Since the beginning of time, humans have always been inventing things to help make our lives easier. However, creating a list that ranks each invention has not always been easy, because different inventions impact each one of us in a different way. People can have debates that go on for days over why the wheel is more than internet, or why cell phones should rank higher than cars. So, to simplify things I am just going to talk about my point of view and the five inventions I believe have the greatest impact on our everyday life.
Cell Phones
Patents for cell phones can be dated back to the early 1900’s, however the very first mobile phone available to the public came in 1973: ” Dr Martin Cooper general manager at Motorola communications system division made the first public mobile phone call on a device that weighed 1.1Kg.” [1] This phone looked nothing like the high tech cell phones we have today as it was big, heavy, and just awkward to carry around. It served one purpose, which was to make phone calls. Can you believe that there were phone that could not even send a text message, let alone connect to the internet? Nonetheless, the creation of this phone was a huge revolution in technology. For the first time, it was possible to have a portable phone which you could carry around and make phone calls from anywhere. The popularity for these phones took off all most instantly, as more and more people began buying mobile phones. Today, around the world, billions of people use cell phones everyday. We use them to connect with others, search things up, use social media, and many other things. Cell phones have become an extremely important part of our everyday lives.
Cars
Personally, I thought that Henry Ford was the one who invented the first car. However, after some further research, I found out that “Karl Benz patented the three-wheeled Motor Car, known as the “Motorwagen,” in 1886.” [2] His invention was the beginning of moving away from the days of carriages pulled by horses. The automobile allowed people to go further distances, in a less amount of time. The invention of the car fueled the tourism sector, especially in America, as people were able to go on cheap vacations. They could go on a weekend getaway by car, for a fraction of the cost it would be if they were to go by air. Today, cars play a vital role in everyday life. Someone could live in Surrey, but work in downtown Vancouver, and some sort of automobile (car or bus) would allow them to get to and from work everyday. During the summer, I went on a camping trip to Oregon and the only way to take all our supplies there was by car.
The World Wide Web
Every website you visit is connected to the World Wide Web, that is way they start with “www”. The very first website and “The World Wide Web was invented by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 while working at CERN.” [3] The web, as it is commonly known, essentially connected all websites to one server. Before the web, if you wanted to visit one webpage, you would go on one network and if you wanted to visit another one, you might have to switch networks. The World wide Web just brought it all to one place and made everything more accessible. Today, if you do not know the answer to a question, want to find the definition of a word, or search anything else, you just “Google” it. If all websites were not connected by the World Wide Web, you would not be able to search something with a simple Google search.
Vaccines
No one knows for sure when the first vaccines were made, but we do know that they have been used in ancient China and India. Vaccine help keep us safe and prevent us from getting serious diseases. They create cells in our body that fight the disease, before we get the disease. Vaccines are really important for us because they help prevent the spread of diseases, and in some cases, they eliminate the diseases entirely. For example, polio is one diseases that we have been able to get rid, all because of vaccines.
Airplanes
Humans have always dreamed of flight, and in 1903 that dream became a reality: “On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane.” [4] The Wright Brothers first flights were extremely short in duration and they did not get very high off the ground. However, they proved that one day humans could soar high above the ground, among the birds. Thanks to development in technology, modern airplanes are know capable of flying above 30 000 feet, carrying hundreds of people, and flying thousands of kilometers without refueling. Airplanes have become important in our lives because they allow use to commute anywhere in the world. You can cross the Atlantic Ocean in less than a day by airplane, a trip that would take weeks by ship.
Works Cited
- “CERN Accelerating Science.” Superconductivity | CERN. Accessed November 18, 2018. https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web.
- Cox, Lauren. “Who Invented the Car?” LiveScience. September 12, 2017. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://www.livescience.com/37538-who-invented-the-car.html.
- “History of Mobile Phones | What Was the First Mobile Phone?” USwitch. April 06, 2018. Accessed November 18, 2018. https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/guides/history-of-mobile-phones/.
- “Inventing A Flying Machine.” National Air and Space Museum. Accessed November 18, 2018. https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/wright-brothers/online/fly/1903/.
- “Who Invented Vaccination?” Explorable – Think Outside The Box – Research, Experiments, Psychology, Self-Help. Accessed November 18, 2018. https://explorable.com/who-invented-vaccination.
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