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Thomas
Edison filed 1,093 patents, including those for the light bulb, electric
railways and the movie camera. When he died in 1931, he held 34 patents for the
telephone, 141 for batteries, 150 for the telegraph and 389 patents for
electric light and power. |
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The first
vending machine was invented by Hero of Alexandria around 215 BC. When a coin
was dropped into a slot, its weight would pull a cork out of a spigot and the
machine would dispense a trickle of water. |
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Leonardo da
Vinci never built the inventions he designed. One of his inventions is the
scissors. |
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The Wright
Brother tested the first aeroplane in a wind tunnel before flying it. |
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The very
first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646,
Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images
onto a white screen. |
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In 1894
Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the first film camera. |
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There are
more places in the tertiary institutions for engineering than any other faculty
due to the demand from the industries. |
|
The Space
Shuttle always rolls over after launch to alleviate structural loading,
allowing the shuttle to carry more mass into orbit. |
|
A
scientific satellite needs only 250 watts of power, the equivelant used by two
hour light bulbs, to operate. |
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The
smallest transistor is 50-nanometres wide - roughly 1/2000 the width of a human
hair. |
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Today there
are almost a billion TV sets in the world. China has the most TV sets (200
million). |
|
Nuclear
ships are basically steamships and driven by steam turbines. The reactor just
develops heat to boil the water. |
|
There are
more than 600 million telephone lines today, yet almost half the world's
population has never made a phone call |
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Argon is
used to fill the space in most light bulbs. Neon is used in fluorescent signs.
Fluorescent lights are filled with mercury gas. |
|
The can
opener was invented 48 years after cans were introduced. |
|
An electric
oven uses one kilowatt-hour of electricity in about 20 minutes, but one
kilowatt-hour will power a TV for 3 hours, run a 100-watt bulb for 12 hours,
and keep an electric clock ticking for 3 months. |
|
Music was
sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was
invented. |
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Sound
travels through water 3 times faster than through air. |
|
Since space
is essentially empty it cannot carry sound. Therefore there is no sound in
space, at least not the sort of sound that we are used to |
|
Eskimos use
refrigerators to keep food from freezing. |
