Ophthalmologist here! Fun fact about cataract surgery too: Basically there are two ways to get the cataract (opacified lens) out, either you take it out totally or you remove its outer covering (the anterior capsule), take out the contents, and leave the posterior covering behind. The first procedure sounds more primitive and the second one more complex, but the more complex procedure actually came first! There are records from 600 BC documenting this. In fact this is still what we do in modern cataract surgeries! Also someone else mentioned this in the comments, but intraocular lenses (these are the lenses we put inside the eye in cataract surgery) were developed because doctors noticed plastic bits stuck in pilots’ eyes seemed to be tolerated by the body. This led to the development of plastic lenses made of PMMA which was widely used in airplanes at that time…and yes we still use PMMA lenses! Better materials like acrylic and silicone have led to development of foldable IOLs so PMMA isn’t used that much anymore, but we still use it.
I regard cataract surgery and modern intraocular lenses as something of a modern miracle. I’ve had cataract surgery in both eyes and see better than I have in years. I’m still astonished by the results. (I’m like “Why didn’t my eye doctor _tell_ me it would be like this?” but I get that doctors don’t want to make predictions.)
Ever wonder why "internal combustion engines" are referred to that way? It's to differentiate them from steam engines, where the combustion (fire/heat) and movement happened *externally*. Steam train engineers had that oil can to go around lubricating parts because all the moving bits are on the outside - there's nothing inside the engine except water and steam. ICEs are basically inside-out steam engines which cut out the water as it's not needed to transfer the energy.
Wouldn't it be called that way because the combustion is internal? Seems counter-intuitive for the steam engine to be a water boiler connected to.. what makes the train go. Wouldn't a steam engine be an external combustion engine because the combustion is outside the engine?
@@katethegoat7507 Yes that's exactly right, they're sometimes referred to that way. Ice engines burn the fuel internally and the energy transfers directly to the piston, steam engines burn the fuel externally and transfer the energy to the piston inside via super heated steam.
Whats also fun is where ICEs are generally 4 stroke, and sometimes 2, steam engines are 1 stroke engines. Every movement of the pistons is actively powered.
Regarding the horseless cart thing, Da Vinci (unsurprisingly) invented a spring driven self-propelled cart much earlier than the example given. In 2006 people finally got around to recreating it and it worked just fine.
This reminds me of a great book I read years ago called "The Victorian Internet" about the culture of telegraph operators more than a century ago. As it turns out, they basically had the internet way back then.
Yup! Abbreviations like ROFL and IMHE and LOL are nothing compared to the Phillips Code that telegraph operators developed! And when they weren't sending messages they'd chat back and forth like teenagers texting.
In Hungary they have an old design for keeping butter cold. It's a ceramic plate with a moat and the center is lower than the outer ring. They fill the moat with water and not only does it cool the butter to refrigerator temps, it keeps anys and bugs away.
@@TheSpiritombsableyethe butter and water can’t meet because of the moat. The water cools the air which sinks to where the butter is and keeps it cool.
My first through at the first horseless carriage hitting a wall. "That awkward moment you are so bad at engineering you invent the car crash before you invent the car."
Fun fact: the word Yakhchal is compounded from the Persian words for "ice" and "well" (as in, "draw a bucket of water from the well"). Although I have to say, I've always been confused as to why we use the word "freezer" (literally just copied from English); we call a refrigerator a thing that keeps stuff frozen, and a freezer also just a thing that keeps stuff frozen. Why not just invent a new word at that point, like Khonakchal ("cool-well"), instead of using the same description for two different things.
The difference between a modern refrigerator and a freezer is that the refrigerator isn't meant to actually freeze things, just to keep them cool but above freezing (usually around 5 degrees Celsius).
Truly didn’t expect the last one to be so interesting, but it kind of blew my mind. Once explained it seems pretty simple, but I can’t get over how crazy it is that they did that so long ago.
I saw an ad yesterday talking about the invention of the speculum dating from the 1800's. However the speculum is WAY older than that. There is a device that would not look at all out of place in a modern gynecological office sitting in a display case of the archeological museum of Naples Italy. It was recovered from Pompeii.
12:49 "If the vibrations of the incoming voice perfectly matched the pattern of the recording, the needle would retrace the existing grooves and create an electrical contact that activated the lock and opened it" That's so cool! It really is a sound-based key 🗣🔑
Kinda sad about Otto Wichterle not being mentioned at least briefly when it came to the contact lenses as he was the inventor of soft contact lenses and fellow Czech person❤
@@erklartai Probably from caves. Caves will stay at the same temperature basically 24/7. If you ever enter a cave on a hot day you'll notice a sudden drop in temp. So they probably connected the dots and realized that several meters of rock would allow them to keep ice year round.
Fun fact, yakhchal (yakh + chal) loosely translates to "ice + hole" and we (Persians/Iranians) still call fridges with that name! We also call glaciers yakhchal.
..considering the sattle r atleats 800 BCE (what been found) and metall stirrups that been dated to 322 CE been found .. it isent a faar leap to belive thay are far older than 300 CE, made of hide and wood for example which decomposed and cant be found .. once in awhile special conditon exist that preseved things, but as far i know no stirrup befor ca 300 CE has been found.
@@bettyswallocks6411 well, depends how u define a fork i suppose... bone forks that been dated 2400 BCE (4400 years ago, Bronze Age Qijia culture ) has been found, but the first metal once seems to come around year 1000 from the ottoman empire, ofc its not until refining metals was possible we get the modern version, strength wise it wasent possible, a bone fork doesent bend like a metall one .. ..but the fork as a tool for eating seems to be quite old, and spoons and knifes even older
Disappointed that the part about lenses stemming from water didn't mention the adjustable-focus glasses that were invented for the developing-world (but useful everywhere) that have soft, hollow fluid-filled lenses and a gear or syringe that can adjust the pressure to modify the focal-length. Awesome!
The Keen/Charpiot voice-recognition lock is a key point in Dorothy Sayers's 1928 short story "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba." Detective Lord Peter Wimsey owns a safe containing all the secrets of a clandestine criminal society, whose secret compartment can only be opened by his voice pronouncing the phrase "Open sesame!"
I'm constantly amazed at how smart our paleolithic and neolithic ancestors actually were. More and more we're finding out how rich and complex their lives actually were. I'm surprised that Hank didn't also mention the suspected thaumatrope of a deer they found dating between 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. It's a disc with a small hole in the middle and a picture of a deer in different states of running on either side. If you put a string through it and used it to spin the disc you would have been able to see a deer running. As Picasso said when he left Altamira, "In 15,000 years we have invented nothing."
I knew about 1-3, but 4-6 were new to me. Especially 6; that is some brilliant inspiration for a story I want to write. Like, you're telling me that there is real world proof that my character could feasibly invent a voice recognition lock without having to reinvent the computer or hand wave its workings as just "powered by magic"? Hoo, that is so cool! Thank you for continuing to broadening my horizons, SciShow! May there be many more moments like this in years to come.
The first "cars" needing to refuel every 15 minutes, should immediately make all the "Recharging your electric car every 100 miles is pathetic" realize that this is exactly how new technology works. Give it time and things will become fantastically engineered
That’s true, but I think the difference lies in the fact that back then nobody said “horse will be illegal in 3 years so get your 15 minute endurance car now”
Just an FYI.... Cd's and DVD's also use the same tech as the vinyl record ;) They simply use a laser to read the peaks and valleys instead of a needle. I worked at Sony in the 90s for awhile as a temp. It was really interesting work. Your better comparison would be analog to digital.
Everything that I have read says CD's and DVD's are digital formats. The lasers are etching or reading pits in the disc that correspond to the 1's and 0's of the data.
@@Vocalindsthat is correct, but it's not quite as clear cut, the burnable discs use a phase change material that diffracts light differently based on if it's been heated by a laser to the correct transition temperature which changes how it reflects light, rewritable discs use a formulation that can change back and forth between these states for a limited number of times. (I might have used the wrong terminology, but it should still be correct in principle) and because of this they cannot be read via physical contact Commercially pressed discs are different, they have the pits and lands (bumps) physically pressed into the plastic which is then coated with an aluminium film that's then either laminated with another sheet of plastic or lacquered to protect it from oxidation. (laminated discs are almost always, if not always dvd and bluray discs, lacquered discs are usually cds) A commercially pressed disc therefore would theoretically be readable via physical contact if the pits and lands were exposed and the contact medium used had a fine enough point.
First steam engine in use: Iinvention of a steam-powered water pump for draining mines, Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont (1553 - March 23, 1613 AD) was granted a patent by the Spanish monarchy in 1606.
Contacts give me hope for the future. If we can invent the concept early, like many things in science, it's only a matter of time until we have the technology to truly implement it. I think that's beautiful.
Its amazing the ingenuity and creativity that these inventors had, in order to create items so advanced for there times. Also side note I think another interesting invention that was older than I thought was the fax machine, it predates the original telephone
My favorite one to bring up is the Fax Machine. It was invented in 1843. So yea, Abraham Lincoln coulda sent a fax to both Queen Victoria and a Samurai.
The precursor to the audio CD (the optophone, which is a much cooler name) was first made in 1931 by Dr. Edmund Fornier D'Albe. He didn't use binary encoding, but binary was invented in 1689 by Gottfried Leibniz.
Aeolipile- Artifact: (2 Colorless to cast) Pay 1Colorless Tap, Sacrifice Aeolipile to do 2 damage to any target It should also say; if at anytime Aeolipile is in your graveyard, you may exile it from the game to return target permanent to owners hand and scry 4. Back to the vid tho! Great episode on inventions from the past!! 🗺️
This episode reminded me of an old show I loved growing up. Connections with James Burke, such a rabbit hole of information on a subject. Maybe you guys could do something similar with a new channel.
I know of one invention that exactly fits your explanation of an idea occurring very early, but had to wait for technology to catch up: e-cigarettes. In 1963, Herbert Gilbert invented what was essentially an "electric cigarette." There were no electronics at all, given that this was even before commercially available transistor radios; it had the form factor of a cigarette, and had a small battery, and heated a coil in order to make vapor, rather than burning vegetative matter as tobacco cigarettes do. But no one was interested in Mr. Gilbert's device; smoking was still going strong, all over the world, everywhere you looked. And nobody cared. So why go to all that trouble, they probably reasoned, when you could just set fire to vegetative matter and inhale the smoke. This was before the Surgeon General's announcement of a CORRELATION between smoking and lung cancer -- not causation, CORRELATION. And even after that pronouncement, it took quite a while for anyone to care about that correlation. Mr. Gilbert's device was not viable; batteries were weak then, compared to what we have now, so it didn't last very long. I'm also not sure if he figured out what liquid to use. Whatever the case, neither the tobacco industry, nor the pharmaceutical industry, nor the US gov't could think of a single reason why an electric cigarette was better than a tobacco cigarette, and though Gilbert had a patent, nobody was interested in producing that device, so it quietly died. Or maybe just comatose, because in the early 2000s, a Chinese pharmacist named Hon Lik watched his father, a smoker, die of cancer. And Hon Lik smoked too, so he knew that particular agonizing death could very well be in his own future. He was an educated and highly motivated man, so he devised the first generation of the vapes we have today -- lithium-ion battery, propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, with a bit of nicotine, and some flavors, to make the vapor which resembles smoke. That first generation also had a "cigarette" form factor, what we called "cigalikes" back in 2014 when I switched to vaping. You don't see those anymore, because they're just not satisfying; the batteries are too small for very long use, and they hold AT MOST about half a milliliter of eliquid. But that was the type I started with; 2nd generation, but still a cigarette form factor: the eRoll. It might have been the last somewhat successful cigalike produced. Nowadays, I use a "box mod" and an RDA atomizer. All I can say is THANK GOD FOR SCIENCE! It freed me from a desperate 39 yr addiction... and I saw my own father die of lung cancer.
I knew most of these, but the phonograph sound-lock patent from the early 1900s is ingenious. For a completely analog device, it does sound reasonably well-designed. Czech invetor Otto Wichterle was a major contributor to the refinement of modern day contact lens design, between the late 1940s and early 1960s.
Could we get a series about the best pre-industrial skills to brush up on - in preparation for varying levels of possible apocalypse? That might be of interest to some humans.
Please notice that no possible apocalypse would wipe out people's memories, nor erase printed materials. Most of the industrial methods are also safeguarded in the applications to patent offices. Having professionals on all industries, and librarians, no way humankind would go back to a pre-industrial stage. And, most importantly, humankind has always survived and progressed via cooperation. The vast majority of prepper videos rely on unlikely hypotheses: that you will be the only people in a plentiful wilderness where you can hunt or grow vegetables - with weapons and tools you can resupply from thin air - with tap water, and that you'll never need new clothes or medical attention. If things *really bad* happen, like a nuclear war, you will become a refugee (assuming you survive) so any preparation in skills like forging metals by hand will be useless. If things not that bad but pretty serious happen, like an electromagnetic pulse hitting major electricity networks, that *would not* take the whole world back to pre-industrial times. Most of the industrial processes were created before electricity were widely available, and, you can bet your life on this, engineers everywhere would work like crazy to restore the grids ASAP. Meanwhile, inventors and aficionados would share their contraptions to produce electricity at a small scale, and, the current expansion of domestic solar energy would mean that many homes would not be deprived of electricity. Finally, instead of brushing up on skills to face an apocalypse, better prevent it. *Vote for sane politicians* (check Wikipedia for their biographies; the insane ones are recognizable by their recorded actions and words). Know your neighbors and have some plan to care for each other in case of disaster - your state/county/municipality should have some materials to help with that. Teach your kids to think critically, to respect science, and people different from them. Do your best to learn what misinformation is and how to fight it. All of which is way harder than to learn pre-industrial skills, but way more productive. ✌
@@MariaMartinez-researcher this! So much this! There are hundreds of experimental archaeologists and history interpreters who have done that work. Plus libraries exist. Historically it is groups that work together that survive, not individuals who forget about can openers.
Ayeeee the videos are brighter again! I know you guys never saw my comments but it’s great to see the videos go back to being bright rather than dark and struggling to see.
*6 Inventions That Are Older Than You Think* * *0:27** - **2:18** - Steam Engines:* The first steam engine wasn't from the Industrial Revolution. Heron of Alexandria invented the aeolipile (steam turbine) in the 1st century. While inefficient, it demonstrated converting heat to motion. Later, James Watt's improved steam engine in 1769 revolutionized industry. * *2:19** - **4:31** - Horseless Carriage:* Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's "fardier à vapeur" (steam cart) predates the modern car by a century. Built in 1769, this three-wheeled vehicle was slow, unstable, and required frequent refueling, but it pioneered the concept of engine-powered transportation. [From Comments] The term "internal combustion engine" distinguishes it from external combustion engines like steam engines, where combustion happens outside the engine. * *4:32** - **6:51** - Ice Making Refrigerators:* Long before electric refrigerators, Persians in the 4th century BC used yakhchals, cone-shaped ice houses, for ice storage and production. Using passive cooling techniques, yakhchals could freeze water in the desert during winter and keep ice frozen throughout the summer. [From Comments] A commenter mentions a similar historical technique used in Hungary for keeping butter cool. * *6:52** - **9:25** - Animation:* Cave paintings from the Paleolithic Age (tens of thousands of years ago) may contain early forms of animation. Animals with multiple limbs or in different positions suggest movement. Flickering firelight would have further enhanced this effect, creating an illusion of motion. [From Comments] A commenter points out the irony of discussing prehistoric animation in an online video, a relatively modern technology. * *9:26** - **11:20** - Contact Lenses:* While corrective lenses have existed for centuries, the idea of placing lenses directly on the eye dates back to René Descartes in the 1630s. Thomas Young created the first (impractical) contact lens in 1801. Viable glass lenses emerged in the 1880s, followed by smaller, plastic versions in 1947. [From Comments] A commenter expresses disappointment that Otto Wichterle, inventor of soft contact lenses, wasn't mentioned. * *11:21** - **13:47** - Voice Authentication:* The "counter sign lock" from 1908, possibly invented by Elliot Kean or George Charpiat, used a phonograph cylinder to verify the owner's voice and unlock. While less sophisticated than modern voice recognition, it established the core concept of using voice biometrics for security. *General Notes:* * The video also mentions a previous episode about the history of the electric light bulb. * Several comments highlighted other interesting inventions not covered in the video, suggesting a potential Part 2. * The video host acknowledges they couldn't cover all examples due to time constraints. I used gemini-1.5-pro-exp-0801 to summarize the transcript. Cost (if I didn't use the free tier): $0.07 Input tokens: 18440 Output tokens: 654
So Hank, the principle mechanic of the water cooling ponds isn't evaporative cooling, but rather radiation. The clear dessert skies mean no clouds to reflect infrared heat emitted by the water back toward it, and there is a narrow band of infrared that escapes right through the atmosphere and dumps that heat right into space. This mechanism is actually used by some companies to make a panel that pumps excess heat into space rather than into the ambient air
In the early 2000's my mom said she was done with glasses and was switching to contacts. Then she found out that for her prescription plastic wasn't available and she would have to get glass lenses. She wore them to work and took them off the second she got home. I believe they figured it out a few years later and where much more comfortable.
I will never understand videos that say, "We didn't have time for that." This is an online forum, and there are videos that last for hours. Just make a longer video! We want ALL the goodies!!
The longer the video, the more time and effort from multiple people (or many multiples of one person) are required, which means much less cost-effective, sadly.
I don't believe for a second that the voice recognition thing worked at all. Two different recordings don't match, even if they're by the same person trying their best to make the exact same sound.
Surprised the Flocken Elektrowagen wasn't tagged onto the steam wagon and early horseless carriage segment, seeing as how it's regarded as the first proper ELECTIRC car designed in 1888 by Andreas Flocken.
I've read several non-Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes stories where Holmes uses contact lenses to change his eye color, one even to make it appear he is blind.
I was shocked when I found out how long faxing technology has been around. Even though it now operates over phone lines it's actually older than the telephone.
The earliest faxes I know of were an offshoot of the invention of the telegraph. I wouldn't be shocked if there was some sort that predated electricity.
@@sydhenderson6753 As per "fax" wiki Giovanni Caselli introduced the first commercial fax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865. This was 11 years before the invention of the telephone. This is what I mean there was faxing in place before even telephone which suprised me because modern faxing RELIES on telephone infrastructure to be already in place.
2:45 -- if there were any steampunk fans prior to the modern steam engine then they would have imagined the aesthetic to be greek/roman inspired rather than victorian, which is honestly a pretty cool vibe if you think about it
Fun fact, doctors noticed that the plexiglass from Spitfires that had shattered and gotten into the pilots eyes were not being rejected by the body. This the first practical plastic contact lens
I have a bad astigmatism. In early HS (lates 90s) I had ”hard contacts” so painful. Now I rarely wear contacts (mostly summer or activities) but they are some thick plastic or whatever now. Far better but cost $500 for a 6 months supply
There is a charming letter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806) describing her children playing with go-carts on the lake at Chatsworth one winter. This was in the early 1790s-and she uses the term "go-cart". So go-carts are quite a bit older than I realized.....
When I was a kid (a long, long time ago) I remember seeing an encyclopedia entry that was probably for Heron of Alexandria. I recall the drawing being of a guy in stereotypical Greek garb standing near a steam device whose shape I don't quite recall now.
You’re correct that she co-invented frequency hopping, donated the patent to the U.S. Navy, and it was actually used during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
That's so misleading that it's effectively a myth. Look it up. The tech that she invented had no relation to Bluetooth. It's actually a fascinating story in itself how she became to be falsely credited for this so often. All people have to do is actually look into the history, and it becomes clear why the government didn't bite and why Bluetooth came so much later. It's like saying that the inventor of the vacuum tube invented the TV. Yes, a CRT is a large vacuum tube, but I'm sure we can agree that you would effectively be lying by crediting the inventor of the vacuum tube with the invention of the CRT TV.
Hedy Lamarr co-invented frequency-hopping during World War 2 - i.e. the 1940s. The goal was to make radio guided torpedos that couldn‘t be jammed by flooding the frequency by which they communicate. Key to the system were identical strips punched tape that synchcronized the frequency changes on the sender and the receiver - which is not how Bluetooth works. There is a lot more to Bluetooth than just the idea of frequency hopping and Hedy Lamarr wasn‘t involved in any of it.
Stevens institute of technology was named after a steam device inventor. John Stevens Independent inventor John Stevens was a pioneer in the development of steam-powered engines used in boats and railroad cars in the early nineteenth century.Aug 18, 2024
no crazier than corrective surgery. it's just a small, plastic lens really so it doesn't seem that nuts. we got smartphones and dancing robots to blow our minds with
I think so, too! To me, they’re like the most perfect design ever. Antoine St. Exupéry said “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” and contacts seem to be just that-perfectly designed for what they do. (Of course, with advances in material science, they can still improve but it’s hard to imagine an improvement on the basic design.)
Ophthalmologist here! Fun fact about cataract surgery too: Basically there are two ways to get the cataract (opacified lens) out, either you take it out totally or you remove its outer covering (the anterior capsule), take out the contents, and leave the posterior covering behind. The first procedure sounds more primitive and the second one more complex, but the more complex procedure actually came first! There are records from 600 BC documenting this. In fact this is still what we do in modern cataract surgeries!
Also someone else mentioned this in the comments, but intraocular lenses (these are the lenses we put inside the eye in cataract surgery) were developed because doctors noticed plastic bits stuck in pilots’ eyes seemed to be tolerated by the body. This led to the development of plastic lenses made of PMMA which was widely used in airplanes at that time…and yes we still use PMMA lenses! Better materials like acrylic and silicone have led to development of foldable IOLs so PMMA isn’t used that much anymore, but we still use it.
I regard cataract surgery and modern intraocular lenses as something of a modern miracle. I’ve had cataract surgery in both eyes and see better than I have in years. I’m still astonished by the results. (I’m like “Why didn’t my eye doctor _tell_ me it would be like this?” but I get that doctors don’t want to make predictions.)
sushruta my goat
If you researched more examples than you had room for in the video, I’d love to see a part 2!
They really should do Fax Machines in part 2…
They predate the telegraph, iirc.
Ever wonder why "internal combustion engines" are referred to that way? It's to differentiate them from steam engines, where the combustion (fire/heat) and movement happened *externally*. Steam train engineers had that oil can to go around lubricating parts because all the moving bits are on the outside - there's nothing inside the engine except water and steam. ICEs are basically inside-out steam engines which cut out the water as it's not needed to transfer the energy.
Yeah and there are also Stirling engines
Wouldn't it be called that way because the combustion is internal? Seems counter-intuitive for the steam engine to be a water boiler connected to.. what makes the train go. Wouldn't a steam engine be an external combustion engine because the combustion is outside the engine?
@@katethegoat7507 Yes that's exactly right, they're sometimes referred to that way. Ice engines burn the fuel internally and the energy transfers directly to the piston, steam engines burn the fuel externally and transfer the energy to the piston inside via super heated steam.
@@katethegoat7507 The difference is if the combustion is in the cylinder where heated gas acts on the piston that drives the output
Whats also fun is where ICEs are generally 4 stroke, and sometimes 2, steam engines are 1 stroke engines. Every movement of the pistons is actively powered.
Regarding the horseless cart thing, Da Vinci (unsurprisingly) invented a spring driven self-propelled cart much earlier than the example given. In 2006 people finally got around to recreating it and it worked just fine.
This reminds me of a great book I read years ago called "The Victorian Internet" about the culture of telegraph operators more than a century ago. As it turns out, they basically had the internet way back then.
Sounds interesting! I'll give it a read. Thanks!
Yup! Abbreviations like ROFL and IMHE and LOL are nothing compared to the Phillips Code that telegraph operators developed! And when they weren't sending messages they'd chat back and forth like teenagers texting.
In Hungary they have an old design for keeping butter cold. It's a ceramic plate with a moat and the center is lower than the outer ring. They fill the moat with water and not only does it cool the butter to refrigerator temps, it keeps anys and bugs away.
Until the butter melts into the water
@@TheSpiritombsableyethink that one through for just a second. Especially the "cools butter to refrigerator temps" part.
@@TAP7a if butter floats on water, it can't melt? 😂
@@TheSpiritombsableyethe butter and water can’t meet because of the moat. The water cools the air which sinks to where the butter is and keeps it cool.
thats kinda like a butter bell
My first through at the first horseless carriage hitting a wall.
"That awkward moment you are so bad at engineering you invent the car crash before you invent the car."
How is this edited yet still barely comprehensible?
Fun fact: the word Yakhchal is compounded from the Persian words for "ice" and "well" (as in, "draw a bucket of water from the well"). Although I have to say, I've always been confused as to why we use the word "freezer" (literally just copied from English); we call a refrigerator a thing that keeps stuff frozen, and a freezer also just a thing that keeps stuff frozen. Why not just invent a new word at that point, like Khonakchal ("cool-well"), instead of using the same description for two different things.
The difference between a modern refrigerator and a freezer is that the refrigerator isn't meant to actually freeze things, just to keep them cool but above freezing (usually around 5 degrees Celsius).
@@CharlesStearman I know that, I'm saying that modern refrigerators are still called ice-wells
@@abtinbarzin8369 why do modern languages often use the same term rather than developing distinct terms for these different functions?
Truly didn’t expect the last one to be so interesting, but it kind of blew my mind. Once explained it seems pretty simple, but I can’t get over how crazy it is that they did that so long ago.
I saw an ad yesterday talking about the invention of the speculum dating from the 1800's. However the speculum is WAY older than that. There is a device that would not look at all out of place in a modern gynecological office sitting in a display case of the archeological museum of Naples Italy. It was recovered from Pompeii.
12:49 "If the vibrations of the incoming voice perfectly matched the pattern of the recording, the needle would retrace the existing grooves and create an electrical contact that activated the lock and opened it" That's so cool! It really is a sound-based key 🗣🔑
Kinda sad about Otto Wichterle not being mentioned at least briefly when it came to the contact lenses as he was the inventor of soft contact lenses and fellow Czech person❤
as with his inventive chemist, Drahoslav Lim
Thank you for this little fact! #TIL
Here at least Czechs can see that while in Czechia Wichterle is considered worldwide famous, in the actual world nobody knows him 😂
Dude, I was mindblown the first time I heard about yakhchals
How did Persians come up with yakhchals?
@@erklartai Probably from caves. Caves will stay at the same temperature basically 24/7. If you ever enter a cave on a hot day you'll notice a sudden drop in temp. So they probably connected the dots and realized that several meters of rock would allow them to keep ice year round.
I mean, “ice houses” were commonly used in America in the 1800’s, but I must say, I am very impressed that this was managed in the Persian DESERT! 😳
Fun fact, yakhchal (yakh + chal) loosely translates to "ice + hole" and we (Persians/Iranians) still call fridges with that name! We also call glaciers yakhchal.
@@pariakarimi9676 I found it hilarious when it suddenly clicked for me that Hank was saying the Persian word for fridge 😂
I've always been astonished that it was over 4,000 years *after* we started riding horses that we invented stirrups.
It seems like such a simple idea too, with the benefit of hindsight. But then, so many of the very biggest ideas do.
To be fair, if you ride a horse without a modern saddle, stirrups aren't really necessary.
Plus you have more control over the horse.
..considering the sattle r atleats 800 BCE (what been found)
and metall stirrups that been dated to 322 CE been found ..
it isent a faar leap to belive thay are far older than 300 CE,
made of hide and wood for example which decomposed and cant be found ..
once in awhile special conditon exist that preseved things, but as far i know no stirrup befor ca 300 CE has been found.
We had forks of one kind or another for agricultural purposes for millennia, but only relatively recently started using them as eating utensils.
@@bettyswallocks6411 well, depends how u define a fork i suppose...
bone forks that been dated 2400 BCE (4400 years ago, Bronze Age Qijia culture ) has been found, but the first metal once seems to come around year 1000 from the ottoman empire, ofc its not until refining metals was possible we get the modern version, strength wise it wasent possible, a bone fork doesent bend like a metall one ..
..but the fork as a tool for eating seems to be quite old, and spoons and knifes even older
Doc Brown invented the ice maker in 1855 in Hilldale California - EDIT 1885 in Hill Valley. Got my movie nerd card revoked 😢
1588*
8551
5851
5185
wait, wasn't it 1885?
3:13 ‘farter of vapor’ … I’ll see myself out
Technically it's just that
Yes, yes, see that you do.
3:39 cugnot's fartier
😊
French have an excellent sense of humor and it was named this way for exactly that 😅
Disappointed that the part about lenses stemming from water didn't mention the adjustable-focus glasses that were invented for the developing-world (but useful everywhere) that have soft, hollow fluid-filled lenses and a gear or syringe that can adjust the pressure to modify the focal-length. Awesome!
@Hank, You're a great communicator. Thank you for the work that you do. Love your videos.
German speaking people at 10:30 : Wow, was nen Name...
in our age, he would be fricked with that name, doubly so!
Slightly misspelled 😂
If I named myself that on RUclips today, my account would be deleted.
@@MDuarte-vp7bm or you get swatted!
Actually impressive, his name is two types of inappropriate at the same time
I remember walking under a B-17 wing and being surprised to find a turbocharger peeking out from the underside. The plane was designed in the 1930's.
It's pretty crazy how quickly after the ICE we developed forced induction.
Oh! I knew about the holy water dispensing machine from an episode of Scishow Tangents!
The Keen/Charpiot voice-recognition lock is a key point in Dorothy Sayers's 1928 short story "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba." Detective Lord Peter Wimsey owns a safe containing all the secrets of a clandestine criminal society, whose secret compartment can only be opened by his voice pronouncing the phrase "Open sesame!"
It's amazing that prehistoric people were creating animated carvings way back then😮😊❤❤
I'm constantly amazed at how smart our paleolithic and neolithic ancestors actually were. More and more we're finding out how rich and complex their lives actually were. I'm surprised that Hank didn't also mention the suspected thaumatrope of a deer they found dating between 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. It's a disc with a small hole in the middle and a picture of a deer in different states of running on either side. If you put a string through it and used it to spin the disc you would have been able to see a deer running. As Picasso said when he left Altamira, "In 15,000 years we have invented nothing."
I knew about 1-3, but 4-6 were new to me. Especially 6; that is some brilliant inspiration for a story I want to write. Like, you're telling me that there is real world proof that my character could feasibly invent a voice recognition lock without having to reinvent the computer or hand wave its workings as just "powered by magic"? Hoo, that is so cool!
Thank you for continuing to broadening my horizons, SciShow! May there be many more moments like this in years to come.
The first "cars" needing to refuel every 15 minutes, should immediately make all the "Recharging your electric car every 100 miles is pathetic" realize that this is exactly how new technology works. Give it time and things will become fantastically engineered
But the steam-car technology wasn't improved, it was abandoned and replaced with something completely different.
@@CharlesStearman but if EVs become extremely well built and eventually replace gas cars, wouldn’t it be the same principle
That’s true, but I think the difference lies in the fact that back then nobody said “horse will be illegal in 3 years so get your 15 minute endurance car now”
Just an FYI.... Cd's and DVD's also use the same tech as the vinyl record ;) They simply use a laser to read the peaks and valleys instead of a needle. I worked at Sony in the 90s for awhile as a temp. It was really interesting work.
Your better comparison would be analog to digital.
Everything that I have read says CD's and DVD's are digital formats. The lasers are etching or reading pits in the disc that correspond to the 1's and 0's of the data.
@@Vocalindsyou are correct
@@Vocalindsthat is correct, but it's not quite as clear cut, the burnable discs use a phase change material that diffracts light differently based on if it's been heated by a laser to the correct transition temperature which changes how it reflects light, rewritable discs use a formulation that can change back and forth between these states for a limited number of times. (I might have used the wrong terminology, but it should still be correct in principle) and because of this they cannot be read via physical contact
Commercially pressed discs are different, they have the pits and lands (bumps) physically pressed into the plastic which is then coated with an aluminium film that's then either laminated with another sheet of plastic or lacquered to protect it from oxidation. (laminated discs are almost always, if not always dvd and bluray discs, lacquered discs are usually cds)
A commercially pressed disc therefore would theoretically be readable via physical contact if the pits and lands were exposed and the contact medium used had a fine enough point.
First steam engine in use:
Iinvention of a steam-powered water pump for draining mines, Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont (1553 - March 23, 1613 AD) was granted a patent by the Spanish monarchy in 1606.
Contacts give me hope for the future. If we can invent the concept early, like many things in science, it's only a matter of time until we have the technology to truly implement it. I think that's beautiful.
I love this so much. SciShow rocks
6:55 🤣 I thought I hit something and skipped to the end of the video
Its amazing the ingenuity and creativity that these inventors had, in order to create items so advanced for there times.
Also side note I think another interesting invention that was older than I thought was the fax machine, it predates the original telephone
My favorite one to bring up is the Fax Machine. It was invented in 1843. So yea, Abraham Lincoln coulda sent a fax to both Queen Victoria and a Samurai.
The precursor to the audio CD (the optophone, which is a much cooler name) was first made in 1931 by Dr. Edmund Fornier D'Albe. He didn't use binary encoding, but binary was invented in 1689 by Gottfried Leibniz.
Aeolipile- Artifact:
(2 Colorless to cast)
Pay 1Colorless Tap, Sacrifice Aeolipile to do 2 damage to any target
It should also say; if at anytime Aeolipile is in your graveyard, you may exile it from the game to return target permanent to owners hand and scry 4.
Back to the vid tho!
Great episode on inventions from the past!! 🗺️
This episode reminded me of an old show I loved growing up. Connections with James Burke, such a rabbit hole of information on a subject. Maybe you guys could do something similar with a new channel.
All I can think about is having someone fax you a Nintendo game while you put in your contacts. It sounds so 1980s, but it was so 1880s.
This is a good one. I’d watch another
I know of one invention that exactly fits your explanation of an idea occurring very early, but had to wait for technology to catch up: e-cigarettes.
In 1963, Herbert Gilbert invented what was essentially an "electric cigarette." There were no electronics at all, given that this was even before commercially available transistor radios; it had the form factor of a cigarette, and had a small battery, and heated a coil in order to make vapor, rather than burning vegetative matter as tobacco cigarettes do. But no one was interested in Mr. Gilbert's device; smoking was still going strong, all over the world, everywhere you looked. And nobody cared. So why go to all that trouble, they probably reasoned, when you could just set fire to vegetative matter and inhale the smoke. This was before the Surgeon General's announcement of a CORRELATION between smoking and lung cancer -- not causation, CORRELATION. And even after that pronouncement, it took quite a while for anyone to care about that correlation.
Mr. Gilbert's device was not viable; batteries were weak then, compared to what we have now, so it didn't last very long. I'm also not sure if he figured out what liquid to use. Whatever the case, neither the tobacco industry, nor the pharmaceutical industry, nor the US gov't could think of a single reason why an electric cigarette was better than a tobacco cigarette, and though Gilbert had a patent, nobody was interested in producing that device, so it quietly died.
Or maybe just comatose, because in the early 2000s, a Chinese pharmacist named Hon Lik watched his father, a smoker, die of cancer. And Hon Lik smoked too, so he knew that particular agonizing death could very well be in his own future. He was an educated and highly motivated man, so he devised the first generation of the vapes we have today -- lithium-ion battery, propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, with a bit of nicotine, and some flavors, to make the vapor which resembles smoke. That first generation also had a "cigarette" form factor, what we called "cigalikes" back in 2014 when I switched to vaping. You don't see those anymore, because they're just not satisfying; the batteries are too small for very long use, and they hold AT MOST about half a milliliter of eliquid. But that was the type I started with; 2nd generation, but still a cigarette form factor: the eRoll. It might have been the last somewhat successful cigalike produced. Nowadays, I use a "box mod" and an RDA atomizer.
All I can say is THANK GOD FOR SCIENCE! It freed me from a desperate 39 yr addiction... and I saw my own father die of lung cancer.
2:46 They were steampunk fans, but only the time travelers.
He really should have mentions the Electric Production Car Thomas Parker in Wolverhampton in 1884. BEFORE the petrol or Diesel Car.
Hank: Steampunk fans are people, too...
the voice recognition one is great to use for Candela Obscura type RPGs
As an Iranian I didn't know they made ice too 😮 you are good
they have this in zelda: botw as well^^
The one that got me when I learned of it was the facsimile (fax). It was invented in the 1700s.
I knew most of these, but the phonograph sound-lock patent from the early 1900s is ingenious. For a completely analog device, it does sound reasonably well-designed.
Czech invetor Otto Wichterle was a major contributor to the refinement of modern day contact lens design, between the late 1940s and early 1960s.
Could we get a series about the best pre-industrial skills to brush up on - in preparation for varying levels of possible apocalypse? That might be of interest to some humans.
I love this idea!
That is Craftsy
Please notice that no possible apocalypse would wipe out people's memories, nor erase printed materials. Most of the industrial methods are also safeguarded in the applications to patent offices. Having professionals on all industries, and librarians, no way humankind would go back to a pre-industrial stage.
And, most importantly, humankind has always survived and progressed via cooperation. The vast majority of prepper videos rely on unlikely hypotheses: that you will be the only people in a plentiful wilderness where you can hunt or grow vegetables - with weapons and tools you can resupply from thin air - with tap water, and that you'll never need new clothes or medical attention.
If things *really bad* happen, like a nuclear war, you will become a refugee (assuming you survive) so any preparation in skills like forging metals by hand will be useless.
If things not that bad but pretty serious happen, like an electromagnetic pulse hitting major electricity networks, that *would not* take the whole world back to pre-industrial times. Most of the industrial processes were created before electricity were widely available, and, you can bet your life on this, engineers everywhere would work like crazy to restore the grids ASAP. Meanwhile, inventors and aficionados would share their contraptions to produce electricity at a small scale, and, the current expansion of domestic solar energy would mean that many homes would not be deprived of electricity.
Finally, instead of brushing up on skills to face an apocalypse, better prevent it. *Vote for sane politicians* (check Wikipedia for their biographies; the insane ones are recognizable by their recorded actions and words). Know your neighbors and have some plan to care for each other in case of disaster - your state/county/municipality should have some materials to help with that. Teach your kids to think critically, to respect science, and people different from them. Do your best to learn what misinformation is and how to fight it. All of which is way harder than to learn pre-industrial skills, but way more productive. ✌
@@MariaMartinez-researcher this! So much this! There are hundreds of experimental archaeologists and history interpreters who have done that work. Plus libraries exist. Historically it is groups that work together that survive, not individuals who forget about can openers.
@@MariaMartinez-researcher that’s half the episode right there!
Inventions that are newer than you think! The sequel!
Idk if it's an invention but ciabatta bread was first crafted in 1982
Ayeeee the videos are brighter again! I know you guys never saw my comments but it’s great to see the videos go back to being bright rather than dark and struggling to see.
"Like they used to use in the old days". Thanks, Hank. 'Preciate it (sorry little rassin-frassin kid, why I oughta..."
*6 Inventions That Are Older Than You Think*
* *0:27** - **2:18** - Steam Engines:* The first steam engine wasn't from the Industrial Revolution. Heron of Alexandria invented the aeolipile (steam turbine) in the 1st century. While inefficient, it demonstrated converting heat to motion. Later, James Watt's improved steam engine in 1769 revolutionized industry.
* *2:19** - **4:31** - Horseless Carriage:* Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's "fardier à vapeur" (steam cart) predates the modern car by a century. Built in 1769, this three-wheeled vehicle was slow, unstable, and required frequent refueling, but it pioneered the concept of engine-powered transportation. [From Comments] The term "internal combustion engine" distinguishes it from external combustion engines like steam engines, where combustion happens outside the engine.
* *4:32** - **6:51** - Ice Making Refrigerators:* Long before electric refrigerators, Persians in the 4th century BC used yakhchals, cone-shaped ice houses, for ice storage and production. Using passive cooling techniques, yakhchals could freeze water in the desert during winter and keep ice frozen throughout the summer. [From Comments] A commenter mentions a similar historical technique used in Hungary for keeping butter cool.
* *6:52** - **9:25** - Animation:* Cave paintings from the Paleolithic Age (tens of thousands of years ago) may contain early forms of animation. Animals with multiple limbs or in different positions suggest movement. Flickering firelight would have further enhanced this effect, creating an illusion of motion. [From Comments] A commenter points out the irony of discussing prehistoric animation in an online video, a relatively modern technology.
* *9:26** - **11:20** - Contact Lenses:* While corrective lenses have existed for centuries, the idea of placing lenses directly on the eye dates back to René Descartes in the 1630s. Thomas Young created the first (impractical) contact lens in 1801. Viable glass lenses emerged in the 1880s, followed by smaller, plastic versions in 1947. [From Comments] A commenter expresses disappointment that Otto Wichterle, inventor of soft contact lenses, wasn't mentioned.
* *11:21** - **13:47** - Voice Authentication:* The "counter sign lock" from 1908, possibly invented by Elliot Kean or George Charpiat, used a phonograph cylinder to verify the owner's voice and unlock. While less sophisticated than modern voice recognition, it established the core concept of using voice biometrics for security.
*General Notes:*
* The video also mentions a previous episode about the history of the electric light bulb.
* Several comments highlighted other interesting inventions not covered in the video, suggesting a potential Part 2.
* The video host acknowledges they couldn't cover all examples due to time constraints.
I used gemini-1.5-pro-exp-0801 to summarize the transcript.
Cost (if I didn't use the free tier): $0.07
Input tokens: 18440
Output tokens: 654
Please do a part 2!!
So Hank, the principle mechanic of the water cooling ponds isn't evaporative cooling, but rather radiation. The clear dessert skies mean no clouds to reflect infrared heat emitted by the water back toward it, and there is a narrow band of infrared that escapes right through the atmosphere and dumps that heat right into space. This mechanism is actually used by some companies to make a panel that pumps excess heat into space rather than into the ambient air
Thank you
1:22 Cauldron is probably the most beautiful word in English to me. It is reminiscent of a mysterious past and reminds me of ZX Spectrum...
In the early 2000's my mom said she was done with glasses and was switching to contacts. Then she found out that for her prescription plastic wasn't available and she would have to get glass lenses. She wore them to work and took them off the second she got home. I believe they figured it out a few years later and where much more comfortable.
I will never understand videos that say, "We didn't have time for that." This is an online forum, and there are videos that last for hours. Just make a longer video! We want ALL the goodies!!
The longer the video, the more time and effort from multiple people (or many multiples of one person) are required, which means much less cost-effective, sadly.
They do have to pay people to make these.
The majority of people prefer to watch shorter videos. Shorter videos gain more views
@@helentee9863 that's sad. I wish the shorts would all disappear!
I don't believe for a second that the voice recognition thing worked at all. Two different recordings don't match, even if they're by the same person trying their best to make the exact same sound.
It would have to allow some fudge factor to work, but even then it would be too finicky to be practical. Still, clever idea.
I'm still amazed that we put a man on the moon before we put wheels on luggage.
Thanks!
I just can't imagine putting solid glass pieces on to your eyeballs
💚 Thank you for your efforts. I really appreciate it. You are great!
bring back steam cars! preferably with less explodey potential though
Voice recognition that early iss pretty interesting.
Somewhere, there is a portrait of Hank that's wrinkling and melting in its frame.
13:15 no one could get into the room during flu season.
I love the leaf slug shirt!
That first steam engine pops up a lot on Alternate history forums
Surprised the Flocken Elektrowagen wasn't tagged onto the steam wagon and early horseless carriage segment, seeing as how it's regarded as the first proper ELECTIRC car designed in 1888 by Andreas Flocken.
Imagine coming home from work and being locked out of your house because you got a sore throat while you were out 😂
I've read several non-Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes stories where Holmes uses contact lenses to change his eye color, one even to make it appear he is blind.
Interesting ! Thanks !
I was shocked when I found out how long faxing technology has been around. Even though it now operates over phone lines it's actually older than the telephone.
The earliest faxes I know of were an offshoot of the invention of the telegraph. I wouldn't be shocked if there was some sort that predated electricity.
@@sydhenderson6753 As per "fax" wiki Giovanni Caselli introduced the first commercial fax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865. This was 11 years before the invention of the telephone. This is what I mean there was faxing in place before even telephone which suprised me because modern faxing RELIES on telephone infrastructure to be already in place.
2:45 -- if there were any steampunk fans prior to the modern steam engine then they would have imagined the aesthetic to be greek/roman inspired rather than victorian, which is honestly a pretty cool vibe if you think about it
The HTME ( how to make everything) channel just tried to build the first engine and posted that video yesterday
i finally know what is a groove. ty!
Fun fact, doctors noticed that the plexiglass from Spitfires that had shattered and gotten into the pilots eyes were not being rejected by the body. This the first practical plastic contact lens
This led to the invention of intraocular lenses (lenses placed inside the eye as opposed to on top) used in cataract surgery!
Love this history meeting with science ❤
"For I while I was selling steam-driven automobiles...somebody actually went and built one"
That's crazy that a car was chugging around in a world before the French revolution
Or the USA!
Hank, why so down on 1900s technology? You're 1900s technology.
now THATS some banger content do more of this but different ya know?
Light based voice communication...
Alexander Graham Bell inventer it to replace telegraph / telephone wires.
I have a bad astigmatism. In early HS (lates 90s) I had ”hard contacts” so painful. Now I rarely wear contacts (mostly summer or activities) but they are some thick plastic or whatever now. Far better but cost $500 for a 6 months supply
There is a charming letter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806) describing her children playing with go-carts on the lake at Chatsworth one winter. This was in the early 1790s-and she uses the term "go-cart". So go-carts are quite a bit older than I realized.....
more please 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
When I was a kid (a long, long time ago) I remember seeing an encyclopedia entry that was probably for Heron of Alexandria. I recall the drawing being of a guy in stereotypical Greek garb standing near a steam device whose shape I don't quite recall now.
2:47 obligatory Steamboy reference
Hi Hank!
Maybe the first automobile accident was also the first DUI,
I mean He was going only like 4 mph 😅😂😂
I'm disappointed you didn't mention the cocaine eye drops that made the contacts more bearable
13:07 it only accepts good vibes
bring back steam powered cars and trains specifically bc i like when they go "toot toot"
10:29 I'm going to guess that Adolf was German... if so, that last name is pretty funny.
I already knew of yakchals, but my mind was *blown* hearing they had a 2m thick wall 😮
Bluetooth was invented by Hedy Lamar in the 50s but the technology wasn't available until recently
You’re correct that she co-invented frequency hopping, donated the patent to the U.S. Navy, and it was actually used during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
I get what your saying, but is 25 years still recent?
@@madfawks yes.
That's so misleading that it's effectively a myth. Look it up. The tech that she invented had no relation to Bluetooth. It's actually a fascinating story in itself how she became to be falsely credited for this so often. All people have to do is actually look into the history, and it becomes clear why the government didn't bite and why Bluetooth came so much later. It's like saying that the inventor of the vacuum tube invented the TV. Yes, a CRT is a large vacuum tube, but I'm sure we can agree that you would effectively be lying by crediting the inventor of the vacuum tube with the invention of the CRT TV.
Hedy Lamarr co-invented frequency-hopping during World War 2 - i.e. the 1940s. The goal was to make radio guided torpedos that couldn‘t be jammed by flooding the frequency by which they communicate. Key to the system were identical strips punched tape that synchcronized the frequency changes on the sender and the receiver - which is not how Bluetooth works. There is a lot more to Bluetooth than just the idea of frequency hopping and Hedy Lamarr wasn‘t involved in any of it.
Instead of “computer science, math & science” which sounds a bit repetitive, you could say “computing, math & science” for your Brilliant ad 😊
6:12 they had cameras and ice machines?
Stevens institute of technology was named after a steam device inventor. John Stevens
Independent inventor John Stevens was a pioneer in the development of steam-powered engines used in boats and railroad cars in the early nineteenth century.Aug 18, 2024
Contacts are legit the most amazing invention and the fact people don’t marvel over it is just beyond me
no crazier than corrective surgery. it's just a small, plastic lens really so it doesn't seem that nuts. we got smartphones and dancing robots to blow our minds with
I think so, too! To me, they’re like the most perfect design ever. Antoine St. Exupéry said “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” and contacts seem to be just that-perfectly designed for what they do. (Of course, with advances in material science, they can still improve but it’s hard to imagine an improvement on the basic design.)
From what I understand, batteries go WAY back in history. Do one about that!