By Ed Grabianowski

http://www.howstuffworks.com

When you imagine inventors, you probably picture a lone genius in a laboratory concocting brilliant devices, experimenting and redesigning until some concept or contraption works perfectly. (164 no spaces)

There's certainly a lot of redesigning and experimenting when it comes to inventions, but it takes a lot longer than you think. It also takes far more people than that lone genius. (149 no spaces)

As you'll see when you read about these 5 world-changing inventions, no invention is created in a vacuum. Every single one was built on previous inventions created by other inventors years, decades or even centuries before. Every invention has problems, and it might not be until some other inventor comes along that they get solved. (279 no spaces)

Wheel

The wheel is another invention so ancient that we have no way of knowing who first developed it. The oldest wheel and axle mechanism we've found was near Ljubljana, Slovenia, and dates to roughly 3100 B.C. (175 no spaces)

The wheel made the transportation of goods much faster and more efficient, especially when affixed to horse-drawn chariots and carts. However, if it had been used only for transportation, the wheel wouldn't have been as much of a world-changer as it was. In fact, a lack of quality roads limited its usefulness in this regard for thousands of years. (291 no spaces)

A wheel can be used for a lot of things. A huge amount of modern technology still depends on the wheel, like centrifuges used in chemistry and medical research, electric motors and combustion engines, jet engines, power plants and countless others. (208 no spaces)

Printing Press

Like many of the inventions on this list, the man we believe invented the printing press (Johann Gutenberg in the 1430s) actually improved on pre-existing technologies and made them useful and efficient enough to become popular. (206 no spaces)

From the very beginning he also developed metal printing blocks that were far more durable and easier to make than the hand-carved wooden letters in use previously. Finally, his advances in ink and paper production helped revolutionize the whole process of mass printing. (229 no spaces)

The printing press allowed enormous quantities of information to be recorded and spread throughout the world. Books had previously been items only the extremely rich could afford, but mass production brought the price down tremendously. The printing press is probably responsible for many other inventions, but in a more subtle way than the wheel. The diffusion of knowledge it created gave billions of humans the education they needed to create their own inventions in the centuries since. (414 no spaces)

Light Bulb

If there's a common theme to this list, it's that no major invention came from a single stroke of genius from a single inventor. Every invention is built by incrementally improving earlier designs, and the person usually associated with an invention is the first person to make it commercially viable. Such is the case with the light bulb. We immediately think of Thomas Edison as the electric light bulb's inventor, but dozens of people were working on similar ideas in the 1870s, when Edison developed his incandescent bulb. Joseph Swan did similar work in Britain at the time, and eventually the two merged their ideas into a single company, Ediswan. (553 no spaces)

The bulb itself works by transmitting electricity through a wire with high resistance known as a filament. The waste energy created by the resistance is expelled as heat and light. The glass bulb encases the filament in a vacuum or in inert gas, preventing combustion. (224 no spaces)

You might think the light bulb changed the world by allowing people to work at night or in dark places, but we already had relatively cheap and efficient gas lamps and other light sources at the time. It was actually the infrastructure that was built to provide electricity to every home and business that changed the world. Today, our world is filled with powered devices than we can plug in pretty much anywhere. We have the light bulb to thank for it. (373 no spaces)

Computer

A computer is a machine that takes information in, is able to manipulate it in some way, and outputs new information. There is no single inventor of the modern computer, although the ideas of British mathematician Alan Turing are considered eminently influential in the field of computing. Mechanical computing devices were in existence in the 1800s (there were even rare devices that could be considered computers in ancient eras), but electronic computers were invented in the 20th century. (423 no spaces)

Computers are able to make complicated mathematical calculations at an incredible rate of speed. When they operate under the instructions of skilled programmers, computers can accomplish amazing feats. Some high-performance military aircraft wouldn't be able to fly without constant computerized adjustments to flight control surfaces. Computers let us put spacecraft into orbit, control medical testing equipment, and create the complex visual imagery used in films and video games. (416 no spaces)

Internet

The Internet, a network of computers covering the entire planet, allows people to access almost any information located anywhere in the world at any time. Its effects on business, communication, economy, entertainment and even politics are profound. The Internet may not have changed the world as much as the plow, but it's probably on par with the steam engine or automobile. (324 no spaces)

The Internet is such a powerful invention that we've probably only begun to see the effects it will have on the world. The ability to diffuse and recombine information with such efficiency could accelerate the rate at which further world-changing inventions are created. At the same time, some fear that our ability to communicate, work, play and do business via the Internet breaks down our ties to local communities and causes us to become socially isolated. Like any invention, the good or ill it accomplishes will come from how we choose to use it. (459 no spaces)

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TASKS

1. Find in the text equivalents for the following:

изобретение, изменившее мир; конная колесница; центрифуга; письмена, выполненные резьбой по дереву вручную; огромное количество информации; невероятная скорость; разрушать связь c…

2. Match the words with their definition:

1) wheel and axle mechanism

2) jet engines

3) pre-existing technology

4) commercially viable

5) incandescent bulb

6) to prevent combustion

a) ранее существующая технология

b) лампа накаливания

c) коммерчески жизнеспособный

d) предотвращать сгорание

e) реактивный двигатель

f) механизм колеса и оси