Game-Changing Ideas
Game-Changing Ideas
Microwave Oven
Of all the sci-fi, ultra-mod, and
new-fangled kitchen appliances of the future, some are quite notable and
interesting, like the Microwave Oven. Percy Spencer, an engineer, was carrying
out radar-based research using a vacuum tube. During his research, he realized
that the candy bar in his pocket started melting during his experiments. He
then kept the popcorn into the same machine which started popping, and he came
to that he had invented the Microwave Oven. Until this invention, it was beyond
imagination to bake a potato in just eight minutes. This technology had promised
entirely to revolutionize the heavy workloads on the housewives and the
bachelors. Spencer filed a US patent for the microwave heating process, and it
was placed in the New England restaurant for testing (Riste et al., 2020).
A story this good might not be
changing over the years. When Spencer invented the Oven, he wasn't sure that
the food cooked so is safe for the health. The first domestic microwave came in
1955, which was a failure as it was too expensive, and most people aren't aware
of the microwave technology. In the year 1967, two decades after the actual
invention, the American homes saw the microwave oven in the form of Amana's
compact 'Radarange.' Millions of ovens were sold every year since 1975. The first of the models came into the market
in 1947, weighed 750 pounds, and stood six feet tall. Before the microwave,
ovens were used only in the ocean liners, restaurants, and railroad cars, the
places where large quantities of food need to be cooked quickly. The first
domestic Oven cost around $1300 and was too large to fit in the common kitchen.
Japan came with the smaller, compact, and more practical Oven in 1967, which
cost $495.
Scotchgard
In 1952, an assistant at Patsy
Sherman's chemistry lab accidentally dropped a beaker that contained liquid
rubber on the floor and splashed over his canvas sneakers. He was trying to
develop a rubber of a new kind to use in the aircraft fuel lines. But the
liquid rubber that was spilled down caught his attention. Though the mixture
didn't change the feel or look of the canvas, they could not wash off the
shoes. The solvents and water they had used in cleaning the sneakers beaded up,
and they ran off. Sherman and his fellow chemist Sam Smith had later realized
that the mixture could be further used in protecting the fabrics from the spillage
of water and other liquids. They soon started improving it and also reducing
the cost. After three years of continuous work on it, Sherman's mixture was
patented and released with Scotchgard Protector's name (Renner, 2001).
Scotchgard is made up of a sticky substance on one side and helps in sticking to the fabrics, and on the other side, it is slippery enough to resist liquids and stains. When applied to the upholstery and the carpets, the formula will be surrounding the fibers and prevent the oil, water, dirt, and most of the other liquids from breaking through. In 2000, the company 3M had decided to reformulate the products of Scotchgard. A study carried out in the company showed that the materials that were broken down from the chemistry can be used in manufacturing the products and found in widespread usage. Based on this study, 3M had finally decided to discontinue the chemistry production and has reformulated the Scotchgard products.
Inkjet printers
The concept of inkjet printing came
into existence during the 1950s, and by the late 1970s, the inkjet printers
could be reproducing the digital images generated through the computer. There
was no single inventor for this invention; the charge was led by various
companies that included Canon, HP, and Epson. The first inkjet printers came
into existence for the common market in the late 1980s, and they went on
several development processes for more than 20 years. In the mid-1970s, the
printer organizations realized that the technology would make out the dot
matrix printers more obsolete. But the challenge here was to develop the method
to create the inkjet printer that is more affordable and reliable in terms of high-quality
printing printouts. The quality of the printed page is based on the
relationship between the print head and ink and the paper. The researchers
faced a hard time in terms of creating the controlled flow of ink through the
print head onto the page, and to prevent the clogging of dried ink, they faced
various challenges which HP and Canon in the late 1980s met, and then the
liquid inkjet printers started for sale in the market (Popkin, 2016).
Since then, the inkjet printers were
developed by IBM continuously and used the electrically-charged droplets that
coat the page with the ink that could quickly waste a lot of ink. This
technology never caught up with the consumers, which is used in the industrial
settings, addressing direct mail and labelling cartons. Most of the popular
designs that the consumers used include the drop-on-demand inkjet printer,
which was invented by Siemens in 1977. These models, which spray the ink
wherever required, are quite slow compared to the inkjet printers but are less
expensive. These include the models developed by Lexmark, Canon, and HP, which use
thermal technology to push the drops of ink out from the print head. Epson
makes use of the own technology known as the piezo-electric, which achieves the
same effect. The inkjet printer has emerged a long way as it became available
almost twenty years ago; the HP Deskjet printer was made available for the
public at the price of $1,000 in 1988.
References
Popkin, G. (2016). Your future smartwatch might
be printed with an inkjet printer. Science.
Renner, R. (2001). Scotchgard Scotched. Scientific
American, 284(3), 18-18
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