Antecedents in the Ancient Period

*Ancient civilization paved the way for advances in Science and Technology.
*These advances during the ancient period allowed civilization to flourish by finding better ways
of communication, transportation, self-organization and ways of living.
*Ancient Wheel
*Paper
*Shadoof
*Antikythera Mechanism
*Aeolipile

Ancient Wheel

*People from ancient civilization used animals as means of transportation, that is, wheels could
be attached to a cart and the cart attached to animals.

*The invention of ancient wheel is credited to the SUMERIANS. The oldest known wheel found
in an archaeological excavation is from MESOPOTAMIA, and dates to around 3500 BC.

*It has been claimed that wheels were first used by potters. Today the wheel is a very important
legacy in the Mesopotamians have left us.

Paper

*In as early as 3000 B.C., the Egyptians had developed a technique for making paper from the
pith of the papyrus plant.

*The English word “paper” actually comes from the word “papyrus”. 

*Paper first uses included being used as a wrap for precious items in Ancient China, religious
texts in Ancient Egypt, and government texts in Ancient Greece.

Shadoof

*The Shadoof is a tool used and invented by Ancient Egyptians to Irrigate land.

*It is a hand-operated device used for lifting water.

Antikythera Mechanism

*The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known mechanical calculator.

*It was constructed around the second century BCE and lost in a shipwreck very close to the
small Greek Island of Antikythera.

*Application of modern imaging methods to the surviving fragments has led to general
agreement on the basic structure of the device and its solar and lunar astronomical functions.
Aeolipile

*Heron Alexandrinus, or Hero Alexandria as he was often known, was the first inventor of the
steam engine, a steam powered device that was called Aeolipile or the Heron Engine.

*The name comes from the Greek word “Aiolos” who was the Greek God of the winds.

*An Aeolipile is a sphere that is positioned in such a way that it can rotate around its axis.

*Nozzles that are opposite to each other would expel steam and both of the noozles would
generate a combine thrust resulting in torque, causing the
sphere to spin around its axis.   

Antecedents in the Middle Ages

*The major advances in scientific and technological development took place in this period.

*Heavy Plough
*Gunpowder
*Paper Money
*Mechanical Clock
*Spinning Wheel

Heavy Plough

*The heavy plough turned European agriculture and economy on its head. Suddenly the fields
with the heavy, fatty and moist clay soils became those that gave the greatest yields, explains
Professor Thomas Barnebeck Andersen of the University of South Denmark.

Gunpowder

*In Chinese, gunpowder is called Huo Yao, meaning flaming medicine.

*The birth of gunpowder was quite accidental.

*It was first invented inadvertently by alchemists while attempting to make an elixir of
immortality.

*It was a mixture of Sulphur,, saltpeter, and charcoal.

Paper Money

*Paper money is an invention of the Song Dynasty in China in the 11th century CE, nearly 20 
centuries after the earliest known use of metal coins. 

*Paper money was certainly easier to carry in large amount.

*During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), merchants began to leave those heavy coins with a
trustworthy agent, who would record how much money the merchant had on deposit on a piece
of paper.

*The paper, a sort of promissory note.

*With trade renewed along the Silk Road, this simplified cartage considerably.

*At the beginning of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE)

*In the 1100s Song authorities decided to take direct control of the system.

Marco Polo brought back to European his travel journal in the late 13th century.

Mechanical Clock

*In the early to mid-14th century, large mechanical clocks began to appear in the towers of
several Italian cities.

*Verge-and-foliot mechanisms reigned for more than 300 years

*Christian Huygens

*Galileo Galilei

*Huygen’s pendulum clock

Spinning Wheel

*an ancient invention used to transform various plant and animal fibers into thread or yarn,
which are subsequently woven into cloth on a loom.

*an Ancient History of the Spinning Wheel

*Franz Maria Feldhaus- traces the origins of the spinning wheel back to the ancient Egypt.

Antecedents in the Modern Ages

Modern Ages
*Historical period when people realized the importance of the efficiency of transportation,
communication and production.

*Industrialization took place but with greater risk on human health, food safety, and
environment.

*Compound Microscope
*Telescope
*Jacquard Loom
*Airplane
*Television

Compound Microscope

*light microscope- an instrument that enables the human eye, by means of a lens or

combinations of lenses, to observe enlarged images of tiny objects

*About 1590, 2 Dutch spectacle makers, Zaccharias Janssen and his son Hans, while
experimenting with several lenses in a tube, discovered that nearby objects appeared greatly
enlarged.

*In 1609, Galileo- father of modern physics and astronomy

Telescope

*Phoenicians cooking on sand first discovered glass around 3500 BCE, but it took another 5000
years or so before glass was shaped into a lens to create the first telescope.

*Hans Lippershey of Holland- credited with the invention in the 16th century

*Telescope was introduced to astronomy in 1609 by Galileo Galilei, the first man to see the
craters on the moon.

*Galileo could see no more than a quarter of the moon’s face without repositioning his telescope.

Jacquard Loom

*Joseph Marie Jacquard- helped lead to the invention of computer punch cards and the advent 

of data processing.

*In Lyon, France, Jacquard was employed in a factory and used his spare time in constructing
his improved loom.

*In 1801, he exhibited his invention at the industrial exhibition at Paris.

*In 1803, he was summoned to Paris to work for the Conservatoire de Arts et Metiers.

*In 1709-1782, a loom by Jacques de Vaucanson deposited there (Conservatoire de Arts et

Metiers)
*Joseph Marie Jacquard’s invention was an attachment that sat on top of a loom.

*The loom was declared public property in 1806 and Jacquard was rewarded with a pension and
a royalty on each machine.

*Joseph Marie Jacquard died at Oullins (Rhone) on the 7th of August 1834.

Airplane

*Orville and Wilbur Wright-inventors of the first airplane.

*December 17, 1903- the Wright brothers launched the era of human flight when they
successfully tested a flying vehicle that took off by its own power, flew naturally at even speeds,
and descended without damaged.

*1903- the Wright brothers took their first flight

*Among these earlier efforts were contraceptives such as kites, hot air balloons, airships, gliders
and other types of aircraft.

*After the Wright Brothers- inventors continued to improved airplanes.

*A jet is an airplane propelled by jet engines.

*Two engineers, FRANK WHITTLE of the United Kingdom and HANS VON OHAIN of
Germany- are credited with the development of the jet engine during the late 1930’s. 

Television

*John Logie Baird- born on August 13th, 1888 in Helensburgh Dunbarton, Scotland

*Died on June 14th 1946 in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England.

*Baird is the best remembered for inventing a mechanical television system

*The television pioneer created the first televised pictures of objects in motion (1924), the first
televised human face (1925) and a year later he televised the first moving object image at the
Royal Institution in London.

*His 1928 trans-Atlantic transmission of the image of a human face was a broadcasting
milestone.

*Color television (1928), stereoscopic television and television by infra-red light were all
demonstrated by Baird before 1930.