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Wi-fi, dual-flush loos and eight more Australian inventions
Australians are perhaps more famed for their sporting feats than for their technological innovation. But a new children's book, Australia's Greatest Inventions and Innovations, by Christopher Cheng and Lindsay Knight, aims to change that.
Here are 10 eye-catching inventions that come from the land down under.
Wi-fi
John O'Sullivan, an astronomy and space science fellow at Melbourne's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is seen in his home country as the father of wi-fi.
"Some of the original seeds were sown in radio astronomy," says O'Sullivan. "Curiously, it was a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle.
"I certainly had no idea where things would lead. Back then, we set out to do a wireless network at 100 megabits per second.
"Many people thought we had rocks in our head to try do such a thing. We thought it really would be big, but now I look back and I'm just blown away at how big it has become."
Black box flight recorders
The famous "black box" is, in fact, coated with bright heat-resistant paint in order to be spotted easily after a plane crash.
Miss Hobart air accident of 1934
In 1953, it was his brainwave to build a device that recorded voices from the ****pit as well as data from flight instruments.
His premise was this - if the black box could remain in one piece after a crash, the final moments of a doomed flight could be replayed to find out what went wrong and help prevent future catastrophes.
Warren was motivated by a family tragedy. His father was killed in 1934 in one of Australia's earliest air disasters, the loss of Miss Hobart in Bass Strait, between the Australian mainland and Tasmania.
The first models were built in the UK, but the idea was born under the Southern Cross.
Hills clothes hoists
An archetypal, if not hackneyed, image of suburbia in one of the world's most urbanised societies. The idea for a rotating "big metal tree" for drying laundry dates back to the late 19th Century and was patented by Gilbert Toyne, a blacksmith-turned-inventor, in Adelaide in 1926.
But it is fellow south Australian Lance Hill who is best known for making these backyard marvels into household names.
"It's a great energy-saving device," says Debbie Rudder, a curator at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. "Why burn fossil fuels when you can use sunshine? Whereas people in some other countries don't like to have their things seen by the neighbours."
Cochlear implants
Dr Graeme Clark, and the cochlear implant he invented
The bionic ear has brought the wonder of sound into the lives of thousands of people. For this, they must thank the persistence of Sydney doctor Graeme Clark.
In 1967, he began to investigate ways to tap into the cochlea, the part of the ear that hears, with electrodes. His task seemed insurmountable - how could he squeeze 20 wires into the equivalent thickness of a needle?
Inspiration came while on holiday at the beach. Pushing a blade of grass into a seashell that looked like an inner ear provided the light bulb moment inventors crave.
In 1985, the cochlear implant was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
"It's one of my favourites because it is such an amazing idea that has changed so many lives," says Rudder.
Dual-flush toilets
As Australian as turning the off the tap while you brush your teeth. In the world's driest inhabited continent, water-saving measures are religiously embraced.
It was invented in the early 1980s by Bruce Thompson and is a ubiquitous feature in Australian bathrooms and in a growing number around the world.
"We used to put a brick inside the cistern but now the dual-flush loo is fantastic," says Christopher Cheng. "Think about all the water it is saving."
Mountbatten Braillers
The world's first portable battery-powered braille writer for people with impaired vision. Each letter in the braille alphabet is represented by a combination of raised dots and spaces.
"There was an old machine called the Perkins Brailler that was around for many years, but most users found it heavy and clunky," says Rudder.
"The Mountbatten Trust in England decided to have a worldwide competition to design and manufacture an improved version that was lighter in weight. The company in Sydney that developed it was called Quantum and a couple of guys mortgaged their houses in order to get it off the ground."
Super Sopper Rollers
"Aha, here is a backyard invention," says Rudder. "It was invented on the spur of the moment. A fellow was playing golf with some friends. There had been a bit of rain and they said, 'Come on, you're an inventor. Work out how to soak up that water.'"
So the challenge was thrown down to Gordon Withnall in 1974. With his son, he made a giant rolling sponge that soaks up water from rain-soaked fields.
Sports grounds for cricket, gridiron, hockey and horse-racing have all benefited from this super-sized mop.
The smaller model is pushed by hand like a lawn-mower, while the meatier version is motorised and can remove up to 5,830 gallons (26,500 litres) of water an hour.
Ultrasound
One of the greatest gifts to parents around the world - the first glimpse of their unborn child - was developed by the Commonwealth Acoustic Laboratories in Sydney.
Ultrasound is a way to examine the health of a foetus without using potentially damaging X-rays. It generates high frequency sound waves inaudible to human ears, and has revolutionised pre-natal care and diagnosis of tumours and other conditions.
The technology bounces ultrasound echoes off soft parts of the body to produce pictures on a screen.
Disposable syringes
We owe this life-saving therapeutic tool to the expertise of a toy-maker from South Australia.
The development of a convenient and efficient syringe became imperative with the arrival of the penicillin. The bacterial-fighting wonder drug tended to clog up glass syringes and make them difficult to reuse. In 1949, an Austrian immigrant Charles Rothauser found the answer after making the world's first plastic, disposable hypodermic syringe at a factory in Adelaide, where he had manufactured plastic toys.
His early creations were cast in polyethylene, a common plastic, before his designs were simplified when polypropylene, a more durable polymer, became widely available. His simple invention has helped to save millions of lives around the world.
Plastic banknotes
The polymer notes even survive being dunked in water then frozen
In the late 1960s, government scientists were asked by the Reserve Bank of Australia to create a banknote that could not be forged, following the introduction of a new decimal currency.
The solution was a transparent panel and hologram embedded in the note, which would be made of plastic.
The waterproof notes were first released in 1988. Australia now boasts a currency that confounds the counterfeiters, and one that lasts four times longer than its paper cousins.
there you go, not bad for a bunch of Ex cons...................
cheeRS
Australians are perhaps more famed for their sporting feats than for their technological innovation. But a new children's book, Australia's Greatest Inventions and Innovations, by Christopher Cheng and Lindsay Knight, aims to change that.
Here are 10 eye-catching inventions that come from the land down under.
Wi-fi
John O'Sullivan, an astronomy and space science fellow at Melbourne's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is seen in his home country as the father of wi-fi.
"Some of the original seeds were sown in radio astronomy," says O'Sullivan. "Curiously, it was a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle.
"I certainly had no idea where things would lead. Back then, we set out to do a wireless network at 100 megabits per second.
"Many people thought we had rocks in our head to try do such a thing. We thought it really would be big, but now I look back and I'm just blown away at how big it has become."
Black box flight recorders
The famous "black box" is, in fact, coated with bright heat-resistant paint in order to be spotted easily after a plane crash.
Miss Hobart air accident of 1934
- De Havilland Express liner Miss Hobart (of the type pictured) went missing on Bass Strait
- 12 people - 10 passengers, two crew - died
- Only small amount of wreckage ever found - cause reckoned to be human error and poor aircraft design
In 1953, it was his brainwave to build a device that recorded voices from the ****pit as well as data from flight instruments.
His premise was this - if the black box could remain in one piece after a crash, the final moments of a doomed flight could be replayed to find out what went wrong and help prevent future catastrophes.
Warren was motivated by a family tragedy. His father was killed in 1934 in one of Australia's earliest air disasters, the loss of Miss Hobart in Bass Strait, between the Australian mainland and Tasmania.
The first models were built in the UK, but the idea was born under the Southern Cross.
Hills clothes hoists
An archetypal, if not hackneyed, image of suburbia in one of the world's most urbanised societies. The idea for a rotating "big metal tree" for drying laundry dates back to the late 19th Century and was patented by Gilbert Toyne, a blacksmith-turned-inventor, in Adelaide in 1926.
But it is fellow south Australian Lance Hill who is best known for making these backyard marvels into household names.
"It's a great energy-saving device," says Debbie Rudder, a curator at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. "Why burn fossil fuels when you can use sunshine? Whereas people in some other countries don't like to have their things seen by the neighbours."
Cochlear implants
Dr Graeme Clark, and the cochlear implant he invented The bionic ear has brought the wonder of sound into the lives of thousands of people. For this, they must thank the persistence of Sydney doctor Graeme Clark.
In 1967, he began to investigate ways to tap into the cochlea, the part of the ear that hears, with electrodes. His task seemed insurmountable - how could he squeeze 20 wires into the equivalent thickness of a needle?
Inspiration came while on holiday at the beach. Pushing a blade of grass into a seashell that looked like an inner ear provided the light bulb moment inventors crave.
In 1985, the cochlear implant was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
"It's one of my favourites because it is such an amazing idea that has changed so many lives," says Rudder.
Dual-flush toilets
As Australian as turning the off the tap while you brush your teeth. In the world's driest inhabited continent, water-saving measures are religiously embraced.
- Australia's Great Inventions and Innovations is written by Christopher Cheng and Lindsay Knight
- The project is supported by Sydney's Powerhouse Museum
It was invented in the early 1980s by Bruce Thompson and is a ubiquitous feature in Australian bathrooms and in a growing number around the world.
"We used to put a brick inside the cistern but now the dual-flush loo is fantastic," says Christopher Cheng. "Think about all the water it is saving."
Mountbatten Braillers
The world's first portable battery-powered braille writer for people with impaired vision. Each letter in the braille alphabet is represented by a combination of raised dots and spaces.
"There was an old machine called the Perkins Brailler that was around for many years, but most users found it heavy and clunky," says Rudder.
"The Mountbatten Trust in England decided to have a worldwide competition to design and manufacture an improved version that was lighter in weight. The company in Sydney that developed it was called Quantum and a couple of guys mortgaged their houses in order to get it off the ground."
Super Sopper Rollers
"Aha, here is a backyard invention," says Rudder. "It was invented on the spur of the moment. A fellow was playing golf with some friends. There had been a bit of rain and they said, 'Come on, you're an inventor. Work out how to soak up that water.'"
So the challenge was thrown down to Gordon Withnall in 1974. With his son, he made a giant rolling sponge that soaks up water from rain-soaked fields.
Sports grounds for cricket, gridiron, hockey and horse-racing have all benefited from this super-sized mop.
The smaller model is pushed by hand like a lawn-mower, while the meatier version is motorised and can remove up to 5,830 gallons (26,500 litres) of water an hour.
Ultrasound
One of the greatest gifts to parents around the world - the first glimpse of their unborn child - was developed by the Commonwealth Acoustic Laboratories in Sydney.
Ultrasound is a way to examine the health of a foetus without using potentially damaging X-rays. It generates high frequency sound waves inaudible to human ears, and has revolutionised pre-natal care and diagnosis of tumours and other conditions.
The technology bounces ultrasound echoes off soft parts of the body to produce pictures on a screen.
Disposable syringes
We owe this life-saving therapeutic tool to the expertise of a toy-maker from South Australia.
The development of a convenient and efficient syringe became imperative with the arrival of the penicillin. The bacterial-fighting wonder drug tended to clog up glass syringes and make them difficult to reuse. In 1949, an Austrian immigrant Charles Rothauser found the answer after making the world's first plastic, disposable hypodermic syringe at a factory in Adelaide, where he had manufactured plastic toys.
His early creations were cast in polyethylene, a common plastic, before his designs were simplified when polypropylene, a more durable polymer, became widely available. His simple invention has helped to save millions of lives around the world.
Plastic banknotes
The polymer notes even survive being dunked in water then frozen In the late 1960s, government scientists were asked by the Reserve Bank of Australia to create a banknote that could not be forged, following the introduction of a new decimal currency.
The solution was a transparent panel and hologram embedded in the note, which would be made of plastic.
The waterproof notes were first released in 1988. Australia now boasts a currency that confounds the counterfeiters, and one that lasts four times longer than its paper cousins.
there you go, not bad for a bunch of Ex cons...................
cheeRS
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