Showing posts with label inventions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inventions. Show all posts

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Can you name some Japanese things, ideas, or inventions that are not well-known outside of Japan?

 

  1. Machines like rice cookers and vacuum cleaners have power cables that retract inside the machine itself. Extremely convenient.
  2. The Japanese are so honest that usually shops in traditional neighborhoods are unmanned. You have to ring a bell to call someone and pay.
  3. When I first arrived in Japan, this was true everywhere. I remember once, I visited a 500 thousand people city in Yamagata and I never found a single home with a lock on the door.
  4. Once my brother withdrew 600 dollars from an ATM, forgot them there, went back two hours later and the six 10000 yen bills were still there. This is normal.
  5. Trains are so frequent that I never bother find out when the next one is.
  6. Free taxies have a red light, busy ones green.
  7. The language often does not distinguish blue and green, so for example youth is said to be the blue years, the name of the Tokyo neighborhood of Aoyama means blue mountains. Traffic lights are green but said to blue.
  8. on the other hand, the color pencils set for school children includes a color that we do not have. It is called shu 朱, The typical color of Shinto shrines.
  1. Saws cut not when you push,but when you pull. This simple difference has vast consequences. Since the blade is under tension, it can be thin without bending, unlike western tools. Hairline cuts are easy, little energy is required, cuts are more precise.
  2. Japanese can be written from right to left, from left to right, from up down, but not from down up.
  3. The direction you write depends on where you write. Newspaper articles are written vertically, from right to left. Signs on trucks often go from left to right.
  4. With computers and smartphones you write from left to right.
  5. In a Japanese house the entrance is a small room between two doors. Although physically inside, it is considered outside, not inside. Of the two doors, the one to the outside can be opened at will. The one towards the house is unlocked but inviolable. Nobody outside will open it. Because it is considered outside, the mail box used to be here.
  6. Gardens are considered part of the house and must be visible from inside, so that you can enjoy them all the time. That is why you have doors that face the garden, never windows.
  7. A Japanese garden may have no plants, like the famous zen garden at Ryōanji in Kyoto , but it will always have stones.
  8. One of the reasons is the fact that the stones stand for mountains, and mountains are closely tied to ancestor worship.
  9. Ancestors reside in a small altar most people have in their house. Every morning, my wife rings the bell to call her dead parents to their meal. She will leave crackers, sweets and/or some rice.
  10. When possible, cemeteries are always built at a certain height above the community. That way, ancestors can keep an eye on their children and protect them. The same thing is true in Korea. These are the tombs of the royal family, facing Seul.
  1. It was believed that, as time passes, they lose interest in this world and go up the mountain, until they jump in the sky and become stars. This is why stars influence our lives.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Inventions and Discoveries

 What are Inventions and Discoveries?

An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. The invention process is a process within an overall engineering and product development process. It may be an improvement upon a machine or product or a new process for creating an object or a result. Whereas, discovery is the act of detecting something new, or something previously unrecognized as meaningful. 

Here's a list:

Sr.No.InventionPerson
1.Aeroplane

Wright Brothers

2.Air Conditioner

Willis Carrier

3.Atom Bomb

Otto Hahn

4.Braily System

Louis Braille

5.Boson

S.N Bose

6.Ball Pen

Loud

 

7.Cinema

Lumiere Brothers

 

8.Celluloid

Alexander Parkes

9.Coloured Photography

Gabriel Lippmann

10.Diesel Engine

Rudolf Diesel

11.Dynamite

Alfred Nobel

12.Discovery of Solar System

Nicolaus Copernicus

13.Electric Battery

Alessandro Volta

14.Electricity

Michael Faraday

15.Elevator

Elisha Otis

16.Fountain Pen

Lewis Waterman

Image of Lewis Waterman

17.Fahrenheit Scale

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit

18.Film & Photographic goods

Kodak

 

19.Generator

Piciontti

 

20.Gramaphone

Thomas Alva Edison

21.Geometry

Euclid

22.Hydrogen

Henry Cavendish

23.Homoeopathy

Samuel Hahnemann

24.Microbiology, Chemistry

Louis Pasteur

Image of Louis Pasteur

 

25.Aviation (Jet engine)

Sir Frank Whittle

26.Physiology, Medicine (co-discovered insulin)

Frederick Banting

Image of Frederick Banting

27.Physics (induction coil)

Heinrich Ruhmkorff

Image of Heinrich Ruhmkorff

28.Psychology (intelligence test)

Alfred Binet

 

Image of Alfred Binet 

29.Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy

Issac Newton

Image of Isaac Newton

30.Physics Laser

Theodore Maiman

Image of Theodore Maiman

31.Chemistry (Laughing Gas)

Joseph Priestley

32.Polymath (electricity, printing, diplomacy)

Benjamin Franklin

Image of Benjamin Franklin

33.Firearms (Gatling gun)

Dr Richard Gatling

 

34.Microscope (early development)

Hans and Zacharias Janssen

 

35.Physics (Raman effect)

C. V. Raman

 

36.Chemistry (discovered neon gas)

William Ramsay and Morris Travers

         

37.Physics (nuclear fission)

Otto Hahn

 

38.Chemistry (nylon)

Wallace Carothers

39.Chemistry (discovered oxygen)

Joseph Priestley

 

40.Biology (evolution by natural selection)

Charles Darwin

41.Medicine (discovered penicillin)

Alexander Fleming

42.Engineering (pneumatic tire)

John Boyd Dunlop

43.Printing (printing press in Europe)Johannes Gutenberg
45.Raman effect

C.V.Raman

46.Physics, Chemistry (radioactivity)

Marie Curie

47.Engineering (radio technology)

Edwin Howard Armstrong (Alexanderson's work influenced radio transmission)

48.Physics (quantum theory)

Max Planck

49.Engineering (steam engine)James Watt
50.Medicine (stethoscope)René Laennec
51.Engineering (early submarine)David Bushnell
52.Chemistry (thermos flask)

James Dewar

53.Engineering (television)

John Logie Baird

54.Astronomy, Physics (telescope)

Galileo Galilei

55.Physics (nuclear fission)

Otto Hahn

56.Astronomy (discovered Uranus)William Herschel
 
57.Medicine (vaccination)

Edward Jenner

58.Chemistry (vulcanization of rubber)

Charles Goodyear

59.Physics (wireless communication)

Oliver Lodge

60.Engineering (wireless telegraphy)

Guglielmo Marconi

61.Physics (X-ray)Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen