Inventors stick to suspicion

Some recent research shows that Galileo Galilee may not be the inventor of the telescope, Alexander Fleming was not the first to discover penicillin and Graham Bell could eventually not invent the phone. . Let's page Cracked review some big names suspected of being the inventors of ideas.

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Galileo Galilee

Galileo Galilee is often known as an renowned Italian astronomer and physicist and mathematician. If you ask any ordinary high school student about Galileo's life contribution to science, the answer is mostly "telescope". However, much evidence shows that Galileo did not invent this device.

So who is really the first person to invent a telescope?

Although everyone was looking at the stars in the sky, no one did it seriously and invested as much as a Dutchman named Hans Lippershey. In 1608, Lippershey completed the first telescope in the world and intended to apply for a patent for the invention, but was rejected for some unknown reason.

In a few countries, when Galileo heard about Lippershey's work, he quickly built his telescope in 1609. And the thing to note here is, Galileo's telescope model can only look far away. a little more than Lippershey's invention.

Another special feature is, although Galileo never registered a telescope copyright, his name always means the invention of the device, while Lippershey's name is almost absent from the Old textbooks. In addition, four moons surrounding Jupiter are named after Galileo while only one hole on Earth's Moon is called Lippershey.

Alexander Fleming

Alexander Fleming is the name people often think of when referring to penicillin. There is even a compelling story that comes with it. Anecdotally, Fleming's father saved a boy from drowning in Scotland, and the boy's father pledged to sponsor Fleming's education in return. Finally, Fleming graduated from medical school and discovered the healing nature of penicillin, which later saved Winston Churchill's life - the Second World War prime minister when he had pneumonia. And Winston Churchill was the same boy who was once saved by Fleming's father.

However, all of this is fictitious because Churchill is not treated with penicillin and, more importantly, Fleming is not the discoverer of this drug.

So in fact, who was the first person to discover penicillin? It is difficult to get the correct answer. Aboriginal people in North Africa have used penicillin for thousands of years.

In addition, in 1897, Ernest Duchesne used penicillium mold to treat typhoid in hamsters - an experiment that showed he understood penicillin's abilities. At that time, other scientists did not seriously consider Duchesne's work because of his age and the scientist's strange interest in guinea-pigs. Therefore, Duchesne never received a patent for his findings. He died about 10 years later because a disease could be cured with penicillin.

Even when Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin many years later, he did not believe it could really help someone. So he stopped researching on it. Meanwhile, a few other scientists such as Howard Florey, Norman Heatley, Andrew Moyer and Ernst Chain have begun studying penicillin. They eventually mastered penicillin and found a way to mass produce it.

The fact is, although Fleming was not the first to discover that penicillin did not really believe in the therapeutic usefulness of this drug, his name still went down in history as the one who discovered it. penicillin and save Winston Churchill.

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell, whose name is closely associated with the birth of the phone, was not the inventor of this useful item after all. In 1860, an Italian named Antonio Meucci unveiled his operable phone for the first time as "teletrofono". 11 years later (ie 5 years before Bell's phone appeared), Meucci filed a temporary patent for her invention. But in 1874, Meucci did not pay 10 USD, it was necessary to extend the patent because he is now ill and poor.

Two years later, Bell registered the patent for the phone. Of course, at the time, Meucci tried to sue by taking back the initial sketches and plans he sent to a laboratory at Western Union, but surprisingly all these records turned out to be lost. Where was Bell working then? An odd coincidence is that it was in the laboratory that Meucci swore to send his sketches there. Finally, Meucci died in a penniless situation and the name gradually went into oblivion.

Will Bell, with his advantageous position at Western Union, destroy the Meucci records to be able to claim that the phone is his invention? It is difficult to answer. Some people are suspicious of "yes" , others are "probably". That would make sense when we look at the fact that Bell is the person who makes many important inventions and it is not unreasonable to assume that he may have become greedy and does not want to witness anyone else. success. Moreover, why does Bell need a telephone while both his wife and his mother are deaf?

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison - "wizard in Menlo Park" is considered one of the most inventive inventors in the history of the world with a record of holding 1,093 patents in his name. Some inventions were assigned to Edison, although he was not the first person to have an idea about them. However, after the original patents were changed, they became Edison's (most famously the patent for the light bulb) despite the fact that it was the invention of many people in his company. .

For the light bulb case, who is the real inventor of this lighting device?

Many people had the idea of ​​making light bulbs like Jean Foucault, Humphrey Davy, JW Starr, . but Heinrich Goebel was probably the first person to actually invent it in 1854. Goebel tried to sell inventions. to Edison but was refused on the grounds that Edison did not see the usefulness of Goebel's invention. Not long after that, Goebel died and shortly after, Edison bought Goebel's invention from his poor widow for much less than its true value.

After Goebel and a year before Edison "invented" his light bulb, Joseph Wilson Swan developed and applied for a patent for a working light bulb. When he was sure he could not win the Swan case in court, Edison invited him to become a partner, founded Ediswan Partnership Company and bought Swan's invention.

Quickly, Edison gained more power and paid off the ransom, forcing Swan to completely give up all the light-related records for Edison. Surely Swan was compensated a lot, but by acquiring the entire file, Edison made his name the only inventor in the patent patent.