Curated category
English inventions
- Incandescent light bulbThe incandescent light bulb is an electric light that produces illumination by Joule heating a filament until it glows. For well over a century, that simple…
- Steam turbineThe steam turbine quietly powers the modern world. In 2022, about 42% of all electricity generated in the United States came from machines built on the same…
- Stainless steelStainless steel is the material that lets surgeons cut, chefs cook, and skyscrapers stand without rusting away. Walk into any kitchen, hospital, or chemical…
- SubmarineThe submarine has carried human beings into a realm that, for most of history, was completely out of reach. In 1960, Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh…
- ZX SpectrumThe ZX Spectrum went on sale in Britain on the 23rd of April 1982 for £125, a price that undercut the leading rival by a significant margin.
- Self-propelled artillerySelf-propelled artillery is one of those weapons categories that quietly reshaped how armies fight, not by replacing the cannon, but by giving it legs.
- Newcomen atmospheric engineIn 1712, Thomas Newcomen built a machine that had never existed before: a device that turned steam into useful mechanical work.
- Puddling (metallurgy)Puddling is the process that gave the Industrial Revolution its iron backbone. In coal-fired reverberatory furnaces across England, workers stirred molten…
- Colossus computerColossus was a machine built to win a war that its operators were forbidden to admit existed. Developed by British codebreakers between 1943 and 1945, it…
- Cast ironCast iron snapped in May 1847, and five people died. A bridge carrying the Chester and Holyhead Railway across the River Dee in Chester collapsed under a…
- InductorAn inductor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that stores energy in a magnetic field when an electric current flows through it.
- Bessemer processThe Bessemer process changed the price of steel from forty pounds per long ton to six or seven pounds - in a single generation.
- Plate glassPlate glass sits in nearly every window you have ever looked through, yet the story behind that flat, transparent sheet spans nearly eight centuries of human…
- Rapid transitRapid transit moves more people through a city than almost any other machine on earth, and yet most riders never see how strange its engineering really is.
- Steam engineThe steam engine is a heat engine that turns the force of pressurized steam into mechanical work. Inside a cylinder, that pressure pushes a piston back and…
- BombeIn November 1938, six Polish machines called bombas were delivered to the Biuro Szyfrów. Cryptologist Marian Rejewski had spent seven years breaking German…
- Vacuum tubeVacuum tubes were the engine of the twentieth century's electronic revolution, and almost nobody can describe what one actually is.
- Web browserA web browser is the window through which roughly 5.4 billion people access the internet, yet most users have never thought twice about how one actually…
- Association footballAssociation football draws an estimated 250 million players across more than 200 countries and territories, which makes it the most popular sport on the…