It is difficult to imagine that many types of technology, without which we cannot live a day today, were invented relatively recently. For example, the world’s first computer was created in 1946 and was called ENIAC, and its weight was 27 tons. Many technologies were invented by scientists many years ago, in fact, we’re ahead of their time and became possible for use only after some time. In this article, we will consider examples of such inventions.
Contact lenses
According to the World Health Organization, around 2.2 billion people worldwide are visually impaired today. Due to the fact that the operation to restore vision is not available to everyone, and it is not always convenient to wear glasses, the most common option for vision correction is lenses.
In fact, contact lenses became widely available to people only 10-15 years ago, but the first prototypes were created as early as 1508. Then Leonardo Da Vinci developed a prototype of contact lenses in the form of a filled ball of water. A hundred years later, the French scientist René Descartes repeated a similar experiment and created a tube filled with water with a magnifying glass. And only in 1887, the German ophthalmologist Adolf Fick was able to create real lenses that are as similar as possible to modern ones.
Solar panels
Today, many companies are worried about preserving the environment, so they try to use exclusively environmentally friendly materials for production. The creators of the first solar panels also tried to do the same. When it became known that thermal power plants emit too many greenhouse gases, people began to look for alternative energy sources. Then everyone began to massively build wind and solar power plants.
Solar panels that can convert light into electricity appeared in 1883. They were invented by the American scientist Charles Fritts. The panel was made of selenium coated with a layer of gold. The technology was promising but clearly came at the wrong time.
Vending machine
Today, in any office or shopping center there are vending machines. They can pay for water, juices, sweets, and even a full meal. Vending machines appeared in their current form in 1880. Since then, they have gradually improved and become ubiquitous.
It’s hard to believe, but in fact, the first vending machine was invented in the 1st century AD. According to historical data, it was created by the Greek mechanic Heron to sell water in temples. The technology was like this – a person had to put a coin into the machine, and then it fell on a lever that opened and closed the cork. Thus, all the people were given the same amount of water, and it was not wasted. This is also an invention ahead of its time because such devices became mass-produced only after a huge number of centuries.
Computer effects in cinema
Almost all modern shootings in which stuntmen are involved are filmed against a green background. It is needed so that filmmakers can later use computer special effects. Few people know, but until the early 1980s, science fiction films were shot using realistic dolls. For the first time, special effects were used in cinema in 1982, when the movie Tron was released. It was the first to use computer graphics. Surprisingly, even experts from the American Film Academy did not appreciate the computer effects and did not give the film an Oscar for breakthrough technologies. They felt that using a computer was against the rules and too easy. But then, a few years later, computer effects became normal. By the way, these effects are used not only in cinema – some betting platforms such as 22Bet Kenya use them to attract users to their websites.
Despite the fact that all of the above technologies were not evaluated at the time of their appearance, now we cannot imagine our life without them. Every second person on the planet wears contact lenses, many owners of country houses use solar panels to save electricity. According to statistics, every fifth employee of the my assignment help company buys his lunch in the vending machine, and films with beautiful special effects are statistically more popular with viewers than those that are shot more “naturally”.
