wonderful world of science INVENTIONS P1

-@ W~ful WJorM fl .

D :,SCIENCE



Contents

4~7.,~~ ; ; .,~

In the beginning 6 Sailing into the unknown 24
The first inventions 8 Weapons of war 26
Making fire 1O Measuring time 28
New ways of moving 12 Harvesting nature's energy 30
On the farm 14 Marks on a page 32
Under attack! 16 Making things bigger 34
From stone to metal 18 Making music 36
Boats and sails 20 Keeping in touch 38
Wonderful clay 22 Taking to the skies 40
Keeping a record 42
Round the house 44
From Earth into space 46

Index 48

111 the begi1111i11g

! Hui.ans have always been inventors.

More than one million years ago, our
ancient relatives made simple stone tools.
Around 30,000 years ago our more
recent ancestors were much more
skilled at tool-making (1) and they
had worked out how to sew skins
together to make clothes (2). The
first musical instruments were made , -
from bone more than 20,000 years
'ago (3). Early humans lived by
~unting animals, and invented
bows and arrows to which they
added tips of sharp stone. Tools,
clothes, weapons, dwellings and
other inventions gradually became
more complicated and numerous.

i/.;, ..--··'l ,;_,~ii~i' --~,

Stone Age clothes were

made out en animal skins

sewn together using
bone needle.



rhe first inventions

2The Tirst inventors lived r(_ -~~~I-)~

. about 1-. 5 million years ago.

They were small, ,human-like
creatures who walked upright
on two legs. Their first
inventions were stone tools.
They hammered stones with
other stones to shape them .
These rough tools have been
found in Tanzania in Africa.
Scientists call this early relative
wof ours 'handy man' .

1l Stone /lge people made eeal\y

sharp weapons and tools by chipping
a stone called rlint. They dug pits and
tunnels in chalky ground to find the
valuable flint lumps. Their digging tools
were made from reindeer antlers.

~1 ------ 'Ii

ere sha"e rta - ~ 1 t:arly hunter-s wer-e able to kill
with rinely in9 ed9e9
the largest anirnals. With flint tips
through la on their weapons , they overcame
wild oxen and horses and
even killed huge , woolly
mammoths. They used their

__,...__ sharp flint tools to carveup

the bodies. The flint easily

sliced through tough
animal hides .

sStohe li9e huhters trappect '

woolly 1T1a1T11T1oths ih pits ahct kill ct e-:~ -:~Gill&.::.c,.-.~iliilir.t..-.l.iiil;lliai6i111-"iiiill.-...llllil"-ii.:..-'i!I~~

thelTI with Spears ahct stohes. e

th The axe was a ~ower,f~I wea):>on. A new invention ,
e axe ~andle, made it possible to strike very hard .

blows. Fitted with a sharp stone head, the axe was
useful for chopping down trees for
firewood and building shelters.

lixe heads were valuable, ahd were
traded with people who had ho fliht.

Pit covered A illoqerh ax
with sticks 1o0fh9s,tesehlarbpuct uittt1
ahd Woodeh h

l

,....._/'"", _ ) .... - ....

fro111 about l'Z-,000 SC,

and had flint 'teeth'

.,,•.D,OvIV,r.T,, held ih place by resin.

Some Stohe Age huht

used boomet'ahgs I Th _el"s
tthhoemusaohudtsolojT\rm-:-a:--m1.m, othey+I -um.sakdse

Austt'a/iah yep,..s befo,..e
used the!l otoom? lh"CulhhgtSl·h,gC. lhq

~ ~ Ul!:J:1 Saws could cut thr-ough the har-dest wood.
'\ •~ Flint workers discove:ed how to make_very small flint flakes.

j -~ · ' -~ They fixed the flakes like teeth in a straight handle of wood

Y"' · .. i or bone. If the teeth broke, they could add new ones. Saws

were used to cut through tough bones as well as wood .

9

\

Ma~ing fire .-=-'
.& People discovered that very
}rPeople once used r;ce
created by lightning. The first hot flames would harden, or 'fire' .
pott~i,y in ovetclike' k'ilns. _,_
1 fire-makers probably lived in East
Asi a more than 400,000 years

1 ago. As modern humans spread

'). from Africa, over 60,000 years
ago, they found that northern

i winters were very cold , and fire

j helped them stay warm. They
discovered how to twirl a fire

/~ stick very fast - by placing the loop

of a bowstring around the stick and

moving the bow back and forth.
[ After thousands of years, people

· invented a way to make spa~,k~ ,t 9 !Jl.
steel by hitting it with aJ linJ"' ·

\ they could carry their fire.:- m
tinderboxes around with~tl;i·

f ire provided early people with warmtf,,'"' .

light and heat to cook food. The temper,a
:'j deep within a cave stays the same whate\t '
1· the weather outside.
,
"J •,",".,'~° ·
f}1'.), . / .;;i;
MMU,NG HEU

/ When your hands are aoldh.
I,.,,- rub ttfe'mtogether. Do t is

you / fed-the same. Now
slowly. T1ey e~ r real\/ fast. Feel
rubhtoRhWuembyboinuogrghthainndgss gtoeyg'ewtharemr e.isr. .

called friction . Fnct1on

causes ~eat.

kes
aste good . Th e

ention of cookin g made

safe rfbecau se cookin g

erms. Cooking roots and

n a fire makes them more

well as tastier. Humans

re th e on Iy an.imaIS • okin9 outdoor<, on a
hat cook food . ._ Sarne people \ik~ co did o\/er 9,uarter ot
tire, ag our re\ati\/eS O

0 rn,\\ion year<, a9o .

Bl Hu..,ng inventecl la•p• to light cleep,
dat"k caves. The lamr.s were saucers of clay or

stone that burned animal fat, with

for a wick. Campfire flames kept

wild animals away at night. They

also cook~Jood and kept peopl

warm. P~ le could see to make

wall aintin s in th

New ways of moving

10With wheels you • Plank wheels were very heavy, anci

CClh move huge weights . tltl metal rims heli,eci holci them together.
Once, heavy weights
were dragged along the I Warriors had light, stl"ong wheels on
ground, sometimes on
their righting chariots. Wheels with spokes
sledges - parts of 7000-year-
old sledges have been found in are lighter than solid plank wheels. From about
Scandinavia. Then, more than
5500 years ago, the Sumerians 1800 sc, the ancient Egyptians were using light
of Mesopotamia began to
make wheels from carved chariots with spoked wheels. Horses pulled them
planks, which they fastened
together. fast in battle. The ancient Greeks and Romans

used them for chariot races as well as for fighting.

Spoked wheels made
chariots light, rast
and easy to steer.

IZ

TlffiELINE OF
BICYCLE DESIGN

. , ;_:;:fA4_ 12 . Velocipede (~neshaker)
Radway liheg wer-,e ohce
J,,. The ~1rst public railway opened in ll'lade 0 ~ wood/ Wheels move easily J,,. Bicycle design has
181-5 ancl was 40 kilol!letres long. A col!le a long way -
century later, steal!l trains like this along rails . Horses pulled heavy early designs were
puHecl across whole continents. wagons on these wagonways very heavy, and had

Which came tirst'? over 400 years ago. William no pedals or way
\. (a) the chariot, or
Jessop invented specially al' steering.
(\)) the sled9e? shaped metal wheels to
run along metal rails in 1789.
,z.. (a) solid wheels, or Modern trains haul enormous

(b) s}'oked wheels? loads at great speed
along metal rails .
'3. (a) rails, or
13!!!.I~ lh 1861, bikes with solid
(b) steam en9ines1
tyr-,eg wer-,e called l:>oheshaker-,s/ An
even earlier version of the bicycle was
sometimes called the 'hobby horse'. It

had no pedals, so riders had to push
their feet against the ground to make

it move. The invention of air-filled

rubber tyres made cycling more
comfortable .

T Wheels this si-i:e are usually only
found on giant dul!lp trucks. These
carry heavy loads such as rocks or
soil that can be tipped out.

14Ca,,g wi1ti gigantic wheels can

driVe over other cars/ Big wheels

give a smooth ride. At some motor

shows , trucks with enormous
wheels compete to drive over

rows of cars. Tractors with
huge wheels were invented to
drive over very rough grou nd ·

011 the far,n

1s; The rirst rarmers .._ Curved knives

used digging sticks. In the ir,ade or bone or

area now called Iraq, about wood were used for
9000 sc, farmers planted
seeds of wheat and barley. harvesting grain.
They used knives made of
flint flakes fixed in a bone or
wooden handle to cut the

ripe grain stalks. The
uern was invented
o grind grain into flour
between two stones.

''

-..'.. ,_;po

4[Ql f DOPl'T
£'11) HUMhS pulled the fil"St ploughs. They 8£tf£V£ fT/

were invented in Egypt and surrounding countries . Some Stohe Age people

as early as 4000 sc. Ploughs broke the ground rhvehtecl ~ t ~l"iclges

and turned over the soil faster and better than They bu,-.;~cl spcu,e ~oocl ;
pits dug 1h gr /Uhcl that
digging sticks. Later on, oxen and other animals
was al~ays ~r0zeh.
pulled ploughs. The invention of metal ploughs
made ploughing much easier.

14

11fO!' 1housan<ts yea,s, la,•ih9

hdrdly c~ahge~ . Then from about 300 years
ago a senes of inventions made it much more

efficient. One of these was a seed -dri ll invented
by Englishman Jethro Tull. Pulled by a horse, it
sowed seeds at regular spaces in neat rows.
It was less wasteful than the old method of
throwing grain onto the ground.

Mo~e,n •achines haNest huge .a. Jethro Tull's seed-drill sowed

rields or wheat ahd other crops ih record three rows ol' seed at a til!le.
time. The combine harvester was invented to
cut the crop and separate grain at the same WScientists are chahging !he
time . Teams of combine harvesters roll across
the plains of America, Russia, Australia and way i,lahts grow. They have invented
many other places, harvesting the wheat. What ways of creating crop plants with built-
were once huge areas of land covered with in protection from pests and diseases.
natural grasses now provide grain for bread .
Other bumper crop plants grow well in
f1
places where once they
could not grow at all
because of the soil
or weather.

T The latest combine harvesters have air-conditioned,

soundproored cabs and nearly all have sound systems.

Some even use satellite navigation Csatnav or GPS
receivers) to plot their route automatically
around tields.

lJ11der attac~

2'0 Using a spear thrower is like having
an arm twice the normal length. They

were probably invented over 20,000 years

One end ot the ago. Hunters and w arri ors used them
to hurl spears hard er and farther than
spear thrower iS ever befo re . People all over
cupped to hold

the spear butt.

t he world invented thi s ,' · · '' . ' -...;.;
useful tool , and Australian

Abori gin es still use it.

21-••~~:bow coWd ~• throogh lroh

armour. Bows and arrows were invented at least 20,000
years ago . More than 900 years ago, t he English longbow
was made from a yew branch . Arc hers used it t o fire
many arrows a long distance in a short t ime . By law, all
Englishmen had to practise regularly with the longbow.

It helped them win many famous battles .

I DON'T Bow~en often stood behind
Bf.LIE.VE. IT!
lines ot sharpened stakes

that protected the~

tl"orri enemies on
horseback .

L.on9bow archers could
aim and tire sb< arrows i,er

m1·nute. The/~arrow' sometimes

went straight 1fhrou9h an
enemy's drmour and out

the o~ er[ side.

..,,

22~ rs 7:F?'iii! CM i:V5r'S%&n"'iC,mq::;r.-'::aZtzt?:iF I
Cl'Ossbows had to be wound up for each
shot. They were invented over 2000 years ago in the !I
Mediterranean area, and fired a metal bolt or short arrow.
They were powerful and accurate, but much slower than
longbows. Soldiers used them in sieges throughout Europe
from about AD 1000 onwards. But in battles, where speed
was important, crossbows were often beaten by longbows.

F=- ½ "'-... ~ '--A Crossbows were the first rnechanical
hand weai,ons, and at one tirne the
b~ __.'~ ~ Ch""' Mod to boo th••

~,-____,..-.~;::::~:~. .,-,.-.-_-__..,~., 23In the 1,ible, David killed the .

giaht, Goliath, with a pebble rrom a sling.

- ' ~ --~ ' '--..~... - The sling is an ancient weapon pro?ably
.\ ,,_~ - \_ invented by shepherds. They use~ it wh en

,..._ guarding their flocks, and still do in some

countries . The slinger holds the two loose en_ds,

and puts a pebble in the pouch. Then he whirls

it round his head and lets g

go of one end. The

pebble flies out at

the target.

T Modern catai,ults with ex
ones 1-00 l!letres or l!lore.

·24f;ven a s•all
catapult cah do a lot or

.,L, ,, _.,,,,.~ damage. The rubber strips are
like bowstrings, which can fire a pebble from a

pouch, like a sling. Some anglers use a catapult

to fire food to attract fish to the water's surface.

\1

I'

Fro1n stone to 1netal

, 2S Sometimes pieces or pure natural gold
or copper can be round in the ground. The

first people to work metal lived in the eastern

Mediterranean around 8000 sc, and beat

these metals with stone tools . ·

They made the first copper

weapons and gold ornaments.

.A. Gold iS q,uite a soft metal. Bro~• axe heads were sharper, and
less easily damaged, than stone ones.
l:arly goldsmiths beat it into
a variety of shapes and 1Ai~~ Blowing air onto flames makes them

»ade patterns of hammered hotter. About 8500 years ago people discovered
indentations on its surface
how to melt metals out of the rocks, or ores,
to create beautiful obJects.
containing them. They invented bellows -
animal-skin bags, to blow air onto the flames .
The hot flames melted the metal out of the

ore. We call this 'smelting' the metal.

l 1Bron-ze weapons stay sharper
for longer than copper ones. About
5500 years ago, metal workers invented

bronze by smelting copper ores and tin
ores together. They used the bronze to
make hard, sharp swords, spearheads
and axe heads.

Molten bronze

Molten bronze was poured into
moulds ot stone or clay to make tools.

A tiHer smelting, iron was beaten into
sha1>e to make strong, shar1> wea1>ons.

2 811,mies with i<on 19) The Ro•ans we,,e ode by hamm
the red-hot Ii

weapons can beat at'mies with excellent plumbers. They made
bronze weapons. Iron is harder water pipes out of lead instead o
than bronze, but needs a very hot wood or pottery. Lead is soft, easil
fire to smelt it. About 1500 sc, shaped and is not damaged by water.
metal workers began to use

charcoal in their fires. This burns '

much hotter than ordinary wood p

and is good for smelting iron. -....

30 Some modeen steelwot'kS _aee the BurJ khaMa in Dubai is
the world's tallest building,
Site of towns. Steel is made from iron, and at a-i.9.8 metres. It has a
was first invented when small amounts of steel framework weighing
carbon were mixed into molten iron. St~el more than 4000 tonnes.
is very hard, and used to build many things,
including ships and skyscrapers.

B{)ats a11d sails
a,:,.,,,,.
JIYil:in9 explorers reached funericCI
\000 yeat'S ago. The world's first boats
were log rafts, useful for carrying h~e,,a..vayilf_!_~-_-.
loads, but very slow. Viking
boats were fast, and could
travel far across the open
sea. Sails were invented at
least 5000 years ago, and
the Vikings used both sails
and oars.

Viking boots were made at long planks ritted
onto wooden rrames, and steered by means at
a long oor fastened near the stern (back at
the ship). They could be sailed across deep
oceans, or rowed up shallow riVers, and made
river Journeys rrom the Saltic as rar as the
Slack Sea.

I DON'T
B&Ll&V& IT!

I 450 sc a roerchant

c;\ed Hiroi\co c;ai\~d '.roro

th ,«\tri©a-t-of.r1ta1n.

eonrded up \n Cornwal•l aI n
\,ought Cor iSh tin.
I
. ... ? ,_,

,32 About '300 years a90 sailihll ships

sailed all the world's oceahs. Some, like

the British man-of-war fighting ships, were
enormous, with many sails and large crews
of sailors. Countries such as Britain, France,
Spain and Holland had large navies made up
of these ships.

JJ Sotrie sailihlJ boats !'ace at'Ouhd the rorA Sailing ships called caravels, design~d i·n the
world hOh-stop. Modern sailing boats use
1400<3, were l1·ght, ea.".,ily steered and ideal
' \ , many inventions, such as machines exploring. t:arly ones had lanteen (triangular)
sa1•1s, w1·th ,-..,0,,,u"'""'e ones added later.
to roll up the sails and gears that
Modern ocean-going
allow the boat to steer itself. yachts have a huge
balloon-like sail
·.... lhese boats are tough, ' called a spinnaker,
invented in the
t\J.,.. ~ -fJ~ light .and very fast.., mid-l800s. It is
'V \:..·.~ --~ . • used mainly whe~
fl,· heading in the
direction the
wind is blowing/

Wondeful f:lay

~; Al

~ ~ stone Age huntet'S used
baked clay to do magic. At least

30,000 years ago in Central Europe
they discovered that some clay went
hard in the sun, and even harder in a
fire . They made clay figures of animals
and humans, and used them in magic
spells that they believed helped them
catch food. Hardening clay in a fire was
the start of the invention of pottery.

!',y the year fiD 500
in South A"'erica,
Mayan cratts"'en were
'tiring' elaborate clay

sculptures to "'ake the"'

hard and shiny.

kilns produced

"'uch higher
te"'peratures than
open tires, and the
heat could i,e

controlled.

7I 1 J6 Hat'd clay bowls

M1AKE chan9ed the way )'eo)'le
AC~ILEDPOT

,-Roll moclefing~lay into ~ ~o~g, -.. ate. Early pots were

'snake' shape. Coil-some ?f it i_nto a made in China over
15,000 years ago. They were shaped by hand and
flat circle. Contin'.ue}to c91I, building.;:
hardened in. fires. They could hold liquid , and were
the coils ~ a~ ry a,nd make a
bowl shape, and fi'nafly smooth use_d to boil meat and plants . This made the food

out the ridges. stasttiher and m.ore tender. Around 7000 BC , potters i.n
ou east Asia used a new invention - a special oven
!

to harden and waterproof clay, called a kiln .

1-1-

.,..,
I

31 Potteos• wheels wet-e ~•obably

invented betot'e cal"t wheels. About

3500 BC in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)

potters invented a wheel on which '

to turn lumps of clay and --~

shape round pots. By

spinning the clay, the

potter could make

smooth, perfectly

round shapes quickly.

316Nck->Klkihg IN<IS

invented in hot countt'ies without

many tt'ees. The first brick buildings were

built in 9000 BC in Syria and Jordan. House A As the clay turns around on the disc 'wheel', the
builders made bricks from clay and straw, potter applies 9entle pressure to shape it into a bowl,
and dried them in the hot sun. By 3500 BC, vase, urn or sirnilar rounded itern.
bricks hardened in kilns were used in
important buildings in Mesopotamia. 31 Mocleoh foctoNes

flat root Trot, door tr>ake thousands or pots at a
titr>e. They are 'fired' in huge

kilns . Wheels with electric

motors are used, though much

factory pottery

is shaped in

moulds. Teams

of workers

paint patterns.

With the invention~ bricks, it was
possible to construct lar9e buildin9s. In
6000 Be, the Turkish town~ i;atal
Hiiyiik had houses with rooftop openin9s
connected by ladders instead or doors.

ill

I

t

Saili11g i11to the u11how11

3l9l E:a~ly satlo~s looked at the

stars to rind their way about.

Around 1000 BC, Phoenician merchants
from Syria were able to sail out of sight
of land without getting lost. They knew
in which direction certain stars lay.
The north Pole Star, in the Little Bear
constellation (star group), always
appears in the north.

4l1JJ Ma,1>et1c co,,passes always point .._ Two stars ih the Great Bear
constellation are called the Pointers.
They point to the r,orth Pole Star ih
the l...ittle Bear cohStellation.

not-th ancl south. They allow sailors to navigate

' (find their way) even when the stars

are invisible. The Chinese invented Shell = island

the magnetic compass about Stick = current

". \1 3000 years ago. It was first used Reed binding

'i . .: in Europe about 1000 years ago.

\ ; ..~ = I-

/ Co111passes have a 111a9neticzed
needle placed on a piVot so it can
rurn easily. Beneath this is a c~d
with 111al'ked points to show direction.

Al1I1f:at-ly maps showecl whet-e sea monstet-s

livecl. The first attempt at a world map was
drawn by the Greek Ptolemy in AD 160. Greek
maps of around 550 sc showed the known
world surrounded by water in which monsters
lived. Over 500 years ago, Pacific islanders had
maps of sticks and shells, showing islands and
currents. The first globe was invented in 1492
by a German, Martin Behaim.

I.Jsih9 stick and shell 111aps, Pacific islanders
successfolly crossed thousands kilo111etres ocean.

Z4

T The chronometer was Invented by

En9lish111an John Harrison In 11'35. It
was a reliable t imepiece, specially

mounted to remove the eHect

a\\ a Ship's motion at sea.

1111 The sextant
was developed
around 11"30 and was
an important navigation
aid until the 1900s.

l:i9hteenth-centut'y

sailol'S could wot'k out exactly whet'e

they wet'e on the oceans. They used an

instrument called a sextant, invented around 1730. If'
The sextant measured the height of the Sun from the
horizon. The chronometer was an extremely reliable us~ COMPASo/

clock that wasn't affected by the motion of the sea. outside arrd find ,.___

I ti , -l- Take a·c0~ ss_ is north. Put a
-+=~.,... - :-1~T -M-O<~.<elrn navigation instr-uments -._j' ,..-out which directi~n~ N'- -n it on th!_

· · -1 ,_,_ cardboard afr.ow i'fl~-.~ine n·r1t d'1rection-:-
t -_:use sii nals_fro1 ~ ver91b ~!elli!_e~
__to_~nPcojni..:tbeit...p.QSi.tio . - I-~ - deAtehctets.rirsri,gn(oa_lesr:i-a\!'r)-o ' ,.g._r_ound tpoiA1totlQwgoC1rlf'tkl~n""",~•t th directions
+-' -:iysa-tell1"-"e,,s;,,--+-,-~ -T-.h..e. n of south, west and eaSt

-' -J. ' ,-•-

Batter ies

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t?-reiv ·-'--j-+·t'...-.-r-+-J'-+-"~~~-"'f-:.:.::;.:i.!n..'.g _

COl>lpPt'eS

av6ilable sa
Signals and

0'

, yore exactly

G~S1hant 1held I

•
i i- , .a .rrce1ve es
nalp,frdT st fellitf s irH µ,a'.ce. It shows ,
~r,.. 1 0si.i.-tJ.iJ0....~-.qt0.-L~ -tl'.li-r.i-al t~W:metres•-

eiver.s~can be burlt·into t ars ·
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