Technology

Water and waste disposal

6500 BCE Well

4000 BCE Clay sewer pipes
3000 BCE Indoor flushing toilet
3000 BCE Domestic wastewater for irrigation
2000 BCE Urban Sanitation
2000 BCE Toilets - sewer (covered)
2000 BCE Cesspits
2000 BCE Baths
2000 BCE Drain (covered) systems
2000 BCE Reservoirs
2000 BCE Drainage channels
2000 BCE Rainwater harvesting
2000 BCE Street ducts
2000 BCE Shadoofs/ sakias to lift water to ground level
1800 BCE Clay pipes water and sanitation
1000 BCE Pressurized indoor plumbing
300 BCE Aqueducts
1300 Septic tanks
1600 Sewage farms
1800 Sewer treatment facilities
1800 Pumping systems
1900 Indoor plumbing and flush toilets become common (no more cesspools)
1900 Waste water treatment
1900 Relocation of water sources using reservoirs and aqueduct systems, water intakes to avoid contamination
1900 Chemical treatment
1900 Storm and sanitary sewers developed
1900 Primary treatment
1900 Sedimentation systems
1900 Solids (sludge) removal
1912 Activated sludge
Agricultural Development

30600 BCE Pestle used as a tool in southern Italy to grind oats

8500 BCE Near East, Neolithic Revolution, the first agricultural revolution
8000 BCE Levant, PPNA sites domesticated wheat
7500 BCE Fertile Crescent, PPNB sites growing wheat, barley, chickpeas, peas, beans, flax and bitter vetch
7500 BCE Fertile Crescent, PPNB Sheep and goat domesticated
7000 BCE Greece and the Aegean, evidence of emmer and einkorn wheat, barley
7000 BCE Greece and the Aegean, sheep, goats, and pigs suggests a food economy is adopted
7000 BCE Pakistan, Mehrgarh, cultivation of wheat, sesame, barley, and eggplant
7000 BCE Pakistan, Mehrgarh, domestication of cattle and chicken
6800 BCE Southeast Asia, rice domesticated
6500 BCE Turkey, cattle domestication evidence
6001 BCE Iberian peninsula evidence suggests the domestication of plants and animals
6000 BCE Granary built in Mehrgarh for storage of excess food
5500 BCE Ireland, Céide Fields are the oldest known field systems in the world with land enclosed by brick walls
4000 BCE Pakistan, Mehrgarh: domestication of peas, sesame seeds, dates, and cotton, Asian Water Buffalo
4000 BCE Egyptians discover how to make bread using yeast
4000 BCE Thailand, north-western Khorat Plateau, evidence for rice domestication
4000 BCE First use of light wooden ploughs in Mesopotamia (Modern day Iraq)
3500 BCE Irrigation was being used in Mesopotamia (Modern day Iraq)
3500 BCE First agriculture in the Americas, around Central Amazonia or Ecuador
3000 BCE Turmeric, cardamom, pepper and mustard are harvested in the Indus Valley Civilization
3000 BCE Fermentation of dough, grain, and fruit juices is in practice
3000 BCE Sugar produced in India
2600 BCE Phoenicia (Lebanon), South India, commercial scale timbering for export to Egypt and Sumeria
1700 BCE Wind powered machine developed by the Babylonians
1300 BCE Creation of canal linking the Nile delta to the Red Sea
691 BCE First aqueduct (approx. 50 miles long) constructed to bring water to Nineveh
530 BCE Tunnel of Eupalinos first underground aqueduct
500 BCE The moldboard iron plough is invented in China
500 BCE Row cultivation of crops using intensive hoeing to weed and conserve moisture practised in China
300 BCE Efficient trace harness for plowing invented in China
200 BCE Efficient collar harness for plowing invented in America
100 BCE Rotary winnowing fan invented in China
100 BCE The multi-tube seed drill is invented in China
200 The fishing reel invented in China
600 The distillation of alcohol in China
607 The Chinese begin constructing a massive canal system to connect the Yellow and Yangtze rivers

1700 British Agricultural Revolution ends

1804 Vincenzo Dandolo writes several treatises of agriculture and sericulture
1809 French confectioner Nicolas Appert invents canning
1837 John Deere invents steel plough
1763 International "Potato Show" in Paris with corn varieties from different states
1866 Gregor Mendel publishes his paper describing Mendelian inheritance
1871 Louis Pasteur invents pasteurization
1895 Refrigeration in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively
1913 Haber–Bosch process, made it possible to produce ammonia, and thereby fertilize, on an industrial scale
1944 Green Revolution begins in Mexico
1960 First use with aerial photos in Earth sciences and agriculture
1974 China creates the first hybrid rice. See Yuan Longping
2000 Genetically modified plants cultivated around the world
Prehistory The fire piston used by tribes in southeast Asia and the Pacific islands to kindle fire

c. 450 BCE Archytas of Tarentum used a jet of steam to propel a toy wooden bird suspended on wire
c. 50 Hero of Alexandria's Engine, also known as Aeolipile. Demonstrates rotary motion through jets of steam
c. 900 China’s spear-like fire lances, bamboo tubes containing gunpowder and shrapnel like projectiles tied to a spear
c. 1100 China, earliest depiction of a gun showing a metal body and a tight-fitting projectile to maximise propulsion
1125 Gerbert, a professor in the schools at Rheims created an organ using compressed air using heated water
1232 First recorded use of a rocket. In a battle between the Chinese and the Mongols
c. 1500 Leonardo da Vinci builds the Architonnerre, a steam-powered cannon
1543 Blasco de Garay, demonstrates a jet boat propelled with the reaction from a large boiling kettle of water
1551 Taqi al-Din demonstrates a steam turbine, used to rotate a spit
1629 Giovanni Branca demonstrates a steam turbine
1650 Otto von Guericke builds the first vacuum pump
1660 Robert Boyle experimentally discovers Boyle's Law, relating the pressure and volume of a gas (published 1662)
1662 Boyle's Law published, defines relationship between volume and pressure in a gas at a constant temperature
1665 Robert Hooke stated: "Heat being nothing else but a very brisk and vehement agitation of the parts of a body
1665 Edward Somerset, the Second Marquess of Worcester builds a working steam fountain
1669 J.J. Becher puts forward a theory of combustion involving combustible earth (Latin terra pinguis)
1676-1689 Gottfried Leibniz develops the concept of vis viva, a limited version of the conservation of energy
1679 Denis Papin designed a steam digester, inspiring the development of the piston-and-cylinder steam engine
1680 Christiaan Huygens publishes a design for a piston engine powered by gunpowder but it is never built
1690 Denis Papin - produces design for the first piston steam engine
1694-1734 Georg Ernst Stahl names Becher's combustible earth as phlogiston and develops the theory
1698 Thomas Savery builds a pistonless steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines
1702 Guillaume Amontons introduces the concept of absolute zero, based on observations of gases
1707 Denis Papin - produces design for his second piston steam engine in conjunction with Gottfried Leibniz
1712 Thomas Newcomen builds the first commercially successful piston-and-cylinder steam-powered water pump
for pumping water out of mines. It is known as an atmospheric engine and operates by condensing steam in a
cylinder to produce a vacuum which moves the piston by atmospheric pressure.
1738 Daniel Bernoulli publishes Hydrodynamica, initiating the kinetic theory
1748 William Cullen demonstrates the first artificial refrigeration in a public lecture at the University of Glasgow in
Scotland
1749 Émilie du Châtelet, derives the conservation of energy from the first principles of Newtonian mechanics
1759 John Harrison uses a bimetallic strip in his third marine chronometer (H3) to compensate for temperature
induced changes in the balance spring. This converts thermal expansion and contraction in two dissimilar solids to
mechanical work
1761 Joseph Black discovers that ice absorbs heat without changing its temperature when melting
1769 James Watt patents his first improved atmospheric steam engine, see Watt steam engine with a separate
condenser outside the cylinder, doubling the efficiency of earlier engines
1772 Black's student Daniel Rutherford discovers phlogisticated air (nitrogen) explaining results in phlogiston theory
1776 John Smeaton publishes a paper supporting the conservation of energy through his experiments
1777 Carl Wilhelm Scheele distinguishes heat transfer by thermal radiation from that by convection and conduction
1783 Antoine Lavoisier discovers oxygen and develops an explanation for combustion and proposes a caloric theory
1784 Jan Ingenhousz describes Brownian motion of charcoal particles on water
1787 Jacques Charles formulates Charles's law which describes the relationship between as gas's volume and
temperature. He does not publish this however and it is not recognised until Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac develops and
references it in 1802
1791 John Barber patents the idea of a gas turbine
1791 Pierre Prévost shows that all bodies radiate heat, no matter how hot or cold they are
1798 Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) develops the idea that heat is a form of kinetic energy from experiments
1799 Richard Trevithick builds the first high pressure steam engine. This used the force from pressurized steam to
move the piston.
1802 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac develops the law describing pressure and temperatures relationship
1804 Sir John Leslie observes the importance of black body radiation comparing a matte black and a polished surface
1805 William Hyde Wollaston defends the conservation of energy in On the Force of Percussion
1807 Nicéphore Niépce installed an internal combustion engine in a boat and powered up the river Saone in France
1807 Engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built the De Rivaz engine, an ICE wheeled vehicle using hydrogen and oxygen
1808 John Dalton defends caloric theory in A New System of Chemistry and describes how it combines with matter,
especially gases; he proposes that the heat capacity of gases varies inversely with atomic weight
1810 Sir John Leslie freezes water to ice artificially
1813 Peter Ewart supports the idea of the conservation of energy in his paper On the measure of moving force; the
paper strongly influences Dalton and his pupil, James Joule
1816 Robert Stirling invented Stirling engine, a type of hot air engine
1819 Pierre Louis Dulong and Alexis Thérèse Petit give the Dulong-Petit law for the specific heat capacity of a crystal
1820 John Herapath develops some ideas in the kinetic theory of gases but mistakenly associates temperature with
molecular momentum rather than kinetic energy; his work receives little attention other than from Joule
1822 Fourier formally introduces the use of dimensions for physical quantities in his Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur
1822 Marc Seguin writes to John Herschel supporting the conservation of energy and kinetic theory
1824 Sadi Carnot analyzes the efficiency of steam engines using caloric theory; he develops the notion of a reversible
process and, in postulating that no such thing exists in nature, lays the foundation for the second law of
thermodynamics, and initiating the science of thermodynamics
1824 Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot developed the Carnot cycle, the basic theoretical model for all heat engines. This
gives the first early insight into the second law of thermodynamics
1827 Robert Brown discovers the Brownian motion of pollen and dye particles in water
1831 Macedonio Melloni demonstrates that black body radiation can be reflected, refracted, and polarised in the
same way as light
1834 Émile Clapeyron popularises Carnot's work through a graphical and analytic formulation. He also combined
Boyle's Law, Charles's Law, and Gay-Lussac's Law to produce a Combined Gas Law. PV/T = k
1834 Jacob Perkins, obtained the first patent for a vapour-compression refrigeration system
1841 Julius Robert von Mayer, an amateur scientist, writes a paper on the conservation of energy, but his lack of
academic training leads to its rejection
1842 Mayer makes a connection between work, heat, and the human metabolism based on his observations of
blood made while a ship's surgeon; he calculates the mechanical equivalent of heat
1842 William Robert Grove demonstrates the thermal dissociation of molecules into their constituent atoms, by
showing that steam can be disassociated into oxygen and hydrogen, and the process reversed
1843 John James Waterston fully expounds the kinetic theory of gases, but is ridiculed and ignored
1843 James Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of heat
1845 Henri Victor Regnault added Avogadro's Law to the Combined Gas Law to produce the Ideal Gas Law. PV = nRT
1846 Karl-Hermann Knoblauch publishes De calore radiante disquisitiones experimentis quibusdam novis illustratae
1846 Grove publishes the general theory of the conservation of energy in On The Correlation of Physical Forces
1847 Hermann von Helmholtz publishes a definitive statement of the conservation of energy, the first law of
thermodynamics
1848 William Thomson extends the concept of absolute zero from gases to all substances
1849 William John Macquorn Rankine calculates the correct relationship between saturated vapour pressure and
temperature using his hypothesis of molecular vortices
1850 Rankine uses his vortex theory to establish accurate relationships between the temperature, pressure, and
density of gases, and expressions for the latent heat of evaporation of a liquid; he accurately predicts the surprising
fact that the apparent specific heat of saturated steam will be negative
1850 Rudolf Clausius gives the first clear joint statement of the first and second law of thermodynamics, abandoning
the caloric theory, but preserving Carnot's principle
1851 Thomson gives an alternative statement of the second law
1852 Joule and Thomson demonstrate that a rapidly expanding gas cools, later named the Joule–Thomson effect or
Joule–Kelvin effect
1854 Helmholtz puts forward the idea of the heat death of the universe
1854 Clausius establishes the importance of dQ/T (Clausius's theorem), but does not yet name the quantity
1854 Rankine introduces his thermodynamic function, later identified as entropy
1856 August Krönig publishes an account of the kinetic theory of gases, probably after reading Waterston's work
1857 Clausius gives a modern and compelling account of the kinetic theory of gases in his On the nature of motion
called heat 1848–1899
1859 James Clerk Maxwell discovers the distribution law of molecular velocities
1859 Gustav Kirchhof f shows that energy emission from a black body is a function of only temperature and
frequency
1859 Etienne Lenoir developed the first commercially successful internal combustion engine, a single-cylinder, two
stroke engine with electric ignition of illumination gas (not gasoline).
1861 Alphonse Beau de Rochas of France originates the concept of the four-stroke internal-combustion engine by
emphasizing the previously unappreciated importance of compressing the fuel–air mixture before ignition.
1861 Nikolaus Otto patents a two-stroke internal combustion engine building on Lenoir's
1862 "Disgregation," a precursor of entropy, was defined in 1862 by Clausius as the magnitude of the degree of
separation of molecules of a body
1865 Clausius introduces the modern macroscopic concept of entropy
1865 Josef Loschmidt applies Maxwell's theory to estimate the number-density of molecules in gases, given
observed gas viscosities.
1867 Maxwell asks whether Maxwell's demon could reverse irreversible processes in thermodynamics
1870 Clausius proves the scalar virial theorem
1872 Ludwig Boltzmann states the Boltzmann equation for the temporal development of distribution functions in
phase space, and publishes his H-theorem
1872 Pulsometer steam pump, a pistonless pump, patented by Charles Henry Hall. It was inspired by the Savery
steam pump.
1873 Sir William Crookes invents the light mill that turns the radiant heat of light directly into rotary motion
1873 Johannes Diderik van der Waals formulates his equation of state
1874 Thomson formally states the second law of thermodynamics
1876 Josiah Willard Gibbs publishes the first of two papers (the second appears in 1878) which discuss phase
equilibria, statistical ensembles, the free energy as the driving force behind chemical reactions, and chemical
thermodynamics in general.
1876 Loschmidt criticises Boltzmann's H theorem as being incompatible with microscopic reversibility
1877 Boltzmann states the relationship between entropy and probability for gases as well as measuring them
1877 Nikolaus Otto patents a practical four-stroke internal combustion engine (U.S. Patent 194,047)
1879 Jožef Stefan observes that the total radiant flux from a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of its
temperature and states the Stefan–Boltzmann law
1883 Samuel Griffin of Bath UK patents a six-stroke internal combustion engine
1884 Charles A. Parsons builds the first modern Steam turbine
1884 Boltzmann derives the Stefan–Boltzmann blackbody radiant flux law from thermodynamic considerations 1888
Henri-Louis Le Chatelier states his principle that the response of a chemical system perturbed from equilibrium will
be to counteract the perturbation
1886 Herbert Akroyd Stuart builds the prototype Hot bulb engine, an oil fuelled Homogeneous Charge Compression
Ignition engine similar to the later diesel but with a lower compression ratio and running on a fuel air mixture
1889 Walther Nernst relates the voltage of electrochemical cells to their chemical thermodynamics via his equation
1889 Svante Arrhenius introduces the idea of activation energy for chemical reactions, giving the Arrhenius equation
1892 Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine (U.S. Patent 608,845) where a high compression ratio generates hot gas
which then ignites an injected fuel.
1893 Wilhelm Wien discovers the displacement law for a blackbody's maximum specific intensity
1900 Max Planck suggests that light may be emitted in discrete frequencies, giving his law of black-body radiation
1905 Albert Einstein argues that the reality of quanta would explain the photoelectric effect
1905 Einstein mathematically analyzes Brownian motion as a result of random molecular motion
1906 Nernst presents a formulation of the third law of thermodynamics
1907 Einstein uses quantum theory to estimate the heat capacity of an Einstein solid
1909 Constantin Carathéodory develops an axiomatic system of thermodynamics
1909 Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes develops the concept of enthalpy for the measure of the "useful"
work that can be obtained from a closed thermodynamic system at a constant pressure
1910 Einstein and Marian Smoluchowski find the Einstein–Smoluchowski formula for the attenuation coefficient due
to density fluctuations in a gas
1911 Paul Ehrenfest and Tatjana Ehrenfest–Afanassjewa publish their classical review on the statistical mechanics of
Boltzmann, Begriffliche Grundlagen der statistischen Auffassung in der Mechanik
1912 Peter Debye gives an improved heat capacity estimate by allowing low-frequency phonons
1913 Nikola Tesla patents the Tesla turbine based on the Boundary layer effect
1916 Sydney Chapman and David Enskog systematically develop the kinetic theory of gases.
1916 Einstein considers the thermodynamics of atomic spectral lines and predicts stimulated emission
1919 James Jeans discovers that the dynamical constants of motion determine the distribution function for a system
of particles
1920 Megh Nad Saha states his ionization equation
1923 Debye and Erich Hückel publish a statistical treatment of the dissociation of electrolytes
1924 Satyendra Nath Bose introduces Bose–Einstein statistics, in a paper translated by Einstein
1926 Enrico Fermi and Paul Dirac introduce Fermi–Dirac statistics for fermions
1926 Robert Goddard of the USA launches the first liquid fuel rocket
1927 John von Neumann introduces the density matrix representation and establishes quantum statistical mechanics
1928 John B. Johnson discovers Johnson noise in a resistor
1928 Harry Nyquist derives the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, a relationship to explain Johnson noise in a resistor
1929 Lars Onsager derives the Onsager reciprocal relations
1929 Felix Wankel patents the Wankel rotary engine (U.S. Patent 2,988,008)
1929 Leó Szilárd, in a refinement of the famous Maxwell's demon scenario conceives of a heat engine that can run
on information alone, known as the Szilard engine
1930 Sir Frank Whittle in England patents the first design for a gas turbine for jet propulsion
1933 French physicist Georges J. Ranque invents the Vortex tube, a fluid flow device without moving parts, that can
separate a compressed gas into hot and cold streams
1935 Ralph H. Fowler invents the title 'the zeroth law of thermodynamics ' to summarise postulates made by earlier
physicists that, thermal equilibrium between systems is a transitive relation
1937 Hans von Ohain builds a gas turbine
1938 Anatoly Vlasov proposes the Vlasov equation for a correct dynamical description of ensembles of particles with
collective long range interaction.
1939 Nikolay Krylov and Nikolay Bogolyubov give the first consistent microscopic derivation of the Fokker-Planck
equation in the single scheme of classical and quantum mechanics.
1940 Hungarian Bela Karlovitz working for the Westinghouse company in the USA files the first patent for a
magnetohydrodynamic generator, which can generate electricity directly from a hot moving gas
1942 R.S. Gaugler of General Motors patents the idea of the Heat pipe, a heat transfer mechanism that combines the
principles of both thermal conductivity and phase transition to efficiently manage the transfer of heat between two
solid interfaces.
1942 Joseph L. Doob states his theorem on Gauss–Markov processes
1944 Lars Onsager gives an analytic solution to the 2-dimensional Ising model, including its phase transition
1945–1946 Nikolay Bogoliubov develops a general method for a microscopic derivation of kinetic equations for
classical statistical systems using BBGKY hierarchy
1947 Nikolay Bogoliubov and Kirill Gurov extend this method for a microscopic derivation of kinetic equations for
quantum statistical systems
1948 Claude Elwood Shannon establishes information theory
1950s The Philips company develop the Stirling-cycle Stirling Cryocooler which converts mechanical energy to a
temperature difference
1957 Aleksandr Solomonovich Kompaneets derives his Compton scattering Fokker–Planck equation
1957 Ryogo Kubo derives the first of the Green-Kubo relations for linear transport coefficients
1957 Edwin T. Jaynes gives MaxEnt interpretation of thermodynamics from information theory
1959 Geusic, Schultz-DuBois and Scoville of Bell Telephone Laboratories USA build a Three Level Maser which runs as
a quantum heat engine extracting work from the temperature difference of two heat pools
1962 William J. Buehler and Frederick Wang discover the Nickel titanium alloy known as Nitinol which has a shape
memory dependent on its temperature
1960–1965 Dmitry Zubarev develops the method of non-equilibrium statistical operator, which becomes a classical
tool in the statistical theory of non-equilibrium processes
1972 Jacob Bekenstein suggests that black holes have an entropy proportional to their surface area
1974 Stephen Hawking predicts that black holes will radiate particles with a black-body spectrum which can cause
black hole evaporation
1977 Ilya Prigogine wins the Nobel prize for his work on dissipative structures in thermodynamic systems far from
equilibrium. The importation and dissipation of energy could reverse the 2nd law of thermodynamics
1992 The first practical magnetohydrodynamic generators are built in Serbia and the USA.
2011 Shoichi Toyabe and others demonstrate a working Szilard engine using a phase-contrast microscope equipped
with a high speed camera connected to a computer
2011 Michigan State University builds the first wave disk engine. An internal combustion engine which does away
with pistons, crankshafts and valves, and replaces them with a disc-shaped shock wave generator

History of the Internal Combustion Engine

E–220 CE: The earliest hand-operated cranks appeared in China during the Han Dynasty.[1]
3rd century CE: Evidence of a crank and connecting rod mechanism dates to the Hierapolis sawmill in Asia
Minor (Turkey), then part of the Roman Empire.
6th century: Several sawmills use a crank and connecting rod mechanism in Asia Minor and Syria, then part of
the Byzantine Empire.
9th century: The crank appears in the mid-9th century in several of the hydraulic devices described by the Banū
Mūsā brothers in their Book of Ingenious Devices.[2]
1206: Al-Jazari invented an early crankshaft,[3][4] which he incorporated with a crank-connecting rod mechanism in
his twin-cylinder pump. Like the modern crankshaft, Al-Jazari's mechanism consisted of a wheel setting
several crank pins into motion, with the wheel's motion being circular and the pins moving back-and-forth in a
straight line.[3] The crankshaft described by al-Jazari[3][4] transforms continuous rotary motion into a
linear reciprocating motion.
17th century: Samuel Morland experiments with using gunpowder to drive water pumps.
17th century: Christiaan Huygens designs gunpowder to drive water pumps, to supply 3000 cubic meters of
water/day for the Versailles palace gardens, essentially creating the first idea of a rudimentary internal
combustion piston engine.
1780s: Alessandro Volta built a toy electric pistol[5] in which an electric spark exploded a mixture
of air and hydrogen, firing a cork from the end of the gun.
1791: John Barber receives British patent #1833 for A Method for Rising Inflammable Air for the Purposes of
Producing Motion and Facilitating Metallurgical Operations. In it he describes a turbine.
1794: Robert Street built a compressionless engine. He was also the first to use liquid fuel in an internal
combustion engine.[6]
1794: Thomas Mead patents a gas engine.[7]
1798: John Stevens builds the first double-acting, crankshaft-using internal combustion engine.
1801: Philippe LeBon D'Humberstein comes up with the use of compression in a two-stroke engine.
1807: Nicéphore Niépce installed his "moss, coal-dust and resin" fueled Pyréolophore internal combustion
engine in a boat and powered up the river Saône in France. A patent was subsequently granted by
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte on 20 July 1807.
1807: Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built an internal combustion engine powered by a hydrogen and
oxygen mixture, and ignited by electric spark. (See 1780s: Alessandro Volta above.)[8]
1823: Samuel Brown patented the first internal combustion engine to be applied industrially, the gas vacuum
engine. The design used atmospheric pressure, and was demonstrated in a carriage and a boat, and in 1830
commercially to pump water to the upper level of the Croydon Canal.
1824: French physicist Sadi Carnot established the thermodynamic theory of idealized heat engines.
1826 April 1: American Samuel Morey received a patent for a compressionless "Gas or Vapor Engine."[9] This is
also the first recorded example of a carburetor.
1833: Lemuel Wellman Wright, UK patent no. 6525, table-type gas engine. Double-acting gas engine, first
record of water-jacketed cylinder.[10]
1838: A patent was granted to William Barnett, UK patent no. 7615 April 1838. According to Dugald Clerk, this
was the first recorded use of in-cylinder compression.[11]
1853–1857: Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci invented and patented an engine using the free-piston
principle in an atmospheric two cycle engine.[12][13]
1856: in Florence at Fonderia del Pignone (now Nuovo Pignone, later a subsidiary of General Electric), Pietro
Benini realized a working prototype of the Italian engine supplying 5 HP. In subsequent years he developed
more powerful engines—with one or two pistons—which served as steady power sources, replacing steam
engines.
1857: Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci describe the principles of the free piston engine where the vacuum
after the explosion allows atmospheric pressure to deliver the power stroke (British patent no. 1625). [13]
1860: Belgian Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir (1822–1900) produced a gas-fired internal combustion engine similar
in appearance to a horizontal double-acting steam engine, with cylinders, pistons, connecting rods,
and flywheel in which the gas essentially took the place of the steam. This was the first internal combustion
engine to be produced in numbers.
1861: Nikolaus Otto builds a copy of the Lenoir engine.
1862: Nikolaus Otto attempts the construction of the compressed charge four cycle engine, and fails.
1862: The earliest confirmed patent of the 4-cycle engine, by Alphonse Beau de Rochas. This was principle
only, there was NO engine built to prove the concept.
1862: The German Nikolaus Otto begins to manufacture a no compression gas Lenoir engine with a free piston.
[14]

1864: Nikolaus Otto, patented in England and other countries his first atmospheric gas engine. Otto was the first
to build and sell this type of compressionless engine designed with an indirect-acting free-piston, whose great
efficiency won the support of Eugen Langen and then most of the market, which at that time was mainly for small
stationary engines fueled by lighting gas. Eugen Langen collaborated with Otto in the design and they began to
manufacture it in 1864.[15]
1865: Pierre Hugon started production of the Hugon engine, similar to the Lenoir engine, but with better
economy, and more reliable flame ignition.
1867: Otto and Langen exhibited their free piston engine at the Paris Exhibition in 1867, and they won the
greatest award. It had less than half the gas consumption of the Lenoir or Hugon engines.
1870: In Vienna, Siegfried Marcus put the first mobile gasoline and the first modern internal combustion
engine on a handcart.
1872: In America George Brayton invented Brayton's Ready Motor and went into commercial production, this
used constant pressure combustion, and was the first commercial liquid fuelled internal combustion engine.
1876: Nikolaus Otto, working with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, patented the compressed charge,
four-stroke engine.[16] The German courts, however, did not hold his patent to cover all in-cylinder compression
engines or even the four-stroke cycle, and after this decision, in-cylinder compression became universal.
1878: Dugald Clerk designed the first two-stroke engine with in-cylinder compression. He patented it in England
in 1881.
1879: Karl Benz, working independently, was granted a patent for his reliable two-stroke, internal combustion
engine, gas engine.
1882: James Atkinson invented the Atkinson cycle engine. Atkinson's engine had one power phase per
revolution together with different intake and expansion volumes, potentially making it more efficient than the Otto
cycle, but certainly avoiding Otto's patent.
1884: British engineer Edward Butler constructed the first petrol (gasoline) internal combustion engine. Butler
invented the spark plug, ignition magneto, coil ignition and spray jet carburetor, and was the first to use the
word petrol.[17]
1885: German engineer Gottlieb Daimler received a German patent for a supercharger [18]
1885/1886 Karl Benz designed and built his own four-stroke engine that was used in his automobile, which was
developed in 1885, patented in 1886, and became the first automobile in series production.
1887: Gustaf de Laval introduces the de Laval nozzle
1889: Félix Millet begins development of the first vehicle to be powered by a rotary engine in transportation
history.
1891: Herbert Akroyd Stuart built his oil engine, leasing rights to Hornsby of England to build them. They built
the first cold-start compression-ignition engines. In 1892, they installed the first ones in a water pumping station.
In the same year, an experimental higher-pressure version produced self-sustaining ignition through
compression alone.
1892: Rudolf Diesel developed the first compressed charge, compression ignition engine .[19]
1893 February 23: Rudolf Diesel received a patent for his compression ignition (diesel) engine.
1896: Karl Benz invented the boxer engine, also known as the horizontally opposed engine, or the flat engine, in
which the corresponding pistons reach top dead center at the same time, thus balancing each other in
momentum.
1897: Robert Bosch was the first to adapt a magneto ignition to a vehicle engine.
1898: Fay Oliver Farwell designs the prototype of the line of Adams-Farwell automobiles, all to be powered with
three or five cylinder rotary internal combustion engines.
1900: Rudolf Diesel demonstrated the diesel engine in the 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) using
peanut oil fuel (see biodiesel).[20]
1900: Wilhelm Maybach designed an engine built at Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft—following the specifications
of Emil Jellinek—who required the engine to be named Daimler-Mercedes after his daughter. In 1902
automobiles with that engine were put into production by DMG.[21][22]
1903: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky begins a series of theoretical papers discussing the use of rocketry to reach outer
space. A major point in his work is liquid fueled rockets.
1903: Ægidius Elling builds a gas turbine using a centrifugal compressor which runs under its own power. By
most definitions, this is the first working gas turbine.
1905: Alfred Buchi patents the turbocharger and starts producing the first examples.
1903–1906: The team of Armengaud and Lemale in France build a complete gas turbine engine. It uses three
separate compressors driven by a single turbine. Limits on the turbine temperatures allow for only a
3:1 compression ratio, and the turbine is not based on a Parsons-like "fan", but a Pelton wheel-like arrangement.
The engine is so inefficient, at about 3% thermal efficiency, that the work is abandoned.
1908: New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward started a motorcycle business in Invercargill and fitted the
imported bikes with his own invention–a petrol economiser. His economisers worked as well in cars as they did
in motorcycles.
1908: Hans Holzwarth starts work on extensive research on an "explosive cycle" gas turbine,[23] based on
the Otto cycle. This design burns fuel at a constant volume and is somewhat more efficient. By 1927, when the
work ended, he has reached about 13% thermal efficiency.
1908: René Lorin patents a design for the ramjet engine.
1916: Auguste Rateau suggests using exhaust-powered compressors to improve high-altitude performance, the
first example of the turbocharger.
1920: William Joseph Stern reports to the Royal Air Force that there is no future for the turbine engine in aircraft.
He bases his argument on the extremely low efficiency of existing compressor designs. Due to Stern's
eminence, his paper is so convincing there is little official interest in gas turbine engines anywhere, although this
does not last long.
1921: Maxime Guillaume patents the axial-flow gas turbine engine. It uses multiple stages in both the
compressor and turbine, combined with a single very large combustion chamber.
1923: Edgar Buckingham at the United States National Bureau of Standards publishes a report on jets, coming
to the same conclusion as W.J. Stern, that the turbine engine is not efficient enough. In particular he notes that a
jet would use five times as much fuel as a piston engine.[24]
1925: The Hesselman engine is introduced by Swedish engineer Jonas Hesselman represented the first use of
direct gasoline injection on a spark-ignition engine.[25][26]
1925: Wilhelm Pape patents a constant-volume engine design.
1926: Alan Arnold Griffith publishes his groundbreaking paper Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design, changing
the low confidence in jet engines. In it he demonstrates that existing compressors are "flying stalled", and that
major improvements can be made by redesigning the blades from a flat profile into an airfoil, going on to
mathematically demonstrate that a practical engine is definitely possible and showing how to build a turboprop.
1926: Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket
1927: Aurel Stodola publishes his "Steam and Gas Turbines"—basic reference for jet propulsion engineers in
the US.
1927: A testbed single-shaft turbo-compressor based on Griffith's blade design is tested at the Royal Aircraft
Establishment.
1929: Frank Whittle's thesis on jet engines is published
1930: Schmidt patents a pulse-jet engine in Germany.
1935: Hans von Ohain creates plans for a turbojet engine and convinces Ernst Heinkel to develop a working
model. Along with a single mechanic von Ohain develops the world's first turbojet on a test stand.
1936: French engineer René Leduc, having independently rediscovered René Lorin's design, successfully
demonstrates the world's first operating ramjet.
1937: The first successful run of Sir Frank Whittle's gas turbine for jet propulsion.
March, 1937: The Heinkel HeS 1 experimental hydrogen fueled centrifugal jet engine is tested at Hirth.
27 August 1939: Flight of the world's first turbojet power aircraft. Hans von Ohain's Heinkel He 178 V1 pioneer
turbojet aircraft prototype makes its first flight, powered by an He S 3 von Ohain engine.
15 May 1941: The Gloster E.28/39 becomes the first British jet-engined aircraft to fly, using a Power Jets
W.1 turbojet designed by Frank Whittle and others.
1942: Max Bentele discovers in Germany that turbine blades can break if vibrations are in its resonance range, a
phenomenon already known in the US from the steam turbine experience.
18 July 1942: The Messerschmitt Me 262 first jet engine flight
1946: Samuel Baylin develops the Baylin Engine a three cycle internal combustion engine with rotary pistons. A
crude but complex example of the future Wankel engine.[27]
1951: Engineers for The Texas Company—i.e. now Chevron—developed a four stroke engine with a fuel injector
that employed what was called the Texaco Combustion Process, which unlike normal four stroke gasoline
engines which used a separate valve for the intake of the air-gasoline mixture, with the T.C.P. engine the intake
valve with a built in special shroud delivers the air to the cylinder in a tornado type fashion and then the fuel is
injected and ignited by a spark plug. The inventors claimed their engine could burn on almost any petroleum
based fuel of any octane and even some alcohol based fuels—e.g. kerosene, benzine, motor oil, tractor oil, etc.
—without the pre-combustion knock and the complete burning of the fuel injected into the cylinder. While
development was well advanced by 1950, there are no records of the T.C.P. engine being used commercially. [28]
1950s: Development begins by US firms of the Free-piston engine concept which is a crankless internal
combustion engine.[29]
1954: Felix Wankel's first working prototype DKM 54 of the Wankel engine
1986: Benz Gmbh[30] files for patent protection for a form of Scotch yoke engine and begins development of
same. Development subsequently abandoned.
1996: Ford Motor Company files patent for compact turbine engine.[31]
2004: Hyper-X first scramjet to maintain altitude
2004: Toyota Motor Corp files for patent protection for new form of Scotch yoke engine.[32]

Timeline of motor and engine technology

(c. 30–70 AD) Hero of Alexandria describes the first documented steam-powered device, the aeolipile.
13th century Chinese chronicles wrote about a solid rocket motor used in warfare
1698 Thomas Savery builds a steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines.
1712 Thomas Newcomen builds a piston-and-cylinder steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of
mines.
1769 James Watt patents his first improved steam engine.
1806 François Isaac de Rivaz invented a hydrogen powered engine, the first successful internal combustion
engine.
1807 Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude build a fluid piston internal combustion engine,
the Pyréolophore and use it to power a boat up the river Saône.
1816 Robert Stirling invented his hot air Stirling engine, and what we now call a "regenerator".
1821 Michael Faraday builds an electricity-powered motor.
1824 Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot first publishes that the efficiency of a heat engine depends on the
temperature difference between an engine and its environment.
1837 First American patent for an electric motor (U.S. Patent 132).
1850 The first explicit statement of the first and second law of thermodynamics, given by Rudolf Clausius.
1860 Lenoir 2 cycle engine
1872 Brayton Engine
1877 Nikolaus Otto patents a four-stroke internal combustion engine (U.S. Patent 194,047).
1882 James Atkinson invents the Atkinson cycle engine, now common in some hybrid vehicles.
1885 Gottlieb Daimler patents the first supercharger.
1886 Hot bulb engine was established by Herbert Akroyd Stuart, Gottlieb Daimler invents the Petrol engine.
1888 An AC induction motor is featured in a paper published by Galileo Ferraris and is patented in the U.S.
by Nikola Tesla.[1]
1892 Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine (U.S. Patent 608,845).
1899 Ferdinand Porsche creates the Lohner-Porsche, the first hybrid vehicle.
1903 The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices was published by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
1905 Alfred Büchi patents the turbocharger.
1913 René Lorin invents the ramjet.
1915 Leonard Dyer invents a six-stroke engine, now known as the Crower six-stroke engine named after his
reinventor Bruce Crower.
1926 Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket.
1929 Felix Wankel patents the Wankel rotary engine (U.S. Patent 2,988,008).
Late 1930s Hans von Ohain and Frank Whittle separately build pioneering gas turbine engines intended for
aircraft propulsion, leading to the pioneering turbojet powered flights in 1939 Germany and 1941 England.
1939 The BMW company's BMW 801 aviation radial engine pioneers the use of an early form of an engine
control unit, the Kommandogerät.
1940s Ralph Miller patents his Miller cycle engine.
1954 Felix Wankel creates the first working Wankel engine.
1957 Rambler Rebel announced Electrojector electronic fuel injection option, however no production models
were offered with the option.
1966 RD-0410 nuclear thermal rocket engine was ground-tested.
1960s alternators replace generators on automobile engines.
1970s electronically controlled ignition appears in automobile engines.
1975 Catalytic converters are first widely introduced on production automobiles in the US to comply with
tightening EPA regulations on auto exhaust.
1980s electronically controlled ignition improved to reduce pollution.
1980s electronic fuel injection appears on gasoline automobile engines.
1989 The Bajulaz Six-Stroke Engine was invented by the Bajulaz S A company, based in Geneva, Switzerland;
it has U.S. Patent 4,809,511 and U.S. Patent 4,513,568.
1990s Hybrid vehicles that run on an internal combustion engine (ICE) and an electric motor charged
by regenerative braking.

Timeline of Rocket Technology

11th century AD The first documented record of gunpowder and the fire arrow, an early form of rocketry,
appears in the Chinese text Wujing Zongyao.
1633 Lagâri Hasan Çelebi launched a 7-winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder from Sarayburnu,
the point below Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.[1]
1650 Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part") is printed in Amsterdam, about a
year before the death of its author, Kazimierz Siemienowicz.
1664 A "space rocket" is imagined as a future technology to be studied in France and its drawing is ordered
by French finance minister Colbert; designed by Le Brun on a Gobelins tapestry [2] (see: French space program)
1798 Tipu Sultan, the King of the state of Mysore in India, develops and uses iron rockets against the British
Army (see Mysorean rockets).
1801 The British Army develops the Congreve rocket based on weapons used against them by Tipu Sultan.
1806 Claude Ruggieri, an Italian living in France, launched animals on rockets and recovered them using
parachutes. He was prevented from launching a child by police.[3]
1813 "A Treatise on the Motion of Rockets" by William Moore – first appearance of the rocket equation
1818 Henry Trengrouse demonstrates his rocket apparatus for projecting a lifeline from a wrecked ship to the
shore, later widely adopted
1844 William Hale invents the spin-stabilized rocket
1861 William Leitch publishes an essay "A Journey Through Space" (later published in his book God's Glory in
the Heavens (1862)), introducing the concept of using rockets to propel a vehicle carrying people into space, to
visit the Moon and other planets.
1865 Jules Verne publishes From the Earth to the Moon as a humorous science fantasy story about a space
gun launching a manned spacecraft equipped with rockets for landing on the Moon, but eventually used for
another orbital maneuver.
1902 French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès directs A Trip to the Moon, the first film about space travel.
1903 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky begins a series of papers discussing the use of rocketry to reach outer
space, space suits, and colonization of the solar system. Two key points discussed in his works are liquid
fuels and staging.
1913 Without knowing the work of Russian mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, French engineer Robert
Esnault-Pelterie derived the equations for space flight, produced a paper that presented the rocket equation and
calculated the energies required to reach the Moon and nearby planets. [4]
1922 Hermann Oberth publishes his scientific work about rocketry and space exploration: Die Rakete zu den
Planetenräumen ("By Rocket into Planetary Space").
1924 Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel founded in Moscow by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Friedrich
Zander and 200 other space and rocket experts
1926 Robert Goddard launches the first liquid fuel rocket.
1927 Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR - "Spaceflight Society") founded in Germany.
1929 Woman in the Moon, considered to be one of the first "serious" science fiction films.
1931 Friedrich Schmiedl attempts the first rocket mail service in Austria
1935 Emilio Herrera Linares from Spain designed and made the first full-pressured astronaut suit, called the
escafandra estratonáutica. The Russians then used a model of Herrera's suit when first flying into space of
which the Americans would then later adopt when creating their own space program.
1937 Peenemünde Army Research Center founded in Germany
1938 The Projectile Development Establishment founded at Fort Halstead for the United Kingdom's research
into military solid-fuel rockets.
1939 Katyusha multiple rocket launchers (Russian: Катюша) are a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by
the Soviet Union.
1941 French rocket EA-41 is launched, being the first European liquid propellant working rocket[5]
1941 Jet Assisted Take Off JATO installed on US Army Air Corp Ercoupe aircraft occurred on 12 August in
March Field, California.
1942 Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger launch the first V-2 rocket at Peenemünde in northern
Germany.
1942 A V-2 rocket reaches an altitude of 85 km.
1944 The V-2 rocket MW 18014 reaches an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object in space.
1945 Lothar Sieber dies after the first vertical take-off manned rocket flight in a Bachem Ba 349 "Natter"
1945 Operation Paperclip takes 1,600 German rocket scientists and technicians to the United States
1945 Operation Osoaviakhim takes 2,000 German rocket scientists and technicians to the Soviet Union
1946 First flight of the Nike missile, later the first operational surface-to-air guided missile
1947 Chuck Yeager achieves the first manned supersonic flight in a Bell X-1 rocket-powered aircraft
1949 Willy Ley publishes The Conquest of Space
1952 22 May, French Véronique 1 rocket is launched from the Algerian desert.
1952 Wernher von Braun discusses the technical details of a manned exploration of Mars in Das Marsprojekt.
1953 Colliers Magazine publishes a series of articles on man's future in space, igniting the interest of people
around the world. The series includes numerous articles by Ley and von Braun, illustrated by Chesley Bonestell.
1956 First launch of PGM-17 Thor, the first US ballistic missile and forerunner of the Delta space launch rockets
1957 Launch of the first ICBM, the USSR's R-7 (8K71), known to NATO as the SS-6 Sapwood.
1957 The USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.
1958 The U.S. launches Explorer 1, the first American artificial satellite, on a Jupiter-C rocket.
1958 US launches their first ICBM, the Atlas-B (the Atlas-A was a test article only).
1961 the USSR launches Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin reached a height of 327 km above Earth and was the first man
to orbit Earth.
1961 US, a Mercury capsule named Freedom 7 with Alan B. Shepard, spacecraft was launched by a Redstone
rocket on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight.
1962 The US launches Mercury MA-6 (Friendship 7) on an Atlas D booster, John Glenn finally puts America in
orbit.
1963 The USSR launches Vostok 6, Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman (and first civilian) to orbit Earth.
She remained in space for nearly three days and orbited the Earth 48 times.
1963 US X-15 rocket-plane, the first reusable manned spacecraft (suborbital) reaches space, pioneering
reusability, carried launch and glide landings.
1965 USSR Proton rocket, highly successful launch vehicle with notable payloads, Salyut 6 & Salyut 7, Mir &
ISS components
1965 Robert Salked investigates various single stage to orbit spaceplane concepts[6][7][8]
1966 USSR Luna 9, the first soft landing on the Moon
1966 USSR launches Soyuz spacecraft, longest-running series of spacecraft, eventually serving Soviet, Russian
and International space missions.
1969 US Apollo 11, first men on the Moon, first lunar surface extravehicular activity.
1981 US space shuttle pioneers reusability and glide landings
1998 US Deep Space 1 is first deep space mission to use an ion thruster for propulsion.
1998 Russia launch Zarya module which is the first part of the International Space Station.
2001 Russian Soyuz spacecraft sent the first space tourist Dennis Tito to International Space Station.[9]
2004 US-based, first privately developed, manned (suborbital) spaceflight, SpaceShipOne demonstrates
reusability.[10]
2008 SpaceX—with their Falcon 1 rocket—became the first private entity to successfully launch
a rocket into orbit.[11]
2012 The SpaceX Dragon space capsule—launched aboard a Falcon 9 launch vehicle—was the first
private spacecraft to successfully dock with another spacecraft, and was also the first private capsule to dock at
the International Space Station.[12]
2014 First booster rocket returning from an orbital trajectory to achieve a zero-velocity-at-zero-
altitude propulsive vertical landing. The first-stage booster of Falcon 9 Flight 9made the first successful
controlled ocean soft touchdown of a liquid-rocket-engine orbital booster on April 18, 2014. [13][14]
2015 SpaceX's Falcon 9 Flight 20 was the first time that the first stage of an orbital rocket made a successful
return and vertical landing.[15]
2017 SpaceX's Falcon 9 SES-10 was the first time a used orbital rocket made a successful return [16]
2018 The Electron rocket was the first New-Zealand rocket to achieve orbit. The rocket is also unique in using
an electric pump-fed engine. The rocket also carried an additional satellite payload called "Humanity Star", a 1-
meter-wide (3 ft) carbon fiber sphere made up of 65 panels that reflect the Sun's light. [17]
Communication Technology

30,000 BCE In ice-age Europe, people mark ivory, bone, and stone with patterns to keep track of time, using a
lunar calendar.[6]
14,000 BCE In what is now Mezhirich, Ukraine, the first known artifact with a map on it is made using bone. [6]
Prior to 3500 BCE Communication was carried out through paintings of indigenous tribes.
3500s BC The Sumerians develop cuneiform writing and the Egyptians develop hieroglyphic writing.
16th century BCE The Phoenicians develop an alphabet.
26–37 Roman Emperor Tiberius rules the empire from the island of Capri by signaling messages with metal
mirrors to reflect the sun.
105 Tsai Lun invents paper.
7th century Hindu-Malayan empires write legal documents on copper plate scrolls, and write other documents
on more perishable media.
751 Paper is introduced to the Muslim world after the Battle of Talas.
1250 The quill is used for writing.[6]
1305 The Chinese develop wooden block movable type printing.
1450 Johannes Gutenberg invents a printing press with metal movable type.
1520 Ships on Ferdinand Magellan's voyage signal to each other by firing cannon and raising flags.
1792 Claude Chappe establishes the first long-distance semaphore telegraph line.
1831 Joseph Henry proposes and builds an electric telegraph.
1836 Samuel Morse develops the Morse code.
1843 Samuel Morse builds the first long distance electric telegraph line.
1844 Charles Fenerty produces paper from a wood pulp, eliminating rag paper which was in limited supply.
1849 Associated Press organizes Nova Scotia pony express to carry latest European news for New York
newspapers.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson exhibit an electric telephone in Boston.
1889 Almon Strowger patents the direct dial telephone.
1877 Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.
1920 Radio station KDKA based in Pittsburgh began the first broadcast.
1925 John Logie Baird transmits the first television signal.
1942 Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil invent frequency hopping spread spectrum communication technique.
1947 Full-scale commercial television is first broadcast.
1958 Chester Carlson presents the first photocopier suitable for office use.
1963 First geosynchronous communications satellite is launched, 17 years after Arthur C. Clarke's article.
1999 Sirius satellite radio is introduced.
1843 Patent issued for the "Electric Printing Telegraph", a very early forerunner of the fax machine
1926 Commercial availability of the radiofax
1964 First modern fax machine commercially available (Long Distance Xerography)
1947 Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young of Bell Labs propose a cell-based approach which led to "cellular
phones."
1981 Nordic Mobile Telephone, the world's first automatic mobile phone is put into operation
1991 GSM is put into operation
1992 Neil Papworth sends the first SMS (or text message).
1999 45% of Australians have a mobile phone.
1949 Claude Elwood Shannon, the "father of information theory", mathematically proves the Nyquist–Shannon
sampling theorem.
1965 First email sent (at MIT).[7]
1966 Charles Kao realizes that silica-based optical waveguides offer a practical way to transmit light via total
internal reflection.
1969 The first hosts of ARPANET, Internet's ancestor, are connected.[8]
1971 Erna Schneider Hoover invent a computerized switching system for telephone traffic.
1971 8-inch floppy disk removable storage medium for computers is introduced.[9]
1975 "First list servers are introduced."[9]
1976 The personal computer (PC) market is born.
1977 Donald Knuth begins work on TeX.
1981 Hayes Smartmodem introduced.[10]
1983 Microsoft Word software is launched.[11]
1989 Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau build the prototype system which became the World Wide
Web at CERN.
1989 WordPerfect 5.1 word processing software released.[10]
1991 Anders Olsson transmits solitary waves through an optical fiber with a data rate of 32 billion bits per
second.
1992 Internet2 organization is created.
1992 IBM ThinkPad 700C laptop computer created. It was lightweight compared to its predecessors. [10]
1993 Mosaic graphical web browser is launched.[12]
1994 Internet radio broadcasting is born.
1996 Motorola StarTAC mobile phone introduced. It was significantly smaller than previous cellphones. [10]
1997 SixDegrees.com is launched, the first of a number of early social networking services
1998 Lotus Notes software is launched.[12]
1999 Napster peer-to-peer file sharing is launched.[10]
2001 Cyworld adds social networking features and becomes the first of a number of mass-market social
networking service
2003 Skype video calling software is launched.
2004 Facebook is launched, becoming the largest social networking site in 2009.
2005 YouTube, the video sharing site, is launched.
2006 Twitter is launched.
2007 iPhone is launched.
2009 Whatsapp is launched.
2010 Instagram is launched.
2011 Snapchat is launched.
2015 Discord is launched.
The US National Academy of Engineering, by expert vote, established the following ranking of the most
important technological developments of the 20th century:[42]

1. Electrification
2. Automobile
3. Airplane
4. Water supply and Distribution
5. Electronics
6. Radio and Television
7. Mechanized agriculture
8. Computers
9. Telephone
10.Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
11.Highways
12.Spacecraft
13.Internet
14.Imaging technology
15.Household appliances
16.Health technology
17.Petroleum and Petrochemical technologies
18.Laser and Fiber Optics
19.Nuclear technology
20.Materials science

Tools and construction developments

Neolithic tools available were made from natural materials including bone, antler, hide, stone, wood, grasses, animal
fibers, and the use of water. These tools were used by people to cut such as with the hand axe, chopper, adze, and
celt. Also to scrape, chop such as with a flake tool, pound, pierce, roll, pull, leaver, and carry 9000 – 5000 BCE
Building materials included bones such as mammoth ribs, hide, stone, metal, bark, bamboo, clay, lime plaster, and
more. For example, the first bridges made by humans were probably just wooden logs placed across a stream and
later timber trackways. In addition to living in caves and rock shelters, the first buildings were simple shelters, tents
like the Inuit's tupiq, and huts sometimes built as pit-houses meant to suit the basic needs of protection from the
elements and sometimes as fortifications for safety such as the crannog. Built self-sufficiently by their inhabitants
rather than by specialist builders, using locally available materials and traditional designs and methods which
together are called vernacular architecture 9000 – 5000 BCE
The very simplest shelters, tents, leave no traces. Because of this, what little we can say about very early
construction is mostly conjecture and based on what we know about the way nomadic hunter-gatherers and
herdsmen in remote areas build shelters today. The absence of metal tools placed limitations on the materials that
could be worked, but it was still possible to build quite elaborate stone structures with ingenuity using dry stone
walling techniques such as at Skara Brae in Scotland, Europe's most complete Neolithic village. The first mud bricks,
formed with the hands rather than wooden moulds, belong to the late Neolithic period and were found in Jericho.
One of the largest structures of this period was the Neolithic long house. In all cases of timber framed and log
structures in these very early cultures, only the very lowest parts of the walls and post holes are unearthed in
archaeological excavations, making reconstruction of the upper parts of these buildings largely conjectural.
Neolithic architecture ranges from the tent to the megalith (an arrangement of large stones) and rock-cut
architecture which are frequently temples, tombs, and dwellings. The most remarkable Neolithic structure in
Western Europe is the iconic megalith known as Stonehenge, regarded by some archaeologists as displaying
methods of timber construction such as at woodhenge translated into stone,[2] a process known as petrification.
The now ruinous remains are of post and lintel construction and include massive sandstone lintels which were
located on supporting uprights by means of mortise and tenon joints; the lintels themselves being end-jointed by the
use of tongue and groove joints.[3] There is also evidence of prefabrication of the stonework; the symmetrical
geometric arrays of stone clearly indicate that the builders of Stonehenge had mastered sophisticated surveying
methods.[4] Neolithic villages large enough to have rural and urban features are called proto-cities to distinguish
them from cities beginning with Eridu 9000 – 5000 BCE
The Copper Age is the early part of the Bronze Age. Bronze is made when tin is added to copper and brass is copper
with zinc. Copper came into use before 5000 BC and bronze around 3100 BC, although the times vary by region.
Copper and bronze were used for the same types of tools as stone such as axes and chisels, but the new, less brittle,
more durable material cut better. Bronze was cast into desired shapes and if damaged could be recast. A new tool
developed in the copper age is the saw. Other uses of copper and bronze were to "harden" the cutting edge of tools
such as the Egyptians using copper and bronze points for working soft stone including quarrying blocks and making
rock-cut architecture 5000 – 3100 BCE
During the Bronze Age the corbelled arch came into use such as for beehive tombs. The wheel came into use but was
not common until much later. Heavy loads were moved on boats, sledges (a primitive sled) or on rollers. The
Egyptians began building stone temples with the post and lintel construction method and the Greeks and Romans
followed this style 3100 BCE

The Iron Age is a cultural period from roughly 1200 BC to 50 BC with the widespread use of iron for tools and
weapons. Iron is not much harder than bronze but by adding carbon iron becomes steel which was being produced
after about 300 BC. Steel can be hardened and tempered producing a sharp, durable cutting edge. A new
woodworking tool allowed by the use of steel is the hand-plane 1200 – 50 BCE

Ancient Mesopotamia

The earliest large-scale buildings for which evidence survives have been found in ancient Mesopotamia. The smaller
dwellings only survive in traces of foundations, but the later civilizations built very sizeable structures in the forms of
palaces, temples and ziggurats and took particular care to build them out of materials that last, which has ensured
that very considerable parts have remained intact. Major technical achievement is evidenced by the construction of
great cities such as Uruk and Ur. The Ziggurat of Ur is an outstanding building of the period, despite major
reconstruction work. Another fine example is the ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil in modern Iran. Cities created demands
for new technologies such as drains for animal and human sewage and paved streets.
Archaeological evidence has shown the existence of pitched-brick vaults such as at Tell al-Rimah in what is now Iraq.

The chief building material was the mud-brick, formed in wooden moulds similar to those used to make adobe
bricks. Bricks varied widely in size and format from small bricks that could be lifted in one hand to ones as big as
large paving slabs. Rectangular and square bricks were both common. They were laid in virtually every bonding
pattern imaginable and used with considerable sophistication. Drawings survive on clay tablets from later periods
showing that buildings were set out on brick modules. By 3500 BC, fired bricks came into use and surviving records
show a very complex division of labour into separate tasks and trades. Fired bricks and stone were used for
pavement.
Life in general was governed by complex ritual and this extended to rituals for setting-out buildings and moulding the
first bricks. Contrary to popular belief the arch was not invented by the Romans, but was used in these civilizations.
The later Mesopotamian civilizations, particularly Babylon and thence Susa, developed glazed brickwork to a very
high degree, decorating the interiors and exteriors of their buildings with glazed brick reliefs, examples of which
survive in the Tehran archaeological museum, the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

Ancient Egypt

Adobe (sun-baked mud brick) construction was used for ancillary buildings and normal houses in ancient times and is
still commonly used in rural Egypt. The hot, dry climate was ideal for mud-brick, which tends to wash away in the
rain. The Ramesseum in Thebes, Egypt (Luxor) provides one of the finest examples of mud brick construction.
Extensive storehouses with mud-brick vaults also survive, all constructed with sloping courses to avoid the need for
formwork.
The grandest buildings were constructed in stone, often from massive masonry blocks. The techniques used to move
massive blocks used in pyramids and temples have been subject to extensive debate. Some authors have suggested
that the larger may not be cut stone but fabricated with concrete.
Although the Egyptians achieved extraordinary feats of engineering, they appear to have done so with relatively
primitive technology. As far as is known they did not use wheels or pulleys. They transported massive stones over
great distances using rollers, ropes and sledges hauled by large numbers of workers. The ancient Egyptians are
credited with inventing the ramp, lever, lathe, oven, ship, paper, irrigation system, window awning, door, glass, a
form of plaster of Paris, the bath, lock, shadoof, weaving, a standardized measurement system, geometry, silo, a
method of drilling stone, saw, steam power, proportional scale drawings, enamelling, veneer, plywood, rope truss,
and more. There are no surviving Egyptian manuals so there has been considerable speculation on how stones were
lifted to great heights and obelisks erected. Most theories centre on the use of ramps.
Imhotep, who lived circa 2650–2600 BCE, is credited with being the first recorded architect and engineer

The pyramids are chiefly impressive for their enormous size and the staggering manpower that must have been
employed in their construction. The largest is the Great Pyramid of Giza which remained the tallest structure in the
world for 3800 years (see List of tallest freestanding structures in the world). The engineering problems involved
were chiefly to do with the transport of blocks, sometimes over long distances, their movement into location and
exact alignment. It is now generally agreed that the skilled building workers were respected and well treated, but
undoubtedly very large numbers of labourers were necessary to provide the brute force.
The methods used in the construction of the pyramids have been the subject of considerable research and
discussion (see: Egyptian pyramid construction techniques).

Ancient Greece

The ancient Greeks, like the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, tended to build most of their common buildings out
of mud brick, leaving no record behind them. However many structures do survive, some of which are in a very good
state of repair, although some have been partly reconstructed or re-erected in the modern era. The most dramatic
are the Greek Temples. The Greeks made many advances in technology including plumbing, the spiral staircase,
central heating, urban planning, the water wheel, the crane, and more.
The oldest "construction drawing" is in the Temple of Apollo at Didyma. An unfinished stone wall was etched with
the profiles of columns and moldings, and the wall was never finished so the drawing was not erased: a rare glimpse
into the history of working construction drawings.[6]
A copy of a wall painting in the tomb of Rekhmire between 1550 and 1292 BC.
No timber structures survive (roofs, floors etc.), so our knowledge of how these were put together is limited. The
spans are, in the main, limited and suggest very simple beam and post structures spanning stone walls. For the
longer spans it is uncertain if the Greeks or Romans invented the truss but the Romans certainly used timber roof
trusses. Before 650 B.C.E. the now famous ancient Greek temples were built of wood, but after this date began to be
built of stone.[7] The process of a timber structure being repeated in stone is called petrification[8] or "petrified
carpentry".
Fired clay was mainly restricted to roofing tiles and associated decorations, but these were quite elaborate. The roof
tiles allow a low roof pitch characteristic of ancient Greek architecture. Fired bricks began to be employed with lime
mortar. Very prominent buildings were roofed in stone tiles, which mimicked the form of their terracotta
counterparts. While later cultures tended to construct their stone buildings with thin skins of finished stones over
rubble cores, the Greeks tended to build out of large cut blocks, joined with metal cramps. This was a slow,
expensive and laborious process which limited the number of buildings that could be constructed. The metal cramps
often failed through corrosion.
Building structures mostly used a simple beam and column system without vaults or arches, which based strict limits
on the spans that could achieved. However, the Greeks did construct some groin vaults, arch bridges and, with the
Egyptians, the first "high rise", the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Greek mathematics was technically advanced and we know for certain that they employed and understood the
principles of pulleys, which would have enabled them to build jibs and cranes to lift heavy stonework to the upper
parts of buildings. Their surveying skills were exceptional, enabling them to set out the incredibly exact optical
corrections of buildings like the Parthenon, although the methods used remain a mystery. Simpler decoration, such
as fluting on columns, was simply left until the drums of the columns were cut in place.
The ancient Greeks never developed the strong mortars which became an important feature of Roman construction.

Roman Empire

In striking contrast to previous cultures, an enormous amount is known about Roman building construction. A very
large amount survives, including complete intact buildings like the Pantheon, Rome and very well preserved ruins at
Pompeii and Herculaneum. We also have the first surviving treatise on architecture by Vitruvius which includes
extensive passages on construction techniques.

The great Roman development in building materials was the use of hydraulic lime mortar called Roman cement.
Previous cultures had used lime mortars but by adding volcanic ash called a pozzolana the mortar would harden
under water. This provided them with a strong material for bulk walling. They used brick or stone to build the outer
skins of the wall and then filled the cavity with massive amounts of concrete, effectively using the brickwork as
permanent shuttering (formwork). Later they used wooden shuttering that was removed for the concrete to cure.
An example of a temple made of Roman concrete in the 1st century BC is the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy. The
concrete was made of nothing more than rubble and mortar. It was cheap and very easy to produce and required
relatively unskilled labour to use, enabling the Romans to build on an unprecedented scale. They not only used it for
walls but also to form arches, barrel vaults and
An illustration showing masonry techniques of ancient Greece and Rome.
Reconstructed Roman treadwheel crane at Bonn, Germany domes, which they built over huge spans. The Romans
developed systems of hollow pots for making their domes and sophisticated heating and ventilation systems for
their thermal baths.
The Romans substituted bronze for wood in the roof truss(s) of the Pantheon's portico which was commissioned
between 27 BC and 14 AD. The bronze trusses were unique but in 1625 Pope Urban VIII had the trusses replaced
with wood and melted the bronze down for other uses. The Romans also made bronze roof tiles
Lead was used for roof covering material and water supply and waste pipes. The Latin name for lead is plumbum
thus plumbing. Romans also made use of glass in construction with colored glass in mosaics and clear glass for
windows. Glass came to be fairly commonly used in windows of public buildings. Central heating in the form of a
hypocaust, a raised floor heated by the exhaust of a wood or coal fire.

The Romans had trade guilds. Most construction was done by slaves or free men. The use of slave labour
undoubtedly cut costs and was one of the reasons for the scale of some of the structures. The Romans placed a
considerable emphasis in building their buildings extremely fast, usually within two years. For very large structures
the only way this could be achieved was by the application of vast numbers of workers to the task.

The invention of the waterwheel, sawmill, arch, and were by the Romans. The Romans also began using glass for
architectural purposes after about 100 CE and used double glazing as insulated glazing. Roman roads included
corduroy roads and paved roads, sometimes supported on raft or pile foundations and bridges. Vitruvius gives
details of many Roman machines. The Romans developed sophisticated timber cranes allowing them to lift
considerable weights to great heights. The upper limit of lifting appears to have been about 100 tonnes. Trajan's
column in Rome contains some of the largest stones ever lifted in a Roman building, and engineers are still uncertain
exactly how it was achieved.
A list of the longest, highest and deepest Roman structures can be found in the List of ancient architectural records.
Roman building ingenuity extended over bridges, aqueducts, and covered amphitheatres. Their sewerage and water-
supply works were remarkable and some systems are still in operation today. The only aspect of Roman construction
for which very little evidence survives is the form of timber roof structures, none of which seem to have survived
intact. Possibly, triangulated roof trusses were built, this being the only conceivable way of constructing the
immense spans achieved, the longest exceeding 30 metres (see List of Ancient Greek and Roman roofs).

China
China is a cultural hearth area of eastern Asia, many Far East building methods and styles evolved from China. A
famous example of Chinese construction is the Great Wall of China built between the 7th and 2nd centuries BC. The
Great Wall was built with rammed earth, stones, and wood and later bricks and tiles with lime mortar. Wooden
gates blocked passageways. The oldest archaeological examples of mortise and tenon type woodworking joints were
found in China dating to about 5000 BC.
The Yingzao Fashi is the oldest complete technical manual on Chinese architecture. The Chinese followed the state
rules for thousands of years so many of the ancient, surviving buildings were built with the methods and materials
still used in the 11th century. Chinese temples are typically wooden timber frames on an earth and stone base. The
oldest wooden building is the Nanchan Temple (Wutai) dating from 782 CE. However, Chinese temple builders
regularly rebuild the wooden temples so some parts of these ancient buildings are of different ages. Traditional
Chinese timber frames do not use trusses but rely only on post and lintel construction. An important architectural
element are the dougong bracket sets. The Songyue Pagoda is the oldest brick pagoda dating
The hand plane developed in the Iron Age and was known to be used by the Romans. These Roman planes were
found in Germany and date to the 1st to 3rd century AD to 523 AD. It was built with yellow fired bricks laid in clay
mortar, with twelve sides and fifteen levels of roofs. The Anji Bridge is the worlds oldest "open-spandrel stone
segmental arch bridge" built in 595-605 AD. The bridge is built with sandstone joined with dovetail, iron joints.
Most of the (restored) Great Wall sections we see today were built with bricks, and cut stone blocks/slabs. Where
bricks and blocks weren't available, tamped earth, uncut stones, wood, and even reeds were used as local materials.
Wood was used for forts and as an auxiliary material. Where local timber wasn't enough, they had it delivered in.

In mountain areas, workers quarried stone to build the Great Wall. Using the mountains themselves as footings, the
outer layer of the Great Wall was built with stone blocks (and bricks), and filled with uncut stone and anything else
available (like earth and dead workers).

On the plains Great Wall workers made use of local soil (sand, loess, etc.) and rammed it into compact layers.
Jiayuguan's Great Wall section in west China was mainly built with dusty loess soil — "the most erodible soil on the
planet". It's amazing that sections 2,000 years old still remain mostly intact!

Sand doesn't stick together, so how could a wall be built with sand? Sand was used as a fill material between reed
and willow layers.
West China around Dunhuang is desert. Innovative builders there made use of reeds and willow brought in from
rivers and oases to build a strong wall. Jade Gate Pass (Yumenguan) Great Wall Fort was built with 20-cm layers of
sand and reed, an impressive 9 meters high

The Ming Dynasty Great Wall was mostly built with bricks. To build a strong wall with bricks, they used lime mortar.
Workers built brick and cement factories with local materials near the wall.

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages of Europe span from the 5th to 15th centuries AD from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to
the Renaissance and is divided into Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque periods.
Fortifications, castles and cathedrals were the greatest construction projects. The Middle Ages began with the end of
the Roman era and many Roman building techniques were lost. But some Roman techniques, including the use of
iron ring-beams, appear to have been used in the Palatine Chapel at Aachen, c. 800 AD, where it is believed builders
from the Langobard Kingdom in northern Italy contributed to the work. A revival of stone buildings in the 9th
century and the Romanesque style of architecture began in the late 11th century. Also notable are the stave
churches in Scandinavia.

Most buildings in Northern Europe were constructed of timber until c. 1000 AD. In Southern Europe adobe remained
predominant. Brick continued to be manufactured in Italy throughout the period 600–1000 AD but elsewhere the
craft of brick-making had largely disappeared and with it the methods for burning tiles. Roofs were largely thatched.
Houses were small and gathered around a large communal hall. Monasticism spread more sophisticated building
techniques. The Cistercians may have been responsible for reintroducing brick-making to the area from the
Netherlands, through Denmark and Northern Germany to Poland leading to Backsteingotik. Brick remained the most
popular prestige material in these areas throughout the period. Elsewhere buildings were typically in timber or
where it could be afforded, stone. Medieval stone walls were constructed using cut blocks on the outside of the
walls and rubble infill, with weak lime mortars. The poor hardening properties of these mortars were a continual
problem, and the settlement of the rubble filling of Romanesque and Gothic walls and piers is still a major cause for
concern.

There were no standard textbooks on building in the Middle Ages. Master craftsmen transferred their knowledge
through apprenticeships and from father to son. Trade secrets were closely guarded, as they were the source of a
craftsman's livelihood. Drawings only survive from the later period. Parchment was too expensive to be commonly
used and paper did not appear until the end of the period. Models were used for designing structures and could be
built to large scales. Details were mostly designed at full size on tracing floors, some of which survive.

In general, medieval buildings were built by paid workers. Unskilled work was done by labourers paid by the day.
Skilled craftsmen served apprenticeships or learned their trade from their parents. It is not clear how many women
were members of a guild holding a monopoly on a particular trade in a defined area (usually within the town walls).
Towns were in general very small by modern standards and dominated by the dwellings of a small number of rich
nobles or merchants, and by cathedrals and churches.

Romanesque buildings of the period 600–1100 AD were entirely roofed in timber or had stone barrel vaults covered
by timber roofs. The Gothic style of architecture with its vaults, flying buttresses and pointed gothic arches
developed in the twelfth century, and in the centuries that followed ever more incredible feats of constructional
daring were achieved in stone. Thin stone vaults and towering buildings were constructed using rules derived by trial
and error. Failures were frequent, particularly in difficult areas such as crossing towers.
The pile driver was invented around 1500.

The scale of fortifications and castle building in the Middle Ages was remarkable, but the outstanding buildings of
the period were the Gothic cathedrals with thin masonry vaults and walls of glass. Outstanding examples are:
Beauvais Cathedral, Chartres Cathedral, King's College Chapel and Notre Dame, Paris.

Renaissance

The Renaissance in Italy, the invention of moveable type and the Reformation changed the character of building. The
rediscovery of Vitruvius had a strong influence. During the Middle Ages buildings were designed by the people that
built them. The master mason and master carpenters learnt their trades by word of mouth and relied on experience,
models and rules of thumb to determine the sizes of building elements. Vitruvius however describes in detail the
education of the perfect architect who, he said, must be skilled in all the arts and sciences. Filippo Brunelleschi was
one of the first of the new style of architects. He started life as a goldsmith and educated himself in Roman
architecture by studying ruins. He went on to engineer the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

The major breakthroughs in this period were to do with the technology of conversion. Water mills in most of
western Europe were used to saw timber and convert trees into planks. Bricks were used in ever increasing
quantities. In Italy the brickmakers were organised into guilds although the kilns were mostly in rural areas because
of the risk of fire and easy availability of firewood and brickearth. Brickmakers were typically paid by the brick, which
gave them an incentive to make them too small. As a result, legislation was laid down regulating the minimum sizes
and each town kept measures against which bricks had to be compared. An increasing amount of ironwork was used
in roof carpentry for straps and tension members. The iron was fixed using forelock bolts. The screw-threaded bolt
(and nut) could be made and are found in clockmaking in this period, but they were labour-intensive and thus not
used on large structures. Roofing was typically of terracotta roof tiles. In Italy they followed Roman precedents. In
northern Europe plain tiles were used. Stone, where available, remained the material of choice for prestige
buildings.
The rebirth of the idea of an architect in the Renaissance radically changed the nature of building design. The
Renaissance reintroduced the classical style of architecture. Leon Battista Alberti's treatise on architecture raised the
subject to a new level, defining architecture as something worthy of study by the aristocracy. Previously it was
viewed merely as a technical art, suited only to the artisan. The resulting change in status of architecture and more
importantly the architect is key to understanding the changes in the process of design. The Renaissance architect
was often an artist (a painter or sculptor) who had little knowledge of building technology but a keen grasp of the
rules of classical design. The architect thus had to provide detailed drawings for the craftsmen setting out the
disposition of the various parts. This was what is called the process of design, from the Italian word for drawing.
Occasionally the architect would get involved in particularly difficult technical problems but the technical side of
architecture was mainly left up to the craftsmen. This change in the way buildings were designed had a fundamental
difference on the way problems were approached. Where the Medieval craftsmen tended to approach a problem
with a technical solution in mind, the Renaissance architects started with an idea of what the end product needed to
look like and then searched around for a way of making it work. This led to extraordinary leaps forward in
engineering.

Labour in the Renaissance was much the same as in the Middle Ages: buildings were built by paid workers. Unskilled
work was done by labourers paid by the day. Skilled craftsmen served apprenticeships or learned their trade from
their parents. Craftsmen were organized in guilds which provided a limited form of building regulation in return for
members of the guild holding a monopoly on a particular trade in a defined area (usually within the town walls).
Towns were in general very small by modern standards and dominated by the dwellings of a small number of rich
nobles or merchants and cathedrals and churches.

The wish to return to classical architecture created problems for the Renaissance buildings. The builders did not use
concrete and thus comparable vaults and domes had to be replicated in brick or stone. The greatest technical feats
were undoubtedly in these areas. The first major breakthrough was Brunelleschi's project for the dome of Santa
Maria del Fiore. Brunelleschi managed to devise a way of building a huge dome without formwork, relying instead on
the weight of the bricks and the way they were laid to keep them in position and the shape of the dome to keep it
standing. The exact way the dome was built is still subject to debate today as it is not possible to take the dome
apart to study its construction without destroying it. The dome is a double skin, linked by ribs, with a series of
wooden and stone chains around it at intervals to attempt to deal with hoop stresses.
Brunelleschi's dome was completed (up to the base of the lantern) in 1446. Its size was soon surpassed by the dome
of St Peter's, built using flying scaffolding supported on the cornices and constructed using two stone shells.

Seventeenth Century

The seventeenth century saw the birth of modern science which would have profound effects on building
construction in the centuries to come. The major breakthroughs were towards the end of the century when
architect-engineers began to use experimental science to inform the form of their buildings. However, it was not
until the eighteenth century that engineering theory developed sufficiently to allow sizes of members to be
calculated. Seventeenth-century structures relied strongly on experience, rules of thumb and the use of scale
models.

The major breakthrough in this period was in the manufacture of glass, with the first cast plate glass being
developed in France. Iron was increasingly employed in structures. Christopher Wren used iron hangers to suspend
floor beams at Hampton Court Palace, and iron rods to repair Salisbury Cathedral and strengthen the dome of St
Paul's Cathedral. Most buildings had stone ashlar surfaces covering rubble cores, held together with lime mortar.
Experiments were made mixing lime with other materials to provide a hydraulic mortar, but there was still no
equivalent of the Roman concrete. In England, France and the Dutch Republic, cut and gauged brickwork was used to
provide detailed and ornate facades. The triangulated roof truss was introduced to England and used by Inigo Jones
and Christopher Wren.
Many tools have been made obsolete by modern technology, but the line gauge, plumb-line, the carpenter's square,
the spirit level, and the drafting compass are still in regular use.
Despite the birth of experimental science, the methods of construction in this period remained largely medieval. The
same types of crane that had been used in previous centuries were still being employed. Flying scaffolds were
employed at St Paul's Cathedral, England and in the dome of St Peters, Rome, but otherwise the same types of
timber scaffolding that had been in use centuries before were retained. Cranes and scaffolding depended on timber.
Complex systems of pulleys allowed comparatively large loads to be lifted, and long ramps were used to haul loads
up to the upper parts of buildings.

Eighteenth Century

The eighteenth century saw the development of many the ideas that had been born in the late seventeenth century.
The architects and engineers became increasingly professionalised. Experimental science and mathematical methods
became increasingly sophisticated and employed in buildings. At the same time the birth of the industrial revolution
saw an increase in the size of cities and increase in the pace and quantity of construction.

The major breakthroughs in this period were in the use of iron (both cast and wrought). Iron columns had been used
in Wren's designs for the House of Commons and were used in several early eighteenth-century churches in London,
but these supported only galleries. In the second half of the eighteenth century the decreasing costs of iron
production allowed the construction of major pieces of iron engineering. The Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale (1779) is a
particularly notable example. Large-scale mill construction required fire-proof buildings and cast iron became
increasingly used for columns and beams to carry brick vaults for floors. The Louvre in Paris boasted an early
example of a wrought-iron roof. Steel was used in the manufacture of tools but could not be made in sufficient
quantities to be used for building.
Brick production increased markedly during this period. Many buildings throughout Europe were built of brick, but
they were often coated in lime render, sometimes patterned to look like stone. Brick production itself changed little.
Bricks were moulded by hand and fired in kilns no different to those used for centuries before. Terracotta in the form
of Coade stone was used as an artificial stone in the UK.

Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution was manifested in new kinds of transportation installations, such as railways, canals and
macadam roads. These required large amounts of investment. New construction devices included steam engines,
machine tools, explosives and optical surveying. The steam engine combined with two other technologies which
blossomed in the nineteenth century, the circular saw and machine cut nails, lead to the use of balloon framing and
the decline of traditional timber framing.
As steel was mass-produced from the mid-19th century, it was used, in form of I-beams and reinforced concrete.
Glass panes also went into mass production, and changed from luxury to every man's property.
Plumbing appeared, and gave common access to drinking water and sewage collection.
Building codes have been applied since the 19th century, with special respect to fire safety.

Second Industrial Revolution

With the Second Industrial Revolution in the early 20th century, elevators and cranes made high rise buildings and
skyscrapers possible, while heavy equipment and power tools decreased the workforce needed. Other new
technologies were prefabrication and computer-aided design.
Trade unions were formed to protect construction workers' interests and occupational safety and health. Personal
protective equipment such as hard hats and earmuffs also came into use, and have become mandatory at most sites.
From the 20th century, governmental construction projects were used as a part of macroeconomic stimulation
policies, especially during the Great depression (see New Deal). For economy of scale, whole suburbs, towns and
cities, including infrastructure, are often planned and constructed within the same project (called megaproject if the
cost exceeds US$1 billion), such as Brasília in Brazil, and the Million Programme in Sweden.
In the end of the 20th century, ecology, energy conservation and sustainable development have become more
important issues of construction.
History of Energy
Thermodynamics

The development of steam engines required engineers to develop concepts and formulas that would allow them to
describe the mechanical and thermal efficiencies of their systems. Engineers such as Sadi Carnot, physicists such as
James Prescott Joule, mathematicians such as Émile Clapeyron and Hermann von Helmholtz, and amateurs such as
Julius Robert von Mayer all contributed to the notion that the ability to perform certain tasks, called work, was
somehow related to the amount of energy in the system. In the 1850s, Glasgow professor of natural philosophy
William Thomson and his ally in the engineering science William Rankine began to replace the older language of
mechanics with terms such as "actual energy", "kinetic energy", and "potential energy".[4] William Thomson (Lord
Kelvin) amalgamated all of these laws into the laws of thermodynamics, which aided in the rapid development of
explanations of chemical processes using the concept of energy by Rudolf Clausius, Josiah Willard Gibbs and Walther
Nernst. It also led to a mathematical formulation of the concept of entropy by Clausius, and to the introduction of
laws of radiant energy by Jožef Stefan. Rankine, coined the term "potential energy". In 1881, William Thomson
stated before an audience that:

The very name energy, though first used in its present sense by Dr Thomas Young about the beginning of this
century, has only come into use practically after the doctrine which defines it had ... been raised from mere
formula of mathematical dynamics to the position it now holds of a principle pervading all nature and
guiding the investigator in the field of science.

Over the following thirty years or so this newly developing science went by various names, such as the dynamical
theory of heat or energetics, but after the 1920s generally came to be known as thermodynamics, the science of
energy transformations.

Stemming from the 1850s development of the first two laws of thermodynamics, the science of energy have since
branched off into a number of various fields, such as biological thermodynamics and thermoeconomics, to name a
couple; as well as related terms such as entropy, a measure of the loss of useful energy, or power, an energy flow
per unit time, etc. In the past two centuries, the use of the word energy in various "non-scientific" vocations, e.g.
social studies, spirituality and psychology has proliferated the popular literature.

Conservation of Energy

In 1918 it was proved that the law of conservation of energy is the direct mathematical consequence of the
translational symmetry of the quantity conjugate to energy, namely time. That is, energy is conserved because the
laws of physics do not distinguish between different moments of time (see Noether's theorem).
During a 1961 lecture for undergraduate students at the California Institute of Technology, Richard Feynman, a
celebrated physics teacher and Nobel Laureate, said this about the concept of energy:

There is a fact, or if you wish, a law, governing natural phenomena that are known to date. There is no
known exception to this law—it is exact so far we know. The law is called conservation of energy; it states
that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy that does not change in manifold changes which nature
undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a
numerical quantity, which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism,
or anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number, and when we finish
watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same.