Description Prologue: In Search of the History of Inventions and Discoveries 8 01 The Age of the First Inventions and Discoveries Humanity's First Discovery, Fire 14 The Discovery of Fire / How Did People Start Fires Long Ago? Hearths for Preserving Embers / What Changes Did the Discovery of Fire Bring? The Beginning of Farming That Changed Human Life 21 The Neolithic Age / How Did Life Change with the Discovery of Farming and Herding? The Development of Farming Tools / The Invention of Pottery The Invention of the Wheel That Created Vehicles 27 The Development of the Wheel The Sumerians' Inventions: Writing and the Days of the Week 32 The Birth of Cuneiform / How Was the Alphabet Created? / The Solar Calendar 02 The Age of Technological Innovation The Invention of Paper for Recording Knowledge 40 Where Did People Write Before Paper Was Invented? Bamboo and Wooden Strips / How Cai Lun Made Paper / The Spread of Paper Around the World The Compass, an Essential Tool for Sailors 48 The Invention of the Compass / How the Compass Works / The Compass That Opened the Age of Exploration Clocks That Tell Accurate Time 56 How to Read a Sundial / The Invention of Various Clocks The Invention of Portable Clocks / Pendulum Motion and Pendulum Clocks 03 The Age of the Scientific Revolution The Calculator, a Convenient Tool for Calculation 64 Clay Counting Tokens / The Birth of Numbers The Abacus, an Ancient Calculating Tool Leibniz's Calculator The Invention of the Thermometer for Measuring Temperature 72 Liquid Thermometers / Gas Thermometers Fahrenheit, Who Made the First Standard Thermometer Celsius and the Celsius Scale / Absolute Temperature (Kelvin) Newton's Discovery of Universal Gravitation 80 Isaac Newton / Newton and Universal Gravitation / Principia Other Inventions of the Scientific Revolution Era 04 The Age of the Industrial Revolution The Two Faces of Dynamite 90 Alfred Nobel / Nitroglycerin The Invention of Dynamite / The Nobel Prize Who Really Invented the Telephone? 100 How Was the Telephone Invented? / Antonio Meucci, the True Inventor of the Telephone / Telephone Operators Film, the Art That Shows Motion 108 The Kinetoscope / The Lumière Brothers and the Cinematograph / The Development of Film Technology The Development of Airplanes / Various Military Aircraft Radio and Television, Essentials of the Digital Society 116 What Is Frequency? / Heinrich Hertz, Who Paved the Way for Broadcasting Reginald Fessenden, Who Succeeded in the First Radio Broadcast Television / John Baird, the Inventor of Television The Nipkow Disk / How Electronic Television Works 05 The Age of Atoms and Electrons The Terrifying Power of the Nucleus, the Atomic Bomb 126 The Atomic Bomb / The First Use of an Atomic Bomb in War The Power of the Atomic Bomb / Atoms and Nuclear Power / Uranium and Plutonium The Manhattan Project / The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) / Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power The Computer, a Revolution in Information and Communication 136 ENIAC, the First Computer / Vacuum Tubes / The Invention of the Transistor Integrated Circuits / Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web / Computer Viruses and Antivirus Software The Satellite, an Invention That Opened the Space Age 144 The Invention of Satellites Based on Newton's Theories / Orbits, the Paths Satellites Travel The Soviet Union's Satellite Development / The United States' Satellite Development What Kinds of Satellites Are There? / Korea's Satellite Development Epilogue: I Will Become an Inventor! 152 Reading Inventions and Discoveries Through the Britannica World Encyclopedia