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Essays on Inventions

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104 Invention Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Inventions have played a crucial role in shaping the world we live in today. From the wheel to the internet, innovations have revolutionized the way we live, work, and communicate. In this article, we will explore 104 invention essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your writing.

• The invention of the printing press and its impact on society.
• The invention of the telephone and how it changed communication.
• The invention of the light bulb by Thomas Edison.
• The invention of the airplane by the Wright brothers.
• The invention of the internet and its influence on modern life.
• The invention of the steam engine and its role in the Industrial Revolution.
• The invention of the automobile and its impact on transportation.
• The invention of the television and its effect on entertainment.
• The invention of the smartphone and its significance in the digital age.
• The invention of the camera and its contribution to visual storytelling.
• The invention of the compass and its role in navigation.
• The invention of the microscope and its impact on scientific discovery.
• The invention of the telescope and its contribution to astronomy.
• The invention of the computer and its evolution over time.
• The invention of the refrigerator and its influence on food preservation.
• The invention of the pacemaker and its importance in healthcare.
• The invention of the microwave oven and its convenience in cooking.
• The invention of the electric guitar and its impact on music.
• The invention of the pacemaker and its significance in healthcare.
• The invention of the GPS and its role in navigation.
• The invention of the atomic bomb and its implications for warfare.
• The invention of the bicycle and its impact on transportation.
• The invention of the sewing machine and its influence on manufacturing.
• The invention of the radio and its effect on communication.
• The invention of the transistor and its contribution to electronics.
• The invention of the barcode and its importance in retail.
• The invention of the electric toothbrush and its impact on oral hygiene.
• The invention of the ATM and its convenience in banking.
• The invention of the electric kettle and its efficiency in boiling water.
• The invention of the penicillin and its significance in medicine.
• The invention of the air conditioning and its influence on comfort.
• The invention of the electric fan and its role in cooling.
• The invention of the elevator and its impact on architecture.
• The invention of the washing machine and its contribution to household chores.
• The invention of the dishwasher and its convenience in cleaning dishes.
• The invention of the calculator and its importance in mathematics.
• The invention of the remote control and its effect on entertainment.
• The invention of the video game console and its influence on gaming.
• The invention of the paper shredder and its role in document disposal.
• The invention of the digital camera and its impact on photography.
• The invention of the electric razor and its convenience in grooming.
• The invention of the electric car and its importance in sustainability.
• The invention of the MRI machine and its significance in healthcare.
• The invention of the pacemaker and its role in cardiology.
• The invention of the defibrillator and its importance in emergency medicine.
• The invention of the insulin pump and its influence on diabetes management.
• The invention of the prosthetic limb and its impact on amputees.
• The invention of the hearing aid and its contribution to hearing loss.
• The invention of the stethoscope and its significance in medicine.
• The invention of the blood pressure monitor and its role in healthcare.
• The invention of the EKG machine and its importance in cardiology.
• The invention of the x-ray machine and its influence on medical imaging.
• The invention of the ultrasound machine and its contribution to diagnostics.
• The invention of the CT scanner and its significance in medical imaging.
• The invention of the MRI machine and its role in imaging technology.
• The invention of the PET scanner and its importance in oncology.
• The invention of the blood glucose monitor and its influence on diabetes management.
• The invention of the insulin pump and its contribution to diabetes treatment.
• The invention of the pacemaker and its significance in cardiology.
• The invention of the defibrillator and its role in emergency medicine.
• The invention of the hearing aid and its importance in hearing loss.
• The invention of the cochlear implant and its influence on deafness.
• The invention of the braille typewriter and its contribution to blind individuals.
• The invention of the guide dog and its significance in assisting the visually impaired.
• The invention of the white cane and its role in mobility for the blind.
• The invention of the talking book and its importance in accessibility.
• The invention of the wheelchair and its influence on mobility.
• The invention of the motorized scooter and its contribution to mobility.
• The invention of the stairlift and its significance in accessibility.
• The invention of the handicap accessible ramp and its role in inclusion.
• The invention of the hearing loop and its importance in communication for the hearing impaired.
• The invention of the talking calculator and its influence on mathematics for the blind.
• The invention of the voice recognition software and its contribution to accessibility.
• The invention of the screen reader and its significance in technology for the blind.
• The invention of the braille display and its role in reading for the blind.
• The invention of the braille label maker and its importance in organization for the visually impaired.
• The invention of the audiobook and its influence on reading for the blind.
• The invention of the audio description and its contribution to accessibility in film and television.
• The invention of the voice activated assistant and its significance in technology for the blind.
• The invention of the tactile map and its role in navigation for the visually impaired.
• The invention of the braille watch and its importance in telling time for the blind.
• The invention of the braille slate and stylus and its influence on writing for the blind.
• The invention of the braille embosser and its contribution to printing for the blind.
• The invention of the braille computer and its significance in technology for the blind.
• The invention of the braille watch and its influence on telling time for the blind.
• The invention of the braille slate and stylus and its contribution to writing for the blind.
• The invention of the braille embosser and its significance in printing for the blind.
• The invention of the braille computer and its role in technology for the blind.
• The invention of the talking book and its importance in reading for the blind.
• The invention of the audio description and its influence on accessibility in film and television.
• The invention of the voice activated assistant and its contribution to technology for the blind.
• The invention of the tactile map and its significance in navigation for the visually impaired.
• The invention of the audiobook and its role in reading for the blind.
• The invention of the screen reader and its importance in technology for the blind.
• The invention of the braille display and its influence on reading for the blind.
• The invention of the braille label maker and its contribution to organization for the visually impaired.
• The invention of the braille watch and its significance in telling time for the blind.
• The invention of the braille slate and stylus and its role in writing for the blind.
• The invention of the braille embosser and its importance in printing for the blind.
• The invention of the braille computer and its influence on technology for the blind.
• The invention of the braille display and its contribution to reading for the blind.

In conclusion, inventions have had a profound impact on society and have shaped the world we live in today. From communication to healthcare, accessibility to transportation, innovations have improved our quality of life and continue to drive progress in various fields. So, the next time you come across a new invention, take a moment to appreciate the creativity and ingenuity behind it, and consider how it may change the world for the better.

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Essay on Scientific Discoveries

• Updated on  
• Feb 7, 2024

Writing and speaking skills are the most important skills in the world. It shows how well a student will convey his or her ideas, experiences and thoughts. Essays are one of the most popular forms of writing to ascertain an applicant’s general knowledge, experiences, writing style and language skills. It is used in many entrance exams like SAT, IELTS, TOEFL and in college applications as well. From a very early age, school curriculums have been encouraging students to write essays and give speeches. Sometimes the topics provided to students can be complicated. So, today we have come up to help the students with an essay on Scientific Discoveries.

Check out our 200+ Essay Topics for School Students in English

Five Qualities of A Good Essay

Before we provide you with an essay on scientific discoveries. Let’s learn about essay writing. Writing an essay is a difficult thing. The writing should be rich in content plus should not bore its readers. Here are the five qualities a perfect essay should have:-

• Focus: All of your writing should come under one single topic. No matter how vast your essay is, it should always revolve around the topic of the essay. Avoid unnecessary details.
• Development: Every paragraph of your essay should centre the topic of your essay. Try to use examples, details and descriptions.
• Free composition: Always follow a basic structure. Before finalising your essay, jot down the points you would like to mention and then make a series. Do not surprise the reader with complicated words, try to keep it as simple as possible. 
• Correctness: Make sure your essay is free from any grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, mismatched sentences, etc. Always use standard English and complete sentences.
• Introduction and Conclusion: The introduction and the conclusion of the writing are the most important parts of the essay. The first impression is always the last, and so is the introduction of your writing. After reading the first two or three lines, if the reader gets bored, he may not read your whole essay. So make sure your essay contains a crispy beginning. Alternatively, make the conclusion so strong and effective that the reader never forgets your essay. Don’t feel afraid to use quotes, catchy lines, slogans and all. They are the cherry on the cake for your essay.

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Sample Essay on Scientific Discoveries

Here is an example of an essay on scientific discoveries to help them out in their school assignments.

Everything around us is a great discovery. Be it a necessity, comfort, or luxury, they all came from different scientific discoveries that took place over some time. Starting from a small pin to a big ship, everything is just a mere invention to make the lives of humans easier. Scientistic discoveries take place in every arena of thought so before we talk about these inventions. Let’s examine what is science. What is science? Science is a system for acquiring knowledge. We use observations, and experimentation to come to a conclusion and explain any natural phenomenon. In simple language, science is the systematic field of study or knowledge gained from experimentations, observations and some accepted facts. And so scientific discoveries have done miracles in human lives.  Scientific discoveries and inventions have made our lives easier and more comfortable than we could have ever imagined. Scientific equipment accomplishes lengthy tasks in just minutes. Be it in the health sector, education, transportation, and more. All the inventions are just the gifts of science. Nowadays we are in a situation where without science, we cannot imagine our survival. In the absence of Science, no country, and no single person would have made progress. Scientific discoveries and inventions are machines that accomplish any task of humans either fully or partially. According to the business dictionary, the word ‘invention’ is “a new scientific or technical idea and the means of its embodiment or accomplishment. To be patentable, an invention must be novel, have utility, and be non-obvious. To be called an invention, an idea only needs to be proven as workable. But to be called an innovation, it must also be replicable at an economical cost and must satisfy a specific need. That’s why only a few inventions lead to innovations because not all of them are economically feasible.” Wikipedia further says, “An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. It may be an improvement upon a machine or product or a new process for creating an object or a result. An invention that achieves a unique function or result may be a radical breakthrough. Such works are novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field.” These definitions made us clear about how important scientific discovery is for us. Due to science, we can get all kinds of things we desire for. Electricity is a miracle that gives us light even in the dark. It further helps us to run industries conserve the environment and control pollution .  A cricket match is going on in America and we can watch it. Why? Inventions! Nowadays medical science is doing its best all over the world. Let us not forget computers, which is the greatest invention of mankind.  However, it is rightly said that every coin has two sides. Scientific discoveries and inventions have given us a lot and at the same time created a lot of disadvantages too. Nowadays people have become so dependent on technology that even walking has become difficult. Inventions made people so lazy, especially the young generation. All they could think about now is sitting at their home, with their computers and tablets on.

Gone are the days when people used to go out, play and have actual fun in life. Also, scientific inventions have made people jobless. Employers are substituting their employees with heavy machines. And this is the sad reality everywhere. Along with a luxurious life, technology has made our lives more complicated. People nowadays catch the disease early due to no exercise and sitting in front of their computer the whole day.  The biggest and most disastrous inventions are weapons, guns and bombs. What’s worse than taking the life of people? It has ruined unity, peace and harmony all over the world.  Scientific discoveries and inventions have contributed so much that my essay would never be enough to explain it. Ultimately, I would like to say that do not take up the monstrous side. Try the blessing of discoveries and make your life better in every aspect.

Also Read: Essay on Information Technology in 400 Words

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November 1, 2013

What Are the 10 Greatest Inventions of Our Time?

Before you consider, here are a few opinions from Scientific American readers in 1913 on what makes a great invention

By Daniel C. Schlenoff

A competition sponsored in 1913 by Scientific American asked for essays on the 10 greatest inventions. The rules: “our time” meant the previous quarter century, 1888 to 1913; the invention had to be patentable and was considered to date from its “commercial introduction.”

Perception is at the heart of this question. Inventions are most salient when we can see the historical changes they cause. In 2013 we might not appreciate the work of Nikola Tesla or Thomas Edison on a daily basis, as we are accustomed to electricity in all its forms, but we are very impressed by the societal changes caused by the Internet and the World Wide Web (both of which run on alternating-current electricity, by the way). A century from now they might be curious as to what all the fuss was about. The answers from 1913 thus provide a snapshot of the perceptions of the time.

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The airplane: The Wright Flyer for military purposes, being demonstrated at Fort Myer, Va., in 1908. Image: Scientific American - November 1, 1913

Following are excerpts from the first- and second-prize essays, along with a statistical tally of all the entries that were sent in.

The first-prize essay was written by William I. Wyman, who worked in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C., and was thus well informed on the progress of inventions. His list was:

1. The electric furnace (1889) It was “the only means for commercially producing Carborundum (the hardest of all manufactured substances).” The electric furnace also converted aluminum “from a merely precious to very useful metal” (by reducing it’s price 98 percent), and was “radically transforming the steel industry.”

2. The steam turbine, invented by Charles Parsons in 1884 and commercially introduced over the next 10 years. A huge improvement in powering ships, the more far-reaching use of this invention was to drive generators that produced electricity.

3. The gasoline-powered automobile. Many inventors worked toward the goal of a “self-propelled” vehicle in the 19th century. Wyman gave the honor specifically to Gottleib Daimler for his 1889 engine, arguing: “a century's insistent but unsuccessful endeavor to provide a practical self-propelled car proves that the success of any type that once answered requirements would be immediate. Such success did come with the advent of the Daimler motor, and not before.”

4. The moving picture. Entertainment always will be important to people. “The moving picture has transformed the amusements of the multitude.” The technical pioneer he cited was Thomas Edison.

5. The airplane. For “the Realization of an age-long dream” he gave the laurels of success to the Wright brothers, but apart from its military use reserved judgment on the utility of the invention: “It presents the least commercial utility of all the inventions considered.”

6. Wireless Telegraphy. Systems for transmitting information between people have been around for centuries, perhaps millennia. Telegraph signals got a speed boost in the U.S. from Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail. Wireless telegraphy as invented by Guglielmo Marconi, later evolving into radio, set information free from wires.

7. The cyanide process. Sounds toxic, yes? It appears on this list for only one reason: It is used to extract gold from ore. “Gold is the life blood of trade,” and in 1913 it was considered to be the foundation for international commerce and national currencies.

8. The Nikola Tesla induction motor. “This epoch-making invention is mainly responsible for the present large and increasing use of electricity in the industries.” Before people had electricity in their homes, the alternating current–producing motor constructed by Tesla supplied 90 percent of the electricity used by manufacturing.

9. The Linotype machine. The Linotype machine enabled publishers—largely newspapers—to compose text and print it much faster and cheaper. It was an advance as large as the invention of the printing press itself was over the painstaking handwritten scrolls before it. Pretty soon we won’t be using paper for writing and reading, so the history of printing will be forgotten anyway.

10. The electric welding process of Elihu Thomson. In the era of mass production, the electric welding process enabled faster production and construction of better, more intricate machines for that manufacturing process.

The electric welder invented by Elihu Thomson enabled the cheaper production of intricate welded machinery. Image: Scientific American - November 1, 1913

The turbine invented by Charles Parsons powered ships. Assembled in numbers, they provided an efficient means of driving electrical generators and producing that most useful commodity. Image: Scientific American - November 1, 1913

The second-prize essay, by George M. Dowe, also of Washington, D.C., who may have been a patent attorney, was more philosophical. He divided his inventions into those aiding three broad sectors: production, transportation and communication.

1. Electrical fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. As natural fertilizer sources were depleted during the 19th century, artificial fertilizers enabled the further expansion of agriculture.

2. Preservation of sugar-producing plants. George W. McMullen of Chicago is credited with the discovery of a method for drying sugar cane and sugar beets for transport. Sugar production became more efficient and its supply increased by leaps and bounds, like a kid on a “sugar buzz.” Maybe this is one invention we could have done without. But I digress.

3. High-speed steel alloys. By adding tungsten to steel, “tools so made were able to cut at such a speed that they became almost red hot without losing either their temper or their cutting edge” The increase in the efficiency of cutting machines was “nothing short of revolutionary.”

4. Tungsten-filament lamp. Another success of chemistry. After tungsten replaced carbon in its filament, the lightbulb was considered “perfected.” As of 2013 they are being phased out worldwide in favor of compact fluorescent bulbs, which are four times as efficient.

5. The airplane. Not yet in wide use as transportation in 1913, but “To [Samuel] Langley and to the Wright brothers must be awarded the chief honors in the attainment of mechanical flight.” In 2013 the annoying aspects of commercial airline flying make transportation by horse and buggy seem a viable alternative.

6. The steam turbine. As with Mr. Wyman, the turbine deserved credit not only “in the utilization of steam as a prime mover” but in its use in the “generation of electricity.”

7. Internal combustion engine. As a means of transportation, Dowe gives the greatest credit to “Daimler, Ford and Duryea.” Gottleib Daimler is a well-known pioneer in motor vehicles. Henry Ford began production of the Model T in 1908 and it was quite popular by 1913. Charles Duryea made one of the earliest commercially successful petrol-driven vehicles, starting in 1896.

8. The pneumatic tire. Cars for personal transportation were an improvement on railways. “What the track has done for the locomotive, the pneumatic tire has done for the vehicle not confined to tracks.” Credit is given to John Dunlop and William C. Bartlet, who each had a milestone on the road (pun intended) to successful automobile and bicycle tires.

9. Wireless communication. Marconi was given the credit for making wireless “commercially practical.” Dowe also makes a comment that could apply equally to the rise of the World Wide Web, stating that wireless was “devised to meet the needs of commerce primarily, but incidentally they have contributed to social intercourse.”

10. Composing machines. The giant rotary press was quite capable of churning out masses of printed material. The bottleneck in the chain of production was composing the printing plates. The Linotype and the Monotype dispensed with that bottleneck.

The essays sent in were compiled to come up with a master list of inventions that were considered to be the top 10. Wireless telegraphy was on almost everyone’s list. The “aeroplane” came in second, although it was considered important because of its potential, not because there were so many airplanes in the sky. Here are the rest of the results:

There were also mentions for Luther Burbank's agricultural work (23); Louis Pasteur and vaccination work (20); acetylene gas from carbide (17); mercury-vapor lamp (7); preservation of sugar-producing plants (7); combined motion picture and talking machine (10); Edison's storage battery (6); automatic player piano (4); Pulmotor (a respirator machine) (4); telephone (4).

The motion picture: The hard-working Thomas Edison helped make this entertainment form technically viable. Image: Scientific American - November 1, 1913

The full contents of all the prize-winning essays is available with a subscription to the Scientific American archives .

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The Role of Inventions in Changing Our Daily Lives

February 4, 2020

Posted by: Danna Bell

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This post was written by   Amara L. Alexander, the 2019-20 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the Library of Congress

Inventions can lead to new technologies, create new jobs, and improve quality of life. Use primary sources to help students compare and contrast the work of three inventors: Leo Wahl established a new barbering tool; Samuel F. B. Morse developed the telegraph; and Benjamin Franklin revolutionized sight with bifocal lenses.

Wahl helped to transform the barber industry with his patented design of an electric hair clipper. He noticed the need for barbers to improve their cutting techniques and tinkered until he developed the first electromagnetic motor powered hair clipper. Show students the ad and allow time for them to read the description. Based on the features described, what problems do they think Wahl was trying to solve?

Morse studied art in London, England, and he wished to communicate faster with his family across the sea. With his electrical telegraph, he observed the sparks from the electrical wiring and the length of time between the sparks. Those sparks could be transmitted into an electrical alphabet that he developed: Morse code. The dots and dashes transmitted over wires could relay messages to people that were miles apart . Covering the bottom half of the image , encourage students to focus on the diagram of the device. Survey the class to discover if students know the name and purpose. Ask questions as needed:

• What do you notice but can’t explain?
• What was the purpose of this device?
• What can you learn from examining this?

Allow students time to examine the image and record their responses . Next, reveal the bottom half of the page and invite students to think-pair-share. How does the new information change their thinking? Finally, display the the image of the service men using the telegraph and the deciphering Morse code and ask students what it suggests about uses of Morse’s inventions.

Benjamin Franklin has inventions credited to his name as well.  A letter to friend George Whatley explains how bifocal lenses enabled Franklin to see his food more clearly and watch the facial expressions of those seated with him. Allow students to study the diagram and develop explanations of how the lenses worked.

Prompt students to think as inventors and focus on an object in the classroom, such as a door stopper. How might the item be improved? Offer students criteria for success and constraints on material, time, and cost. Guide them in planning and conducting an investigation based on their design model, and assess how well their inventions met the criteria and constraints of the design problem. Extend time for students to improve their model and retest.

For generations, innovators have used their imaginations to create new products to improve our daily lives. How can these historical examples spark innovation within your young inventors?

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Invention in Writing Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Invention is one of the prewriting techniques used in writing essays. It refers to the creation of new ideas in relation to the question given or the use of old ideas to come up with new ideas in writing. This is a very important strategy as it encourages critical thinking and creativity in essay writing. Many students, who write compositions, prefer this prewriting technique because apart from encouraging critical thinking, it also enables them to write about subjects that are unique and intriguing.

Hence, the participation of old ideas in prewriting entails the consideration of other writers’ ideas towards the subject to be written. The writer formulates new ideas, by taking the old ideas and using them together with his own ideas, creating an entirely new idea. As much as some might consider this as plagiarism, it is not, because the writer does not copyright other people’s ideas but rather use them to formulate his own ideas.

In writing, there are several stages that are involved in order to come up with a well written essay. These stages make up the writing process and provide a framework for writing an essay. The stages include; prewriting, writing, revising, editing and publishing. Under each stage, there are several sub stages and they all ensure the essay written is perfect. In this case, the prewriting stage is the first stage in the writing process.

Therefore, it refers to the process of coming up with an idea/ideas in writing through a variety of methods such as invention, brainstorming and free writing. These methods of prewriting provide a ground for the writer to know what idea/ideas to explore in his writing. Depending on one’s choice, any of the methods mentioned above would do well in the deciding of the appropriate idea to include in writing.

Brainstorming involves the exploration of ideas that come up in relation to one’s initial idea. In this case, the writer writes down a sentence, or a phrase then constructs other sentences that would help in the building of the initial and main idea.

Thus, the writer would use a variety of sentences then counter check the sentences to select the ideas that are in line with what he wants to write by leaving out those that are irrelevant. Under free writing, the writer writes down sentences in an open or focused manner. That is the writer does not decide on one idea from the word go but in a piece of paper, writes down many ideas then later on decides on one idea that suits his content.

Therefore, when inventing an idea, there are a few strategies that should be put in place. A brief invention involves a quick thought of an idea, written down then the writer comes up with other ideas that would support it. This can be made possible by involving prior ideas of other writers and the use of the computer can act as a good way of getting information.

Using this form of an invention is particularly helpful, as the writer finds it easy to come up with other ideas that would assist in building up the main idea. Pre-writing technique under the writing process is a skill that every writer should employ in writing and the invention strategy works well especially in terms of originality.

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IvyPanda. (2020, April 21). Invention in Writing. https://ivypanda.com/essays/invention-in-writing-essays/

"Invention in Writing." IvyPanda , 21 Apr. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/invention-in-writing-essays/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Invention in Writing'. 21 April.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Invention in Writing." April 21, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/invention-in-writing-essays/.

1. IvyPanda . "Invention in Writing." April 21, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/invention-in-writing-essays/.

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IvyPanda . "Invention in Writing." April 21, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/invention-in-writing-essays/.

In our technological world, the number of new inventions has been increasing. Please make an example with its impact on our lives, and explain if it is beneficial or not.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Writing9 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Include an introduction and conclusion

A conclusion is essential for IELTS writing task 2. It is more important than most people realise. You will be penalised for missing a conclusion in your IELTS essay.

The easiest paragraph to write in an essay is the conclusion paragraph. This is because the paragraph mostly contains information that has already been presented in the essay – it is just the repetition of some information written in the introduction paragraph and supporting paragraphs.

The conclusion paragraph only has 3 sentences:

• Restatement of thesis
• Prediction or recommendation

To summarize, a robotic teacher does not have the necessary disciple to properly give instructions to students and actually works to retard the ability of a student to comprehend new lessons. Therefore, it is clear that the idea of running a classroom completely by a machine cannot be supported. After thorough analysis on this subject, it is predicted that the adverse effects of the debate over technology-driven teaching will always be greater than the positive effects, and because of this, classroom teachers will never be substituted for technology.

Start your conclusion with a linking phrase. Here are some examples:

• In conclusion
• To conclude
• To summarize
• In a nutshell

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In the past, when students did a university degree, they tended to study their own country. Nowadays, they have more opportunity to study abroad. Do advantage of this development outweigh this disadvantages.

In order to be successful in sport, some people think you have to be physically strong. others say that mental strength is more important. discuss both views and give your opinion., more and more people are shifting to cities from countryside. does this have more advantages than disadvantages, topics:crime & punishment some people believe that there should be a fixed punishment for each type of crime. others, however, argue that the circumstances of an individual crime, and the motivation for committing it, should always be taken into account when deciding on the punishment. discuss both of these two views and give your own opinion. give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience., some people claim that public museum and art galleries will be no longer necessary because people can see historical objects and works of art by using a computer. do you agree or disagree.

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15 Genius New Inventions That Make the World a Better Place

Changing lives in brilliant ways..

(Billion Photos / Shutterstock.com)

They say necessity is the mother of invention - that the primary driving force for all new creations is some sort of need. Each of these 15 brilliant new inventions answers a different human need - such as clean water or sanitation - or an environmental necessity. To make them, gifted designers identified an important issue, came up with an innovative solution - and then put the wheels in motion to create some truly inspirational inventions. 

1. THE DINING SET FOR DEMENTIA PATIENTS

Eatwell is an 8-piece dining set that fosters mealtime independence for sufferers of dementia. The bowls have slanted bottoms for easy scooping and bright blue interiors to help users easily identify food. The spoons hug the side of the dinnerware making collecting food easier and preventing spillage, and all handles allow for easy gripping and stability.

2. THE STRAW THAT FILTERS WATER

The LifeStraw filters out virtually all microbiological contaminants to make water safe to drink. The invention was designed to help people in developing countries who don’t have access to safe water and in emergency scenarios following natural disasters when water is contaminated.

3. THE INVISIBLE BIKE HELMET

Designed by two Swedish students, Hövding is a stylish neck collar that contains an airbag helmet that inflates in the case of an accident. The new invention is available in select stores in Europe - and no doubt we'll be “seeing" more of Hövding in the near future.

4. THE PATCH THAT MAKES YOU INVISIBLE TO MOSQUITOES

Kite Patch keeps mosquitoes at bay for up to 48 hours, by blocking the insects’ ability to smell carbon dioxide in human exhalation. The sticker-like patch affixes to clothing, and helps to stop the spread of diseases such as malaria, West Nile Virus and Dengue Fever.

5. THE DRINKABLE BOOK

This book is genius: along with providing basic information on clean water, each page of the Drinkable Book is coated with silver nanoparticles, which kill 99.9% of bacteria when water passes through. The result: clean, safe drinking water. Once a page of the book has been torn out, it can be used multiple times as a filter, providing up to 30 days of clean water for one person.

6. THE FLATPACK REFUGEE SHELTER

Developed in coordination between the IKEA Foundation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Better Shelter is a refugee shelter that combines form, function and sustainability. Unlike the traditionally-used tents, the shelters can last up to three years and are fitted with solar panels, mosquito nets, lights, and ventilation and a lockable door for privacy and safety.

7. THE TINY DISPOSABLE PHONE BATTERY

The Mini Power is the eco-answer to keeping mobile phones charged and ready to go. Still in the design phase, these tiny cardboard capsules come in three sizes - two, four and six hours - and can be recycled after use. Designer Tsung Chih-Hsien envisions the new invention being sold at convenience stores, individually and also in bulk perforated sheets.

8. THE APP THAT LETS YOU LEND YOUR EYES TO THE BLIND

Be My Eyes  is a mobile app that connects blind people who need assistance with sighted volunteers who want to help out via a direct video connection. Blind people get help navigating the world around them, sighted people get a helper’s high , and technology is used for a perfectly positive purpose.

9. THE FLOATING RUBBISH BIN THAT CLEANS THE OCEANS

Seabin is an automated marina rubbish bin that collects floating rubbish, debris and oil, 24/7. The new invention aims to help solve and prevent ocean pollution by replacing the “trash boats” that currently serve marinas around the world.

10. THE FURRY ROBOT THERAPIST

Paro the robot seal is equipped with five different sensors that enhance its ability to connect with and heal people. The fluffy robot has a moveable body, makes cute seal sounds and responds to the touch and voice of individuals, adapting its behavior to suit users - which include the elderly, trauma victims and people dealing with serious illnesses.

11. THE SOCCER BALL THAT GENERATES ELECTRICITY

SOCCKET is a portable, power-generating soccer ball designed to promote physical activity and spread awareness about the global energy issue. This new invention gets charged up during normal game play, to power its energy efficient, 3-LED lamp. Even better: for every ball purchased, SOCCKET gives one ball to a child in the developing world.

12. THE KIT THAT MAKES MENSTRUATION SAFER

Flo is an easy-to-use, cost-effective kit for cleaning and storing reusable sanitary pads, that aims to boost hygiene in parts of the world where menstruation is stigmatized and pads and tampons aren’t always readily available. The new invention consists of a simple spinning and cleaning gadget, a mini-clothes line and a zippered pouch for transport.

13. THE EDIBLE WATER BOTTLE YOU CAN MAKE AT HOME

Ooho! is a new kind of packaging made from seaweed that proposes an alternative to plastic bottles. The H20 orbs are servings of water encased in an algae-based gel, which in due time could be a common replacement for the bottles we use every day.

14. THE BUS THAT RUNS ON HUMAN WASTE

Waste treatment company GENeco has come up with a groundbreaking new invention - the trash and sewage-guzzling BioBus. The first BioBus is currently active in the United Kingdom, shuttling passengers back and forth every day from Bristol Airport.

15. THE HAND-POWERED DISHWASHER

Created by Israeli designer Chen Levin, the Circo dishwasher is an off-the-grid, on-the-counter dishwasher that uses zero electricity and only a small amount of water. The concept is simple and brilliant: the hand-powered crank releases a jet of water, which is heated by a sodium acetate tablet. One minute later, the dishes are clean.

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Invention - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

Invention refers to the creation of a new product, process, or idea that significantly impacts how individuals live or interact with their world. Essays on invention might delve into the historical evolution of significant inventions, the process of invention from concept to realization, or the societal and economic impacts of invention. It also provides a platform to discuss the ethical implications of certain inventions, the role of patent laws, and the characteristics of prolific inventors or innovative societies. A vast selection of complimentary essay illustrations pertaining to Invention you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

The Invention of the IPhone

It is hard to imagine living a day without a phone or a source of communication, but not so long ago people had no choice and had to live without a cell phone. The first source of communication developed was the telegraph in the 1830s by Samuel Morse with some input from other inventors, since the development of the telegraph an enormous amount of advantages were created to make communication faster and simpler. Cell phones are the latest source of […]

Da Vinci and his Inventions

"The Renaissance era was the time for new ideas and a new age. Many talented individuals came out of this time period. Among these men was the famous Leonardo da Vinci. Most people know him as the exquisite painter, but he was much more than just an artist. In fact, he used those skills to create science. Da Vinci was able to draw up inventions and better the world with his incredible abilities. Without this artist, architech, and engineer we […]

What would Life be Like Without the Use of Internet

Is it possible to imagine modern life without modern inventions, for example, without the Internet? In our time, it is customary to scold him and believe that all misfortunes occur exclusively because of him. So let's try to consider the positive and negative aspects of life without using the worldwide information network and decide whether it is worth deleting it from our life forever or not. So you've decided to exclude the internet from your daily routine. What positive changes […]

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Artificial Intelligence is the Last Human Invention

Advancements in the field of technology are inevitable for humans, and today, people’s dependence on their devices has altered their mindsets and views for the future. Our inherent desire to simplify our lives has motivated computer scientists to magnify Artificial Intelligence. It is an intricate system embodying the neural processes of the brain to replicate skills of a professional conveniently. Even though A.I’s (Artificial Intelligence) present-day limitations are preventing itself from automating the world, its capability to imitate any human […]

The Evolutionary Milestone: the Invention of the Automobile

There's a certain magic to cars. From the roar of an engine to the allure of a sleek design, automobiles have captured our imaginations for well over a century. But beyond the romance and fascination lies a tale of innovation, determination, and profound impact on society. The invention of the car wasn't just a technical achievement; it was a catalyst for change that reshaped the world. The origin of the car is a topic of debate among historians. While Leonardo […]

Causes of the Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was caused by the Renaissance era. The Renaissance sparked a lot of curiosity within many including the minds of deep thinkers and scientists. The Protestant Reformation period (occurred during Renaissance) made much of Europe Catholic and Christian, but also against the ideas of modern science. Also, new inventions during the Renaissance helped spread ideas of science and encouraged the conflict between science and the Catholic Church. Each of these factors individually contributes to the conflict of the […]

Eli Whitney and the Invention who Spun Cotton into Gold

Eli Whitney, a name that might ring a bell from high school history classes, is often remembered as the guy who invented the cotton gin. But there's more to his story than just one invention. Whitney was a kind of renaissance man of the American Industrial Revolution, a guy whose tinkering in his workshop didn't just change how things were made; it changed an entire country’s economy and history. Let’s start with the cotton gin, invented in 1793. Before Whitney […]

Revolution in Communication: the Invention of the Cell Phone

The advent of the cellular telephone is a pivotal milestone in the annals of communication technology, signifying a transition from tethered to untethered communication and profoundly revolutionizing human interaction. This essay explores the origins of the cellular telephone, the prominent individuals responsible for its invention, the subsequent technological advancements, and the significant societal implications it has engendered. The inception of the cellular telephone commenced during the 20th century, driven by the aspiration to fabricate a portable communication apparatus. The pivotal […]

The Birth of the Microphone: an Auditory Revolution

As we hold our smartphones or engage in video conferences, few of us pause to ponder the origins of the ubiquitous technology that enables our voices to be heard clearly and crisply: the microphone. Its invention was not the work of one isolated genius but rather the culmination of efforts by various inventors, keen on capturing and amplifying sound. This essay delves into the journey of the microphone's invention, tracing its lineage and celebrating the minds behind it. The year […]

The Cotton Gin: a Revolutionary Invention Reshaping America

This is a very important time in both economic and social history: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the late 1700s. This simple-looking machine changed the cotton business in a big way, which had a big effect on the economy, the growth of slavery, and American history as a whole. Before the cotton gin came along, processing cotton required a lot of work. It was hard work and took a long time to separate the sticky seeds from the […]

How did the Lightbulb Help Society: Dreams, Invention, and Impact

The Power of Dreams and the Lightbulb's Significance Orison Swett Marden once said, "All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.' Anyone who has achieved something great had a dream first. An immaculate example of a person who had a dream was Martin Luther King, who said, "I have a dream!" This very dream changed the views of people and made them stop and think. With his dream, he was able to stand up for what he […]

How did the Wright Brothers Impact the World? a Journey from Kitty Hawk to Global Skies

The Wright Brothers successfully made a basic airplane and flew it successfully in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. After that, they formed the Wright Exhibition Company in March 1910. They even contracted to the U.S. Military Army to earn 25,000 dollars by making special attack aircraft on September 3, 1908. However, what was life like for the Wright Brothers before and after the successful flight of 1903? Before the Wright Brothers' Invention After the birth of Orville […]

Invention of Cell Phone: Effects on Society, Education, and Finances

Do you know that moment when you realize your phone isn't in your pocket? A lot of people do; nomo (bile phone)phobia has been clinically recognized as a phobia, and as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (no·mo·pho·bia | \ ?n?-m?-?f?-b?-? \) nomophobia is: “the fear of being without access to a working cell phone.” It's also called a phone addiction. However, the invention of phones hasn't had all the favorable effects. Trying to talk to a person while they're on […]

Collaborative Innovations Sri Lankan Small Companies

Introduction Most countries depend on innovation as a method for social and economic growth. The Global Innovation Index is considered as the main indicator of a country’s level of innovativeness. Investors are making business decisions based on a country’s rank in this index. Countries that are in the top of innovation index are high income countries and countries that are lower in the innovation index is low income countries. Sri Lanka is ranked 91 of the global innovation index of […]

The Discovery of Neon: a Glimpse into the Periodic Table

Back in 1898, the discovery of neon lit up the world of chemistry like a supernova. Sir William Ramsay and his partner Morris Travers, hot on the trail of the periodic table's mysteries, struck gold—or rather, neon—during their deep dive into the elements. Sir William Ramsay, already a big deal in chemistry for nabbing noble gases like argon, teamed up with Travers to cool down air to crazy-low temps. This frosty approach helped them separate gases by how they boil. […]

Tracing the Origins of Video Games: a Historical Perspective

The birth of video games is a huge deal in the world of fun and tech. It all started back in the mid-1900s when smart folks got curious about electronic games. Pinpointing the exact "aha!" moment is tricky, but the 1950s and 1960s saw some major moves that set the stage for what we play today. One of the first-ever video games popped up thanks to physicist William Higinbotham in 1958. His "Tennis for Two," shown off at New York's […]

The Invention of Dynamite: Alfred Nobel’s Explosive Legacy

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor, rocked the world in 1867 with his groundbreaking invention: dynamite. This explosive stuff wasn't just a game-changer for construction and warfare—it was a whole new chapter in the story of explosions. Before Nobel's breakthrough, nitroglycerin was known for its kaboom potential but was about as safe as a lion in a porcelain shop. Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero had discovered it in 1847, but its hair-trigger volatility made it a risky business. Handling […]

The Pioneers Behind the Internal Combustion Engine: a Historical Perspective

The internal combustion engine didn't come from just one genius, but a bunch of smart folks who each played a part in making it happen. Back in the 19th century, these inventors were busy putting their heads together to change the game in transportation and industry forever. Let's dive into how this groundbreaking tech came to be, thanks to these trailblazers. One of the early stars in this story was Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir, a French engineer who in 1860 […]

The Revolutionary Invention of the Cotton Gin and its Impact on America

In the late 1700s, the American South was mostly about farming, relying a lot on people working hard to grow things like tobacco, rice, and indigo. But it was growing cotton that really could change everything. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793 totally shook up how things worked on American farms, and it had a huge impact on how the country grew socially and economically. Eli Whitney, a smart guy from Yale who liked making things, probably […]

The Fascinating History of Submarine Invention

The story of submarines is one of human creativity, persistence, and technological leaps. These underwater wonders we see today are a marvel of engineering, but they trace their origins back to ancient dreams and basic designs. Long ago, folks like the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned divers using hollow reeds to breathe underwater, just to get a taste of what lay beneath the waves. But it wasn't until later, in the 16th century, that William Bourne, an English smarty-pants and innkeeper, […]

The Transformative Inventions of the Industrial Revolution

During the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution totally shook things up with major tech advancements that changed societies around the globe. This was a time of serious innovation, where new gadgets transformed how people lived and worked. One of the biggest game-changers was the steam engine, cooked up by James Watt. This bad boy used steam power to do all sorts of mechanical stuff, making factories way more efficient and less tied to water. Before steam, factories […]

Tracing the Development of the Automobile to 1920

The story of the automobile kicks off in the late 1800s but really hits its stride by the 1920s, showing off huge strides in tech, design, and how it changed society big time. Checking out how cars evolved up to 1920 gives us a peek at the smarts and new ideas that shaped how we get around today. It all starts with folks like Karl Benz, who gets props for whipping up the first real car in 1885-1886. His Benz […]

The Steam Engine’s Impact on World History: a Closer Look

The steam engine really gave us a big boost into modern times. It wasn’t just a clever gadget; it changed how we travel work and live. This nifty invention kick-started the Industrial Revolution and changed history forever. So let’s dive into what made the steam engine so special and how it reshaped our world. A steam engine at its heart turns steam into power. Simple right? You heat water to make steam which then expands and moves a piston or […]

The Ingenious Inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci known as one of the brightest minds of the Renaissance left an indelible mark on art science and engineering. Beyond his famous works like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper he delved deep into technology far ahead of his time. Da Vinci's notebooks brimmed with sketches and ideas revealing a mind constantly churning with visions of machines and inventions that wouldn't be realized until centuries later. One of Leonardo's standout creations was his dream of flying […]

The Invention and Impact of the Cotton Gin

The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney back in 1793, was like a game-changer in the world of farming and making stuff. Before this clever machine came along, getting cotton ready to use was a real pain. Imagine spending a whole day just to clean a pound of cotton! That's what folks had to do, picking out those pesky seeds by hand. But then Eli Whitney, who was tutoring down South, saw this big problem and said, "Hold my hat—I've […]

The Innovative Vision of Valerie Thomas

In the realm of scientific breakthroughs, certain individuals stand out not only for their contributions but also for the ingenuity of their ideas. One such luminary is Valerie Thomas, whose inventive spirit has left an indelible mark on the world of technology. Thomas, an African-American scientist and inventor, is best known for her pioneering work in the development of the illusion transmitter, a device that revolutionized the field of optics and laid the groundwork for advancements in 3D imaging technology. […]

Thomas Edison and the Development of the Light Bulb

The conception of the light bulb is frequently ascribed to Thomas Edison, a name synonymous with groundbreaking thought and resourcefulness. Although Edison's role in the advancement and commercialization of the electric illuminant is acknowledged, the genesis of its creation is more intricate and encompasses numerous innovators and incremental advancements spanning several decades. Edison's contributions, nevertheless, were pivotal in metamorphosing the theoretical into a pragmatic and pervasive technology. Preceding Edison's involvement, several innovators had already embarked on endeavors related to electrical […]

The Mechanics and Impact of the Cotton Gin: Revolutionizing Cotton Processing

The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 stands as a pivotal moment in the agricultural and industrial history of the United States. This simple yet transformative device changed the landscape of cotton production and had far-reaching implications for the American economy and society. To truly grasp the significance of the cotton gin, it's essential to understand how it worked, why it was revolutionary, and what consequences it had on various aspects of life in the 19th […]

The Invention of the Printing Press: Gutenberg’s Revolutionary Impact

The inception of the printing mechanism by Johannes Gutenberg during the mid-15th century emerges as a watershed event in human annals, heralding the advent of the Information Age. While historical consensus often designates its origination circa 1440, it is the profound repercussions of Gutenberg's ingenuity that indelibly reshaped the global landscape, rendering information more attainable and engendering an unprecedented dissemination of knowledge. Gutenberg, a practitioner of the goldsmith's craft, harnessed his expertise in metallurgy to fashion movable type, thereby revolutionizing […]

The Crucial Role of Rosalind Franklin in the Discovery of DNA’s Structure

Rosalind Franklin's role in uncovering DNA's structural intricacies represents a compelling and indispensable chapter in scientific history. Despite often being overshadowed by her male counterparts, her endeavors laid the groundwork for comprehending the double helix architecture of DNA, yielding profound ramifications in genetics, medicine, and biology. Born in London in 1920, Franklin demonstrated an early affinity for scientific inquiry. Her academic pursuits led her to Cambridge University, where she earned a degree in physical chemistry. Subsequently, she immersed herself in […]

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4.2 Creativity, Innovation, and Invention: How They Differ

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Distinguish between creativity, innovation, and invention
• Explain the difference between pioneering and incremental innovation, and which processes are best suited to each

One of the key requirements for entrepreneurial success is your ability to develop and offer something unique to the marketplace. Over time, entrepreneurship has become associated with creativity , the ability to develop something original, particularly an idea or a representation of an idea. Innovation requires creativity, but innovation is more specifically the application of creativity. Innovation is the manifestation of creativity into a usable product or service. In the entrepreneurial context, innovation is any new idea, process, or product, or a change to an existing product or process that adds value to that existing product or service.

How is an invention different from an innovation? All inventions contain innovations, but not every innovation rises to the level of a unique invention. For our purposes, an invention is a truly novel product, service, or process. It will be based on previous ideas and products, but it is such a leap that it is not considered an addition to or a variant of an existing product but something unique. Table 4.2 highlights the differences between these three concepts.

One way we can consider these three concepts is to relate them to design thinking. Design thinking is a method to focus the design and development decisions of a product on the needs of the customer, typically involving an empathy-driven process to define complex problems and create solutions that address those problems. Complexity is key to design thinking. Straightforward problems that can be solved with enough money and force do not require much design thinking. Creative design thinking and planning are about finding new solutions for problems with several tricky variables in play. Designing products for human beings, who are complex and sometimes unpredictable, requires design thinking.

Airbnb has become a widely used service all over the world. That has not always been the case, however. In 2009, the company was near failure. The founders were struggling to find a reason for the lack of interest in their properties until they realized that their listings needed professional, high-quality photographs rather than simple cell-phone photos. Using a design thinking approach, the founders traveled to the properties with a rented camera to take some new photographs. As a result of this experiment, weekly revenue doubled. This approach could not be sustainable in the long term, but it generated the outcome the founders needed to better understand the problem. This creative approach to solving a complex problem proved to be a major turning point for the company. 7

People who are adept at design thinking are creative, innovative, and inventive as they strive to tackle different types of problems. Consider Divya Nag , a millennial biotech and medical device innovation leader, who launched a business after she discovered a creative way to prolong the life of human cells in Petri dishes. Nag’s stem-cell research background and her entrepreneurial experience with her medical investment firm made her a popular choice when Apple hired her to run two programs dedicated to developing health-related apps, a position she reached before turning twenty-four years old. 8

Creativity, innovation, inventiveness, and entrepreneurship can be tightly linked. It is possible for one person to model all these traits to some degree. Additionally, you can develop your creativity skills, sense of innovation, and inventiveness in a variety of ways. In this section, we’ll discuss each of the key terms and how they relate to the entrepreneurial spirit.

Entrepreneurial creativity and artistic creativity are not so different. You can find inspiration in your favorite books, songs, and paintings, and you also can take inspiration from existing products and services. You can find creative inspiration in nature, in conversations with other creative minds, and through formal ideation exercises, for example, brainstorming. Ideation is the purposeful process of opening up your mind to new trains of thought that branch out in all directions from a stated purpose or problem. Brainstorming , the generation of ideas in an environment free of judgment or dissension with the goal of creating solutions, is just one of dozens of methods for coming up with new ideas. 9

You can benefit from setting aside time for ideation. Reserving time to let your mind roam freely as you think about an issue or problem from multiple directions is a necessary component of the process. Ideation takes time and a deliberate effort to move beyond your habitual thought patterns. If you consciously set aside time for creativity, you will broaden your mental horizons and allow yourself to change and grow. 10

Entrepreneurs work with two types of thinking. Linear thinking —sometimes called vertical thinking —involves a logical, step-by-step process. In contrast, creative thinking is more often lateral thinking , free and open thinking in which established patterns of logical thought are purposefully ignored or even challenged. You can ignore logic; anything becomes possible. Linear thinking is crucial in turning your idea into a business. Lateral thinking will allow you to use your creativity to solve problems that arise. Figure 4.5 summarizes linear and lateral thinking.

It is certainly possible for you to be an entrepreneur and focus on linear thinking. Many viable business ventures flow logically and directly from existing products and services. However, for various reasons, creativity and lateral thinking are emphasized in many contemporary contexts in the study of entrepreneurship. Some reasons for this are increased global competition, the speed of technological change, and the complexity of trade and communication systems. 11 These factors help explain not just why creativity is emphasized in entrepreneurial circles but also why creativity should be emphasized. Product developers of the twenty-first century are expected to do more than simply push products and innovations a step further down a planned path. Newer generations of entrepreneurs are expected to be path breakers in new products, services, and processes.

Examples of creativity are all around us. They come in the forms of fine art and writing, or in graffiti and viral videos, or in new products, services, ideas, and processes. In practice, creativity is incredibly broad. It is all around us whenever or wherever people strive to solve a problem, large or small, practical or impractical.

We previously defined innovation as a change that adds value to an existing product or service. According to the management thinker and author Peter Drucker , the key point about innovation is that it is a response to both changes within markets and changes from outside markets. For Drucker, classical entrepreneurship psychology highlights the purposeful nature of innovation. 12 Business firms and other organizations can plan to innovate by applying either lateral or linear thinking methods, or both. In other words, not all innovation is purely creative. If a firm wishes to innovate a current product, what will likely matter more to that firm is the success of the innovation rather than the level of creativity involved. Drucker summarized the sources of innovation into seven categories, as outlined in Table 4.3 . Firms and individuals can innovate by seeking out and developing changes within markets or by focusing on and cultivating creativity. Firms and individuals should be on the lookout for opportunities to innovate. 13

One innovation that demonstrates several of Drucker’s sources is the use of cashier kiosks in fast-food restaurants. McDonald’s was one of the first to launch these self-serve kiosks. Historically, the company has focused on operational efficiencies (doing more/better with less). In response to changes in the market, changes in demographics, and process need, McDonald’s incorporated self-serve cashier stations into their stores. These kiosks address the need of younger generations to interact more with technology and gives customers faster service in most cases. 15

Another leading expert on innovation, Tony Ulwick , focuses on understanding how the customer will judge or evaluate the quality and value of the product. The product development process should be based on the metrics that customers use to judge products, so that innovation can address those metrics and develop the best product for meeting customers’ needs when it hits the market. This process is very similar to Drucker’s contention that innovation comes as a response to changes within and outside of the market. Ulwick insists that focusing on the customer should begin early in the development process. 16

Disruptive innovation is a process that significantly affects the market by making a product or service more affordable and/or accessible, so that it will be available to a much larger audience. Clay Christensen of Harvard University coined this term in the 1990s to emphasize the process nature of innovation. For Christensen, the innovative component is not the actual product or service, but the process that makes that product more available to a larger population of users. He has since published a good deal on the topic of disruptive innovation, focusing on small players in a market. Christensen theorizes that a disruptive innovation from a smaller company can threaten an existing larger business by offering the market new and improved solutions. The smaller company causes the disruption when it captures some of the market share from the larger organization. 17 , 18 One example of a disruptive innovation is Uber and its impact on the taxicab industry. Uber’s innovative service, which targets customers who might otherwise take a cab, has shaped the industry as whole by offering an alternative that some deem superior to the typical cab ride.

One key to innovation within a given market space is to look for pain points, particularly in existing products that fail to work as well as users expect them to. A pain point is a problem that people have with a product or service that might be addressed by creating a modified version that solves the problem more efficiently. 19 For example, you might be interested in whether a local retail store carries a specific item without actually going there to check. Most retailers now have a feature on their websites that allows you to determine whether the product (and often how many units) is available at a specific store. This eliminates the need to go to the location only to find that they are out of your favorite product. Once a pain point is identified in a firm’s own product or in a competitor’s product, the firm can bring creativity to bear in finding and testing solutions that sidestep or eliminate the pain, making the innovation marketable. This is one example of an incremental innovation , an innovation that modifies an existing product or service. 20

In contrast, a pioneering innovation is one based on a new technology, a new advancement in the field, and/or an advancement in a related field that leads to the development of a new product. 21 Firms offering similar products and services can undertake pioneering innovations, but pioneering the new product requires opening up new market space and taking major risks.

Entrepreneur In Action

Pioneering innovation in the personal care industry.

In his ninth-grade biology class, Benjamin Stern came up with an idea to change the personal care industry. He envisioned personal cleaning products (soap, shampoo, etc.) that would contain no harsh chemicals or sulfates, and would also produce no plastic waste from empty bottles. He developed Nohbo Drops , single-use personal cleansing products with water-soluble packaging. Stern was able to borrow money from family and friends, and use some of his college fund to hire a chemist to develop the product. He then appeared on Shark Tank with his innovation in 2016 and secured the backing of investor Mark Cuban . Stern assembled a research team to perfect the product and obtained a patent ( Figure 4.6 ). The products are now available via the company website.

Is a pioneering innovation an invention? A firm makes a pioneering innovation when it creates a product or service arising from what it has done before. Pokémon GO is a great example of pioneering innovation. Nintendo was struggling to keep pace with other gaming-related companies. The company, in keeping with its core business of video games, came up with a new direction for the gaming industry. Pokémon GO is known worldwide and is one of the most successful mobile games launched. 22 It takes creativity to explore a new direction, but not every pioneering innovation creates a distinctly new product or capability for consumers and clients.

Entrepreneurs in the process of developing an innovation usually examine the current products and services their firm offers, investigate new technologies and techniques being introduced in the marketplace or in related marketplaces, watch research and development in universities and in other companies, and pursue new developments that are likely to fit one of two conditions: an innovation that likely fits an existing market better than other products or services being offered; or an innovation that fits a market that so far has been underserved.

An example of an incremental innovation is the trash receptacle you find at fast-food restaurants. For many years, trash cans in fast-food locations were placed in boxes behind swinging doors. The trash cans did one job well: They hid the garbage from sight. But they created other problems: Often, the swinging doors would get ketchup and other waste on them, surely a pain point. Newer trash receptacles in fast-food restaurants have open fronts or open tops that enable people to dispose of their trash more neatly. The downside for restaurants is that users can see and possibly smell the food waste, but if the restaurants change the trash bags frequently, as is a good practice anyway, this innovation works relatively well. You might not think twice about this everyday example of an innovation when you eat at a fast-food restaurant, but even small improvements can matter a lot, particularly if the market they serve is vast.

An invention is a leap in capability beyond innovation. Some inventions combine several innovations into something new. Invention certainly requires creativity, but it goes beyond coming up with new ideas, combinations of thought, or variations on a theme. Inventors build. Developing something users and customers view as an invention could be important to some entrepreneurs, because when a new product or service is viewed as unique, it can create new markets. True inventiveness is often recognized in the marketplace, and it can help build a valuable reputation and help establish market position if the company can build a future-oriented corporate narrative around the invention. 23

Besides establishing a new market position, a true invention can have a social and cultural impact. At the social level, a new invention can influence the ways institutions work. For example, the invention of desktop computing put accounting and word processing into the hands of nearly every office worker. The ripple effects spread to the school systems that educate and train the corporate workforce. Not long after the spread of desktop computing, workers were expected to draft reports, run financial projections, and make appealing presentations. Specializations or aspects of specialized jobs—such as typist, bookkeeper, corporate copywriter—became necessary for almost everyone headed for corporate work. Colleges and eventually high schools saw software training as essential for students of almost all skill levels. These additional capabilities added profitability and efficiencies, but they also have increased job requirements for the average professional.

Some of the most successful inventions contain a mix of familiarity and innovation that is difficult to achieve. With this mix, the rate of adoption can be accelerated because of the familiarity with the concept or certain aspects of the product or service. As an example, the “videophone” was a concept that began to be explored as early as the late 1800s. AT&T began extensive work on videophones during the 1920s. However, the invention was not adopted because of a lack of familiarity with the idea of seeing someone on a screen and communicating back and forth. Other factors included societal norms, size of the machine, and cost. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the invention started to take hold in the marketplace. 24 The concept of a black box is that activities are performed in a somewhat mysterious and ambiguous manner, with a serendipitous set of actions connecting that result in a surprisingly beneficial manner. An example is Febreeze, a chemical combination that binds molecules to eliminate odors. From a black box perspective, the chemical engineers did not intend to create this product, but as they were working on creating another product, someone noticed that the product they were working on removed odors, thus inadvertently creating a successful new product marketed as Febreeze.

What Can You Do?

Did henry ford invent the assembly line.

Very few products or procedures are actually brand-new ideas. Most new products are alterations or new applications of existing products, with some type of twist in design, function, portability, or use. Henry Ford is usually credited with inventing the moving assembly line Figure 4.7 (a) in 1913. However, some 800 years before Henry Ford, wooden ships were mass produced in the northern Italian city of Venice in a system that anticipated the modern assembly line.

Various components (ropes, sails, and so on) were prefabricated in different parts of the Venetian Arsenal, a huge, complex construction site along one of Venice’s canals. The parts were then delivered to specific assembly points Figure 4.7 (b) . After each stage of construction, the ships were floated down the canal to the next assembly area, where the next sets of workers and parts were waiting. Moving the ships down the waterway and assembling them in stages increased speed and efficiency to the point that long before the Industrial Revolution, the Arsenal could produce one fully functional and completely equipped ship per day . The system was so successful that it was used from the thirteenth century to about 1800.

Henry Ford did not invent anything new—he only applied the 800-year-old process of building wooden ships by hand along a moving waterway to making metal cars by hand on a moving conveyor ( Figure 4.7 ).

Opportunities to bring new products and processes to market are in front of us every day. The key is having the ability to recognize them and implement them. Likewise, the people you need to help you be successful may be right in front of you on a regular basis. The key is having the ability to recognize who they are and making connections to them. Just as those ships and cars moved down an assembly line until they were ready to be put into service, start thinking about moving down the “who I know” line so that you will eventually have a successful business in place.

The process of invention is difficult to codify because not all inventions or inventors follow the same path. Often the path can take multiple directions, involve many people besides the inventor, and encompass many restarts. Inventors and their teams develop their own processes along with their own products, and the field in which an inventor works will greatly influence the modes and pace of invention. Elon Musk is famous for founding four different billion-dollar companies. The development processes for PayPal , Solar City , SpaceX , and Tesla differed widely; however, Musk does outline a six-step decision-making process ( Figure 4.8 ):

• Ask a question.
• Gather as much evidence as possible about it.
• Develop axioms based on the evidence and try to assign a probability of truth to each one.
• Draw a conclusion in order to determine: Are these axioms correct, are they relevant, do they necessarily lead to this conclusion, and with what probability?
• Attempt to disprove the conclusion. Seek refutation from others to further help break your conclusion.
• If nobody can invalidate your conclusion, then you’re probably right, but you’re not certainly right.

In other words, the constant underlying Musk’s decision process is the scientific method. 25 The scientific method , most often associated with the natural sciences, outlines the process of discovering an answer to a question or a problem. “The scientific method is a logical organization of steps that scientists use to make deductions about the world around us.” 26 The steps in the scientific method line up quite nicely with Musk’s decision-making process. Applying the scientific method to invention and innovation makes sense. The scientific method involves becoming aware of a problem, collecting data about it by observing and experimenting, and coming up with suggestions on how to solve it.

Economists argue that processes of invention can be explained by economic forces. But this hasn’t always been the case. Prior to 1940, economic theory focused very little on inventions. After World War II, much of the global economy in the developed world needed to be rebuilt. New technologies were developing rapidly, and research and development investment increased. Inventors and economists alike became aware of consumer demand and realized that demand can influence which inventions take off at a given time. 27 However, inventors are always up against an adoption curve. 28

The Rogers Adoption Curve was popularized through the research and publications of the author and scientist Everett Rogers . 29 He first used it to describe how agricultural innovations diffused (or failed to) in a society. It was later applied to all inventions and innovations. This curve illustrates diffusion of an innovation and when certain people will adopt it. First is the question of who adopts inventions and innovations in society: The main groups are innovators, early adopters, early and late-majority adopters, and “laggards” (Rogers’s own term). 30 The innovators are the ones willing to take a risk on a new product, the consumers who want to try it first. The early adopters are consumers who will adopt new inventions with little to no information. Majority adopters will adopt products after being accepted by the majority. And finally, laggards are often not willing to readily adopt change and are the hardest to convince to try a new invention. 31

Rogers’s second way of looking at the concept is from the point of view of the invention itself. A given population partially or completely adopts an invention or rejects it. If an invention is targeted at the wrong population or the wrong population segment, this can dramatically inhibit its chances of being adopted widely. The most critical point of adoption often occurs at the end of the early adoption phase, before the early majority steps in and truly confirms (or not) the diffusion of an invention. This is called the diffusion chasm (though this process is usually called the diffusion of innovations , for our purposes, it applies quite well to new inventions as we define them here).

The diffusion curve depicts a social process in which the value of an invention is perceived (or not) to be worth the cost ( Figure 4.9 ). Early adopters generally pay more than those who wait, but if the invention gives them a perceived practical, social, or cultural advantage, members of the population, the popularity of the invention itself, and marketing can all drive the invention over the diffusion chasm. Once the early majority adopts an innovation (in very large numbers), we can expect the rest of the majority to adopt it. By the time the late majority and the laggards adopt an innovation, the novelty has worn off, but the practical benefits of the innovation can still be felt.

Inventors are constantly trying to cross the diffusion chasm, often with many products at a time. Crossing the diffusion chasm is a nearly constant concern for business-focused or outcomes-focused inventors. Inventors put many of their resources into an invention during the innovation and early adoption stages. Inventions may not turn a profit for investors or the inventors themselves until they are well into the early majority stage of adoption. Some inventors are pleased to work toward general discovery, but most in today’s social and cultural context are working to develop products and services for markets.

One shortcoming of the diffusion of innovations model is that it treats inventions and innovations as though they are finished and complete, though many are not. Not all inventions are finished products ready for market. Iterative development is more common, particularly in fields with high levels of complexity and in service-oriented ventures. In the iterative development process, inventors and innovators continuously engage with potential customers in order to develop their products and their consumer bases at the same time. This model of business learning, also known as the science of customer development, is essential. 32 Business learning involves testing product-market fit and making changes to an innovation or invention many times over until either investment funding runs out or the product succeeds. Perhaps the most accurate way to summarize this process is to note that many inventions are hit-or-miss prospects that get only a few chances to cross the diffusion chasm. When innovators follow the build-measure-learn model (discussed in detail in Launch for Growth to Success ), they try to work their way across the diffusion chasm rather than making a leap of faith.

Work It Out

The safety razor was an innovation over the straight razor. Safety razor blades are small enough to fit inside a capsule, and the location and type of handle was altered to suit the new orientation of handle to blade ( Figure 4.10 ). Most contemporary razors are themselves innovations on the safety razor, whether they have two, three, four, or more blades. The method of changing razor blades has evolved with each innovation on the safety razor, but the designs are functionally similar.

The electric razor is a related invention. It still uses blades to shave hair off the face or body, but the blades are hidden beneath a foil or foils. Hairs poke through the foils when the razor is pressed against the skin, and blades moving in various directions cut the hairs. Although electric razors use blades as do mechanical razors, the new design and the added technology qualified the electric razor as an invention that offered something new in the shaving industry when Jacob Schick won the patent for a shaving machine in 1930. 33 Still other innovations in the shaving genre include gender-specific razors, beard trimmers, and, more recently, online clubs such as Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s Shave Club .

Think about the conceptual difference between innovation and invention. Is the safety razor a pioneering innovation or an incremental one? What makes the electric razor an invention, as we define it here? What makes it stand out as a leap from previous types of razors? Do you think the electric razor is a “sure thing”? Why or why not? Consider the availability of electricity at the time the first electric razors were being made. Why do you think the electric razor made it over the diffusion chasm between early adopters and early majority adopters? Do you think the electric razor was invented iteratively with small changes to the same product in response to customer preferences? Or did it develop in a series of black box inventions, with each one either diffusing or not?

• 7 “How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from Failing Startup to Billion Dollar Business.” First Round Review . n.d. https://firstround.com/review/How-design-thinking-transformed-Airbnb-from-failing-startup-to-billion-dollar-business/
• 8 “Divya Nag, 26.” Fortune . n.d. http://fortune.com/40-under-40/2017/divya-nag-27/
• 9 Rikke Dam and Teo Siang. “Introduction to the Essential Ideation Techniques Which Are the Heart of Design Thinking.” Interaction Design Foundation . April 2019. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/introduction-to-the-essential-ideation-techniques-which-are-the-heart-of-design-thinking
• 10 Dawn Kelly and Terry L. Amburgey. “Organizational Inertia and Momentum: A Dynamic Model of Strategic Change.” Academy of Management Journal 34, no. 3 (1991): 591–612.
• 11 Ian Fillis and Ruth Rentschler. “The Role of Creativity in Entrepreneurship.”  Journal of Enterprising Culture  18, no. 1 (2010): 49–81.
• 12 P. F. Drucker. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practices and Principles . New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986.
• 13 P. F. Drucker. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practices and Principles . (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986), 35.
• 14 P. F. Drucker. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practices and Principles . New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986.
• 15 Blake Morgan. “5 Fresh Examples of Customer Service Innovation.” Forbes . July 17, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/07/17/5-fresh-examples-of-customer-experience-innovation/#3ae5a46e5c18
• 16 Tony Ulwick. “Reinventing Innovation for 25 Years.” Strategyn . n.d. https://strategyn.com/tony-ulwick/?network=g&matchtype=p&keyword=tony%20ulwick&creative=268244402567&device=c&devicemodel=&placement=&position=1t1&campaignid=1394486829&adgroupid=57939305027&loc_physical_ms=9015694&loc_interest_ms=&gclid=CjwKCAjw29vsBRAuEiwA9s-0B2jD3BYbm-BEiPWHKfd6R6mnW4XCHuhXbX_JhUof76IdXh6joIzlWRoCqJAQAvD_BwE
• 17 Chris Larson. “Disruptive Innovation Theory: What It Is & 4 Key Concepts.” Harvard Business School . November 15, 2016. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/4-keys-to-understanding-clayton-christensens-theory-of-disruptive-innovation
• 18 Rosamond Hutt. “What Is Disruptive Innovation?” World Economic Forum . June 25, 2016. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/what-is-disruptive-innovation/
• 19 Lloyd Waldo. “What’s a Pain Point? A Guide for Startups.” StartupYard Seed Accelerator . December 1, 2016. https://startupyard.com/whats-pain-point/
• 20 Abdul Ali, Manohar U. Kalwani, and Dan Kovenock. “Selecting Product Development Projects: Pioneering versus Incremental Innovation Strategies.”  Management Science  39, no. 3 (1993): 255–274.
• 21 Abdul Ali. “Pioneering versus Incremental Innovation: Review and Research Propositions.”  Journal of Product Innovation Management  11, no. 1 (1994): 46–61.
• 22 JV Chamary. “Why ‘Pokémon GO’ Is the World’s Most Important Game.” Forbes . February 10, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2018/02/10/pokemon-go-science-health-benefits/#2b6f07fd3ab0
• 23 Morten Thanning Vendelø. “Narrating Corporate Reputation: Becoming Legitimate through Storytelling.”  International Studies of Management & Organization  28, no. 3 (1998): 120–137.
• 24 Thomas J. Fitzgerald. “For the Deaf: Communication without the Wait.” The New York Times . December 18, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/technology/for-the-deaf-communication-without-the-wait.html
• 25 Abby Jackson. “Elon Musk Uses This 6-Step Process to Make Decisions.” Business Insider . November 16, 2017. https://www.inc.com/business-insider/how-elon-musk-makes-decisions-rolling-stone.html
• 26 Joan Whetzel. “Formula for Using the Scientific Method.” Owlcation . February 11, 2017. https://owlcation.com/academia/FormulaForUsingScientificMethod
• 27 N. Rosenberg. “Science, Invention and Economic Growth.”  The Economic Journal  84, no. 333 (1974): 90–108.
• 28 Everett M. Rogers.  Diffusion of Innovations , 5th ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.
• 29 John-Pierre Maeli. “The Rogers Adoption Curve & How You Spread New Ideas Throughout Culture.” The Political Informer . May 6, 2016. https://medium.com/the-political-informer/the-rogers-adoption-curve-how-you-spread-new-ideas-throughout-culture-d848462fcd24
• 30 Everett M. Rogers.  Diffusion of Innovations , 5th ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.
• 31 Wayne W. LaMorte. “Diffusion of Innovation Theory.” September 9, 2019. http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories4.html
• 32 Eric Ries. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses . Largo, Maryland: Crown Books, 2011.
• 33 “Jacob Schick Invents the Electric Razor.” Connecticut History . May 13, 2017. https://connecticuthistory.org/jacob-schick-invents-the-electric-razor/

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Essay Samples on Invention

Significance of black inventions that changed the world.

Introduction Many people have heard about famous inventions, such as the lightbulb, the steam engine, and the iPhone. The list is, in fact, endless and impressive. However, although we use many products and inventions in our lives, we don't give thought to who made it...

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Radio: History Review of Creating and First Usage

A radio is a machine that is producing or receiving inaudible waves, and that transforms it into a sound that human beings can understand. The range of the band is from 87.5 to 108 MHz. It is intended to be received directly by the public...

Bicycle Made of Plastic Waste Review

Our team had the idea of creating a bicycle that is made out of plastic wastes and also include a built-in energy pack that is removable so that it can act as a power bank to charge any electrical appliances such as mobile phones. By...

Scientific Discovery And Invention: Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

Hundreds of inventions and discoveries appear every day. Do you think all inventions are intentional? And are discovered after research and experimentation? I don’t think so. A famous quote states: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” That is true to a great extent. However, many...

The Invention Of A Periodic Table

Ever since the first grade, Dmitri Mendeleev has been my hero. When I first saw the periodic table, I was in awe; the colors, the patterns, the symmetric shape—everything mesmerized me. Ever since that moment, the periodic table has defined the way I live. Just...

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The Invention Of The Pocket Watch During The Renaissance Period

“The Renaissance was a period in European history, covering the span between the 14th and 17th centuries and marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. The traditional view focuses more on the early modern aspects of the Renaissance and argues that it was...

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Life of Thomas Edison and His Long History of Inventions

Introduction Thomas Alva Edison, most famous American inventor, scientist and businessman in the 20th century, may be one of the world's greatest inventor of all time. He changed our lives from the moment he started innovating, bringing already invented or discovered devices and gadgets into...

• Thomas Edison

The Worldwide Significance of The Wright Brothers’ Invention

In Ohio, in 1905, the very first practical aeroplane was invented by Wilbur and Orville Wright, more famously known as the Wright brothers. What they created would forever change the world. Although many consider the steam engine, the flying shuttle or the spinning jenny to...

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The Chronology of the Achievements of Elon Musk

For as long as I can remember I have always been interested in new inventions and machines that improve life and that put a modern twist on basic everyday necessities. When I read the outline for this book report I was enthused and had one...

The Achievements and Legacy of the Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was very important, the Hans made some very important functional inventions that helped them with their everyday things, some of which we still use today. The Han Dynasty was live from 206 B.C. all the way to 220 A.D. The Han’s territory...

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The Wright Brothers in Search of the Perfect Solution to Fly

The Wright Brothers had a big influence on the revolution of America, and to this day their design and research are still affecting the way air and space craft are created. The first brother born was born in 1867 and his name was Wilbur, the...

The Wrights Brothers and the Revolutionary Invention of an Airplane

Throughout history, mankind has been fascinated with the concept of flight. It was not until the turn of the 20th Century that the dream of flying among the birds became a reality. On December 17, 1905, Wilbur and Orville Wright flew on the first flying...

History of The Birth of Typography in Germany

The development of modern typography started in Germany with the printing of the Gutenberg Bible by Johann Gutenberg in 1455. Gutenberg successfully brought together existing technologies and slightly tweaked them to print the first major Western book using moveable metal type with a press. Gutenberg...

A Glimpse of Typography History: Aldus Manutius, the Inventor of Modern Book Typography

Aldus Manutius creator of Aldine Press had many beautiful works. The book I am taking a page from to write about is The Hypnerotomachi. A book set in 1467 is categorized in the romance genre. This book has many groundbreaking and new for the time...

Gottfried von Wilhelm Leibniz and Invention of Calculus

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646 in Leipzig, Germany. He is best recognized for being one of the founding fathers of calculus, along with Sir Isaac Newton. His nickname is the last “Universal Genius” because his work spanned across many areas...

The Development of Calculus and My Routinary Activities Connected with Calculus

Calculus - A subject that has amassed over different concepts, theorems, and the like. Its complex structure is that of a key figure in the world of mathematics. As far as history goes, the invention of calculus was a great advancement; a marvelous achievement to be added to...

• Mathematical Models

Thomas Edison as the Greatest Innovator of the Time

I will be informing you about a man who change how the human race lives today and is the reason why how the people today are surrounded by so much technology. This remarkable man with such great intelligence was Thomas Edison. Thomas edison was a...

• William Shakespeare

Inventing Solutions of Thomas Edison and Tesla

Invention is something that was never done before, or the creation process that was never done before. While a solution is a way to solve a problem or deal with a difficult situation. Solution is an answer to a problem. Inventing solutions is the act...

Change of the Visualisation of the World by Thomas Edison

Abstract In this assignment, I talk about one of the nation’s most honored men. He is a great inventor and businessman, Thomas Alva Edison from America. He is famous with their great inventions and have a long-lasting impact on Automotive Industry and on the modern...

Life of Archimedes and His Mysterious Inventions

Contributions When Archimedes returned home, the king was faced with a problem because he didn’t know how to empty water from the hull of a ship, so he recurred to Archimedes. According to the article Archimedes of Syracuse, “Archimedes' solution was to create a machine...

Quantum Mechanics: Laser One of the Greatest Inventions

Scientist Max Planck proposed the similarities between energy and the frequency of radiation in 1990, he discovered that energy can be able to emit or absorb individual chucks of quanta. In 1917 it was discovered that light has the ability to emit and absorb individual...

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Great Discoveries Of Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton was a mathematician and astronomer from the 17th century. His work and inventions dedicated a lot to the math and science that we use today. Let’s start from the beginning. Sir Isaac Newton was born on January 4th, 1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire,...

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How and What is Made 3D Printing

3D printing also known as additive manufacturing is an old technology that has been referred to as a group of technologies that build physical objects directly from 3D-CAD data file [125].In contrast to subtractive manufacturing technologies (such as milling or machining, cutting, lathing, turning, etc.),...

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3D Printing Revolution In the World of Producing

Abstract 3D printing has been a revolution within the world of producing that has modified the manner a product is intended and made. it's led to a seismal amendment within the methodology of producing, whereby the merchandise is made layer-by-layer to the ultimate kind. This...

Benjamin Frankiln's Recollection of Life in The Autobiography

In Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, aptly titled The Autobiography, he recounts many important experiences from throughout his life that shaped him into the great American figure he would be remembered as. On the opening page, Franklin reveals that he wrote the book as if writing a...

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Benjamin Franklin as a Key Figure in Science and Innovation

Benjamin Franklin is broadly acknowledged as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and is given credit for the assistance in building the foundation of our nation. Although people only know of some of the careers he pursued, he had many others that...

Prof. Harmon Northrop Morse: An Inventor Of Paracetamol

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University Of The Future With Use Of Technology in Education

In previous centuries, education was considered a difficulty since the means were lacking. Gradually, the development began from wood plates to paper to typing machines until we reached the computer. Then education began to develop at a record speed. For example, before 2000 there was...

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Bicycle and Modern Industrial Methods

A bicycle, often called a bike (and sometimes referred to as a “pushbike”, “pedal bike”, “pedal cycle”,or “cycle”), is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bicycles...

Lights, Camera, Action: How Movies Were Invented

Merriam Webster defines film as a series of pictures projected on a screen in rapid succession with objects shown in successive positions slightly changed so as to produce the optical effect of a continuous picture in which the objects move. Maybe that the technical version...

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Modeling Of Electro Elastic Materials Using Implicit Theories

This proposal develops a mathematical model for various electro-active materials using implicit constitutive theories and solve some boundary value problems for different practical cases. There are some materials such as quartz, PZT etc. which react to electric fields by showing deformation and electric field which...

• Modern Technology

What Is Biotelemetry? How Can It Be Used In Marine Biology Today?

Biotelemetry can be described as the tracking of biological organisms by using electronic or satellite tags that send the data via radio waves in the atmosphere. There are a wide range of devices used in biotelemetry. These include devices that can record environmental conditions such...

Assessment Of The Creative Innovation: Prescription In A Locker Box (Pilbox)

The Pilbox was launched by Marine Parade Polyclinic on May 2016 which has now been extended to Bedok and Punggol Polyclinics too. It is an innovative product that has helped many people save their time by beating the queue at the Polyclinic pharmacy. To use...

Best topics on Invention

1. Significance of Black Inventions That Changed the World

2. Radio: History Review of Creating and First Usage

3. Bicycle Made of Plastic Waste Review

4. Scientific Discovery And Invention: Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

5. The Invention Of A Periodic Table

6. The Invention Of The Pocket Watch During The Renaissance Period

7. Life of Thomas Edison and His Long History of Inventions

8. The Worldwide Significance of The Wright Brothers’ Invention

9. The Chronology of the Achievements of Elon Musk

10. The Achievements and Legacy of the Han Dynasty

11. The Wright Brothers in Search of the Perfect Solution to Fly

12. The Wrights Brothers and the Revolutionary Invention of an Airplane

13. History of The Birth of Typography in Germany

14. A Glimpse of Typography History: Aldus Manutius, the Inventor of Modern Book Typography

15. Gottfried von Wilhelm Leibniz and Invention of Calculus

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Invention (aka brainstorming), what is “invention”.

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Invention (also referred to as brainstorming) is the stage of the writing process during which writers discover the ideas upon which their essays will focus. During this stage, writers tend to overcome some of the anxiety they might have about writing a paper, and in many cases, actually become excited about it. Although invention usually occurs at the beginning of the writing process, exercises aimed at facilitating invention can be helpful at many stages of writing. Some of the best writers return to this stage a number of times while composing drafts of their essays.

Recommended Invention Techniques

Freewriting.

Read through your assignment and choose a topic, theme, or question that comes to mind. Write for 10-15 minutes in response to this idea – do not lift your pen from the paper or your hands from the keyboard.

When you are finished, read through your draft and underline or circle ideas that might lead you to a thesis for your paper. Consider asking a classmate or friend to read what you’ve written and ask questions about your ideas and topics.

After freewriting, read through what you have written and underline a phrase or sentence that you think is particularly effective or that expresses your ideas most clearly. Write this at the top of a new sheet of paper and use it to guide a new freewrite.

Repeat this process several times. The more you write and select, the more you will be able to refine your ideas.

Talk to Yourself

Some people often find themselves saying, “I know what I want to say. It’s just that I can’t figure out how to put it in writing.” If this is the case for you, try dictating your thoughts on a digital recording device. After several minutes, listen to what you’ve recorded and write down ideas you want to incorporate into your paper.

If you don’t have a recording device, ask a friend to write down some of the main points you make as you talk about your ideas.

List all the ideas you can think of that are connected to the topic or the subject you want to explore. Consider any idea or observation as valid and worthy of listing (go for quantity at this point). List quickly and then set your list aside for a few minutes. Come back and read your list and then do the listing exercise again.

Using Charts or Shapes

Use phrases or words that are central to your topic and try to arrange them spatially in a graph, grid, table, or chart. How do the different spatial representations help you see the relationships among your ideas? If you can’t imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put the words on a page and draw lines between or around them.

Break Down the Assignment

Sometimes prompts are so complicated that they can seem overwhelming. Students often ask: There’s so much to do, where should I start? Try to break the assignment down into its constituent parts:

• The general topic, like “The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers.”
• A specific subtopic or required question, like “How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition among colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?”
• A single term or phrase that seems to repeat in the material you’ve read or the ideas you’ve been considering. For example, if have you seen the words “increased competition” several times in the class materials you’ve been reading about tropical fruit exports, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase within the context of those readings or focus on variations of each component of the phrase (i.e., “increased” and “competition”).

Once you have identified the major parts of the topic, try to figure out what you are being asked to think about in the assignment. What questions are you expected to answer? Are there related questions that need to be addressed in order to answer the primary questions? If so, what are they?

Defining Terms

In your own words, write definitions for key terms or concepts given in the assignment. Find other definitions of those terms in your course readings, the dictionary, or through conversations and then compare the definitions to your own. Keep these definitions in mind as you begin to write your essay.

Summarizing Positions

Summarize the positions of relevant authors from your course readings or research. Do you agree or disagree with their ideas, methods, or approaches? How do your interests overlap with the positions of the authors in question? Try to be brief in your descriptions. Write a paragraph or up to a page describing a reading or a position.

Get together with a group of classmates and have each person write down her or his tentative topic or thesis at the top of a blank sheet of paper. Pass the sheets around from left to right so that each person can write down a thoughtful question or suggest related ideas to think about.

Compare / Contrast Matrix

If your assignment asks you to compare or contrast two concepts, texts, subjects, etc., try to organize your thoughts in a compare/contrast matrix by focusing on the attributes you will consider in your draft. These attributes should establish the key points of comparison or contrast with which you will deal in your essay.

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Invention: Starting the Writing Process

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Writing takes time

Find out when is the assignment due and devise a plan of action. This may seem obvious and irrelevant to the writing process, but it's not. Writing is a process, not merely a product. Even the best professional writers don't just sit down at a computer, write, and call it a day. The quality of your writing will reflect the time and forethought you put into the assignment. Plan ahead for the assignment by doing pre-writing: this will allow you to be more productive and organized when you sit down to write. Also, schedule several blocks of time to devote to your writing; then, you can walk away from it for a while and come back later to make changes and revisions with a fresh mind.

Use the rhetorical elements as a guide to think through your writing

Thinking about your assignment in terms of the rhetorical situation can help guide you in the beginning of the writing process. Topic, audience, genre, style, opportunity, research, the writer, and purpose are just a few elements that make up the rhetorical situation.

Topic and audience are often very intertwined and work to inform each other. Start with a broad view of your topic such as skateboarding, pollution, or the novel Jane Eyre and then try to focus or refine your topic into a concise thesis statement by thinking about your audience. Here are some questions you can ask yourself about audience:

• Who is the audience for your writing?
• Do you think your audience is interested in the topic? Why or why not?
• Why should your audience be interested in this topic?
• What does your audience already know about this topic?
• What does your audience need to know about this topic?
• What experiences has your audience had that would influence them on this topic?
• What do you hope the audience will gain from your text?

For example, imagine that your broad topic is dorm food. Who is your audience? You could be writing to current students, prospective students, parents of students, university administrators, or nutrition experts among others. Each of these groups would have different experiences with and interests in the topic of dorm food. While students might be more concerned with the taste of the food or the hours food is available, parents might be more concerned with the price.

You can also think about opportunity as a way to refine or focus your topic by asking yourself what current events make your topic relevant at this moment. For example, you could connect the nutritional value of dorm food to the current debate about the obesity epidemic or you could connect the price value of dorm food to the rising cost of a college education overall.

Keep in mind the purpose of the writing assignment.

Writing can have many different purposes. Here are just a few examples:

• Summarizing: Presenting the main points or essence of another text in a condensed form
• Arguing/Persuading: Expressing a viewpoint on an issue or topic in an effort to convince others that your viewpoint is correct
• Narrating: Telling a story or giving an account of events
• Evaluating: Examining something in order to determine its value or worth based on a set of criteria.
• Analyzing: Breaking a topic down into its component parts in order to examine the relationships between the parts.
• Responding: Writing that is in a direct dialogue with another text.
• Examining/Investigating: Systematically questioning a topic to discover or uncover facts that are not widely known or accepted, in a way that strives to be as neutral and objective as possible.
• Observing: Helping the reader see and understand a person, place, object, image or event that you have directly watched or experienced through detailed sensory descriptions.

You could be observing your dorm cafeteria to see what types of food students are actually eating, you could be evaluating the quality of the food based on freshness and quantity, or you could be narrating a story about how you gained fifteen pounds your first year at college.

You may need to use several of these writing strategies within your paper. For example, you could summarize federal nutrition guidelines, evaluate whether the food being served at the dorm fits those guidelines, and then argue that changes should be made in the menus to better fit those guidelines.

Pre-writing strategies

Once you have thesis statement just start writing! Don't feel constrained by format issues. Don't worry about spelling, grammar, or writing in complete sentences. Brainstorm and write down everything you can think of that might relate to the thesis and then reread and evaluate the ideas you generated. It's easier to cut out bad ideas than to only think of good ones. Once you have a handful of useful ways to approach the thesis you can use a basic outline structure to begin to think about organization. Remember to be flexible; this is just a way to get you writing. If better ideas occur to you as you're writing, don't be afraid to refine your original ideas.

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• Introduction

Building models of what might be

What inventors are, serendipity and inspiration, the quickening pace of invention.

• A chronology of invention

• Who was James Watt?
• Did James Watt invent the steam engine?
• How did James Watt contribute to the Industrial Revolution?
• Is the watt named for James Watt?
• How was Alfred Nobel educated?

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• Academia - Discovery, invention, and innovation: Are they really different?
• LiveScience - Top 10 Inventions That Changed the World
• World Intellectual Property Organization - Inventions and Patents
• Humanities LibreTexts - Reinventing Invention
• Table Of Contents

invention , the act of bringing ideas or objects together in a novel way to create something that did not exist before.

Ever since the first prehistoric stone tools, humans have lived in a world shaped by invention. Indeed, the brain appears to be a natural inventor . As part of the act of perception, humans assemble, arrange, and manipulate incoming sensory information so as to build a dynamic , constantly updated model of the outside world. The survival value of such a model lies in the fact that it functions as a template against which to match new experiences, so as to rapidly identify anything anomalous that might be life-threatening. Such a model would also make it possible to predict danger. The predictive act would involve the construction of hypothetical models of the way the world might be at some future point. Such models could include elements that might, for whatever reason, be assembled into novel submodels (inventive ideas).

One of the earliest and most literal examples of this model-building paradigm in action was the ancient Mesopotamian invention of writing . As early as 8000 bce tiny geometric clay models, used to represent sheep and grain, were kept in clay envelopes, to be used as inventory tallies or else to represent goods during barter. Over time, the tokens were pressed onto the exterior of the wet envelope, which at some point was flattened into a tablet. By about 3100 bce the impressions had become abstract designs marked on the tablet with a cut reed stalk. These pictograms, known today as cuneiform , were the first writing. And they changed the world.

Inventions almost always cause change. Paleolithic stone weapons made hunting possible and thereby triggered the emergence of permanent top-down command structures. The printing press , introduced by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, once and for all curtailed the traditional authority of elders. The typewriter , brought onto the market by Christopher Latham Sholes in the 1870s, was instrumental in freeing women from housework and changing their social status for good (and also increasing the divorce rate).

Inventors are often extremely observant. In the 1940s Swiss engineer George de Mestral saw tiny hooks on the burrs clinging to his hunting jacket and invented the hook-and-loop fastener system known as Velcro.

Invention can be serendipitous. In the late 1800s a German medical scientist, Paul Ehrlich , spilled some new dye into a Petri dish containing bacilli, saw that the dye selectively stained and killed some of them, and invented chemotherapy . In the mid-1800s an American businessman, Charles Goodyear , dropped a rubber mixture containing sulfur on his hot stove and invented vulcanization .

Inventors do it for money. Austrian chemist Auer von Welsbach , in developing the gas mantle in the 1880s, provided 30 extra years of profitability to the shareholders of gaslight companies (which at the time were threatened by the new electric light).

Inventions are often unintended. In the early 1890s Edward Acheson , an American entrepreneur in the field of electric lighting , was seeking to invent artificial diamonds when an electrified mix of coke and clay produced the ultrahard abrasive Carborundum . In an attempt to develop artificial quinine in the mid-1800s, British chemist William Perkin ’s investigation of coal tar instead created the first artificial dye , tyrian purple—which later fell into Ehrlich’s Petri dish.

Inventors solve puzzles. In the course of investigating why suction pumps would lift water only about 9 metres (30 feet), Evangelista Torricelli identified air pressure and invented the barometer .

Inventors are dogged. The American inventor Thomas Edison , who tested thousands of materials before he chose bamboo to make the carbon filament for his incandescent lightbulb , described his work as "one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” At his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey , Edison’s approach was to identify a potential gap in the market and fill it with an invention. His workers were told, “There’s a way to do it better. Find it.”

The key to inventive success often requires being in the right place at the right time. Christopher Latham Sholes and Carlos Glidden took their invention to arms manufacturer Remington just when that company’s production lines were running down after the end of the American Civil War . A quick retool turned Remington into the world’s first typewriter manufacturer.

An invention developed for one purpose will sometimes find use in entirely different circumstances. In medieval Afghanistan somebody invented a leather loop to hang on the side of a camel for use as a step when loading the animal. By 1066 the Normans had put the loop on each side of a horse and invented the stirrup . With their feet thus firmly anchored, at the Battle of Hastings that year Norman knights hit opposing English foot soldiers with their lances and the full weight of the horse without being unseated by the shock of the encounter. The Normans won the battle and took over England (and made English the French-Saxon mix it is today).

One invention can inspire another. Gaslight distribution pipes gave Edison the idea for his electricity network. Perforated cards used to control the Jacquard loom led Herman Hollerith to invent punch cards for tabulator use in the 1890 U.S. census.

Above all, invention appears primarily to involve a “1 + 1 = 3” process similar to the brain’s model-building activity, in which concepts or techniques are brought together for the first time and the outcome is more than the sum of the parts (e.g., spray + gasoline = carburetor ).

The more often ideas come together, the more frequently invention occurs. The rate of invention increased sharply, each time, when the exchange of ideas became easier after the invention of the printing press, telecommunications , the computer , and above all the Internet . Today new fields such as data mining and nanotechnology offer would-be inventors (or semi-intelligent software programs) massive amounts of “1 + 1 = 3” opportunities. As a result, the rate of innovation seems poised to increase dramatically in the coming decades.

It is going to become harder than ever to keep up with the secondary results of invention as the general public gains access to information and technology denied them for millennia and as billions of brains, each with its own natural inventive capabilities, innovate faster than social institutions can adapt. In some cases, as occurred during the global financial crisis of 2007–08 , institutions will face severe challenges from the introduction of technologies for which their old-fashioned infrastructures will be ill-prepared. It may be that the only safe way to deal with the potentially disruptive effects of an avalanche of invention, so as to develop the new social processes required to manage a permanent state of change, will be to do what the brain does: invent a comprehensive virtual world in which one can safely test innovative ideas before applying them.

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Journal Buddies Jill | July 8, 2024 February 11, 2023 | Journal Prompts & Writing Ideas

30 Innovative Writing About Inventions Writing Prompts

Writing about Inventions prompt ideas for Kids and Students— Use these writing prompts and topics to help your students learn all about inventors and inventions—and to inspire them to begin developing their own creative skills!

Fun and Innovative Assignment

From Thomas Edison to Eli Whitney, and from Alexander Graham Bell to Steve Jobs, history’s most storied inventors truly leave indelible marks on our world.  

And as a teacher, you help students learn about these greats—both so that they may understand the historical significance of prominent inventors and so that they might be inspired and emboldened to follow their own pursuits. 

In these, dare we say “innovative” journal prompts, your entire class will consider inventors, their creations, and the impact that new works leave upon the world.  

As your writers reflect on the qualities that inventors must have to succeed and consider the ways in which inventions inspire additional creations and iterations, students will begin to understand what it takes to build something new—and how a single creation can transcend into something bigger than itself.

Have the students in your classroom explore the following questions. Then have them pick up their pen or pencil and innovate the beginning of the writing process in their own words. (We suggest drafting without concern for grammar or spelling or even complete sentences to ensure the highest level of innovations in your students).

30 Inventions Writing Prompts

Enjoy this wonderful list of inventions writing ideas and writing about inventions prompts for students.

• If you could invent one thing that would make your life easier, what would you create? Why?
• What do you think is the greatest invention the world has ever seen? Why?
• What skills does it take to be an inventor? Which of these skills do you have?
• How could you practice some of the other skills that inventors have?
• Would you rather come up with an idea for a new invention, or be the person who builds the new invention? Why?
• Do you consider yourself to be an idea person? Why or why not?
• Are you better with big picture ideas or looking at small details? Why are both of these skills an important aspect of inventing?
• Choose a famous inventor from history and discuss his or her impact on the world.
• Think of something you use every day that someone once invented. How would your life be different if this invention didn’t exist?
• Is it possible to create a totally new invention that is unlike anything the world has ever seen, or are all inventions iterations of old ideas? Why?
• Write about a time when you invented something—whether it was a tool, a story, a philosophy, or something else. Discuss where you came up with the idea and how you put your idea into practice.
• Is inventing the act of coming up with the idea or the act of building something new? Explain why.
• What does it mean when someone says that something is “the greatest invention since sliced bread”? Why do people say this?
• If you had to invent something that would make your schoolwork easier, what would you invent? Why?
• If you had to invent something that would make your chores easier, what would you invent? Why?
• List five historic inventions. Then, choose one and write about the impact it made on society as a whole.
• List five historic inventions. Then, choose one and write about some of the other inventions that it inspired.
• List five historic inventions. Then, choose one and write about how history would have changed if the invention had not been invented.
• If you could meet any famous inventor, whom would you choose? Why? What questions would you ask him or her?
• Why is it important for people to invent new things?
• What does it mean to be an inventor? Define the word and then describe what makes a person an inventor.

• Choose a famous invention from history and write about the processes that the inventor likely went through between the time when he or she came up with the idea and the time when the invention was finished.
• Why do we study inventors? What can we learn from them?
• What would the coolest part of inventing something be? Why?
• Think about the process of inventing something and all the steps that go into it. Which part do you think would be the easiest? Why?
• Think about the process of inventing something and all the steps that go into it. Which part do you think would be the hardest? Why?
• Imagine you are an inventor who likes to work on many projects at one time. What kinds of things would you keep in your lab? Be as detailed (and creative!) as possible.
• Write a short story about an inventor who creates something that turns out a little differently than he or she planned.
• List five common household objects. Then, write about how you could combine two or more of them to create a brand new invention.

A Few Closing Words

The technology of invention is ever-changing – the process today’s inventors may use will vary differently from their grandparents but the creativity and inspiration remains the same! Students of any grade can use and enjoy these writing ideas. Whether they compose a well-thought-out and organized thesis or simply free-write, the point is for them to enjoy the process of discovery, innovation, and writing.

For further inspiration check out these invention inspirational resources:

• 10 Kid Inventors Who Changed Our Lives
• 20 Women Inventors You Should Know
• 8 World-Changing Black Inventors That Every Kid Should Know About

Ok, that’s all for today.

Until next time, write on…

If you enjoyed these Writing about inventions and I nventions Writing Prompts for Students , please share them on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Pinterest. I appreciate it!

Sincerely, Jill journalbuddies.com creator and curator

Related Links & Writing Ideas

• Random Writing Prompts
• Creative Writing Exercises Help to Unlock Your Imagination
• Writing Prompts about {Crazy} Inventions

Tap to See Prompts 27 Amazing Picture Writing Prompts for Kids Power Up Your Pen: 157 Writing Prompt a Day Ideas 162 Creative Writing Topics and Ideas (Updated!) ------------Start of Om Added --------- @media (min-width: 320px) and (max-width: 767px) { .inside-right-sidebar { display: none !important; } } Search Now Offering You 19,000+ Prompts!

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New Invention

It is recommended that every person should consume eight glasses of water a day. For this project, we are given the ability to create anything we wanted with the simple request that we highlight the affects it would have. If I could create anything in the world, I would pawn the invention of a machine that had the capability to filter and cleanse any scale of water at any given moment immediately. Now many people will say that I should create something beneficial to myself, such as a time machine, or a teleportation device of some sort.

But one of the major benefits of this machine is that not only does it benefit every person individually, but it benefits our entire world on a grander scale. One of the key elements that this machine can do, is it can cleanse and purify any amount of water, meaning, it will be able to filter masses of water such as beaches and rivers. Due to the fact that the Earth’s surface is compromised of seventy percent water, many people lack to realize that water is such a key component in our lives. The human body can live without food for a month, but can only survive without water for a week.

Now this machine will benefit the individual on personal scale by allowing every person to have safe, consumable water regardless of their location. In public places, there are opportunities to drink water from water fountains. But the cleanliness of the water coming from these drinking fountains is typically a concern that many people have. When people swim for hours at a time, they become dehydrated craving water. But the consumption of chlorine-infested water or beach water is never known to be safe for anyone.

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Now with the ultimate water purifying machine, water can be easily accessible for anyone at anytime. Thus, this supports the hydrating of everyone as well as the steady inclination of water consumption. The United States utilizes about three-hundred and forty six million gallons of fresh water every day. Fortunately for our nation, there isn’t a dire need for clean water. But with the amount of oils spills, pollution of air, these accumulations of events have brought our nation to an urgent call for the cleansing and purifying of our water.

Fortunately for our nation, the United States utilizes eighty percent of its water for irrigation and thermoelectric power. But with this invention, we can further the beneficial and positive uses that our nation utilizes water for. With this invention, we can purify the surrounding water bodies so that our wildlife in the ocean can resist fatality from pollution of our waters such as oil spills and toxic wastes. This invention can also eliminate water-borne illnesses that spread in public water arenas such as swimming pools, lakes, and beaches.

Following the elimination of oil spills, toxic waste dumps, and other negative impact happenings from the United States, this prevents them from spreading to other areas of the Earth as well as preserving the oceanic animal lives. On a worldwide scale, more than one billion people lack a reliable source providing safe, drinking water. Unfortunately, our world lacks the resources to supply the huge demand and need for water. As much as eighty percent of our world’s illnesses derived from water-borne illnesses. In poverty-stricken areas, the consumption of dirty water or even lack of water to consume is fairly common.

With this invention, the placement of this machine in poverty-stricken areas will purify the waters, supply the needy with clean and consumable water, and lead those nations away from hunger. Evidently, an invention that revolves around the cleansing and purifying of water bodies is a major benefit personally, towards our nation, and in the grander scheme, towards our entire world. A machine that could potentially supply those in need with clean water for their consumption, that could cleanse the polluted waters, and that could make a major push towards a healthy dosage of water consumption, could very well result in a life-changing move.

This invention will provide a means of consumable water at any place, reassured of its cleanliness and pure quality. This invention will support our wildlife in the ocean by ridding the oceans and bodies of water in our nation, of its toxic wastes and spills that threaten their lives. This invention will eliminate the water deprived bodies of the poor, providing them with clean water, and aiding them in drinking water to rid their bodies of diseases and deficiencies. Clearly, the invention of this machine will aid our nation in a push for a better world.

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At the height of the Hussite crisis in the early 1400's, when the authorities ordered 200 manuscripts of heretical writings burned, people on both sides realized quite well the significance.

Invention Essay Close your eyes and imagine yourself standing in the middle of a huge parking lot with a handful of heavy groceries and the pouring rain splashing down onto.

  Language is a systematic set of finite arbitrary symbols that are used to convey   information from a source to a receiver.  It is the most revolutionizing invention humans had ever.

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Idea to Invention

Research innovation affords opportunities for unique impact, including in the dissemination of knowledge and new technologies. At Maryland, inventors work with UM Ventures to ensure that their inventive ideas are appropriately protected and made available for licensing or commercialization.

Patents have been essential in creating impact for my research

My research has focused on the development of materials that can be used to improve the reliability of electronic products in extreme environments. Publishing in archival journals and conference proceedings has given my work visibility and allowed others to learn from and further develop knowledge. But it is by pursuing patent protection for my inventions that I have been able to directly create substantial economic and technological impact. In fact, the whole process of identifying a need, developing a product, drafting the patent, working with the university to identify potential customers, and licensing or commercializing the results has given me a profound understanding of how engineering solutions can be game changers for society.

Among my patented inventions are several high temperature solder formulations. The first of these was a tin-based, lead-free solder that contained small additions of other metals to produce an attach with an optimal mix of high temperature stability and vibration/shock resistance.  Such properties are especially useful for electronics located in a downhole oil drilling tool with shock loading at temperatures of 175C and above. For this patent, I teamed with Schlumberger (SLB), Ltd., who sponsored the research.  Our joint application for a patent was granted in 2019 ( US Patent #10,180,035 ). This technology is now available for use in their current drilling tools.

Another application in which robust joining materials are needed is in the construction of power electronic devices.  These devices dissipate a considerable amount of power as heat and need high temperature stable interconnections with high electrical and thermal conductivity. High lead solders were used extensively for this purpose in the past, but have been eliminated because of toxicity. Instead, materials known as transient liquid phase sintering alloys were created to allow processing at temperatures below 300C while ensuring stability to temperatures from 400-600C and up. My work in this area resulted in patents on a method for the manufacturing of joints with a transient liquid phase paste ( US Patent #10,232,472 ), a device for curing the paste ( US Patent #10,500,661 ), and a method for analyzing the properties of the paste ( US Patent #10,755,000 ). These materials are currently used in high temperature capacitors, power modules, and other high temperature electronic applications where they permit operation of SiC and GaN devices in a wide range of environments that electronics would typically not be able to tolerate.

Another approach for reliable use of power electronic devices, despite high heat generation, is to cool them uniformly so that there are no hot spots on the die that can cause malfunction. I patented such a uniform cooling technology that combines thermoelectric spot coolers with microchannel fluidic base coolers. The ideas in this patent ( US Patent #9,099,426 ) were further developed in work for DARPA to create a combined cooling scheme for microelectronic devices that came to be known as FEEDS TM (Film Evaporation with Enhanced fluid Delivery System).

These technologies serve as a small example of the impact that patenting can have on technology dissemination.

Patrick McCluskey Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Maryland

The whole process of pursuing patent protection for my inventions has given me a profound understanding of how engineering solutions can be game changers for society.

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E-Paper | August 18, 2024

Essay: disinformation and its discontents.

In April 1869, William H. Mumler, an American photographer who claimed that he could capture ghosts and spirits in his pictures, was brought to trial for fraud. In one picture, a woman sits on a chair, and on her lap is a faint image of a baby that reminds you of Casper the Ghost.

Mumler’s clients, among others, were loved ones of people who had died in the American Civil War and were looking for closure. His most famous photograph was one which allegedly captured the ghost of Abraham Lincoln — and his widowed wife, who sits on a chair, wearing all black.

Mumler was accused of breaking into the houses of grieving families to steal pictures of their dead relatives, to be used for ‘spirit photography.’ But he was acquitted. The New York World, a newspaper published in the city from 1860 to 1931, later published a column that said:

“Who, henceforth, can trust the accuracy of a photograph… What ravage will this possibility make of private reputation, and what confusion entail on the historian of future times. Photographs have been treasured in a belief that… they could not lie, but here is a revelation that they may be made to lie with a most deceiving exactness.”

Could you tell, minus the ancient English, that this column was printed in 1869, and not in Pakistan in 2024? A new, post-social media Pakistan, where judges, politicians and the state express horror at the scale of disinformation against them? That nobodies on social media have the gall to criticise them? The Pakistan of 2024 where we have invented the term “digital terrorists?”

Pakistan has always had a complex relationship with truth and power and, now, social media has highlighted the state’s uneasy relationship with technology. Is social media truly the culprit for society’s anxieties or merely the latest scapegoat in a long history of disinformation?

THE DIGITAL RUBICON

Social media was the underdog in Pakistan two decades ago, taken for granted, ignored. When a few journalists and activists would report on cybercrime and abuse against women and children, the government did not care. Entrepreneurs and freelancers were on their own.

But now, social media hovers over those who exercise authority — parents, politicians, clerics — as an enormous threat, one that must be contained. And if you hear these people talk enough, you might believe the world, and Pakistan especially, is going through a cataclysmic change that is not just destroying the truth, but a human being’s fundamental ability to know truth from lies.

In a video shared on X (formerly Twitter) in December 2021, a man can be seen accusing a beverage company salesman of blasphemy. The blogger, Imran Noshad Khan, who posted the video, asks the man what the issue is, and the man shows him the QR code imprinted on a beverage bottle, which he insists has an Islamic prophet’s name written within it. “But this is a QR code,” says Noshad. “No! Either the company removes this mark, or we go to war,” the man says. “I will burn their vehicles.”

In science, it might be called a high pattern-recognition ability. Those exceptional at maths, coding and music are known to have this. But if you do not understand how the human brain works, and are in Pakistan, you end up spotting blasphemy in a QR code.

Pakistan has had a complicated relationship with technology. Clerics — famous ones and those from small towns — opposed TV and cable when it first arrived here, claimed photography to be un-Islamic, and labelled loud speakers as spawns of Satan.

In some households, telephones are still considered devices that can corrupt a woman’s morality. The gender divide in connectivity in Pakistan is one of the highest in the world, because men don’t want their women to have smartphones (and not just because of poverty, according to international reports).

What is it about anything new and modern that it elicits in people paranoia and the primal fear of the unknown? Why do social media and smart phones do that to the men in our country, at home or in the government? How is that in a country with issues such as poverty, rape and abuse, crime and violence, the state has made social media the object of its obsession?

It is because social media, to them, is expansive, limitless, uncontrollable. It may disinform people, but it also fact-checks claims by politicians and officials in mere minutes, unlike previously, when we had to wait for decades before a history event would make it to the books. It took the judiciary 50 years to acknowledge there were flaws in the Bhutto judgement, but social media has allowed people to analyse and comment on high-profile cases minute by minute.

And while doxing and hate speech are real issues, it is the rapid shift of power away from traditional institutions that gives people in power anxiety and uncertainty. They fret at the polarisation and chaos in society that will ensue due to this. One might ask: what was it like before social media supposedly upended power structures?

“…this narrative presupposes a false history in which institutions were unproblematically organised around enlightenment epistemic values,” writes Joshua Habgood-Coote, in his paper ‘Deepfakes and the Epistemic Apocalypse.’

“It doesn’t take a lot of historical inquiry to show that this is false. The history of propaganda, white supremacy, and European Imperial projects provide us with rich examples of institutions organised around the production of ignorance,” he writes.

Since Pakistan’s inception, the state has been known for imposing censorship, and producing and encouraging narratives that term any criticism anti-state. Widespread political victimisation continues; in the past journalists have been flogged for telling the truth, and young women, such as Jehan Mina, who were raped, were handed out punishments for fornication instead of receiving justice.

But in a reply to the Sindh High Court on the ban on X earlier this year, the interior ministry said that it wants to promote the “responsible use of social media” that upholds our moral values, and so it must ban X.

When we say we want people to uphold our moral values on social media, what standards are we exactly referring to?

SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS

In Pakistan, we are taught that some statements told to us by the state are self-evident truths — truths like the sky is blue or 2+2 equals 4. Unlike our ancestors, we do not require hours spent observing, hypothesising and deducting truths — we just know.

But in other parts of the world, thinkers and philosophers apply reason, logic and scientific inquiry to explore our relationship with truth, free speech and technology.

How did we perceive, observe, believe before social media? Does technology inform us or does it destroy our fundamental ability to discern truth from lies? Was the world better before social media? Or before TV, radio and satellites?

Consider the video: a century ago, it was superior evidence, the final evidence, to verify events of a crime. Circumstantial evidence would matter; but if there was a video or a picture, it would basically be the end of the argument. Human beings learned to rely on this kind of technology as an “epistemic backstop” — the final truth of the different proofs, writes Habgood-Coote.

This is because, the paper says quoting various authors, the video ended our dependence solely on the testimony of another person, who could be lying, saying something under pressure, or influenced by their moral or political ideas.

We started to see technology as mostly positive. We started to believe that any information from these pre-internet era technologies are primary sources of knowledge. This changed in the age of social media and the invention of photo and video software.

Now, we don’t know whether the information is true or manipulated, and who carried out the manipulation. There is a widespread belief that the recent polls results were manipulated. But are all the Form-45s posted on X by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), also notorious for disinformation, genuine? Or should we wait for a reliable media house, with experienced journalists, to confirm this?

We are back to where we started: depending on a fellow fallible human being, instead of the ‘incorruptible’ technology. And this is what makes people anxious.

“[W]hen we rely on an instrument, we rely on the social practices relating to the production, operation, and maintenance of that instrument,” writes Habgood-Coote. This means that, even when the video was considered a superior form of evidence, it still needed to be checked for accuracy, its origin, and the place of its production.

Why can’t we apply the same reasoning to social media? International standards do exactly that. There are widely accepted definitions, separately, for misinformation, disinformation and hate speech, and different measures to deal with each of them, balancing free speech with civil rights.

DISINFORMATION AND DISTRACTIONS

“Take the money. Give an interview,” tweeted Hina Parvez Butt, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentarian, in May, with a screenshot of an interview of former prime minister Imran Khan with an international media outlet. The post went viral and people were quick to mock her for getting it wrong.

“This Pakistani politician from the governing party is pushing a conspiracy theory that I was ‘paid’ to do my interview with Imran Khan,” responded renowned British-American broadcaster Mehdi Hassan on X, who interviewed Khan for his digital platform, Zeteo. “‘Paid’ on the post below means it’s a post only for paid subscribers to Zeteo. Imagine being this ignorant and conspiratorial … and elected!”

While the PTI was unmatched in Pakistan in its social media campaigns and coordinated disinformation, the PML-N seems to be catching up. The PTI government had created a FakeNewsBuster account on X, that would mostly, and often erroneously, “fact-check” news items that criticised the party.

The PML-N has taken it up several notches and brought a defamation law, which — while passed by the provincial legislature of Punjab — somehow applies to anyone in Pakistan who “defames” a person based in Punjab.

A study by the Centre for News Technology and Innovation, an independent global policy research centre, found that just seven of the 32 pieces of legislation in 31 countries, including Pakistan, explicitly defined what fake news actually is.

“Fourteen of the 32 policies clearly designate the government with the authority to decide what is or is not “fake news”… The remaining 18 policies provide either vague or no language about who has that control, ceding it to the government by default,” said the report, which analysed policies that were proposed or enacted between 2020 and 2023.

Whipping up frenzy around fake news and disinformation also helps distract from the fact that states are behind some of the most coordinated and consistent disinformation campaigns.

This includes disinformation by India against Pakistan, reported by the EU Disinfo Lab, or US disinformation against Chinese vaccines during the pandemic, reported by a recent Reuters investigation.

Pakistan does it too, with its own citizens. “[T]he team observed a high level of involvement in spreading disinformation among officials from Balochistan,” said a report by iVerify, a fact-checking project being run by the Centre of Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi. This includes claims that Pakistan has the least number of missing persons in South Asia, and false claims about Baloch protest leaders, such as Mahrang Baloch, the report said.

While countries such as Pakistan are quick to bring legislation, they do not use basic measures, such as rebutting viral rumours that regularly affect public peace, such as blasphemy accusations.

“To verify… [we] had assigned a reporter to get in touch with the local administration, who neither cooperated nor gave an authentic answer,” the report said. “[In addition,] officials of the Election Commission… just kept handing the issue over to different departments.”

The government has not partnered with any organisation working on mass information literacy campaigns, says Ayesha Khalid of Media Matters for Democracy, a media literacy and development entity based in Islamabad. Yet, the same government is spending billions on surveillance technology to monitor content on social media.

The PML-N also co-opts the very language of rights activists and experts: the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) was for the protection of women, it says and, according to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, the defamation bill will protect religious minorities.

During the PTI government, Maryam Nawaz claimed that secret video cameras were set up in the bathroom of her prison cell, during her detention by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a corruption case. “I will expose those responsible behind this when the time is right,” Maryam had told a political rally.

But after she and her party came into power, the government officially allowed the country’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to intercept phone calls and communication apps.

THE BIG, FAT PROPAGANDIST

Various recent studies on the psychology and motivations of people who go above and beyond to intentionally spread lies on the internet, point to the same factors that society has dealt with forever: people and states convinced their political or religious beliefs are superior, that they are on the right side of history, and that lies and war are a necessary means to an end.

If there is nothing new to it, why do we claim that propaganda is not a fundamental truth about being human? Or that it is technology that is the major culprit? And if some people are meant to be propagandists, what about others that blindly follow? Is there a way to address their inherent biases that leads them to believe these lies in the first place?

“[T]here are a number of scalable interventions that demonstrably boost the public’s resistance to misinformation, such as media literacy tips… and inoculation,” says the 2023 paper ‘Misinformation and the Epistemic Integrity of Democracy’, published in ScienceDirect.

Inoculation involves showing people brief educational materials, such as videos, which explain the techniques used by disinformation actors, so that people are “inoculated” against them.

In 2023, Niloufer Siddiqui, who teaches at the University of Albany, and her colleagues conducted a study, titled ‘Misinformation and Support for Vigilantism.’ They found that telling participants in India and Pakistan that various news channels had investigated and found a rumour to be false led them to believe the rumour less. “It also made them less likely to support any violence on the basis of that rumour.”

Dozens of such studies and projects around the globe prove that misinformation can be addressed through well-thought-out measures based on evidence. Moreover, the claim that people have recently “departed from truth” assumes that we lived in a well-ordered state of affairs before, writes University of Essex lecturer Lorna Finlayson, in her 2019 paper ‘What to do with Post-Truth.’

“But once we investigate these claims, we are forced to acknowledge that things were not so well-ordered after all… otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

The writer is a freelance journalist and researcher. A former computer engineer, she reports on cybercrime, disinformation and human rights

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 18th, 2024

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Leonard Hayflick, Who Discovered Why No One Lives Forever, Dies at 96

A biomedical researcher, he found that normal cells can divide only a certain number of times before they age — which, he said, explained aging on a cellular level.

By Clay Risen

Leonard Hayflick, a biomedical researcher who discovered that normal cells can divide only a certain number of times — setting a limit on the human life span and frustrating would-be-immortalists everywhere — died on Aug. 1 at his home in Sea Ranch, Calif. He was 96.

His son, Joel Hayflick, said the cause was pancreatic cancer.

Like many great scientific findings, Dr. Hayflick’s came somewhat by accident. As a young scientist in the early 1960s at the Wistar Institute, a research organization at the University of Pennsylvania, he was trying to develop healthy embryonic cell lines in order to study whether viruses can cause certain types of cancer.

He and a colleague, Paul Moorhead, soon noticed that somatic — that is, nonreproductive — cells went through a phase of division, splitting between 40 and 60 times, before lapsing into what he called senescence.

As senescent cells accumulate, he posited, the body itself begins to age and decline. The only cells that do not go into senescence, he added, are cancer cells.

As a result of this cellular clock, he said, no amount of diet or exercise or genetic tweaking will push the human species past a life span of about 125 years.

This finding, which the Nobel-winning virologist Macfarlane Burnet later called the Hayflick limit, ran counter to everything scientists believed about cells and aging — especially the thesis that cells themselves are immortal, and that aging is a result of external causes, like disease, diet and solar radiation.

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/new-california-laws-target-smash-and-grab-robberies-car-thefts-and-shoplifting

New California laws target smash-and-grab robberies, car thefts and shoplifting

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a bipartisan package of 10 bills that aims to crack down on smash-and-grab robberies and property crimes, making it easier to go after repeat shoplifters and auto thieves and increase penalties for those running professional reselling schemes.

The move comes as Democratic leadership works to prove that they’re tough enough on crime while trying to convince voters reject a ballot measure that would bring even harsher sentences for repeat offenders of shoplifting and drug charges.

WATCH: Why reports of a surge in retail theft may be overblown

While shoplifting has been a growing problem, large-scale, smash-and-grab thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have become a crisis in California and elsewhere in recent years. Such crimes, often captured on video and posted on social media, have brought particular attention to the problem of retail theft in the state.

The legislation includes the most significant changes to address retail theft in years, the Democratic governor said. It allows law enforcement to combine the value of goods stolen from different victims to impose harsher penalties and arrest people for shoplifting using video footage or witness statements.

“This goes to the heart of the issue, and it does it in a thoughtful and judicious way,” Newsom said of the package. “This is the real deal.”

The package received bipartisan support from the Legislature, though some progressive Democrats did not vote for it, citing concerns that some of the measures are too punitive.

The legislation also crack down on cargo thefts, close a legal loophole to make it easier to prosecute  auto thefts  and require marketplaces like eBay and Nextdoor to start collecting bank accounts and tax identification numbers from high-volume sellers. Retailers also can obtain restraining orders against convicted shoplifters under one of the bills.

WATCH: What’s behind a surge in car thefts and carjackings across the country 

“We know that retail theft has consequences, big and small, physical and financial,” state Sen. Nancy Skinner, who authored one of the bills, said Friday. “And we know we have to take the right steps in order to stop it without returning to the days of mass incarceration.”

Democratic lawmakers, led by Newsom, spent months earlier this year unsuccessfully fighting to keep a tougher-on-crime initiative off the November ballot. That ballot measure, Proposition 36, would make it a felony for repeat shoplifters and some drug charges, among other things. Democrats worried the measure would disproportionately criminalize low-income people and those with substance use issues rather than target ringleaders who hire large groups of people to steal goods for them to resell online. Lawmakers’ legislation instead would allow prosecutors to combine multiple thefts at different locations for a felony charge and stiffen penalties for smash-and-grabs and large-scale reselling operations.

Newsom in June went as far as proposing putting a competing measure on the ballot but dropped the plan a day later. Proposition 36 is backed by a coalition of district attorneys, businesses and some local elected officials such as San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

Newsom, flanked by a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers, business leaders and local officials in a Home Depot store in San Jose, said the ballot measure would be “a devastating setback” for California. Newsom said last month he will work to fight the measure.

“That initiative is about going back to the 1980s and the war on drugs,” he said. “It’s about mass incarceration.”

How to tackle crimes in California has become increasingly difficult to navigate in recent years for state Democrats, many of whom have spent the last decade championing progressive policies to depopulate jails and prisons and invest in rehabilitation programs. Newsom’s administration has also spent $267 million to help dozens of local law enforcement agencies increase patrols, buy surveillance equipment and prosecute more criminals.

READ MORE: California targets smash-and-grabs with $267 million program aimed at ‘brazen’ store thefts

The issue hit a boiling point this year amid mounting criticism from Republicans and law enforcement, who point to viral videos of large-scale thefts where groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight. Voters across the state are also vexed over what they see as a lawless California where retail crimes and drug abuse run rampant as the state grapples with a homelessness crisis.

As the issue could even affect the makeup — and control — of Congress, some Democrats broke with party leadership and said they supported Proposition 36, the tough-on-crime approach.

It’s hard to quantify the retail crime issue in California because of the lack of local data, but many point to major store closures and everyday products like toothpaste being locked behind plexiglass as evidence of a crisis. The California Retailers Association said it’s challenging to quantify the issue in California because many stores don’t share their data.

Crime data shows the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles saw a steady increase in shoplifting between 2021 and 2022, according to a study by the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California. The state attorney general and experts said crime rates in California remain low compared to the heights decades ago.

The California Highway Patrol has recovered $45 million in stolen goods and arrested nearly 3,000 people since 2019, officials said Friday.

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