11164Carlisle_ffirs.m.qxd5/26/049:58AMPageiii Scientific American INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES All the Milestones in Ingenuity— from the Discovery of Fire to the Invention of the Microwave Oven R C ODNEY ARLISLE John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 11164Carlisle_ffirs.m.qxd5/26/049:58AMPageiii 11164Carlisle_ffirs.m.qxd5/26/049:58AMPagei Scientific American INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES 11164Carlisle_ffirs.m.qxd5/26/049:58AMPageii 11164Carlisle_ffirs.m.qxd5/26/049:58AMPageiii Scientific American INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES All the Milestones in Ingenuity— from the Discovery of Fire to the Invention of the Microwave Oven R C ODNEY ARLISLE John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 11164Carlisle_ffirs.m.qxd5/26/049:58AMPageiv This book is printed on acid-free paper. ●∞ Copyright © 2004 by Rodney Carlisle. 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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Carlisle, Rodney P. Scientific American inventions and discoveries : all the milestones in ingenuity—from the discovery of fire to the invention of the microwave oven / Rodney Carlisle. p. cm. ISBN 0-471-24410-4 (Cloth) 1. Inventions—History—Encyclopedias. 2. Inventions—United States—Encyclopedias. 3. Technology— History—Encyclopedias. 4. Technological innovations—Encyclopedias. I. Title. T15 .C378 2004 609—dc22 2003023258 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11164Carlisle_ftoc.m.qxd 5/26/04 9:59AM Pagev C ONTENTS Acknowledgments vii General Introduction 1 Part I The Ancient World through Classical Antiquity, 8000 B.C. to A.D. 330 9 Part II The Middle Ages through 1599 81 Part III The Age of Scientific Revolution, 1600 to 1790 149 Part IV The Industrial Revolution, 1791 to 1890 223 Part V The Electrical Age, 1891 to 1934 319 Part VI The Atomic and Electronic Age, 1935 into the 21st Century 397 Index 481 11164Carlisle_ftoc.m.qxd 5/26/04 9:59AM Pagevi 11164Carlisle_flast.m.qxd5/26/049:59AMPagevii A CKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing the essays for this encyclopedia has provided me with an opportunity to bring together thoughts, information, and ideas that drew from many sources, both literary and personal, to which I have been exposed over many years. My interest in the history of technology was stimulated by a course taken as a freshman at Harvard that was taught by Professor Leonard K. Nash. As I recall, Natural Sciences 4 or “Nat Sci Four” was suggested by other students and advisers as the appropriate course for a history major to take to meet the college’s general education requirements. I did not realize it at the time, but the course had been established by James B.ConantandwaslatercotaughtbyThomasS.Kuhn,whowouldpub- lishTheStructureofScientificRevolutions.ProfessorNashandThomas Kuhn developed many of the ideas together that would later appear in Kuhn’spathbreakingwork,includingafocusonthescientificrevolution initiatedbyCopernicusandexpoundedbyGalileo. In later decades, as I was teaching in the History Department at Rut- gers University in Camden, our college adopted a similar approach to general education requirements as that established by Conant. To pro- vide a course titled “Science, Technology, and Society,” I approached a colleague in the Chemistry Department, Professor Sidney Katz, and together we offered a sweeping history of science and technology, which we often taught in summer sessions, reflecting Thomas Kuhn’s focus on the revolutions in scientific thought, as well as investigations into the social impact of innovation. Of course, a great deal has happened in the disciplines of the history of science and technology over the past decades, and our readings in the subject took us to a finer appreciation of the complex crosscurrents