of a screen (or for instance a wall) is projected through a small hole in that screen and forms an inverted image (left to right and upside down) on a surface behind the screen, opposite to the opening.  Although it is unclear who first used the camera obscura, the oldest known written recordings of this idea are by Han Chinese scholar Mozi (c. 470 to c. 391 BC).  This phenomenon was used to view solar eclipses without harming one’s eyes and, later, to make drawings from the inverted image.

Historians generally accept that the first photographic camera was developed in 1816 by Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who leveraged discoveries from the late Middle Ages that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light.  Niépce created photographic images on silver chloride-lined paper; the oldest extant photograph is one he made around 1826.  

Over the years, cameras gradually improved with silver-based processes (Daguerreotypes), photographic plates covered with light-sensitive chemicals, box cameras with paper film (followed by celluloid) that was exposed and then sent out for development, folding cameras, instant-image cameras (such as the Polaroid Land Camera) and reflex cameras with mirrors (permitting photographers to view the image that will be seen through the lens, and therefore to see exactly what will be captured).

The first Kodak camera designed for the public hit the market in 1888.

  

Camera manufacturers gradually added improvements for basic image control, including capability to set the camera aperture, shutter speed, and exposure time, and also offered interchangeable lenses and other accessories.

The first digital camera was introduced in 1999, revolutionizing photography, with images saved on memory cards rather than using film.

In 2004, mirrorless cameras were introduced, where light flows directly through the lens to the digital sensor, which displays the image on the camera’s LCD screen, allowing the photographer to alter adjustments and preview the image before shooting.

Today, every smartphone has at least one built-in camera that can take photos and videos.

Photography has been an important part of Ring-family life for over a century.  In 1905, my Grandfather Ambrose Ring took photos of his mining exploits in southern Arizona.  In the 1990s, my brother Al Ring and I (re)discovered these old prints, started exploring where the images were taken, and began research about the mining history of the region.  Our research culminated in the publication of the book, Ruby Arizona - Mining, Mayhem, and Murder, in 2005.  This set us off on a (post-retirement) career of Arizona historical research and writings that included newspaper columns, additional books, and a dedicated website (ringbrothershistory.com).  Pat and I continue the Ring-family photography tradition today by recording family events, travels, and exploring creativity in making interesting pictures. 

5.       Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Ok, you found it; this is the “invention” that’s really a group of related inventions.  I’m borrowing the name of a 1987 movie, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” to cover a group of “transportation” vehicles invented in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  Before these inventions, land travelers were limited to walking, horseback, or animal-pulled wagons or carriages.  Let’s go in historical order:

Left to right:  Steam locomotive of the late 1800s, Henry Ford’s 1908 Model T, Wright Brothers first powered flight.

 

Trains.  British engineer Richard Trevithick built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive in the United Kingdom in 1804.  It used high-pressure steam to drive the engine.  The commercial appearance of train networks came in the 1820s and the age of railways began.  By 1827, railways began to crisscross the United States, starting between Baltimore and Virginia.  The first American transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869.  Diesel powered locomotives were used in Sweden starting in 1913, followed by the U.S. in 1925.  The first bullet train was introduced in Japan in 1964.

Automobiles.  Automobiles were in the works since 1769, when Nicolas-Joseph Cugno developed the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation.  More than a century later, in 1872, American George Brayton invented the first commercial liquid-fueled internal combustion engine.  In 1886, German automobile engineer Karl Benz began the first commercial production of practical motor vehicles with an internal combustion gasoline engine.

However, automobiles did not come into common use until the early 20^th century, when American Henry Ford produced an automobile that most people could afford.  Popularized by Ford's Model T in 1908, the automobile gave the average person more mobility and personal freedom while also spawning a revolution in the market place.  Goods could now be transported much more easily as well quickly, the seeds of the traveling industry were planted, people could move out of the city, live in the suburbs, and even take driving vacations - all of this thanks to the automobile.  

Airplanes.  Flying has long been the dream of humans.  The first kites were flown in China in 1000 BC.  Leonardo da Vinci made many drawings of wings and flying machines in the late 1400s.  In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, there were many experiments with balloons and gliders, and in the late 19^th century, the first attempts at powered flight.

On December 17, 1903, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight with a propeller-driven wooden airplane.  The duo's success laid the foundation for modern aeronautical engineering by demonstrating what was possible.

Some key milestones:  In 1917, the first metal airplane was produced.  Charles Lindberg completed the first solo trans-Atlantic flight in 1927.  Aircraft began carrying passengers in 1933.  The first jet-powered airplane flew in 1937.  In 1947, Charles Yeager piloted the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound.  In 1970, the Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight.

Today airplanes carry passengers thousands of miles world-wide in a matter of hours.

With these transportation inventions, people are able to travel to places they've never been and trade goods easier than ever.  And these technologies are still widely used today and ever-expanding, despite concerns about climate change.

I’m sure that virtually everyone has made (and continues to make) generous use of these transportation inventions.

6.       Rockets

Rockets, fueled by gunpower, were first used as weapons in China in the 11^th century.  By the late 18^th and early 19^th century, gunpowder rockets were in common use as short-range weapons in India and Great Britain.

In 1903, Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky began a series of papers discussing the use of rocketry to reach outer space, space suits, and colonization of the Solar System.  Two key points discussed in his works are liquid fuels and staging of rockets.  In 1926 American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor Robert Goddard built and launched the first liquid fueled rocket. This is considered by some to be the start of the Space Age.

Robert Goddard about to launch the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926.

 

Late in World War II, Nazi Germany attacked London with 200-mile-range V-2 missiles.  After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union created their own missile programs.

In the latter half of the 20^th century, rockets were developed that were powerful enough to overcome the force of gravity to reach orbital velocities, paving the way for space exploration to become a reality.

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviets launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, into space.  Four years later on April 12, 1961, Russian Lt. Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth in Vostok 1.

The first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, went into orbit in 1958.  In 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to fly into space.  In 1962, John Glenn’s historic flight made him the first American to orbit Earth.

On July 20, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first human to step onto the Moon, carried there by the Saturn 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle.  Six Apollo missions were made to explore the Moon between 1969 and 1972.

By the early 1970s, orbiting communications and navigation satellites were in everyday use, and the Mariner spacecraft was orbiting and mapping the surface of Mars.  By the end of the decade, the Voyager spacecraft had sent back detailed images of Jupiter and Saturn, their rings, and their moons.

Skylab, America’s first space station, was a human-spaceflight highlight of the 1970s, as was the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the world’s first internationally crewed (American and Russian) space mission.

In the 1980s, satellite communications expanded to carry television programs, and people were able to pick up the satellite signals on their home dish antennas.  Satellites discovered an ozone hole over Antarctica, pinpointed forest fires, and gave us photographs of the nuclear power plant disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.  Astronomical satellites found new stars and gave us a new view of the center of our galaxy.

For 30 years (1981-2011), America’s reusable Space Shuttle carried people into orbit; launched, recovered, and repaired satellites; conducted cutting-edge research; and helped build the International Space Station, which has been continuously occupied since 2000.

Space systems continue to become more and more integral to homeland defense, weather surveillance, communication, navigation, imaging, and remote sensing for chemicals, fires, and other disasters.

Today’s space launch systems have been designed to reduce costs and improve dependability, safety, and reliability.  Most U.S. military and scientific satellites are launched into orbit by a family of expendable launch vehicles designed for a variety of missions.  Other nations have their own launch systems, and there is strong competition in the commercial launch market to develop the next generation of launch systems.

NASA's developing Space Launch System (SLS) will carry humans beyond the grasp of Earth's gravity, stretching to the moon, Mars (planned for the 2030s), and perhaps, one day, deep space.  The first SLS launch was the uncrewed Artemis 1, which took place on 16 November 2022.

Meanwhile, private U.S. companies, like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin, are actively developing space launch systems for near-earth orbital missions.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has recently commissioned three private companies, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, to develop nuclear fission thermal rockets for use in lunar orbit.

Someday, humans may travel to distant solar systems in advanced rockets propelled by ion engines, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, solar energy, or any of a number of theoretical propulsion sources.

On October 4, 1957, while visiting the University of Michigan as a prospective college to attend, I heard a radio broadcast about the Soviet successful launch of the first artificial Earth satellite.  Already pointed towards engineering, that launch and the beginning to the “space race,” focused my interest on aerospace engineering, working towards degrees at Purdue University and the University of Michigan, and spending 35 years in the aerospace industry, where I worked on both civilian and military applications of rockets, including being invited by NASA to attend the Apollo-Soyuz mission launch from Kennedy Space Center in 1975.

7.       Television

Radio, forerunner of television, was invented in conjunction with many different scientists including Nikola Tesla (who demonstrated a wireless radio in 1893) and Guglielmo Marconi.  Radio became the most used form of communications in the world, and in the early 20^th century served as a social bonding tool, a place of news, an education tool, and for emergency broadcasts - in short, providing an entirely new way for people to communicate and interact

The invention of television was also the work of many individuals.  The first demonstration of the instantaneous transmission of images was by Frenchmen Georges Rignoux and A. Fournier in Paris in 1909.  In 1911, Russian Boris Rosing and his student Vladimir Zworykin created a TV system that used a mechanical mirror-drum scanner to transmit crude images over wires to a cathode ray tube receiver.  But the system was not sensitive enough to allow moving images.

In 1925, Scottish engineer John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of televised images in motion.  Later, in 1927, he demonstrated the transmission of an image of a face in motion using telephone lines.  This is widely regarded as being the world's first public television demonstration. 

In 1927, American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth (sometimes called the father of television) invented the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system.   

Robert Goddard about to launch the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926

 

The opening of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York introduced television to a national audience, thanks to RCA and a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. NBC soon began nightly broadcasts.

As black-and-white TVs became more common in American households, the finishing touches on color TV were refined in the late 1940s.  “Meet the Press” debuted and eventually became TV’s longest-running show.

By the 1950s, television had truly entered the mainstream, with more than half of all American homes owning TV sets by 1955.  As the number of consumers expanded, new stations were created and more programs broadcast, and by the end of that decade TV had replaced radio as the main source of home entertainment in the United States.

Improvements in TV continued rapidly, including cable television (1948), video tape (1956), remote control (1956), satellite TV (1962), video recording (1976), and high-definition TV (1981).

The turn of the century saw the emergence of flat-screen TVs with high-definition pictures, replacing box TV sets.  The late 1990s and early 2000s also saw people switching from cable to satellite television.  In the 2010s, companies started testing 3D TVs, while streaming services became more popular than cable and satellite television.  TV monitors grew to amazing sizes, enhancing the viewing experience.  Smart TVs became more prevalent in American households, allowing viewers to stream music, skim through YouTube, and watch their favorite shows all on one device. 

Today, streaming services are slowly replacing cable and satellite.  And, thanks to computers and the internet (see below), we can receive TV on our computers and mobile devices.

Television was one of the first inventions to affect the lives of masses all over the world, and to this day still remains a popular way of getting information and entertainment.  Future improvements include incredible clarity advances and 3D TV.

Of all the myriad news, entertainment, and educational shows available on television these days, I watch only sports (a lot) and an occasional movie or thriller show.  Most of my connections to electronic information, education, entertainment, and meetings are via the next two inventions.

8.       Computer

In the early 19^th century, English mechanical engineer Charles Babbage conceptualized and invented (but didn’t build) the first mechanical computer.  For this work, Babbage is regarded as the “father of the computer.”  English mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace was the first to recognize that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine.   As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.

The principles of modern computer science were set out by Englishman Alan Turing in his seminal 1936 paper, “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem [decision problem].”

There are five apparent generations of digital computers.  Each generation is defined by a key technological development that changed necessarily how computers operate.

First Generation - Vacuum Tubes (1940 - 1956).  These first computers utilized vacuum tubes as circuitry and magnetic drums for memory.  As a result, they were huge, actually taking up entire rooms, generating an abundance of heat, which caused perpetual breakdowns.

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945.  There were other computers that had combinations of these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one room-sized package.

 

These first-generation digital computers relied on “machine language” (the most fundamental programming language that can be understood by computers). These computers were limited to solving one problem at a time.  Input was accomplished with punched cards and paper tape.  Output emerged on paper printers. 

Second Generation - Transistors (1956 - 1963).  Although first invented in 1947, transistors weren’t used much in computers until the end of the 1950s. Transistors were far superior to vacuum tubes, making computers smaller, more efficient, less expensive, and they used less electricity.  But they still used punched cards for inputs. 

Better programming languages were being developed (early versions of COBOL and FORTRAN).  Transistor-driven machines were the first computers to store instructions into their magnetic drum memories.  The early versions of these machines were created for the atomic energy industry.

Note:  In the 1950s and 1960s, analog computers were used to study the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic processes to model the problem being solved.  The growing superior computational speed and accuracy of digital computers made analog computers obsolete after the 1960s.  Even so, some research in analog computation is still being done; a few universities still use analog computers to teach control system theory. 

 Third Generation - Integrated Circuits (1964 - 1971).  Transistors were now being miniaturized and put on silicon chips.  This led to a huge improvement in speed and effectiveness of these machines.  These were the first computers where users interacted utilizing keyboards and monitors which interfaced with an operating system, a great improvement from the punched cards and printouts. This enabled these machines to run multiple applications at once, utilizing a central program which functioned to monitor memory.

Fourth Generation - Microprocessors (1972 - 2010).  The Intel company developed the computer chip in 1971, which located components of the computer, such as CPU, memory, input/output controls, onto a single chip.    The Intel chip contained thousands of unified circuits, enabling much smaller computers

In 1977, Apple, Inc. introduced the Apple II, one of the first successful mass-produced microprocessor personal computers. 

Fourth-generation computers used Ultra Large-Scale Integration technology, and advanced languages like C, C++, Java, and .Net.

The incremented power of these smaller computers led to linking multiple computers, establishing networks, which eventually led to the birth and rapid evolution of the Internet.  (See next invention.)  Other primary advances during this period were the Graphical user Interface, the mouse, and startling advances in laptop and hand-held device capability.

Fifth Generation - Artificial Intelligence (2010 Onwards).  Computers with artificial intelligence (see invention below) are in development.  AI-assisted computing will utilize extensive parallel processing and superconductors.  Future, computers will be revolutionized again with quantum computation, molecular, and nano technology.

I am truly an old computer geek.  While I was in college, I programmed analog computers and learned machine language for digital computers.  In my early aerospace career, I simulated aerospace systems on a room-sized digital computer, inputting trays of punched cards that I prepared myself in the FORTRAN computer language; the turn-around time to see if my simulation worked was one day (usually overnight).  I even simulated systems on a hybrid analog-digital computer.  Besides continuing to use increasingly capable digital computers at work, I began my home computer history with the early Apple computers.  Today, in retirement, I continue to update and use a personal computer, and do a lot of stuff on my iPad and smart phone.

9.       Internet and World Wide Web

The Internet is a networking infrastructure of computers, whereas the World Wide Web is a way to access information using the Internet. 

The Internet has no single “inventor."  Instead, it has evolved over time, starting in the United States in the 1950s, along with the development of computers. 

The figure below shows the timeline of Internet and World Wide Web development.

Development timeline of the Internet and World Wide Web.

 

The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s, with the creation of ARPANET, Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.  By the 1970s, the basic rules (protocols) that define Internet operations were developed by Vinton Cerf, which enabled computers to communicate with each other.  ARPANET adopted the protocols on January 1, 1983, and from there, researchers began to assemble the “network of networks” that became the modern Internet.

The father of the World Wide Web is considered to be British computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee, who in 1989, created the Web that allows information to accessed over the Internet.  (Today, documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web servers, that distribute web content, and can be accessed by web browsers like Google Chrome and Apple Safari.) 

By the end of 1990, Berners-Lee had the first web server and browser up and running at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. 

Only a few users had access to the computer platform that ran the browser, so development soon started on a more spartan browser, which could run on any system.  The first web browser was available to the public in 1993.  By the year 2000, 300 million people around the world were online.

In 2004, the social media Facebook app was launched and the Web began to grow rapidly.

In 2007, the iPhone was released, starting the mobile device revolution.

By 2022, five billion people worldwide were online!

Education, commerce, science, art, music, communication, modern media, and travel have all been shaped by the Internet in some shape or form.  The Internet has even been used as a tool to make positive and negative social, economic, and political changes that affect billions of people a day. 

Since my retirement from the aerospace industry in 2000, I have researched and written (or co-authored) seven books, about 200 newspaper columns, and 100 blog articles, including this one. (See my website at ringbrothershistory.com and blog at bobringreflections.blogspot.com)  I used the Internet and World Wide Web for the research and production of virtually all of these “products.”

10.   Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the science that allows machines and computer applications to mimic human intelligence by modeling human behavior so that it can use human-like thinking processes to solve complex problems.

From ancient times, various mathematicians, theologians, philosophers, professors, and authors mused about mechanical techniques, calculating machines, and numeral systems that eventually led to the concept of mechanized “human” thought in non-human beings.

The origins of artificial intelligence may be dated to the middle of the 20^th century, when computer scientists started to create algorithms and software that could carry out tasks that ordinarily need human intelligence, like problem-solving, pattern recognition, and judgment.

One of the earliest pioneers of AI was British mathematician Alan Turing, who proposed the concept of a machine that could simulate any human intelligence task. 

Development timeline of the Internet and World Wide Web.

 

The 1956 Dartmouth Conference gathered academics from various professions to examine the prospect of constructing robots that can “think.”  The conference officially introduced the field of (and term) artificial intelligence.  

In the 1960s and 1970s, the focus of AI research focused on developing expert systems designed to mimic the decisions made by human specialists in specific fields.  These methods were frequently employed in industries such as engineering, finance, and medicine.

In the 1980s, AI research began to focus on machine learning that employs statistical methods to let computers learn from data.  As a result, neural networks were created and modeled after the human brain’s structure and operation.

AI research made substantial strides in the 1990s in robotics, computer vision, and natural language processing.  In the early 2000s, advances in speech recognition, image recognition, and natural language processing were made possible by the advent of deep (machine) learning - that uses complex neural networks that process data in complex ways by employing sophisticated math modeling.

Today, virtual assistants, self-driving cars, medical diagnostics, and financial analysis are just a few of the modern-day uses for AI.  Another important trend in modern-day AI is the shift toward more human-like interactions, with voice assistants like Siri and Alexa leading the way.  Natural language processing has also made significant progress, enabling machines to understand and respond to human speech with increasing accuracy.  ChatGPT - a large language model trained by the company OpenAI - is an example of the “talk of the town” AI that can understand natural language and generate human-like responses to a wide range of queries and prompts.

Looking to the future, AI is likely to play an increasingly important role in solving some of the biggest challenges facing society, such as climate change, healthcare, and cybersecurity.  As AI continues to evolve, it will likely profoundly impact virtually every aspect of our lives, from how we work and communicate, to how we learn and make decisions.

However, there are concerns about AI’s ethical and social implications, particularly as the technology becomes more advanced and autonomous.  Issues that need to be resolved include potential job displacement, privacy, and weaponized AI.

Also, an original goal of AI was to achieve generalized human cognitive abilities in software so that, faced with an unfamiliar task, the AI system could find a solution.  Some researchers extend this goal to computer programs that experience sentience or consciousness.  Most AI researchers have devoted little attention to this, with some claiming that intelligence is too complex to be completely replicated.  However, a small number of computer scientists are still active in this research, with estimates of the time required to achieve success ranging widely from ten years to over a century.

Others question whether machine consciousness is even desirable.  More than a few leading AI figures subscribe to a nightmare scenario, whereby superintelligent machines take over and permanently alter human existence through enslavement or eradication.

Many experts are urging us to take the time to understand what we’re creating and how we’re going to incorporate it into society.

All of us have already probably experienced contact with artificial intelligence through virtual assistants, chat boxes, perhaps AI-assisted internet searches, and generally with the “behind the scenes” more efficient contacts in our daily lives.  So far, so good.  I’m excited about the forecasted near-term improvements.  But I also have concern about AI getting “out of our control” and urge us to really think about what we’re doing, and generate a plan that identifies the benefits and risks.

11.   Medical Firsts

All of the “Top 10” invention lists that I checked included medical inventions or firsts.  I really couldn’t argue with this, so I decided to include the entire category of “medical firsts” as my 11^th invention that changed the world.

The following table lists the medical firsts (in historical order) that I chose to be part of my 11^th world-changing invention.

My top medical firsts in historical order.

No.	Date	“Inventor”	Medical First
1	1796	Edward Jenner	Vaccines.   Beginning with Edward Jenner in 1796 using inoculations to tame the smallpox virus, the usefulness and popularity of vaccines grew very quickly. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, vaccinations were created to combat some of the world’s deadliest diseases, including smallpox, rabies, tuberculosis, and cholera. Over 200 years, one of the deadliest diseases known to man - smallpox – was wiped off the face of the earth.  Since then, virtually all vaccines have worked using the same concept - until a new technology, called mRNA, created game-changing possibilities for the future.   Its high effectiveness, capacity for rapid development, and potential for low production costs were evident during the Covid-19 pandemic when two separate mRNA vaccines were developed and approved for use in just a matter of months.
2	1846	William T.G. Morton	Anesthesia.  In the mid-19th century, surgery was undertaken only as a last resort, with some patients opting for death rather than enduring the excruciating ordeal.  William T. G. Morton made history in 1846 when he successfully used ether as an anesthetic during surgery. Soon after, a faster-acting substance called chloroform became widely used but was considered high-risk after several fatalities. Since the 1800s, safer anesthetics have been developed, allowing millions of life-saving, painless operations to take place.
3	1861	Louis Pasteur	Germ Theory.  It was widely believed that disease was caused by “spontaneous generation.”   In 1861, French microbiologist Louis Pasteur proved that infectious disease was a result of an invasion of specific microscopic organisms - known as pathogens - into living hosts. This new understanding marked a significant turning point in how diseases were treated, controlled, and prevented, helping to prevent devastating epidemics that were responsible for thousands of deaths every year, such as the plague, dysentery, and typhoid fever.
4	1895	Wilhelm Rontgen	Medical Imaging.  The X-ray, a form of electromagnetic radiation, was ‘accidentally’ invented in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Rontgen when experimenting with electrical currents through glass cathode-ray tubes. The discovery transformed medicine overnight.  Ultrasound, began being used for medical diagnosis in 1955, using high frequency sound waves to create a digital image. In 1967, the computed tomography scanner was created, which uses X-ray detectors and computers to diagnose many different types of disease, and has become a fundamental diagnostic tool in modern medicine.  In 1973, Paul Lauterbur produced the first magnetic resonance image (MRI).  MRI data creates detailed images within the body and is a crucial tool in detecting life-threatening conditions including tumors, cysts, damage to the brain and spinal cord, and some heart and liver problems.
5	1928	Alexander Fleming	Antibiotics. Alexander Fleming’s penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, completely revolutionized the war against deadly bacteria. The Scottish biologist accidentally discovered the anti-bacterial “mold” in a petri dish in 1928. However, Fleming’s incredible findings were not properly recognized until the 1940s, when they began being mass-produced by American drug companies for use in World War II. Two other scientists were responsible for the mass distribution of penicillin, Australian Howard Florey and Nazi-Germany refugee Ernst Chain - saving millions of lives. Unfortunately, over the years certain bacterium have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics, leading to a world-wide crisis that calls for the pharmaceutical industry to develop new anti-bacterial treatments.
6	1954	Joseph Murray and David Hume	Organ Transplants.  In1954, the first successful kidney transplant was carried out by Dr Joseph Murray and Dr David Hume in Boston. Despite many previous attempts in history, this was the first instance where the recipient of an organ transplant survived the operation. The turning point came when various technical issues were overcome, such as the connection between two blood vessels, placement of the kidney, and immune response. In 1963, the first lung transplant was carried out, followed by a pancreas/kidney in 1966, and liver and heart in 1967. Aside from saving thousands of lives in the years following, transplant procedures have also become increasingly innovative and complex, with doctors successfully completing the initial hand transplant in 1998, and full-face transplant in 2010
7	1960	Carl Djerassi	Birth Control.  The first known form of condom (from a goat bladder) was used in Egypt around 3000 BC.  In AD 1844, Charles Goodyear patented the vulcanization of rubber, which led to the mass production of rubber condoms.  In 1914, Margaret Sanger, a nurse and sex educator from New York state, first coined the term “Birth control.”  Carl Djerassi successfully created a progesterone pill that could block ovulation.  "The Pill" was approved for sale in 1960 and launched an international revolution that allowed women to determine when they would have children, and freed them from unplanned pregnancies, which could derail their lives.
8	1963	many	Antiviral Drugs.  Smallpox, influenza, and hepatitis have ravaged many human populations throughout history. Unlike the sweeping success of antibiotics in the late 1930s and 1940s, the development of antivirals did not really take off until the 1960s because it was difficult to use them without damaging the patient’s cells. The first antiviral was approved in 1963 for topical treatment of the herpes simplex virus.  Over the years antivirals improved significantly, and work by blocking the rapid reproduction of viral infections; some can even stimulate the immune system to attack the virus. The development of effective antivirals has been significant in treating and controlling the spread of deadly virus outbreaks such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola and rabies.   One of the most recent antivirals is used to treat COVID-19.
9	1970s	many	Stem Cell Therapy.  The incredible potential of stem cells was discovered in the late 1970s, when they were found inside human cord blood. Two specific characteristics make stem cells remarkable: they are unspecified cells that can renew themselves through cell division, even after being inactive, and under certain conditions can be used to make any type of human cell. This discovery has enormous potential and stem cell therapy has already been used to treat leukemia and other blood disorders, as well as in bone marrow transplantation. Research is currently ongoing to use stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries and a number of neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’ and strokes. However, due to the ethical issues surrounding the use of embryonic stem cells, researchers are likely to face many obstacles when developing stem cell-based therapy.
10	1970s	many	Immunotherapy.  A treatment that stimulates the immune system to fight off a disease, has been in the making for over a century. In the 1890s, William B. Coley injected inactive bacteria into cancerous tumors, achieving remission in some patients. However, it is only in the last 40 years that serious progress has been made in immunotherapy, particularly in respect to treating cancer. In the 1970s, antibody therapies were developed and in 1991, researchers produced the first cancer vaccine which was approved by the FDA in 2010. In the last decade, immuno-oncology has become one of the most revolutionary cancer therapies.
11	1990s	many	Gene Therapy.  Genes inside the human body contain DNA - the code that controls much of the body's form and function, from height to regulating body systems. Genes that don't work properly can cause disease.  Gene therapy replaces a faulty gene or adds a new gene in an attempt to cure disease or improve the body's ability to fight disease. Gene therapy holds promise for treating a wide range of diseases, such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, diabetes, hemophilia and AIDS.  Gene editing was pioneered in the 1990s. Researchers are still studying how and when to use gene therapy. Currently, in the United States, gene therapy is available only as part of a clinical trial.  There are also concerns that gene editing might be used to affect human evolution.

 

Over the years, I have been the beneficiary of several of these medical advances.  I have also lost a wife to cancer, and appreciate how much more needs to be accomplished in the medical world.

Principal Sources

My principal sources include: “35 of the most revolutionary inventions that shaped our world,” intrestingenginering.com; “A Brief History of Printing Press & Printmaking,” instantprint.co.uk; “Telescope History,” nasa.gov; “How the Telephone Was Invented,” thoughtco.com; “When Was the Camera Invented?  Everything You Need to Know,” nfi.edu; “A Brief History of Space Exploration,” aerospace.org; “Timeline of rocket and missile technology,” Wikipedia.com; “A new era of spaceflight?  Promising advances in rocket propulsion,” theconversation.com; “Who Invented Television?”, history.com; “A brief history of television, by decade,” stacker.com; “Evolution of Computers,” nettantra.com; “History of Computers,” toppr.com; “A brief history of artificial intelligence,” cointelegraph.com; “Science11 - Artificial Intelligence,” bobringreflections.blogspot.com; “The top 10 medical advances in history,” proclinical.com; plus, numerous other online sources.

 

Now it’s your turn to pick the “top 10” inventions that changed the world.