Since the dawn of human history, mankind has been using his ingenuity to craft and create. From the wheel onward, the world is filled with the bounty of man’s relentless innovative spirit.
Let’s take a look at some of these innovations large and small and see how they came into being.
The history of great innovations
One of the brightest ideas in modern history was electricity and the light bulb. Although several forms of the light bulb existed beforehand, Thomas Edison is credited with the invention because his version exceeded the earlier versions due to a combination of three factors: an effective incandescent material; a higher vacuum than others were able to achieve; and a high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable.
On January 27, 1880, Edison received the historic patent embodying the principles of his incandescent lamp that paved the way for the universal domestic use of electric light.
In 1881, Edison was the star of the International Exposition of Electricity held in Paris, which was visited by almost 900,000 people.
Another light unto the US nation, so to speak, was Andrew Carnegie. At an early age, he invested in iron works and saw potential in the future of steel.
Before the 1850s, steel could be made only in small batches and was so expensive that it was limited to specialized applications like sword blades and precision tools, despite being much more versatile and stronger than wrought iron.
Then in 1857, English engineer Henry Bessemer developed a way to make steel in large quantities at a fraction of the price. Steel quickly began to replace wrought iron in such things as railroad tracks and structural beams for buildings and bridges.
With his foresight, Carnegie was primarily responsible for American strength in steel production, making him one of the wealthiest men in the US. When Carnegie inaugurated the famed Carnegie Hall concert venue in New York City in 1891, the maestro who was invited to conduct the first series of concerts was Tchaikovsky.
While many innovations were created with a specific purpose in mind, for as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, there are some items which we now regard as indispensable that were come upon by accident.
In Judaism, there is a concept which holds that there are no accidents and that everything is determined by God. It is posited that the Hebrew word for “accident,” mikreh, is an acronym of rak mi Hashem – “only from God.”
Be that as it may, whether it was a miscellaneous mishap or a divine intervention invention, we are the beneficiaries of those fortuitous happenstances.
These are some of the items that were not deliberately designed but were developed by creative minds that saw the potential in a slip-up and ran with it: X-rays; penicillin; the pacemaker; the microwave; plastic; Band-aids; Super Glue; Teflon; Velcro.
In the realm of food, there are many items which are now staples that the originators did not mean to cook up, but aren’t we glad they did. These include hamburgers, potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, corn flakes, popsicles, ice cream cones.
Amazing Israeli innovations
But when it comes to deliberate design, Israel ranks high as the innovation nation. The following are just some of the fruits of the ingenuity = or shall I say “inJewnuity” = that have emanated from the Promised Land and the land of promise.
Waze is a device that is powered and used by drivers all over the world. Drivers connect to one another and work together to improve each other’s driving experience. As a community-based traffic and navigation app, Waze was created as a social navigation tool for private cars.
Mobileye develops autonomous driving technologies and advanced driver-assisted systems that include cameras, computer chips and software to alert drivers of any obstacles or hazards that may be on the road.
The PillCam is a swallowable medical camera. It is a digestible, disposable camera that transmits data to a receiver outside the body. It is used across the globe to diagnose infection, intestinal disorders and cancers in the digestive system. It’s also able to access areas of the digestive system that are typically out of range during a conventional procedure. The device has revolutionized modern medicine by allowing patients to avoid visits to the hospital.
SniffPhone is a compact hand-held device that measures exhaled breath for early diagnosis of cancer. The user holds the device in front of his or her mouth and exhales onto the SniffPhone.
And when it comes to literally creating something out of thin air, read on.
Watergen produces clean drinking water out of thin air using nothing more than a portable generator. The device extracts humidity from the air – i.e., vaporized water that is present in the atmosphere everywhere from rain forests to desert climates. Watergen’s generators cool and liquidize the air vapor, producing up to four liters of water for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they use. The generators include built-in filtration technology to account for air pollution, and further treat the extracted water to ensure it is safe to consume. This life-saving device is being used in disaster zones across the globe.
That was just the tip of a massive and very impressive iceberg (Eisenberg, Goldberg, Greenberg….).
From chocolate chips to computer chips and far beyond, brilliant minds around the world have been hard at work devising innovative ways to improve, enhance and illuminate our lives. Really, what will they think of next? ■