Ever wonder what the world have been like if we never had electricity, modern medicine, or the computer? Here are some inventions that helped make our world the way it is today, as shared by SFGate.
Antibiotics
Alexander Fleming discovered the active substance that he termed “penicillin” while working on the influenza virus. Fleming made this discover by observing that mold had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mold had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. He was inspired to further experiment and he found that a mold culture prevented the growth of staphylococci, which verified his discovery. To this day, penicillin is used to treat a host of bacterial infections.
Pasteurization
Louis Pasteur developed the process now known as “pasteurization,” which is a process of heating a food to a specific temperature for a definite length of time and then cooling it immediately in order to reduce the number of viable pathogens that may cause disease.
Modern Automobile
Karl Benz patented all of the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in cars. Karl Benz and his wife Bertha Ringer Benz were the founders of the Mercedes Benz automobile manufacturing company.
Electronic Digital Computer
John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry constructed the first electronic computer with vacuum tubes while working for Iowa State College. The Atanasoff-Berry computer was the first digital computer, and introduced the concepts of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory and logic circuits.