The technology SPLATs

What are SPLATs? They are explained here.

More to come...

The technology of agriculture

• Humans have been practising agriculture for about 10,000 years after agriculture was independently invented in at least Mesopotamia, America and New Guinea.

• For all that we know, there may have been other independent inventions of agriculture in other societies, but so far, we have no evidence of this.

• The development of agriculture allowed humans to settle in one place and so have better shelter, and also own more possessions than they could carry around.

• Farmers were generally able to produce more food than they and their families needed, and this opened the way to some people being able to specialize.

• Some parts of the farming cycle left farmers with nothing to do but watch their crops grow. This gave them time to think, to observe, and perhaps even tinker.

• Farmers were able to observe the same basic situation, year by year, with slight differences that allowed them to observe cause and effect at close hand.

• One of the key changes that allowed agriculture was the development of systems of irrigation, but these required more organized societies to maintain them.

• The aqueduct was an early means of transporting water with no energy cost, using gravity to carry the water, although inverted siphons were also used at times.

• The aqueduct could work by gravity when builders could survey a suitable route, build supports and construct a waterproof channel to carry water without leaks.

• The qanat of ancient Persia was an early means of transporting water with no energy cost, relying on a tunnel going upwards, beneath the water table in hills.

• Irrigation, combined with agriculture, delivered regular food surpluses allowing some people to specialize in making things that they could sell or barter.

• Irrigation and agriculture together led to a society in which some people could become full-time soldiers and rulers, while others could become scholars.

• In 1630, Johann Glauber suggested the use of saltpeter, sodium nitrate, as a fertilizer, implying a recognition of the need for nitrogen when growing plants.

• In 1645 Sir Richard Weston described crop rotation as he saw it in Flanders: the first reference in English to the habit of using different crops in one field.

• Around 1701, Jethro Tull invented the seed drill, allowing farmers to sow seed more efficiently and more economically, increasing the efficiency of large farms.

• Most crops are grown as monoculture crops, making massive outbreaks of pests easier, but offering large economies of scale. Sprays make the risk less.

• Most sprays kill more than just the pests they are aimed at. Many of the pesticides are accumulated to dangerous levels, either in the soil or the food chain.

• Many organohalogens are used as pesticides in farming, and the use of these pesticides in agriculture is driven by a consumer demand for blemish-free food.

• Overgrazing can be a problem in some situations, trading off long-term viability of a farm for short-term gain by a farmer. Economic pressures may favor this.

• In many cases, the energy output from a farm in the form of food is less than the energy input in terms of materials like fertilizer and pesticides, and fuel.

 The principles of materials science

• Materials have a measurable elasticity: metals are highly elastic and commonly have high tensile strength, which is the reason why wire cables are so strong.

• Materials can have either or both of two forms of strength: strength in compression or strength in tension. Most materials have only one of the two strengths.

• Many constructions combine two phases, one material with compressional strength, one material with tensional strength, like reinforced concrete or fibre-glass.

• Materials are usually selected to suit the purpose they are to be used for, while two-phase materials combine the advantages of two different materials.

• Structures are designed to stay up, and they do so because they distribute stress and load in a way that allows all components to be supported and held.

• Arches transfer loads and reduce stress in gap-spanning structures such as bridges, and a cantilever can be used to support a projecting structure.

• The aim of the arch is to convert tensional forces to compressional forces, as these are usually easier to manage when people are working in stone.

• Stone is a material which can withstand large forces of compression, but it can be shown to be not so strong when it is placed under tension.

• Cathedrals and mosques were early structures targeting a large floor space with no columns to block views. This led to a better understanding of engineering.

• Large structures like cathedrals, mosques and bridges achieve large spans by transferring the loads to where they can be handled by the materials used.

• Any pure material has a characteristic constant density. Density is determined by differences in packing of particles and atomic mass and radius.

• Robert Hooke proposed what we now refer to as Hooke's law in these words: The power of any Spring is in the same proportion with the Tension thereof.

• In 1744 Leonhard Euler calculated the length of a rod that will buckle under its own weight when stood on one end, indicating that materials have their limits. 

The principles of measurement science

• Old units of measurement include the grain and the line, the yard and other units which were at best poorly-defined and which varied from place to place.

• In 1832, Karl Gauss pointed out that a few fundamental units, once defined, could be used to generate many more derived units in a consistent system.

• Around the world, SI units are the standard units of science, based on the meter, kilogram, second and ampere and a variety of combinations of these units.

• Many of the things that we measure are scalar quantities, having a value but no direction component, like length, speed, but not velocity, and mass.

• Some of the things that we measure are vector quantities, having both a value and a direction aspect, like velocity (but not speed) and acceleration.

• We can use various observations taken from a distance to measure where we cannot go, so that we can measure the distance to the Sun, or its temperature.

• One of the standard units of astronomical distance is the light year, the distance that light could travel in one year at 300,000 kilometres per second.

• All measuring instruments operate within limits of accuracy, and when several different measurements are combined, the possible error is increased.

• Indirect measurements of values like the distance to the Sun or the Sun's temperature, are more open to error, because of the indirectness.

• A correlation between two measurements that seem to vary together does not indicate with any degree of certainty that one of them causes the other.

• In 1784, Charles Coulomb described the operation of the torsion pendulum, later used to measure very small electrostatic and gravitational forces.

• Before electronic surveying equipment, a chain was commonly used to measure a long baseline, from which sightings were then taken on prominent landmarks.

• Given time and patience, it is possible to use a theodolite and chain to take enough measurements of bearings and distances to map a whole continent.

• The process of mapping by chain and theodolite involved building a sequence of triangles linked together, so it was called triangulation.

• Classic major surveys were done by Mason and Dixon (America), John McDouall Stuart (Australia) and assorted French scientists in France, Lapland and Peru.

• Some of the key mapping exercises were to measure the length of a degree at different latitudes on the Earth's surface, some at the equator, some further north.

• Once the degree had been measured at different latitudes, scientists knew the true shape of our planet was not a sphere, but more like a flattened sphere.

• Very large distances on land can be measured using radar and similar signals, much more easily than the old survey method of 'chaining' the distances.

• The Fahrenheit scale was designed to avoid any temperature that was negative, since Fahrenheit felt ordinary people could not cope with negative numbers.

• Until there were reliable thermometers to use, it was not possible for scientists to recognise the important difference between heat and temperature.

• Temperature may be measured as absolute temperature on the Kelvin scale. It is possible to approach a zero temperature, but it cannot be reached. 

The principles of time measurement

• A sundial can be accurate, within limits such as fuzziness of the shadow, variations in day length, and the annual 'equation of time' which must be allowed for.

• Slow-burning candles, protected from draughts, can be used as clocks at night and on cloudy days, and have been used since the days of the Anglo-Saxons.

• The Julian calendar was used until the Gregorian calendar was adopted: the Julian calendar was well out of synchronization with the seasons by that time.

• Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock around 1655, and patented it in June 1657, introducing a new standard and opening the way to chronometers.

• Pendulum clocks use the uniform motion of a pendulum to produce an accurate timekeeper, although the rate varies with small variations in gravity.

• An accurate mechanical clock needs a good escapement, a device which converts the rhythmic movement of something such as a pendulum to equal steps.

• Clocks such as pendulum clocks which can be affected by expansion in warm weather often have Invar parts, or other compensation systems to allow for expansion.

• Water clocks can be calibrated: the earliest form of water clock was the klepsydra of the ancient Greeks, but many cultures have used water clocks.

• An effective water clock was used in Indonesia, in the 19th century, made by sitting a half of a coconut shell with a small hole in it, in a bucket of water.

• The Julian date is a day-numbering system used in astronomy, and it is entirely unrelated to the Julian calendar. It counts days from January 1, 4713 BC.

• Time around the world is based on Greenwich Mean Time, and time zones are defined by their time relative to that time zone, usually in one-hour jumps.

• Accurate time zones and consistent times within zones were not essential until the world began to be linked by railways and telegraphs and needed standards.

• Occasional leap seconds are used to align planetary time with clock time, as these are not always precisely the same. These are applied when they are needed.

• The solar day differs from lunar and sidereal days which are defined by the time taken for the Sun, the Moon and a star to reach the same position again.

• Our understanding of the Earth's history comes from the science of geological dating, which has allowed us to place geological events in a rough order.

• Tree growth rings are useful for measuring time over a few hundred to a few thousand years, relying on patterns of thickness that reflect good and bad seasons.

• Most living things have internal 'clocks' that operate on a cycle of approximately 24 hours, and kept in alignment with real days by exposure to light.

• Humans suffer 'jet lag' when they travel too far east or west, if the extent of the travel is too great for the internal clock to realign itself immediately.

• Jet lag shows up in human beings as wakefulness in the night and sleepiness in the daylight hours that correspond with night time at the point of origin.

• Studies of the Earth have led to a consistent geological time scale that reflects a wide variety of measures from many different branches of science. 

The principles of navigation

• Navigation is the art of knowing where you are on the surface of the globe. It is an ancient art that has largely been replaced with technology in recent times.

• As late as the 20th century, celestial navigation relied on the observer being able to see the sun, the moon, or stars at exactly the right time.

• Latitude can be measured by taking sightings on the sun or stars, although it is mostly done today by GPS hardware that relies on the locations of satellites.

• Simple interference in the form of fog, cloud, mist, or being busy when deciding was to be taken, could cause a 24-hour delay in getting an accurate position.

• Longitude can be measured best with a good chronometer, so you can relate your present position to the reference position from which longitudes are measured.

• Longitude may also be measured by careful observation of the moon and using tables, but this is an unreliable method, especially when a ship is moving.

• In 1735, John Harrison built his first marine chronometer (Number One), designed to win the award of the British Board of Longitude for an accurate time keeper.

• In 1759 John Harrison completed his fourth chronometer (Number Four), which would eventually gain him the Board of Longitude's prize for accurate time keeping.

• In 1761 John Harrison's portable chronometer (Number Four) was successfully tested on a trip from Britain to the West Indies and back, proving itself at sea.

• The quadrant was an early navigational instrument with limited use.

• The sextant was an early navigational instrument with limited use, but it was able to give remarkably accurate results when latitude needed to be found.

• A compass is needed to make sure a boat sails in the right direction, once it is out of sight of land, although radar and GPS equipment are more reliable.

• One of the drawbacks of the old magnetic compass was that it tended to swing around when used on a small rocking boat. Oil damping fixed this.

• One of the drawbacks of the old magnetic compass was that it relied on a magnetic field that was not uniform in its direction from place to place.

• Edmond Halley experimented with the use of charts of magnetic deviation, the difference between true and magnetic north, to find longitude around the world.

• Between 1783 and 1824, the national Ordnance Survey of England, mapped all of Britain, except for the eastern part of England and north-west Scotland.

• The main role of the people we call Australian explorers was to work across Australia, surveying the series of triangles to map the continent by triangulation. 

The social effects of technology

• Technology is much older than science: once, science was derived from new technology, today, it is more likely that technology will be derived from new science.
• Alan Kay's point that the only way to predict the future is to invent it remains valid. History has too many examples of impossibles that became possible.
• Every technology that has ever been developed has been attacked by people who see it, usually irrationally, as threatening their way of life in some way.
• Every technology, having been developed, has had social effects and consequences that could never have been anticipated when it was first introduced.
• Most new technologies have been dismissed as useless and dangerous nonsense by at least one elderly and experienced scientist who knows all about the subject.
• Many pieces of useless and dangerous nonsense have been correctly attacked and dismissed for what they are by at least one elderly and experienced scientist.
• That which scientists dismiss as impossible is only so under a set of assumptions and knowledge that are always open to revision, question and change.
• A new technology typically goes through a twenty-year development phase before becoming generally adopted and maturing over the next thirty years.
• At the end of the fifty years of development and maturation that all technologies seem to need, the social effects of the new technology start to become apparent.
• Technology is neither good nor bad. In the long run, every technology improves the lives of humans, but it can exact an incredible toll upon some human beings.
• These days, there is never enough appropriate technology, using small solutions to tackle and crack small problems at a local level with simple equipment. 

Computing and information

The Antikythera mechanism was a very early mechanical computer of some sort, probably designed as a device to help predict the positions of heavenly bodies.

1645 Blaise Pascal completed his 5-digit 'Pascaline', a machine that could add. While it was fairly simple, it was still one of the first calculating machines.

In 1673 Gottfried Leibniz invented a machine, based on Blaise Pascal's, but this one could also multiply and divide. In the same year, he invented his calculus.

In a letter written to the French Academy of Sciences in 1701 Gottfried Leibniz outlined and described the binary (base 2) system used by all modern computers.

The first form of automatic control was a governor on a steam engine, which generated feedback and so maintained the engine's speed at a constant rate.

In 1930, Vannevar Bush built a partly electronic computer that was capable of solving differential equations, but this did not lead to an immediate revolution.

Information may be stored on a Hollerith card (the so-called 'IBM card') in the form of holes which may be interpreted as numeric values or strings of text.

In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft, getting their first real start when they began producing BASIC interpreters for 6502-chip machines.

In 1979, personal computers were sold in retail outlets for the first time, and the first Sony Walkman was sold, flagging two major changes in our lives.

At the very lowest level, computers are made of combinations of AND gates and OR gates. Any operation we see is the result of these being combined by software.

In principle, there is no reason why computers should use electronics: a number of workers in the past made successful mechanical and fluid logic computers.

Computer operations are often under the control of algorithms, sets of steps to be taken that will, when followed, produce the needed answer in some form.

Many computing processes rely on some form of Boolean algebra, although this is normally hidden deep within the process, where the user cannot see it.

Computers do very few simple things, but combine these well, to do complex things. Mainly, they perform ordinary addition, subtraction, comparison and sorting.

Multiplication in a computer is achieved by carrying out many separate additions until the product is reached, often with some clever shortcuts thrown in.

Division in a computer is many separate subtractions, taking the divisor away repeatedly, counting with some clever shortcuts, the steps required to reach zero.

Numbers may be expressed in different bases. We are most familiar with base-10 or decimal, although the binary, octal and hexadecimal systems are also common.

Only in one number base, base-13, is it correct to write 6x9=42, although this is probably the most insignificant splat in this entire piece of work.

The bubble sort is an example of an algorithm that may be used in computers to sort a set of data into some kind of numeric or alphabetical order.

Information is created when data are ordered and sorted in some useful way. Statistics are used best when they summarize large data sets for quick analysis.

Some aspects of real-world computing rely on game theory to provide the most satisfactory algorithm to produce the strategy that will get the best results.

A number of computers may be linked together for distributed processing in a variety of ways, increasing their collective problem-solving power and speed.

Computers of a sort form control systems in household appliances like washing machines and sewing machines, VCRs, DVDs, cars, and in many other places.

Virtual reality makes a computer user feel, see and hear data by producing analogues of the output from a piece of analysis and using analogues as input.

The study of control systems is sometimes called robotics, even though it does not normally involve the construction of a classic humanoid 'robot'.

Wearable computers are likely to end the dominance of keyboard and mouse, using extra processing power to drive speech recognition and better visual displays.

Moore's law limits future prospects for computing: it describes the rate at which computing power increases as chips become more densely packed.

The limitation imposed by Moore's law is that there is a clear lower limit to the size of chip units that will stop chip density increasing forever.

Quantum computing may get us around Moore's law for a while by producing computational units which are much smaller and much more densely packed onto a chip.

Neural networks give computers the chance to 'learn', but this is by no means the same thing as artificial intelligence, because there is no freedom involved.

Artificial intelligence is still some distance away, and existing 'smart' programs are still a long way from showing any form of intelligence.

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed the Turing test criterion for an intelligent machine, generally still regarded as the test any artificial intelligence must pass.

While computers have the power and software to generate apparently artistic work in music and art, they cannot yet compete with human creativity.

Computers can be used to produce electronic music, and given sufficient equipment and power, have the potential to completely replace an orchestra.

Biochips and animal-machine interfaces should be a reality by around 2025, according to the best available guesses, which is not saying a lot.

In medicine, computerised tomography is important, because it takes vast amounts of data from X-rays, and produces a visual image that may be interpreted.

The information gathered in genomics work can be applied through bioinformatics, which involves carrying out complex processing of raw data to gain information. 

Communications

Most animals and even some plants have limited powers of communication to signal other members of their species, either for breeding or to sound a warning.

Animal communication may use any of sound, chemicals released into the air or placed on surfaces to be smelled or tasted, visual signals, and touch.

Communication is one of the things that makes us human, and since it allows us to adapt our behaviour, it has played and plays a major role in human evolution.

One definition of modern humans is that they were the first of the great apes which had a complex speech, able to support planning and passing on ideas.

Writing has developed a number of times around the world. Writing may involve symbols that represent sounds or ideas, and both forms have been used.

In history, writing systems have been understood by small numbers of people, unlike the situation this century, where reading and writing are common skills.

In 1799, a dark granodiorite slab, the Rosetta stone, with inscriptions in Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic and demotic scripts, was found in Egypt, and stolen.

Languages tend to borrow words from each other, and languages change over time. Only the linguistically foolish object to loan words and useful neologisms.

A modem must be used to send digital signals over analog lines by converting the digital signal of a computer to 'sounds' and back again at the other end.

The Internet relies on packet switching, where a signal is converted into packets of information that are sent separately, and reassembled at the other end.

Good communication depends on a high signal-to-noise ratio: noise in this sense can include chatter, spam, advertising and other forms of barbarity.

A lot of international communication is by satellite, but with packet switching, satellites and optic fibre may be seamlessly and invisibly combined.

Light can be 'piped' through optic fibre, which is a transparent solid fibre, designed to keep light running straight down the middle of the fibre.

Fibre optics methods can carry very large amounts of digital information, and do not need a modem, since the actual transmission is digital, light or no light.

Special methods used to add and multiplex signals so they can be sent over the same system, as in the use of several colours on a single optic fibre.

Separate technologies tend to be combined, in a process called convergence, as in the addition of Internet access and digital cameras to mobile phones.

Transmission errors may be reduced by a parity check, which is a quick test to see if a received packet is likely to have suffered degradation along the way.

Parity checks that are used in the transmission of data are imperfect, and in critical and life-threatening situations, need to be double or triple-checked.

No system is ever entirely fail-safe. All we can ever do is make them as safe as we can, by redundancies, cross-checks, and the careful logging of changes.

No system has yet been made that is entirely fool-proof from misuse and tampering, because one determined fool can beat one hundred highly-trained experts.

An automatic telephone exchange was an early form of computer: in a very real sense, the world's telephone systems today make up a giant computer.

The murderer, Dr. Crippen, was captured in 1910 by the use of radio signals, while attempting to escape on the Montrose, demonstrating a loss of isolation.

When the Titanic was holed in 1912, most of the survivors lived thanks to the use of radio signals to send a distress call, demonstrating a loss of isolation.

Radio signals travel on a carrier wave, using one of two forms of modulation: they use either amplitude modulation or frequency modulation of the carrier

In 1960, the first weather, communications, and navigation satellites were launched. These primitive models were soon replaced by more effective satellites.

Humans have been using tools for at least 2 million years, and simple machines for an unknown period of time, but probably for at least 100,000 years.

Simple machines

The three basic needs for the development from scratch of a precision technology are a straight edge, a screw of uniform pitch, and a precise right angle.

An early rule known to many builders and engineers: to make a perfect right angle, draw a triangle with sides of 3, 4 and 5 units, or 5, 12 and 13 units.

An excellent level surface can be obtained over any distance with a sufficiently long trough or a water-proof trench filled with water that is not running.

Simple machines make work easier: levers, ramps, wheels and bearings, pulley systems, gears, drive belts all allow small efforts to shift large loads slowly.

Most simple machines are limited by the effects of friction. No machine can output more energy than is put into it, so perpetual motion is impossible.

The impossibility of perpetual motion does not stop charlatans trying to sell them to the unwary, the gullible and the greedy, and all too often, succeeding.

Looking at how they operate, levers can be placed in three classes, depending on whether the Fulcrum, Load or Effort is in the middle: the FLE orders of levers.

A first order lever, with the fulcrum located in the middle, is what you encounter when you use a pair of scissors or a pair of pliers to work with something.

A second order lever with the load located in the middle, is what you see when you use a pair of nutcrackers or a wheelbarrow, or row a boat (think about it!).

A third order lever with the effort located in the middle is what you see when you use a pair of tweezers or tongs with a spring at one end, or a fishing rod.

You can measure the velocity ratio and the mechanical advantage of any simple machine. Any observed differences are generally attributable to frictional effects

Hydraulic systems can act in place of many simple machines, in the sense, for example, that the hydraulic press acts as a lever, but can also change direction.

The wheel and axle, the screw and the wedge are all specialized forms of the same basic plan, the lever, when they are considered in the right way.

From another viewpoint, the screw and the wedge may be seen as special cases of the inclined plane, again when they are considered the right way.

In the first century AD, Hero of Alexandria made a variety of machines, including an aeolipile, a primitive toy steam turbine, rather like a garden sprinkler. 

Biotechnology

Biotechnology uses living forms, mainly simple cells like bacteria to make products that could come from other sources, but does it faster and more cheaply.

Much of biotechnology involves producing enzymes. Enzymes are useful because they are substrate-specific and generally have no side-effects on the end-users.

A major product of modern biotechnology is biopharmaceuticals, although this may change as the technology becomes more mature and more products are possible.

Organisms living under extreme conditions are known as extremophile organisms: they typically live either in very hot or very toxic conditions, or both.

Extremophiles are interesting sources of new enzymes, because they need such things to survive: Taq-polymerase, used in PCR, was obtained from an extremophile

Environmental technology often involves bioremediation, using either existing extremophiles or modified organisms to make dangerous substances safe.

In 1973, Stanley Norman Cohen and Herbert Wayne Boyer demonstrated that restriction enzymes could be used to transfer genes from one species to another.

The information gathered in genomics work can be applied through bioinformatics, a new science that links modern biological knowledge and computing.

We know very little about the microbes that share our planet, because most of them remain hidden at this stage, unless they infect us, our crops or our animals.

Most of the world's bacteria do not infect or harm us or the organisms we are most concerned about, and cannot be grown for study in pure cultures.

Many bacteria in the world are known only in complex ecosystems called biofilms, where they live with other species of bacteria in a cooperative system.

In 1980, The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in the Chakrabarty case that genetically altered life forms could be patented and so obtain legal protection.

Where companies had previously relied on trade secrets, the Chakrabarty case meant genetic engineering methods could now be used with more confidence.

In 1988, Leder and Stewart received a US patent for the Harvard mouse, genetically altered to be susceptible to cancer. A European patent was refused in 1989.

In 1994 British and American research institutions agreed not to patent human gene sequences, closing down some of the growing ethical fury over gene patents. 

The principles of forensic science

• Humans vary in many ways, and leave hints of these variations behind at the scene of a crime, in the form of prints, stains, traces and impressions.

• People who visit a particular location don't only leave traces of themselves at the site, they generally take traces of the site away with them.

• In 1860 Sir William James Herschel used fingerprint impressions made on paper to provide reliable identification of individual government prisoners in India.

• In 1890, Francis Galton began his study of fingerprints. Originally, he was looking for racial differences in fingerprints, but failed to find any.

• Francis Galton was able to show that human fingerprints stay the same throughout the owner's life, so doing away with the physiognomy of Cesare Lombroso.

• Individuals may be distinguished by DNA fingerprinting, but this remains less than totally reliable, as related people can have similar patterns.

• Individuals may be distinguished by DNA fingerprinting which looks for unique aspects of the DNA found only in an individual and his or her relatives.

• DNA fingerprinting is unreliable in cases where more than one member of a family or related community is under suspicion, since they will have similar profiles. 

Industrial power and machinery

One key to the Industrial Revolution was a set of machines that could convert linear motion to rotatory motion, and at need, convert it back again.

Water wheels may be either overshot or undershot, depending on whether most of the water passes over or under the wheel, converting linear motion to rotation.

A water wheel can only work when water drops and does work as it does so. This means that there is a limit to the number of water mills on any one stream.

Two common ways to get a drop for a water mill are a channel which diverts water away from the valley floor on a gentle slope, and a dam, which backs water up.

In 1690 Denis Papin proposed the use of steam power with a two-foot bore and a four-foot stroke to raise 8000 pounds of water four feet in one minute.

In 1698 Thomas Savery built a steam-powered water pump to pump water out of mines. It was the first practical steam engine of any sort, replacing manual pumps.

In 1707 Denis Papin developed a modified form of Thomas Savery's steam pump, using steam pressure, not atmospheric pressure, to increase efficiency.

In 1712 Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery built a piston-and-cylinder steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines. It produced about 5.5 horsepower.

In 1765, James Watt worked out how to build a better steam engine while walking, not sitting watching a kettle boil, as the old familiar legend has it.

In 1769 in France, Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot built a steam carriage which travelled at 3.6 km/hr for twenty minutes, but which was too heavy to be practical.

In 1769 James Watt patented his first improved steam engine after teaming up with Matthew Boulton, who brought business sense to their partnership.

In 1772 John Smeaton built a more efficient steam engine by using better machined cylinder walls, providing a better seal against steam leakage.

Between 1774 and 1779, Samuel Crompton invented a mule, a spinning machine combining features of the Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright machines.

In 1782 James Watt invented a more efficient double-acting steam engine, using steam to push the piston first from one side and then from the other.

By 1789, English mills could import cotton from India, spin and weave it, and export it to India where they could undersell Indian hand-weavers.

Effective electrical measurement of current delivered to the user was the main essential for selling electrical energy in the late nineteenth century.

Steam and water turbines produce rotatory motion from the linear motion of a steam flow, making them simpler and more efficient than reciprocating engines.

A gas turbine is an efficient and powerful engine providing a large energy output from a small volume, converting linear motion to rotational motion.

In 1807 Isaac de Rivaz made a hydrogen gas powered vehicle using internal combustion, sparked by a 'voltaic pistol' worked by the operator and driver.

In 1862, Jean Lenoir displayed a double-acting single-cylinder engine with an electric spark ignition and no compression, at the International Exhibition.

In 1863 Jean Lenoir built the first-ever horseless carriage, using an internal combustion engine. It was capable of reaching a speed of 5 kilometres an hour. 

The principles of invention

• The credit for an invention does not always go to the first person to invent it, but to the first person to patent it or associate their name with it.

• In 1813, a methane explosion in a mine at Gateshead-on-Tyne killed 92 miners, making the British public very aware of the problems of coal mine explosions.

• George Stephenson invented a safety lamp for miners at the same time as Sir Humphry Davy, who called Stephenson "a thief, and not a clever thief".

• Humphry Davy is remembered today for his miners' safety lamp, which let the coal-miners see what they were doing without making methane explode in the mines.

• Stephenson was given a reward of one thousand pounds, and a House of Commons select committee found in his favour, but the lamp is still the Davy safety lamp.

• In 1836, Edward Davy invented the electrical relay in London, so as to make a telegraph work over distances, but he later sold the patent and went to Australia.

• The Bunsen burner was probably invented by Peter Desaga, a technician in Robert Bunsen's laboratory, but neither of them applied for a patent on it.

• Later, Carl Desaga, Peter Desaga's son, founded a company, C. Desaga, Factory for Scientific Apparatus, to make and sell the burners, all over the world.

• André Ampère was an inventor of things, but also a great coiner of names: his invented words include 'electrodynamic', 'electrostatic' and 'solenoid'.

• Alexander Graham Bell only just managed to lodge his patent claim for the invention of the telephone before Elisha Gray lodged a lesser caveat claim.

• Thomas Edison invented many things, mainly by seeing a need and then trying large numbers of solutions, improving as he went, until he had something to sell.

• Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan both invented electric light globes at almost exactly the same time, and coming up with similar solutions to the problem.

• Thomas Edison observed the thermionic effect, but failed to realise that it had potential in electronics, even though he took out a patent on the effect. 

 The principles of printing

• Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg introduced the use of moveable type in printing, allowing books to be produced in large numbers to supply a growing market.

• In 1478, the first printed medical work appeared, a version of the 'De Medicina', the medical views of a 1st century Roman physician, Aulus Cornelius Celsus.

• Albrecht Dürer wrote his book of the methods for achieving correct perspective in German, but a translation into Latin carried his ideas to the rest of Europe.

• In 1543, 'De Humani Corporis Fabricae', the first modern work on anatomy, was published by Vesalius, bringing a modern light to medicine for the first time.

• In 1556, Agricola published 'De Re Metallica', which not only described the methods of metallurgy, but also of mining, and so dealt with questions of geology.

• In the early 1600s, Galileo Galilei was one of the first to write about science in his local tongue, rather than in the Latin that scholars had used until then.

• In the middle of the 1600s, scientists began showing each other what they had discovered (and how), and began to publish notes for absent members.

• In time, the published 'proceedings' of the various societies began also to include letters sent by distant members, widening the scientific networks a great deal.

• When the various national societies began to exchange copies of their published proceedings, modern science was able to really take off, all over the world.

• By the late 1600s, most scientists wrote of their work in their own languages, rather than Latin. Hans Oersted, in 1820, was one of the last who wrote in Latin.

• In late 1788, Gilbert White published his Natural History of Selborne, introducing a new style of studying nature, and changing the way people saw nature.

• In 1830, Charles Babbage published his Decline of Science in England. This stimulated the formation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

• In 1845, the magazine Scientific American was established as a way of sharing news about science and technology with the general public. It opened a new era.

• In 1869, Norman Lockyer became the first editor of the scientific journal Nature, which has remained one of the great journals of science ever since.

• Around 1800, the first subject-related scientific journals began to appear, dealing with limited topic ranges, rather than general magazines of curiosities.

• Valid new science will now normally be published in a peer-reviewed specialist journal. Claims which are published in other ways have to be regarded as suspect.

• Some valid new science may also be presented at conferences, where other scientists are able to comment on it: much of it will also appear later in a journal.

• In the middle of the 20th century, Marshall McLuhan wrote several books to bring us the message that the book was dead. One day, we will see he was right. 

 The science of images

• Around 1520, Albrecht Dürer was using mechanical arrangements to get accurate perspective into his drawings, and published a book for artists on his methods.

• In 1727 Johann Schulze saw that some silver salts go black in the presence of light, setting the basis for photography, although it would take a century more.

• James Clerk Maxwell showed in 1861 how he could reproduce a tartan from three separate filtered photographs, red, green and blue, when these were recombined.

• The thing Maxwell had not allowed for was the total inability of the films of the day to react to red light. In short, the experiment should not have worked!

• The red dye in the tartan also reflected ultraviolet light, and by luck, the film used to record the 'red' component also registered UV, and so made an image.

• In 1973, Fairchild semiconductor released the first large image forming CCD chip which had 100 rows and 100 columns, a forerunner of the digital camera.

• In 1982, compact discs, CDs, were introduced, first as a means of storing and recording music in digital form. Other digital applications soon followed.

• Holography is a process that relies on interference effects to create 3D images with coherent light after the interference patterns have been captured on film.

• Sonar uses reflected sound to locate objects. Ultrasound is similar in its operation, but it uses reflected high-pitched sound to locate objects.

• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a method used to form images of the inside of a living thing without any risk of tissue damage from radiation effects.

• MRI creates images by detecting hydrogen atoms, mainly in water, but also in other molecules in the body, with a clever use of radio frequency radiation.

• Computerised tomography or CAT scans provide 3D images from X-rays, after massive computer processing has been applied to data to produce simple images. 

The principles of transport (stub)

• In 1662 Blaise Pascal proposed a horse-drawn public bus which had a regular route, schedule, and fare system, which started its operations in 1663.

• Early in the Industrial revolution, it was important for factories to be close to sources of power, and close to rivers and ports. With time, that changed.

• Canals were extensions of rivers, waterproof channels that mostly followed contour lines and allowed goods to be moved in all weather with minimal breakages.

• Canals were an effective way to move goods before rail and road, offering smooth travel, and a low-friction path, where a single horse could move large loads.

• The steam turbine was a more compact and powerful unit, leaving more room for cargo, and moved the ship faster and more reliably, thus revolutionizing shipping.

• The internal combustion engine is used in most mobile applications. It is inefficient and noisy, but highly convenient, and its fuel can be obtained anywhere. 

The principles of military technology (stub)

• The introduction of cannon into warfare meant that walled cities and towns were of no great use, and opened the way to open cities and towns with suburbs.

• Around 1500, Leonardo da Vinci was designing and possibly making a variety of mechanical devices and siege engines to carry out a variety of warlike functions.

• Most of the work done on developing rockets was done on military budgets, mainly by people like Robert Goddard and von Braun, who just wanted to get into space. 

Nanotechnology (a stub)

• Nanotechnology is the art of making very small machines that will perform useful functions. Some methods are known, no useful functions have been achieved yet.

• Nanotechnology is new and little understood, but that has not stopped people from coming up with all sorts of 'Frankenstein' and 'grey goo' scenarios about it.

• At the moment, nanotechnology is easy to dismiss or rule out, but there are some interesting developments around that will be used somewhere, at some time. 

There are other SPLATS to be found, but you will need to go back to the main SPLATS page to find the links.

© The author of this work is Peter Macinnis, who asserts his sole right to the product as it is packaged here, recognising that many of the ideas are common. You are free to use this as a model to do your own version. Copies of this whole file or site may be made and stored or printed for personal or educational use. You can contact me at macinnis44@gmail.com, but only if you add my first name to the front of that email address — this is a low-tech way of making it harder to harvest the e-mail address I actually read.