GWR 2024 Look Inside - Flipbook - Page 14
Pendulum clock
Dutch scientist Christiaan
Huygens conceived of a fully
operational clock regulated
by the action of a pendulum in
late 1656. The following year,
clockmaker Salomon Coster
refined the idea into a working
concept that was accurate to
within a minute per day, and
additional refinements soon
reduced this to around 10 sec.
By the end of the century,
pendulum clocks were keeping
time to within 0.5 sec per day –
making them accurate enough to
warrant the introduction of the
first‑ever second hand.
Rockets
Ti lao shu, or “ground rats”, were
simple rockets created in late12th‑century China, comprising a
hollowed‑out bamboo stem filled
with gunpowder. They could
be attached to arrows or simply
ignited and set off as fireworks,
bouncing over the ground and
generating lots of noise, flames
and smoke.
Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire, UK,
houses a faceless mechanical clock
dating to c. 1386. Its chimes were
designed to remind parishioners of
church services. After some 498 years,
and more than 500 million ticks, it
was replaced and put aside. But in
1929 it was rediscovered, and in 1956
it was restored to full working order.
Oldest
clock
The Electronic Numerical Integrator
and Computer (ENIAC) at the
University of Pennsylvania, USA,
made its first calculations on
10 Dec 1945. Technicians rewired
the connections between its many
modules to create a “path” for data.
ENIAC would then automatically run
through the sequence (or program)
that had been laid out.
FIRST PROGRAMMABLE ELECTRONIC COMPUTER
Paper money
In the Song Dynasty (960–1279),
Chinese merchants used
banknotes – with secret cyphers to
foil counterfeiters – as currency.
Musical instrument
Around 50,000 years ago, humans
and Neanderthals started boring
holes in bones to make simple
flutes. These were able to play
a sequence of notes similar to a
pentatonic scale. One such flute,
made from the femur of a cave
bear, was found at the Divje Babe
cave in Slovenia in 1995.
First...
Stone tools
Our capacity for invention is a
key feature that distinguishes
humans from other animals. The
earliest evidence for this ingenuity
dates back 3.3 million years,
when our hominid ancestors first
shaped rocks into sharpened
axes. A range of stone flakes,
cores and anvils from this period
were discovered in 2011 near
Lake Turkana in Kenya.
ENIAC’s components were fitted into 40 panels,
each 8 ft (2.4 m) tall. It took up three walls of
a 1,500-sq-ft (139-m 2) room and needed its own
air-conditioning system to prevent overheating.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
IN
STOCK
NOW!
On 3 Apr 1973, Motorola engineer
Martin Cooper (USA) phoned
his rival, Joel Engel of Bell
Labs, while standing in the
street in New York City. This
historic call took place just
over 97 years after the first
telephone call was made
by Alexander Graham Bell
(UK) in Mar 1876. Cooper’s
phone was the prototype
for what would become
the first commercially
available mobile phone,
the Motorola DynaTAC
(pictured), which was
eventually released in
Mar 1983.
First mobile
phone call
A CATALOGUE OF ENGINEERING MARVELS FOR YOUR EDIFICATION
Experimental TV broadcasts were first made in
the 1920s, but the television age as we know it
debuted on 2 Nov 1936 in London, UK. At 3 p.m.,
the BBC began the transmission of its very first
scheduled TV programme. Early adopters tuned
in to see Adele Dixon herald the new era by
singing the aptly titled “Magic Rays of Light”.
FIRST REGULAR
TELEVISION
BROADCASTS
INCREDIBLE INVENTIONS