6 Inventions That Changed the World: From Ancient Tools to the Latest Digital Advances

Each year there are tens of thousands of inventions. Some of them go unnoticed, others make an impact, and there are also those inventions that changed the world as we know it. One interesting fact is that many of the biggest inventions were submitted created and explored by a normal, random person. You don’t have to be a scientist and you don’t have to be book-smart to create something that people will use for centuries to come. In this article, we are going to talk about the inventions that changed the world. Keep on reading to find out more about them starting from ancient tools up to the latest digital advances.

1. The nail

The first invention we are going to talk about is extremely overlooked. We take nails for granted, and even though they are all around us, we tend to forget that they had to be invented. This is also one of the oldest inventions that we are going to talk about.

This invention first appeared more than 2000 years ago and it dates back to the ancient Roman period. This happened only after people were able to cast and shape metal, and before that, every structure was created by interlocking adjacent boards of wood. They have changed a lot over the centuries, and they started being mass-produced by the end of the 1800s. By the beginning of the 1900s, nails started being produced in the way and form that we know them today.

It is not known who was the exact inventor of the nail, but it is speculated that it was just a random person who was in need of a tool like this. You can check out InventHelp and read more about different inventions, and how to patent your idea if you think that you have something on your mind that could change the world.

2. The Compass

Many people believe that the compass is a relatively new invention, but we couldn’t be furthest from the truth. The compass was first invented in China around the 1st century before Christ. It was first made of lodestone and it wasn’t used for navigation in the way that we know it today. It was first used for navigation, once again in China, around the 12th century.

It appeared in western countries soon after and even though it has changed over the centuries, even today it is used for navigation and in the same shape and form as we know it today.

3. Steam engine

Source: en.wikipedia.org

The steam engine is definitely one of the biggest inventions without which we would not be able to have pretty much any transportation possible. The first use of external combustion was recorded in the late 1600s when Thomas Savery created a steam-powered water pump. James Watt continued exploring this and he developed the first steam engine in the late 1700s. This is the time of the industrial revolution and during the 1800s this process was explored and improved to help in manufacturing, agriculture, and even transportation.

This principle is the basis of transportation including cars, airplanes, trains, and even spacecraft and without the steam engine we would not have been able to live in the world we do today.

4. Penicillin

This is a discovery that helped save billions of lives, not only in the past but today as well. It is also one of the most popular discoveries throughout history, and it happened in the late 1920s when Alexander Fleming, the Scottish scientist, experimented with destroying bacteria. The drug penicillin started being mass-produced in the mid-1940s, and ever since then, people have been using it to get rid of viruses, diseases, and harmful bacteria.

5. The Internet

Source: aeon.co

The Internet is a tool that we use every day to help us with our knowledge, skills, and it also helps us relax after a long day of work. With just a few clicks we can gain all different types of knowledge, and that would not be possible without a few important people.

It was first explored in the 60s when a team of scientists decided to create a communications network to help with data transmission. This technology was later on explored in the 1970s by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. This is when the Internet Protocol was invented. In the late 1980s, the World Wide Web was created and since then it is being constantly developed and perfected. The creation of the Internet was not something that happened randomly and many different groups of people, during the course of almost three decades, managed to create something that helps billions of people today.

6. Artificial intelligence

Finally, we have artificial intelligence. One thing that not many people know is that artificial intelligence dates back even before the Internet. The first attempt to create something that is going to describe human thinking and use it as a symbolic system dates back to even classical philosophers. However, this idea was not explored until the middle of the 1950s.

This is when the term artificial intelligence was created, and it happened at a conference at Dartmouth College. Later on, during the 70s and 80s the British government started exploring and funding this invention, and in the late 90s artificial intelligence was first used to best one of the chess grandmasters in a game of chess. As we all know, AI is still being developed, and we are eager to find out what else is going to lead to.

There are a lot of things that made a huge impact on history and today’s world. For some of these inventions, we don’t have any information about who was the first person to do them, while for others there are a lot of misconceptions and mysteries about who was the actual inventor. Luckily, today, it is pretty easy to patent your invention and to be known as the person who left their mark on history. If you have an idea and if you think that you know something that would make an impact, then you should try to patent your idea, share it with the mass public, and see if you can be one of the people who are going to be forever remembered for changing the world.