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Greatest Inventions
Build your taste profile and get better suggestions. You've rated 0 of 55 topics. Want more suggestions? Launch Quick Rate- Mobile phone
A mobile phone or mobile (also called cellphone and handphone, as well as cell phone, wireless phone, cellular phone, cell, cellular telephone, mobile telephone or cell telephone) is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base...
- Camera
A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura (Latin for "dark chamber"), an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern...
- Automobile
An automobile or motor car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels...
- Electricity
Electricity is the name commonly given to a flow of electrical current. We create "electricity" for use in homes by causing a chain reaction by which valence electrons are forced out of orbit around the nucleus of their atoms. The liberated electrons go on to impact the valence electrons of other...
- Refrigerator
A refrigerator (often called a "fridge" for short) is a cooling appliance comprising a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump—chemical or mechanical means—to transfer heat from it to the external environment, cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient.
- Telephone
The telephone (from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, "far" and φωνή, phōnē, "voice") is a telecommunications device that is used to transmit and receive electronically or digitally encoded sound (most commonly speech) between two or more people conversing. It is one of the most common household...
- Glasses
Glasses (also called eyeglasses or spectacles) are frames bearing lenses worn in front of the eyes, normally for vision correction, eye protection, or for protection from UV rays. Modern glasses are typically supported by pads on the bridge of the nose and by temple arms placed over the ears.
- Alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or...
- Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported by the air, or in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift (as with balloons, blimps and dirigibles) or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil (as with vehicles that...
- Soap
Soap is an anionic surfactant used in conjunction with water for washing and cleaning, which historically comes either in solid bars or in the form of a viscous liquid. Soap consists of sodium or potassium salts of fatty acids and is obtained by reacting common oils or fats with a strong alkaline...
- Bicycle
A bicycle, bike, or cycle is a pedal-driven, human-powered vehicle with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist or a bicyclist. Bicycles were introduced in the 19th century and now number about one billion worldwide, twice as many as...
- Washing machine
A clothes washer, or simply washer, is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets. The term is mostly applied only to machines that use water as the primary cleaning solution, as opposed to dry cleaning (which uses alternative cleaning fluids, and is performed by...
- Printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring an image. The mechanical systems involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing...
- Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets.Paper is a versatile material with many uses.
- Glass
Glass generally refers to hard, brittle, transparent material, such as those used for windows, many bottles, or eyewear. Examples of such solid materials include, but are not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovy-glass, or aluminium oxynitride.
- Antibiotic
In common usage, an antibiotic is a substance or compound (also called chemotherapeutic agent) that kills or inhibits the growth of bacteria. Antibiotics belong to the group of antimicrobial compounds used to treat infections caused by micro-organisms, including fungi and protozoa.
- Wheel
A wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation whilst supporting a load (mass), or performing labour in machines. Common examples are found in transport applications. A wheel, together with an axle overcomes friction by facilitating...
- Battery
In electronics, a battery or voltaic cell is a combination of many electrochemical Galvanic cells of identical type to store chemical energy and to deliver higher voltage or higher current than with single cells. The battery cells create a voltage difference between the terminals of each cell and...
- X-ray
X-radiation (composed of X-rays) is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz (3 × 1016 Hz to 3 × 1019 Hz) and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV.
- Clock
A clock is an instrument used for indicating and maintaining the time and passage thereof. The word clock is derived ultimately (via Dutch, Northern French, and Medieval Latin) from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". For horologists and other specialists the term clock continues to...
- Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a combustible material releasing heat, light, and various reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce plasma. Depending on the substances alight, and any impurities outside, the color of the flame and the...
- Stove
A stove is an enclosed heated space. The term is commonly taken to mean an enclosed space in which fuel is burned to provide heating, either to heat the space in which the stove is situated or to heat the stove itself, and items placed on it. This article is principally concerned with enclosed...
- Birth control
Birth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, sexual practices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of pregnancy or childbirth. There are three main routes to preventing or ending pregnancy: the prevention of fertilization of the ovum by...
- Lens
A lens is an optical device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmits and refracts light, converging or diverging the beam. A simple lens is a lens consisting of a single optical element. A compound lens is an array of simple lenses (elements) with a common axis; the use of...
- Plumbing
Plumbing (from the Latin plumbum for lead as pipes were once made from lead) is the skilled trade of working with pipes, tubing and plumbing fixtures for drinking water systems and the drainage of waste. A plumber is someone who installs or repairs piping systems, plumbing fixtures and equipment...
- Velcro
Velcro is a brand name of fabric hook-and-loop fasteners. It consists of two layers: a "hook" side, which is a piece of fabric covered with tiny hooks, and a "loop" side, which is covered with even smaller and "hairier" loops. When the two sides are pressed together, the hooks catch in the loops...
- Incandescent light bulb
The incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is a source of electric light that works by incandescence (a general term for heat-driven light emissions which includes the simple case of black body radiation). An electric current passes through a thin filament, heating...
- Writing implement
A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, but writing instruments generally have the unique requirement to create a smooth, controllable line.
- Wax
Wax has traditionally referred to a substance that is secreted by bees (beeswax) and used by them in constructing their honeycombs. It is an imprecisely defined term generally understood to be a substance with properties similar to beeswax, namely Waxes may be natural secretions of plants or...
- Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Braille was devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, a Frenchman. Each Braille character or cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each.
- Sewing machine
A sewing machine is a textile machine used to stitch fabric or other material together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the invention of the first working sewing...
- Plastic
Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic amorphous solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular weight, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce...
- Helicopter
A helicopter is an aircraft that is lifted and propelled by one or more horizontal rotors, each rotor consisting of two or more rotor blades. Helicopters are classified as rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft to distinguish them from fixed-wing aircraft because the helicopter achieves lift with the...
- Ladder
A ladder is a vertical or inclined set of rungs or steps. There are two types: rigid ladders that can be leaned against a vertical surface such as a wall, and rope ladders that are hung from the top. The vertical members of a rigid ladder are called stringers (US) or stiles (UK).
- Transistor
In electronics, a transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals. A transistor is made of a solid piece of a semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the...
- Pulley
A pulley (also called a block and tackle) is a mechanism composed of a wheel (called a sheave) with a groove between two flanges around the wheel's circumference. A rope, cable , belt or chain usually runs inside the groove. Pulleys are used to change the direction of an applied force, transmit...
- Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. Steam engines (heat engines using boiling water to produce mechanical motion) have a long history, going back at least 2000 years. Early devices were not practical power producers, but more advanced...
- Irrigation
Irrigation is an artificial application of water to the soil. It is usually used to assist in growing crops in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall. Additionally, irrigation also has a few other uses in crop production, which include protecting plants against frost, suppressing weed...
- Lever
In physics, a lever (from French lever, "to raise", c.f. a levant) is a rigid object that is used with an appropriate fulcrum or pivot point to multiply the mechanical force that can be applied to another object. This leverage is also termed mechanical advantage, and is one example of the principle...
- Cement
In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance which sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term "opus caementicium" to describe masonry which resembled concrete and was made from crushed...
- Prosthesis
In medicine, a prosthesis (plural prostheses) (from Greek πρόσθεσις) is an artificial extension that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of fusing mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance...
- Natural rubber
Natural rubber is an elastomer (an elastic hydrocarbon polymer) that was originally derived from a milky colloidal suspension, or latex, found in the sap of some plants. The purified form of natural rubber is the chemical polyisoprene which can also be produced synthetically.
- Conveyor belt
A belt conveyor consists of two or more pulleys, with a continuous loop of material - the conveyor belt - that rotates about them. One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley...
- Abacus
An abacus, also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abacuses are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of...
- Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction. Most commonly, the term is used to describe the distinctive farm vehicle: agricultural implements may be...
- Cotton gin
A cotton gin (short for cotton engine) is a machine that quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seeds, a job previously done by hand. These seeds are either used again to grow more cotton or, if badly damaged, are disposed of. It uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire...
- Plough
The plough (American spelling: plow; both pronounced /plaʊ/) is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture.
- Dentures
Dentures are prosthetic devices constructed to replace missing teeth, and which are supported by surrounding soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity. Conventional dentures are removable, however there are many different denture designs, some which rely on bonding or clasping onto teeth or dental...
