American science and Technology

From its emergence as an independent nation, the United States has encouraged science and invention. It has done this by promoting a free flow of ideas, by encouraging the growth of "useful knowledge," and by welcoming creative people from all over the world.

The United States Constitution itself reflects the desire to encourage scientific activity. It gives Congress the power
"to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
This clause is the basis of the U.S. patent and trademark system.

George Washington signed the First United States Patent Grant on July 31, 1790, and the patent examiner was Thomas Jefferson.

During the 19th century, Britain, France and Germany were the leading sources of new ideas in science and mathematics; but if the United States lagged behind in the formulation of theory, it excelled in using applied science. Because Americans lived so far from the well-springs of Western science and manufacturing, they often had to figure out their own ways of doing things. The result was a flow of important inventions.

The great American inventors include Robert Fulton (the steamboat); Samuel F.B. Morse (the telegraph); Eli Whitney (the cotton gin); Cyrus McCormick (the reaper); the Wright Brothers (the powered flying machine) and Thomas Alva Edison, the most fertile of them all, with more than a thousand inventions credited to his name.

In the second half of the twentieth century, American scientists were increasingly recognized for their contributions to "pure" science, the formulation of concepts and theories. The changing pattern can be seen in the winners of the Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry. During the first half-century of Nobel Prizes - from 1901 to 1950 - American winners were in a distinct minority in the science categories. Since 1950, Americans have won approximately half of the Nobel Prizes awarded in the sciences.

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been honoring men and women from all corners of the globe for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace. The foundations for the prize were laid in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of the Nobel Prize.

Nobel Prize Announcements
The announcement of the Nobel Laureates for the year is made on the same day that the Nobel Prize awarding institutions choose from among the names recommended by the respective Nobel Committees. Immediately after the vote, a press conference is held by the concerned Nobel Prize awarder.

The Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies
The Nobel Laureates take center stage in Stockholm on 10 December when they receive the Nobel Prize Medal, Nobel Prize Diploma and document confirming the Nobel Prize amount from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

The Nobel Prize Awarders
In his last will and testament, Alfred Nobel specifically designated the institutions responsible for the prizes he wished to be established:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry,
Karolinska Institute for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,
the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature,
a Committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was given the task to select the Economics Prize Laureates starting in 1969.
Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award.

Since 1790 the United States Patent Office has granted more than 6 million patents. The number of patents issued increased dramatically during the 19th century, stimulated by the American industrial revolution and further fueling it.
The middle and late 19th century was a golden age for American invention. The technology envisioned by American inventors has improved the standard of living and linked Americans across physical and cultural divides. The Smithsonian preserves thousands of the models that inventors were required to submit with patent applications before 1880.

Two of America's founding fathers were actually scientists of some repute.

Benjamin Franklin conducted a series of experiments that proved that lightning is a form of electricity.

Thomas Jefferson was a student of agriculture who introduced various types of rice, olive trees and grasses into the New World.

AMERICAN INVENTIONS

Ben had poor vision and needed glasses to read. He got tired of constantly taking them off and putting them back on, so he decided to figure out a way to make his glasses let him see both near and far. He had two pairs of spectacles cut in half and put half of each lens in a single frame. Today, we call them bifocals.

Even though Ben is not famous for his study of bioscience, he was interested in how the human body works and looked for ways to help it work better. For example, Ben's older brother John suffered from kidney stones and Ben wanted to help him feel better. Ben developed a flexible urinary catheter that appears to have been the first one produced in America.

He invented the lightning rod which protected buildings and ships from lightning damage.

In colonial America, most people warmed their homes by building a fire in a fireplace even though it was kind of dangerous and used a lot of wood. Ben figured that there had to be a better way. His invention of an iron furnace stove allowed people to warm their homes less dangerously and with less wood. The furnace stove that he invented is called a Franklin stove.
Interestingly enough, Ben also established the first fire company and the first fire insurance company in order to help people live more safely.

Wright brothers

Thomas Alva Edison
When Edison was born, society still thought of electricity as a novelty, a fad. By the time he died, entire cities were lit by electricity. Much of the credit for that progress goes to Edison.
In his lifetime, Edison patented 1,093 inventions

Thomas Alva Edison

Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved to Ontario, and then to the United States, settling in Boston, before beginning his career as an inventor. Throughout his life, Bell had been interested in the education of deaf people. This interest lead him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, his "electrical speech machine," which we now call a telephone.

While Alexander Graham Bell was experimenting with telegraph instruments in the early 1870s, he realized it might be possible to transmit the human voice over a wire by using electricity. By March 1876 he made a transmission, but the sound was very faint.
He improved his results over the next
few months, including a critical test
with this instrument on November 26,
when he transmitted sound clearly
between Cambridge and Salem, Massachusetts. It functioned as both a transmitter and a receiver.

Albert Einstein
By the time German-born Albert Einstein was 30, his theory of relativity and work in quantum mechanics had set off a revolution in physics. Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933, he came to the United States. He spent the rest of his career at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1939 he warned President Roosevelt that Germany was moving toward developing nuclear weaponry and urged that this country do the same, inspiring the Manhattan Project. Having paved the way for this new weapon with his warning and own discoveries, Einstein devoted much time in later years working for nuclear arms control.

Samuel Morse
The telegraph key Samuel Morse used on his first line in 1844 was very simple-a strip of spring steel that could be pressed against a metal contact. Alfred Vail, Morse's partner, designed this key, in which the gap was more easily adjustable because of changes in its spring tension. It was used on the expanding telegraph system, perhaps as early as the fall of 1844 and certainly by 1845.

Samuel F. B. Morse conceived of an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832 and constructed an experimental version in 1835. He did not construct a truly practical system until 1844, when he built a line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. This model incorporates basic features of the 1844 receiver. It accompanied an application for a patent, granted in 1849, in which he described a method for marking dots and dashes on paper.
Within ten years after the first telegraph line opened, 23,000 miles of wire crisscrossed the country. The invention profoundly affected the development of the West, made railroad travel safer, and allowed businessmen to conduct their operations more profitably.

The invention of the personal computer is having an effect on our lives equal to, if not greater than, that of the electric light bulb, telegraph, and telephone. The Altair was the most popular early personal computer. It was programmed by flipping switches on the front panel. Its output was simply a pattern of lights. Communications, word processing, and other applications required additional components.

Isaac Merritt Singer
Isaac Merritt Singer was the most flamboyant of 19th-century sewing machine inventors, having sharpened his skills as an actor before becoming an inventor. Around 1850, he began concentrating on improving an existing sewing machine. Success followed quickly. This 1853 model is a commercial sewing machine. The patent claims were for the methods of feeding the cloth, regulating the tension on the needle thread, and lubricating the needle thread so that leather could be sewn.
The development of practical sewing machines contributed to the growth of the ready-made clothing industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Jonas Salk
Polio-with its power to paralyze and kill-was among the most dreaded contagious diseases. Children were its most vulnerable victims. Jonas Salk, founder of the University of Pittsburgh's Research Laboratory, was among those leading the assault on polio. In 1954 Salk and his Pittsburgh associates began the human testing of the first truly effective antipolio vaccine. Within another few years, outbreaks were fast becoming a thing of the past.

POTATO CHIPS
The potato chip was invented in 1853 by George Crum. Crum was a Native American/African American chef at the Moon Lake Lodge resort in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA. French fries were popular at the restaurant and one day a diner complained that the fries were too thick. Although Crum made a thinner batch, the customer was still unsatisfied. Crum finally made fries that were too thin to eat with a fork, hoping to annoy the extremely fussy customer. The customer, surprisingly enough, was happy - and potato chips were invented!

The product that has given the world its best-known taste was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-Cola®, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs' Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced "excellent" and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink.