Best Electronic Inventions | Important Inventions that Changed Our Way of Life | Dr. Binocs Show

Well, of course it will. After all, you have been playing games for who knows how many hours. We need a better phone. Hmm, that's what someone must have thought years ago that changed the face of telephone forever. Who was it? I'm glad you asked that. So in today's episode, let us look into a brief history of phones by answering a ringing question. Who invented cell phones? Zoom in! Cell phones. We use them to make calls, send messages, video chat, manage work and play games. Plus, there are chances that most of you must be watching this video on your smartphone. So, no wonder today it's hard to imagine a world without the cell phone as it has become an integral part of our daily lives. But, do you know how it all began and who invented them? Well, to get the answer, we need to travel back to 1900 and meet an inventor named Reginald Fessenden who for the first time managed to transmit the human voice via radio waves sending a signal from one radio tower to another. Meanwhile, the wire telephone technology was also progressing and a Swedish inventor named Lars Magnus Eriksson managed to invent car phones as a fun retirement project. This technology was later bettered by a man in Philadelphia named W.W. Macfarlane but it still had a long way to go. Then in 1947, an engineer named William Ray Young working at Bell Labs proposed that radio towers arranged in a hexagonal pattern could support a telephone network for car phones. Soon, the car phones became popular among rich people and telephone companies started to compete aggressively to enhance this technology further. One such competitor was Motorola which didn't want anyone to have a monopoly on the cell phones so they put their visionary executive Martin Cooper an American engineer in charge of an urgent project to invent the cell phone. Cooper thought that the cell phone should not be chained to the car but should be portable. And after working for years, Cooper along with his team invented the first handheld wireless cell phone in 1973. This phone was called the Motorola Dynatac 8000X which was 9 inches long, weighed around 2.5 pounds or 1.1 kilograms and allowed 35 minutes of talk time before its battery ran down. And after spending millions of dollars on this revolutionary concept Motorola made the invention available to the public in 1983 and despite its price of $3,995 which is equivalent to $10,000 today the Dynatac was a huge success. In the coming years, many companies started building wireless phones with lesser weight, smaller sizes and better digital service at cheaper cost which made personal cell phones more available to the middle class and brought a cell phone revolution in the 90s. Part of this revolution was IBM's Simon released in 1994 which is considered the world's first smartphone that featured software apps and a touch screen. And since then, cell phone technology kept growing better and who knows where it will lead us to. Trivia Time! Did you know the first cell phone called made by Martin Cooper was a prank call to tease his competitor? Yes, he made the call to Joel Engle who was doing similar work at Bell Labs. Hope you learnt something new today. Until next time, it's me Dr. Binox Zooming Out! Oh little kitty! If the hardworking inventors of TV were here they would have been devastated to witness your struggle in trying to get up for the remote. To understand why, let me take you back in time to answer a most watched question. Who invented the first TV? Let's Zoom In! Our story begins in 1923 when the Russian born engineer Vladimir Vorikin applied for his first television patent for the Iconoscope which used cathode ray tubes to transmit images. At the same time, in the state of Utah, USA there was a teenager named Philo Farmsworth. He was expected to follow in his father's footsteps and become a farmer but he dreamt of pursuing scientific endeavors and spent his time reading about cool inventions especially the radio which could magically send sound through the air. While turning the pages of his book he came across the future of radio which not only sent sounds but beamed pictures as well. Many inventors were trying to make this happen but had yet to find any success. But one fateful day while working on his farm an idea popped into his mind. He thought of slicing an image into parallel rows with a point of line scanning the rows line by line. If this scanning point could move really fast it had the power to turn still pictures into moving pictures. But the challenge was how could you manipulate the light to make this a reality? The answer had already been found in Britain by a Scottish inventor named John Baird. He created a mechanical spinning disc twinned with a series of holes each one lower than the next. Beams of light were projected through the holes and a lens focused them on a subject in a dark room. The light reflecting from the subject was received by photocells which translated it into an electrical current. This electrical current was then transmitted by radio waves and a radio receiver converted these waves back into an electrical current and fed them to a neon lamp. A second spinning disc turning at the exact speed then projected the light reassembling the image. Meanwhile, Philo came up with a better idea and built an image dissector. In his device light entered through a lens and was converted into electrons. These electrons passed through a vacuum and transformed into an electric signal that could be transmitted widely like a radio signal and used to recreate the original image. Then in 1927 he filed a patent for the first completely electronic TV set and demonstrated it on the 7th of September of that year. In the next few years many inventors developed these ideas further and soon TV became a household hit especially in the early 1950s. The first practical remote control made its debut on store shelves in 1956. Colour TV sets gained popularity during the 1970s and today we have smart TVs that can connect to the internet to stream all kinds of entertainment. So the next time you switch on your TV to enjoy your favourite shows remember the people who worked tirelessly to bring us this invention making it an integral and cherished part of our lives today. Trivia Time! Did you know in 1982 Sony was the first brand to mass produce a pocket television? Sony Watchman FD210 Yes! This compact device weighed around 650 grams with a measurement of 87 x 198 x 33 mm. Hope you learnt something new today. Until next time it's me Dr. Pinox Zooming Out! Wait while I get mine ready it will hardly take me a minute thanks to this wonderful microwave. Did you know that the microwave was an accidental invention? What? I was an accident? But, but Oh Micro I didn't want you to hear that I'm sorry Please don't cry I think I need my heating therapy Oh yes Here, heat some of this for me please I thought people like me Of course they do People love you This is what I was going to tell our friends about today The invention of the microwave Come on, zoom in Our story begins in the year 1894 when a young boy named Percy Spencer was born to a couple in Maine Sadly, his father passed away only one year after his birth So his mother gave him to his aunt and uncle to raise and raise him they did Oh, you're such a curious little lad and hardworking too, huh? Which was good because when he was eight his uncle passed away and he had to drop out of school in order to help his aunt run the house He spent the next few years working at the spool mill until one day he heard that the paper mill nearby was going to start using electricity Oh my, this is electrifying This really sparked an interest in young Percy and he began learning all that he could about electricity So much so that when the paper mill started hiring he was one of the only three people to be hired to install electricity at the mill And my joy knew no bounds At the age of 18 Percy joined the US Navy This turn of events happened as Percy got interested in wireless communication after hearing about the wireless operators above the Titanic when it sank And very soon I became the world's leading expert in radar tube design While building some radar equipment Percy noticed that the peanut cluster bar in his pocket had become a gooey mess But I hardly felt any heat there and this incident sparked some great interest in me I felt the need for more experiments and more tasks and more experiments This was making me so happy So, he tried some corn kernels next and pop, they became popcorns He even showed it to one of his colleagues but switched the corn for an egg Silly me And the egg exploded This gave Percy the idea of putting the contraption in a box In 1945 I got the patentship on the microwave which was only one of the 150 patents to my name But his microwave was huge and could be only used by restaurants The first commercial microwave wasn't until 1972 and over the years as the technology got better and better the microwave became an inseparable part of any food industry and has now become an everyday household item Hey, but my uses are more than what you guys think I'm used in other industries to dry cork, ceramics paper, leather, tobacco textiles, pencils, flowers wet books and even matches See, you're loved by everybody Quite a history to our common kitchen appliance don't you think? Oh, that's my favourite sound Dr. Binocs, aren't we all heading for the Trivia Time Percy Spencer was a completely self-taught physicist He even learned trigonometry, calculus chemistry and metallurgy all by himself Microwaves were earlier known as electronic ovens So kids pop in some popcorns and tell me what was the first piece of food cooked in a microwave Tune in next time for more fun facts This is me, zooming out Hey little kitty Come here Let me show you something What's this? It's a telephone What's this? It's not the modern cell phone but the OG phone that kickstarted the communication revolution So today let me tell you the story behind the inventor of the telephone Zoom in Long before the telephone people used various mediums like letters, telegraphs and even pigeons to deliver messages from one place to another But these modes of communication were often times unreliable and at their very best very slow as it took days or even weeks to receive them But everything was destined to change on 3rd March 1847 with the birth of Alexandra Graham Bell from Scotland Bell grew up as a curious child and learned the science of speech from his father Alexandra Melville Bell who worked as a speech therapist At the same time Bell showed a good talent for art, poetry and music that was encouraged by his mother Eliza Grace Simmons Bell who unfortunately suffered from deafness which had a profound impact on his life So, by the time he was 18 he became determined to help people struggling with hearing loss and devoted much of his life to this cause Later in 1871 at age 24 Bell immigrated to the United States where he continued to pursue his interest in speech and hearing worked for the deaf and spent many years experimenting with different devices working hard to find the right combination of materials and technologies that would permit him to transmit sound through wires like the telegraph Then between 1873 and 1874 Bell worked on his harmonic telegraph which could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch It was during this time Bell's interest sailed to an even more revolutionary idea the possibility that not just the telegraph's dots and dashes but the human voice itself could be transmitted over wires A skilled electrician named Thomas A. Watson to work together on bringing the idea of the telephone to reality Then on the 2nd of June 1875 while experimenting with his harmonic telegraph Watson was trying to loosen a reed wire that had been curled around a transmitter and plucked it by accident The vibration of the act travelled through the wire into a second device in the other room where Bell was working and twang came the sound of the bell as the inspiration the duo needed to accelerate their work Finally in 1876 Bell discovered the secret to transmitting speech over a distance and managed to invent the telegraph In 1876 after a long battle in court the patent office awarded Bell the patent for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically And 3 days later on March 10th 1876 Bell famously succeeded in getting his telephone to work The telephone has evolved into cell phones and has become a part of our daily lives So, let's thank Alexander Graham Bell for giving us one of the greatest inventions of all time The telephone Trivia Time Did you know Ahoy was the original telephone greeting? Yes, Bell proposed but later Thomas Edison suggested replacing it with Hello, which we use even today while talking over cell phones Hope you had fun today Until next time It's me Dr. Binox Zooming Out Oh, who was it kitty? Never mind Hey friends Didn't see you there But now that there's light we can see each other crystal clear Have you ever wondered how light bulbs came into existence? Come, let's find out Zoom in Back in the days before the light bulb was invented use of candles were quite common in households In fact, they are used even today when we experience a blackout But candles can be very very messy Though candles are beautiful to look at they can be very dangerous Hmm, I can smell something burning Oh, Yikes See what I mean And that is why we need to thank Thomas Edison for inventing the first ever light bulb that has since enlightened the world I mean it has helped light up our world literally Thomas Edison is also known to have developed more than thousand other inventions Apart from the light bulb some of his famous inventions include the voting machine electric battery and the movie camera Thomas Edison wasn't a very bright student He found it to be a painfully dull routine to go to school However, he had a very curious mind and was always inquisitive to conduct science experiments under the tutelage of his mother It was his inquisitive nature that led Edison to illuminate our homes The principle is quite simple actually It is the electricity that flows into the filament And when the filament heats up sufficiently it begins to glow And thus but to make his invention viable Edison faced a major hurdle He had to make the bulb glow bright enough and long enough without it overheating Edison experimented with different kinds of filaments to find the perfect match for his light bulb He tried copper, platinum and at last he tried filaments made from metal Something finally clicked and Edison returned to his original choice The carbon filament was the winner amongst all Yay! But before he could officially declare his invention Edison had to put his invention to test and see if it was long lasting On 22nd October 1879 Thomas Edison ran his first successful test on the light bulb The filament burnt strong and bright for a good 13 and a half hours And that was marked as the great grand invention of the light bulb And friends, that's not all I have something interesting to tell you What's that? Trivia Time 23 light bulbs were developed before Edison's invention Sir Humphrey Davy created the first electric arc lamp in 1809 and Warren De La Rue designed the first incandescent light in 1820 After over half a century of experimentation Sir Joseph Wilson Swann created the light bulb that was more of an industrial nature which was used to illuminate the Savoy Theatre entirely lit by electricity Edison tried 4700 different materials to find the perfect filament including hair from a beard Light bulb production has evolved over the years Latest being the Millennial LEDs So, the next time you switch on the light at home you know who invented it That's it for now kids Until next time when I will bring another amazing invention for you This is me Zooming out