Curated category
Italian inventions
- ViolinThe violin has been with us since 16th-century Italy, and yet it remains one of the most contested instruments ever made.
- CelloThe cello holds a peculiar place among instruments: its full name, violoncello, means "little big viola" - a contradiction built right into the word.
- Perspective (graphical)Perspective is the art of making a flat surface lie convincingly. Stand in front of a long road and watch it narrow to a point on the horizon.
- RadioOn the 11th of November 1886, a German physicist named Heinrich Hertz watched a tiny spark jump across a gap in his laboratory, and in doing so confirmed…
- Roman lawRoman law, born in the mid-fifth century BC with the carving of the Twelve Tables, would go on to shape legal thinking for more than two thousand years.
- Electric batteryAn electric battery is a source of electric power, built from one or more electrochemical cells with external connections that feed electrical devices.
- OperaOpera began with a piece that no longer exists. Around 1597, an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who called themselves the Camerata de' Bardi…
- Gini coefficientThe Gini coefficient is a single number between 0 and 1 that attempts to capture something extraordinarily complex: how equally a society distributes its…
- Magic lanternThe magic lantern cast its first flickering images onto walls and screens more than three centuries before cinema existed.
- BankA bank issues new money the moment it makes a loan. That single act sits at the heart of an institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a…