Where and when was it invented. When and where exactly was the magnetic compass invented? Gunpowder in Europe: who invented it

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Glass has been known to mankind for many centuries. Archaeological finds prove that the technology of glass production was known in the Middle East as early as the 3rd century BC. Amulets and beads dating back to 7000 BC have been found on the territory of Egypt. But who and when, and most importantly for what purpose invented this wonderful material, is not known for certain.

Versions about the appearance of glass

There are several versions of the origin of glass. Some scientists believe that this material was obtained during the smelting of copper. Others argue that they received it during the firing of clay products. And according to the statements of the ancient Roman historian Pliny the Elder, mankind owes the appearance of glass to the Phoenician merchants, who made fires right on the sand in the parking lots and covered them with pieces of lime.

Be that as it may, but for many years glass was an exquisite luxury available only to the richest and most influential. And only with the advent of a new era, when the glass blowing tube was invented in Syria, mass production began and glass products became more affordable, and the technology began to spread throughout the countries. Alexandria became the most famous center for the manufacture of glass products in the East. The ancient Romans are also considered skillful glassmakers.

Development of glassmaking in Europe

From the east, glass-making technology came to European countries. Here it has been modified and developed to new levels. First of all, the changes affected raw materials. The soda has been replaced with the more common potash.

A significant event was the invention in the 13th century by German craftsmen of sheet glass, which was subsequently improved by the Venetians. The quality of such glasses was low, it was the property of only a select few. It could be seen only in churches and castles, and now even custom-made glass doors are not a novelty for anyone.

For a long time the largest European centers for the production of glassware was Venice and Bohemia. A technology for producing colored glass was developed. Glassblowers kept the secrets of their craft very strictly, because each area had its own technologies and manufacturing features.

In the 17th century, the primacy of glass production passed to the masters of Foggy Albion. In many ways, this was facilitated by the discovery in the 1670s. English glassblower George Ravenscroft. He introduced lead compounds into glass and obtained an analogue of rock crystal, which differed high quality and easily cut.

Industrial glass production

Despite the high popularity of glass products, only by the end of the 19th century did their production take on an industrial scale. A great contribution to the development of the glass industry was made by:

• the German scientist Otto Schott, who studied the dependence of the optical and thermal properties of glass on the composition of the feedstock;
• Friedrich Simmens invented a structurally new furnace, which ensured the production of large volumes of glass mass;
• American engineer Michael Owens. His automatic machine for the manufacture of bottles quickly spread throughout the United States;
• Belgian inventor Fourko. The device proposed by him made it possible to continuously obtain a glass sheet of constant thickness. This invention was improved by Emile Bicherois. Changes made greatly simplified the process of glass processing.

Many scientists contributed their knowledge and skills to the development of glassmaking. The equipment was improved, new quantitative and qualitative compositions of raw materials were proposed, and now it is difficult to imagine the world without glass and various products from it.

The magnetic compass is one of the greatest discoveries in human history. It was thanks to this device that the Great geographical discoveries became possible.

What is a compass and what is it for?

The compass is an amazing device, using which you can always determine your exact location relative to the cardinal points. Undoubtedly, his invention is one of the greatest achievements of mankind, thanks to which all the great geographical discoveries were perfected. The invention of this device has the same significance for navigation as the beginning of the use of gunpowder in military affairs. Thanks to the compass, cartography has risen to a new level.

In order to accurately lay routes (primarily by sea), you need to know where you are and in which direction you are heading. Ancient sailors determined their location using the sun and stars. But they were not always visible. In the old days, ships tried not to go out to sea and stay close to the coast. According to the landmarks on the shore, the sailors determined their position.

Only the invention of the compass and sextant made it possible to make long journeys and discover distant lands. Who invented the compass is not exactly known. It is believed that this device was invented in ancient China. However, then it was repeatedly improved, and the device that exists today bears very little resemblance to its distant ancestor.

The principle of the compass is that the magnetic needle interacts with the Earth's magnetic field and is located along the planet's lines of force.

Simply put, the magnetic needle will always be rotated along the magnetic line of the Earth. One of its ends will point to the North magnetic pole of our planet, and the other - to the South Pole.

The invention of the compass

What people first guessed to use the Earth's magnetic field to determine their exact position relative to the cardinal points? Scientists believe that they were Chinese.

Historians suggest that the first compass was invented in China during the Han Dynasty. It was the Chinese who discovered the amazing properties of magnetic iron ore. True, they used this mineral at first not for navigation, but for divination. Their description can be found in the ancient Chinese treatise "Lunheng".

The Chinese were the first to use magnetized iron to determine the cardinal points. Even the name of the scientist is called - Shen Gua, who lived during the Song Dynasty. First, special molds were cast from magnetic iron, which were then placed in a vessel with water. In 1119, Zhu Yu proposed the use of a compass with a needle. This is reported in the Chinese treatise "Table Talk in Ningzhou".

There is a description of another ancient Chinese compass, made in the form of a spoon with a thin handle. The spoon was made of magnetic material. It was installed on a polished surface, so that the handle of the spoon did not touch the surface. It was he who showed the sides of the world. The polished surface was often decorated with the signs of the Zodiac or designations of the countries of the world.

This device is ranked among the four great Chinese inventions: gunpowder, paper, printing and the compass. But, as you understand, the information about that distant era is rather vague and uncertain, so many scientists doubt it.

Compass in Europe and the East

It is believed that the ancient Chinese used the compass to navigate the deserts. They were also equipped with Chinese ships.

In the XII century, a similar device appeared among the Arabs. It remains not entirely clear: they themselves invented it or borrowed it from the Chinese. In Europe, the compass appeared in the XII or XIII century. Some scientists believe that the Europeans borrowed his device from the Arabs, others argue that they thought of this invention on their own. The first to use the compass were Italian sailors.

Mentions of this device can be found in the Kipchaks in 1282 and in al-Makrizi. Both of them describe the use of the compass at sea. It was adopted from the Italians by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, and then by the British and French. It was the use of this device that allowed Europeans to discover new continents, cross oceans and make the first trip around the world.

What did the first devices look like?

At that time, the compass was very different from the device that we are used to seeing today. At first, it was a container of water in which a piece of wood or cork floated, a magnetic needle was inserted into it. To protect the vessel from wind and water, they began to cover it with glass.

This instrument was not very accurate. The magnetic needle looked like a thick needle. It is worth adding that the first devices were very expensive, and only very wealthy people had the opportunity to purchase them. Then there was an improvement of this device.

In the XIV century, the Italian scientist Flavio Gioia proposed to put a magnetic needle on a vertical axis, and attach a coil to the arrow, dividing it into 16 points. This innovation was very much liked by the sailors. A century later, the coil was already broken into 32 points, and it became even more convenient. The compass itself began to be placed in a special suspension in order to reduce the influence of sea rolling on it.

In the 17th century, a direction finder appeared - a special ruler with sights, which was fixed on the lid. The device has become even more convenient.

Modern appliances

Nowadays, despite the advent of satellite navigation, a gyrocompass, an ordinary magnetic compass continues to faithfully serve people. Of course, modern appliances bear little resemblance to their medieval predecessors. They are made using the latest technologies and materials.

Today, the usual magnetic compass is most often used by tourists, geologists, climbers, travelers and just lovers of excursions and hikes. Ships and aircraft have long been using other, more advanced instruments. An electromagnetic compass that excludes interference from the metal hull of the ship, a gyrocompass that accurately indicates the geographic pole or satellite navigation devices.

But of all the instruments that indicate the direction and cardinal points, the ordinary compass is the simplest and most unpretentious. It does not require electricity, it is simple, convenient and reliable. And will always show you the right direction to a safe harbor.

The compass is the simplest and most ancient navigational device. Navigating the terrain with a compass is simple: the magnetized needle always points north. The device known to every schoolchild has a very long and interesting story.


Looking at modern astronomical or radio compasses, it is hard to imagine that their prototype - a piece of magnetic ore that people came up with to use to find directions - appeared long before the birth of Christ.

And again the Chinese

Like many other inventions that mankind still uses to this day, the compass was invented by the ancient Chinese. According to some sources, prehistoric compasses appeared three millennia BC, according to others - not earlier than the 2nd century BC.

The first version is based more on myths than on historical facts. In China, Emperor Huangdi is revered, who ruled the country around 2600 BC. He is credited with the invention of the first compass, with the help of which the ruler found a way in the desert and saved his army from certain death. However, historically reliable information about this person does not exist.

Another hypothesis says that in the era of the Han Dynasty (in the 1st-2nd century BC), the Chinese already used the compass. This compass was a magnetized object with a semicircular base that turned, always pointing to one side of the world.


It is authentically known that during the Song Dynasty (10-13 centuries AD), the Chinese had compasses, which they used to navigate in the deserts.

Further distribution of the compass

From the Chinese, the compass came to the Arabs. The Arabs were good sailors, they needed a means of navigation, so they liked the idea of ​​a compass. The 13th century Arabic compass is a magnetized object that was lowered into a vessel of water. The minimum friction force allowed the object to move freely, turning to one of the cardinal points. In this form, the prototype of the modern compass came to the Europeans.

For European navigators, a navigational device was vital, and they quickly improved the Arab device. The inventor of the European compass, which not only indicates the north-south direction, but allows you to more accurately navigate the cardinal points, is the Italian Flavio Joya. He divided the compass dial into 16 divisions.

In addition, Joya finally installed the arrow on a thin pin (this idea was previously used in some models of compasses), and poured water into the bowl to reduce friction in the axis. This happened in the 14th century. Since then, the design of the compass has undergone significant changes, but Joya's idea is used in all modern magnetic compasses to this day.

Modern varieties of compasses

Several types of compass have been developed for use in various industries.

Magnetic compasses based on the action of the earth's magnetic field. The magnetized element always occupies a position parallel to the meridians and points to the magnetic poles of the planet. A successful model of a magnetic compass is a compass invented by our compatriot, a talented engineer Adrianov and named after him.

This is a well-known compass with an arrow that can be stopped with a stopper. For precise orientation, Adrianov's compass is equipped with a scale and two additional arrows (front sight and rear sight).

Electromagnetic compass uses the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction. In such compasses, the stator (fixed part) is the Earth, and the rotor (moving part) is a frame with a winding. Electromagnetic compasses are used in aircraft and ships because they avoid the effect of magnetization from a metal case and minimize the error.

Gyro-compass is based on the use of a special device - a gyroscope, and is distinguished by the fact that it points not to the magnetic, but to the geographical pole. Invention of German engineers in the early 20th century.

Electronic compasses created in recent decades. In fact, these are not compasses, but devices that pick up a signal from satellites and show the direction using a satellite navigation system.

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The Internet is, without exaggeration, the main technological breakthrough of the last decades. But by whom and when was it invented? In fact, the invention of the Internet is a rather complicated story, and we will deal with it in this post.

The first projects of the Internet

For the first time, ideas and projects for a global computer network appeared in the early 1960s. In 1962 in the USA, Joseph Licklider, who was then working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published a series of notes in which he described the concept of the "Galactic Network". The name was a joke, and Licklider saw the main purpose of this network in the convenient exchange of data and program code, but his concept did describe some of the principles of a global computer network that resembled the modern Internet. Soon Likladyer became the head of the department information technologies DARPA, and largely thanks to his efforts, after some time, this agency begins the implementation of the project of one of the first computer networks ARPANET.

V. M. Glushkov

In the same 1962, an article by academician Kharkevich was published in the Soviet Union, in which he wrote about the need to create a nationwide computer network that would allow all institutions to exchange information and become the basis for planning and management in various industries. Soon, Academician Glushkov came up with an even more detailed project, called OGAS (National State automated system accounting and information processing). The project envisaged the creation of a single computer network in the USSR, within the framework of the project it was planned to create 6,000 computer centers and train 300 thousand IT specialists. Khrushchev approved the plan and its implementation began, but after Brezhnev came to power, the Soviet bureaucracy began to openly sabotage the project. Instead of a single network, the Soviet ministries began to build their own computer centers, not connected with each other, and attempts to combine them into a network did not go beyond experiments. So the USSR missed the opportunity to overtake the West in the field of information technology.

OGAS Glushkova

ARPANET

In 1964, two years later than in the USSR, the implementation of the ARPANET network project was launched in the USA. But, unlike the USSR, this project was brought to an end there. In 1969, this network began to work, although at first there were only 4 nodes in it.

ARPANET in 1969

Later, many began to consider this year the year of the Internet. But in fact, the ARPANET network was quite far from the modern Internet. The main problem that they tried to solve with the help of this network was the problem of optimal use of computer power. Computers were still quite expensive, and if someone could remotely connect from another computer and use its power during idle time, it would turn out to be a big savings. Due to various difficulties, this task was never realized, but ARPANET continued to develop.

Larry Roberts

In 1972, Larry Roberts, one of the developers of ARPANET, who by that time had succeeded Licklider as director of the DARPA IT department, organized an international conference on computer communications in Washington. At this conference, a demonstration of ARPANET was held, during which those who wished could connect to 20 computers from different US cities and execute various commands on them. At the time, the demonstration made a big impression on skeptics who did not believe in the reality of computer networks.

In 1972, ARPANET appeared Email. E-mail messaging soon became one of the most popular features of ARPANET. Some even believe that e-mail "saved" ARPANET, making this network really useful and in demand. Then other ways to use the network began to appear - file transfer, instant messaging, bulletin boards, etc. However, ARPANET was not yet the Internet. And the first obstacle to the further development of the network was the lack of a universal protocol that would allow computers to exchange information. different type and with different software.

TCP/IP protocol

Variety of hardware and software created enormous difficulties for connecting computers to a network. To overcome them, in 1973 Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn decided to create a universal information exchange protocol that would allow connecting a variety of computers and local networks.

Vinton ("Vint") Cerf

Robert ("Bob") Kahn

The protocol was named TCP (Transmission-Control Protocol, or Transmission Control Protocol). Later, the protocol was divided into two parts and was called TCP / IP (IP - Internet Protocol). By the way, at the same time, around the mid-70s, the word “Internet” itself appeared.

The development of the protocol took quite a long time. Initially, many doubted that small computers were even capable of supporting such a complex protocol. Only in 1977 was the first data transmission using this protocol demonstrated. And ARPANET switched to the new protocol only in 1983.

And in 1984, the first DNS server was launched, which allowed using domain names instead of poorly remembered IP addresses.

Development of computer networks and the end of ARPANET

In the late 1970s, the first personal computers, intended for home use. In the 80s, more and more such computers began to appear, and computer networks also developed at the same time. Along with state and scientific networks, commercial and amateur networks appeared, to which it was possible to connect via a modem through a telephone line. However, the functions of computer networks were still rather limited and were limited mainly to sending e-mail and exchanging messages and files via bulletin boards (BBS). It was still not the internet we were used to.

ARPANET, which at one time served as an impetus for the development of computer networks, fell into decay, and in 1989 this network was closed. The Pentagon, which financed DARPA, did not really need it, and the military segment of this network was separated from the civilian one in the early 80s. At the same time, the alternative global network NSFNET, created in 1984 by the US National Science Foundation, was actively developing. This network originally united American universities. In the mid-80s, this network began to use high-speed data lines for the first time with a data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps instead of 56 Kbps, which was the standard for modems and telephone lines. In the late 80s, the remnants of ARPANET became part of NSFNET, and NSFNET itself in the early 90s would become the core global internet. This will happen, however, not immediately, since the network was originally focused on use only for scientific and educational purposes, but then these restrictions were nevertheless removed. In 1994, NSFNET was effectively privatized and fully open to commercial use.

www

But in order for the Internet to become the way we know it, in addition to computer networks and a universal protocol, something else had to be invented. That something was site organization technology. It was she who made the Internet truly popular and massive.

Tim Berners-Lee

In 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee was working on a document viewing system at CERN (the famous international center nuclear research in Switzerland). And then it occurred to him to implement a large-scale project based on the hypertext markup that he used in documents. The project was given the name World Wide Web ("World Wide Web").

For 2 years, Tim Berners-Lee worked hard on the project. During this time, he developed the HTML language for creating web pages, a way to set page addresses as URLs, the HTTP protocol, and the first browser.

August 6, 1991 Tim Berners-Lee posted the first website on the Internet. It contained basic information about WWW technology, how to view documents, how to download a browser.

So the first users saw the world's first website

In 1993, the first browser with a graphical interface appeared. In the same year, CERN issued a statement announcing that WWW technology would not be protected by any copyright and its free use was allowed to anyone. This wise decision led to an explosion in the number of sites on the web and the emergence of the Internet as we know it today. As early as 1995, the WWW became the most used service of all (e-mail, file transfer, etc.), and for today's users it is almost synonymous with the Internet.

So who invented the internet? The Internet was not invented by one person. But of those who made the greatest personal contribution to its appearance, the following people can be distinguished.

1. The initiators and developers of ARPANET. Among them are such people as Joseph Licklider, Larry Roberts, as well as Paul Baran and Bob Taylor.
2. Creators of the TCP/IP protocol: Screw Surf and Bob Kahn.
3. WWW Creator Tim Berners-Lee.

The emergence of Runet

The first computer networks in the USSR appeared long ago, even earlier than in the West. The first experiments in this area date back to 1952, and in 1960 a network was already deployed in the USSR that united computers within the framework of an anti-missile defense system. Later, specialized civil networks appeared, designed, for example, to account for railway and air tickets. Unfortunately, there were big problems with the development of general purpose networks due to pervasive bureaucracy.

In the 1980s, Soviet scientists for the first time began to connect to foreign networks, at first only occasionally, for example, to hold some kind of conferences on scientific topics. In 1990, the first Soviet computer network"Relcom", which united scientific institutions from different cities of the USSR. Its creation was carried out by employees of the Institute of Atomic Energy. Kurchatov. In the same year, the su zone was registered - the domain zone Soviet Union(the ru zone appeared only in 1994). In the autumn of 1990, Relcom establishes the first connections with foreign countries. In 1992, Relcom implements the TCP/IP protocol and establishes a connection to the European EUnet network. Runet becomes a full-fledged part of the Internet.