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Fun Trivia: S : Scientists & Inventors

Special Sub-Topic: A Few Well-Known Inventors


What invention did Dr. Paul Winchell patent in the mid-1950s?

    artificial heart. A dentist from Seattle, Dr. Barney Clark, was the first person to receive an artificial heart in 1982. A doctor named William DeVries was the doctor who performed the surgery. This heart put in Dr. Barney Clark was a Jarvik-7, which was designed to keep pumping blood forever. Dr. Clark lived 112 days. Dr. Robert Jarvik, who invented the Jarvik-7 is now perfecting the Jarvik-2000, which is an artificial heart the size of a thumb. In the U.S., in 1998, heart specialist Michael DeBakey implanted the first electric heart.

What did Earle Dickson invent in 1921?
    Band-aid. In 1921, a man named Earle Dickson, who was an employee at Johnson and Johnson, saw that when fixing meals, his wife Josephine was always cutting her fingers. She would apply gauze, and secure it in place with adhesive tape. This was effective in helping to keep it from getting infected, but kept on falling off. Earle set to work creating a different kind of bandage which became known as the Band-aid. He took a piece of tape and put gauze in the center. To keep it from getting infected he applied crinoline to the Band-aid.

What did Jacques E. Brandenberger invent?
    cellophane. Jacques E. Brandenberger was employed as a textile engineer. He got the idea for cellophane at a restaraunt when a waiter spilled an order on the table and had to change the tablecloth.

What did Josephine Cochrane invent in 1886?
    dishwasher. A man named Joel Houghton had patented the first dishwasher, but it worked very poorly. Josephine Cochrane created the first effective one, that actually cleaned dishes. "If nobody else is going to invent one, I'll invent it myself," said Josephine of her descision to create a dishwasher.

What did Chester Greenwood invent?
    earmuffs. Chester invented earmuffs when he was fifteen. He got the idea when he was outside skating, and his ears got so cold he had to wrap his scarf around his head, ending up with two coiled pieces of the scarf around each ear. He later connected a wire in between. Since Chester lived in Farmington, Maine, that is now the "Earmuff Capital of the World".

Which of these did Alan Shugart invent?
    floppy disc. Alan Shugart was a lead engineer at IBM, and his team assisted in the creation of, as it was called, "memory disc". This was in 1971.

What did Harry Wasylyk invent?
    green garbage bags. Harry, from Manitoba, Canada, also had a partner from Ontario, Canada. Harry didn't intend the garbage bags to become a household item; he just wanted to sell them to businesses. The first garbage bags were sold to Winnipeg General Hospital.

What item did Christopher Cockerell invent in 1956?
    hovercraft. The hovercraft was invented by Christopher Cockerell, because he wanted to build a vehicle that could fly over water's surface. Christopher even got knighted in 1969 because of his invention.

Which of these items was invented by Sarah Boone?
    ironing board. Sarah Boone reinvented the ironing board on April 26, 1892 when she submitted an upgrade to the ironing board. Sarah lived in New Haven, Connecticut.

What did John Spilsbury originate in 1767?
    jigsaw puzzle. John formulated the idea for a jigsaw puzzle when he fastened a map (he worked as a mapmaker) to wood and carved every country.


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