Technology and Engineering Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
78 statements.
The Integrated Circuit, Year1958
The Integrated Circuit, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1958
Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments built the first working integrated circuit in 1958, using germanium. Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor independently developed a practical silicon based integrated circuit in 1959 that proved easier to manufacture and became the industry standard. The two men are jointly credited as co-inventors; Kilby alone received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000, by which time Noyce had died and the prize is not awarded posthumously.
Source Technology: A World History, Daniel R. Headrick
The Internal Combustion Engine, Year1876
The Internal Combustion Engine, DescriptionThe internal combustion engine burns a fuel and air mixture inside a cylinder to drive a piston directly, in contrast to a steam engine's external boiler. Nikolaus Otto built the first working four stroke cycle engine in 1876, offering the first practical alternative to the steam engine as a power source. Alphonse Beau de Rochas had patented the same four stroke cycle theoretically in 1862 but never built an engine on it, a fact that surfaced in 1886 and cost Otto his own German patent, though his engine kept the name Otto cycle as the first one actually built.
The Internal Combustion Engine, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Description
Currently States The internal combustion engine burns a fuel and air mixture inside a cylinder to drive a piston directly, in contrast to a steam engine's external boiler. Nikolaus Otto built the first working four stroke cycle engine in 1876, offering the first practical alternative to the steam engine as a power source. Alphonse Beau de Rochas had patented the same four stroke cycle theoretically in 1862 but never built an engine on it, a fact that surfaced in 1886 and cost Otto his own German patent, though his engine kept the name Otto cycle as the first one actually built.
Otto is credited as the internal combustion engine's practical inventor for building the first working engine, while Beau de Rochas holds theoretical priority for patenting the four stroke cycle's description fourteen years earlier without ever constructing a device.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
The Internet, Year1969
The Internet, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1969
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, ARPANET, sent its first message between two computers in 1969, and is generally credited as the internet direct ancestor. The internet in the modern sense, a network of networks using a common protocol, is more precisely dated to January 1983, when ARPANET adopted the TCP or IP protocol suite and allowed separate networks to interconnect. Which date marks the internet true beginning depends on whether the test is the first packet switched network or the first genuinely internetworked one.
Source Technology: A World History, Daniel R. Headrick
The Jet Engine, Year1930
The Jet Engine, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1930
1930 is the year of Whittle's British patent, the earlier of the two claims; von Ohain's independent German patent followed in 1936 and his engine flew first, in 1939, before Whittle's own aircraft flew in 1941.
The Laser, Year1960
The Laser, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1960
1960 is the year Maiman's device first operated, the conventional founding date; Gould's notebook conception in 1957 predates it by three years and was the basis of his eventual patents.
The Magnetic Compass, Year1088
The Magnetic Compass, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1088
Chinese sources describe a lodestone spoon used for divination and orientation from around the Han dynasty (2nd century BCE), centuries before Shen Kuo's 1088 Dream Pool Essays gave the first clear description of a magnetized needle used for direction-finding and noted magnetic declination. When the compass first saw genuine sea navigation, rather than divination or land surveying, and whether the practice reached Europe by trade contact or arose independently there by the 12th century, are both open in the scholarship.
Source Compass (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors
The Mechanical Clock, Year1283
The Mechanical Clock, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1283
European weight-driven clocks with a verge-and-foliot escapement are attested from the 1280s (a Dunstable Priory record of 1283 is among the earliest), but Su Song built a water-driven astronomical clock tower in Kaifeng in 1092 with an escapement-like linkwork mechanism two centuries earlier; whether that Chinese clockwork tradition counts as the same invention, given it was water-driven rather than purely weight-and-spring mechanical, is a live scholarly question.
Source History of Timekeeping Devices (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors
The Microprocessor, Year1971
The Microprocessor, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1971
Intel's 4004, released commercially in November 1971, is the usual popular reference point, but Texas Instruments engineers Gary Boone and Michael Cochran filed a single-chip CPU patent the same year, and Garrett AiResearch's Central Air Data Computer, designed by Ray Holt and Steve Geller for the US Navy's F-14 Tomcat, ran as a complete CPU built from a chip set as early as 1968-1970; the Garrett design stayed classified for military use and was not published for years, which is why it rarely appears in the popular history even though it predates the commercial chips.
Source Microprocessor (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors
The Printing Press, Year1440
The Printing Press, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1440
Johannes Gutenberg press with movable metal type, developed in Mainz around 1440, is the press most directly ancestral to the modern one and the one credited with transforming European literacy, scholarship and religion. Movable type printing itself is older: Bi Sheng in China developed movable clay type around 1040, and Korea printed with movable metal type by 1234, more than two centuries before Gutenberg. Gutenberg is credited separately for the integrated system of type, ink and press that made high volume printing practical in a way the earlier movable type systems did not.
Source A History of Technology, Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
The Steam Engine, Year1712
The Steam Engine, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1712
Thomas Newcomen built the first commercially successful steam engine in 1712, an atmospheric engine used to pump water from mines. Thomas Savery had patented an earlier steam pump in 1698 that saw limited practical use, and James Watt separate condenser, patented in 1769, dramatically improved fuel efficiency and turned the steam engine into the general purpose power source that drove the Industrial Revolution. Which of the three counts as the steam engine inventor depends on whether the test is the first working device, the first patent, or the first design efficient enough for widespread industrial use.
Source A History of Technology, Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
The Telegraph, Year1837
The Telegraph, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1837
Samuel Morse in the United States and William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in Britain each patented working electrical telegraph systems in 1837, developed independently and almost simultaneously. Morse system, paired with Morse code, became the dominant standard in the United States and eventually internationally, while the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph was first to see commercial railway use in Britain. Historians of technology treat the telegraph as a case of near simultaneous independent invention rather than a single point of origin.
Source Technology: A World History, Daniel R. Headrick
The Telephone, Year1876
The Telephone, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 1876
1876 is the year of Bell's patent grant, the conventional founding date; Meucci's own device predates it by roughly two decades, and Gray filed his competing caveat the same day Bell's application arrived at the patent office.
The Wheel, Year3500 BCE
The Wheel, Inventions
Standing
Concerns Year
Currently States 3500 BCE
The wheel invention cannot be fixed to a single moment, people or place. The earliest archaeological evidence, a potter wheel from Mesopotamia, dates to roughly 3500 BCE, with wheeled vehicles appearing shortly after. Similar devices appear to have arisen independently in parts of Europe and Central Asia within a few centuries, so historians of technology treat the wheel as a case of roughly simultaneous, independent invention rather than a single point of origin.
Source A History of Technology, Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
Thomas Savery, Birth Year1650
Thomas Savery, Engineers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States 1650
Sources give only an approximate birth year; parish records for Shilstone, Devon from this period are incomplete.
Source Thomas Savery (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors
Vulcanization, Origin Year1839
Vulcanization, Methods
Standing
Concerns Origin Year
Currently States 1839
Charles Goodyear's 1839 accidental discovery, made in the United States, is the popularly cited date, but Thomas Hancock filed the first vulcanization patent, in Britain in 1843, weeks ahead of Goodyear's own British filing and after Hancock had examined a sample of Goodyear's rubber; which of the two deserves priority credit for the process itself remains disputed between the American and British historical traditions.
Source Vulcanization (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors
Welding, Origin Year1881
Welding, Methods
Standing
Concerns Origin Year
Currently States 1881
Forge welding, hammering heated metal pieces together without melting them, is attested from the Iron Age and is far older; the fusion welding this entry principally describes, joining metal by melting it, began with Nikolai Benardos carbon arc welding process in 1881, followed quickly by Elihu Thomson resistance welding in 1886.
Source A History of Technology, Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
Wrought Iron, Origin Year-1200
Wrought Iron, Materials
Standing
Concerns Origin Year
Currently States -1200
Bloomery-smelted wrought iron is attested in the Near East and Anatolia from around the twelfth century BCE, marking the start of the Iron Age in the region.
Source A History of Technology, Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors