Posts Tagged ‘Invention’

Bar Codes have been a work in progress since the early part of the 20th century, when a graduate student named Bernard Silver started working on a program that would manage grocery store inventory. His original invention was a card system where consumers would perforate cards to indicate the items they wanted to buy. The card would then be slid through a reader and the grocery store clerk would know how much to charge. There were two problems with this plan: 1. Card readers at this time were large, expensive and difficult to use, and 2. This was the middle of the Great Depression. Even if the program had worked flawlessly, no one had the funds to buy it.

This did not deter Silver, who mentioned the project to a classmate, Joe Woodland. Together Silver and Woodland worked for years to develop just the right system. By the early 1970s they were close to a working solution. At this point both men were working for IBM, and together they created the Universal Product Code System (UPC), which is widely used today. In 1974 a single pack of gum was scanned through a bar code reader, and shopping as we knew it changed forever. By the end of the 1970s over 80% of all stores were using some sort of bar code technology, and you would be hard pressed to find a store that did not use bar codes today.

On June 15, 1752, Benjamin Franklin and his 21 year old son William went outside in a storm. Franklin had made a kite out of a piece of silk cloth, silk being better able to handle the rain. Attached to the string was a metal key. As Franklin is flying his kite, he notices that several of the strings making up the kite twine sticking straight out. When he reaches down grips the key, he feels a slight electrical charge, thus proving that lightning contains electricity. This discovery led to Benjamin Franklin’s invention of the lightning rod.

Of course, many sources will tell you that the above story is as true as George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.That is, to say, not true at all. Just a nice story. The fact that several scientists attempted to replicate Franklin’s results and died of electrocution in their attempt seems to validate the claim that this story is a fake. What is more likely true is that Franklin did fly his kite on June 15th, and that his observations of the strings standing straight up led him to hypothesize that there was an electric charge in the air. It is doubtful that Benjamin Franklin would willingly put himself in harms way for science.

Whether or not the story is entirely true, the facts that come from it are irrefutable: there is an electric charge in lightening. Kite Flying is fun, and today we can’t live without electricity. We should celebrate it!

Marconi Day commemorates the birth of wireless pioneer Guiglielmo Marconi on this day in 1874.  Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy.  Marconi showed an interest in physics at a young age, and upon leaving school in 1895 he created a wireless telegraph that transmitted a signal 1.5 miles.

The next year, Marconi took his invention to England and received a patent. In 1897 he formed the Marconi Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company. His transmissions were gaining distance, and in 1899 he transmitted a signal across the English Channel.  Marconi was determined, however, to prove that the curvature of the earth did not affect the transmission of a wireless signal, and in 1901 he sent a wireless signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles.

Guiglielmo Marconi received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909. He received countless awards and honors throughout his life, and is still honored by radio hobbyists to this day.