Dutch inventions and discoveries
Encyclopedia
The Dutch people
have a history
and tradition
in inventing and discovery
. Dutch scientists and engineers have made a remarkable contribution to human progress as a whole, from something as simple as the sawmill to microbiology and artificial organs.
1569 Mercator projection
The standard map projection for nautical purposes that supports rhumb lines.
1585 (est.) Yacht
Originally defined as a light, fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries. Later, yachts came to be perceived as luxury, or recreational vessels.
1590 Microscope
In 1590 the Dutchmen Hans and Zacharias Janssen
(Father and son) invented the first compound microscope. It would have a single glass lens of short focal length
for the objective, and another single glass lens for the eyepiece
or ocular. A resident of Delft, Anton van Leeuwenhoek
, effectively launched high-power microscopy using single-lens, simple microscopes. With these modest instruments he discovered the world of micro-organisms. Modern microscopes are far more complex, with multiple lens components in both objective and eyepiece assemblies. These multi-component lenses are designed to reduce aberrations
, particularly chromatic aberration
and spherical aberration
. In modern microscopes the mirror is replaced by a lamp unit providing stable, controllable illumination.
1594 Wind powered sawmill
Cornelis Corneliszoon
(Born 1550 in Uitgeest
- died 1600) was the inventor of the wind powered sawmill. Prior to the invention of sawmills, boards were rived and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a whipsaw using saddleblocks to hold the log and a pit for the pitman who worked below and got the benefit of the sawdust in his eyes. Sawing was slow and required strong and enduring men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had the advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline.
Early sawmills simply adapted the whipsaw to mechanical power, generally driven by a water wheel
to speed up the process. The circular motion of the wheel was changed to back-and-forth motion of the saw blade by a pitman thus introducing a term used in many mechanical applications. A pitman is similar to a crankshaft but used in reverse. A crankshaft converts back-and-forth motion to circular motion.
Generally only the saw was powered and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to steadily move the log through the saw blade.
1602 Multinational corporation
The Dutch East India Company
was the first multinational corporation and the first megacorporation. It was also the first corporation to issue shares of stock
and bonds
.
1606 Stock market
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange
was the first of its kind and it traded the first shares of stock
(from the Dutch East India Company
). Here, the Dutch also pioneered stock futures
, stock options, short selling
, debt-equity swaps, merchant banking, bonds
, unit trusts
and other speculative instruments
. Also, a speculative bubble
that crashed in 1695, and a change in fashion that unfolded and reverted in time with the market.
1608 Telescope
Hans Lippershey
created and disseminated the first practical telescope. Crude telescopes and spyglasses may have been created much earlier, but Lippershey is believed to be the first to apply for a patent
for his design (beating out Jacob Metius
by a few weeks) and make it available for general use in 1608. He failed to receive a patent but was handsomely rewarded by the Dutch government
for copies of his design
. A description of Lippershey's instrument
quickly reached Galileo Galilei
, who created a working design in 1609, with which he made the observations found in his Sidereus Nuncius
of 1610.
There is a legend
that Lippershey's children actually discovered the telescope while playing with flawed lenses in their father's workshop
, but this may be apocrypha
l.
Lippershey crater
, on the Moon
, is named after him.
1620 Submarine
Cornelius Drebbel
, was the inventor of the first navigable submarine, while working for the Royal Navy
. Using William Bourne
's design from 1578, he manufactured a steerable submarine with a leather-covered wooden frame. Between 1620 and 1624 Drebbel successfully built and tested two more submarines, each one bigger than the last. The final (third) model had 6 oar
s and could carry 16 passengers. This model was demonstrated to King James I in person and several thousand Londoners. The submarine stayed submerged for three hours and could travel from Westminster
to Greenwich
and back, cruising at a depth of from 12 to 15 feet (4 to 5 metres). This submarine was tested many times in the Thames
, but never used in combat
1656 Pendulum clock
A pendulum clock uses a pendulum as its time base. From their invention until about 1930, the most accurate clock
s were pendulum
clocks. Pendulum clocks cannot operate on vehicles, because the acceleration
s of the vehicle drive the pendulum, causing inaccuracies. See marine chronometer
for a discussion of the problems of navigational clocks.The pendulum clock was invented by Christian Huygens in 1656, based on the pendulum introduced by Galileo Galilei
.
Pendulum clocks remained the mechanism of choice for accurate timekeeping for centuries, with the Fedchenko observatory clocks produced from after World War II
up to around 1960 marking the end of the pendulum era as time standard
s considered.
Pendulum clocks remain popular for domestic, decorative and antique use.
1673 Fire hose
In Holland, the Superintendent of the Fire Brigade, Jan van der Heyden
, and his son Nicholaas took firefighting to its next step with the fashioning of the first Fire hose
in 1673.
1739 Pyrometer
The pyrometer, invented by Pieter van Musschenbroek
, is a temperature
measuring device, which may consist of several different arrangements. A simple type of pyrometer uses a thermocouple
placed either in the furnace or on the item to be measured. The voltage output of the thermocouple is read from a digital or analog meter calibrated in degrees Celsius
(C) or Fahrenheit
(F). There are many different types of thermocouple available, and these can be used to measure temperatures from -200 °C to above 1500 °C.
1746 Leyden jar
]
The Leyden jar was the original capacitor, developed by Pieter van Musschenbroek
in the 18th century and used to conduct many early experiments in electricity.
The device was a glass jar coated inside and out with metal. The inner coating was connected to a rod that passed through the lid and ended in a metal ball. Typical designs consist of an electrode
and a plate, each of which stores an opposite charge. These two elements are conductive and are separated by an insulator (e.g., the glass dielectric
). The charge is stored at the surface of the elements, at the boundary with the dielectric.
1860 Kipp's apparatus
Kipp's apparatus, also called Kipp generator, is an apparatus designed for preparation of small volumes of gas
es. It was invented around 1860 by the Dutch pharmacist Petrus Jacobus Kipp
and widely used in chemical laboratories and for demonstrations in schools into the second half of the 20th century.
In the 19th century it became clear that the heart generated electricity. The first to systematically approach the heart from an electrical point-of-view was Augustus Waller, working in St Mary's Hospital
in Paddington
, London
. In 1911 he still saw little clinical application for his work. The breakthrough came when Willem Einthoven
, working in Leiden, The Netherlands, used the string galvanometer
invented by him in 1901, which was much more sensitive than the capillary electrometer that Waller used. Einthoven assigned the letters P, Q, R, S and T to the various deflections, and described the electrocardiographic features of a number of cardiovascular disorders. He was awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery.
1903 Four-wheel drive
In 1903, the Dutch car manufacturer Spyker
introduces the first four-wheel drive car, as well as hill-climb racer, with internal combustion engine, the Spyker 60 H.P..
1926 Pentode
A pentode is an electronic device having five active electrode
s. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid vacuum tube
(thermionic valve), which was invented by the Dutchman Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926.
The same holds in a typical microscope, i.e., although the phase variations introduced by the sample are preserved by the instrument (at least in the limit of the perfect imaging instrument) this information is lost in the process which measures the light. In order to make phase variations observable, it is necessary to combine the light passing through the sample with a reference so that the resulting interference reveals the phase structure of the sample.
This was first realized by Frits Zernike
during his study of diffraction gratings. During these studies he appreciated both that it is necessary to interfere with a reference beam, and that to maximise the contrast achieved with the technique, it is necessary to introduce a phase shift to this reference so that the no-phase-change condition gives rise to completely destructive interference.
He later realized that the same technique can be applied to optical microscopy. The necessary phase shift is introduced by rings etched accurately onto glass plates so that they introduce the required phase shift when inserted into the optical path of the microscope. When in use, this technique allows phase of the light passing through the object under study to be inferred from the intensity of the image produced by the microscope. This is the phase-contrast technique.
In optical microscopy many objects such as cell parts in protozoans, bacteria and sperm tails are essentially fully transparent unless stained (and therefore killed). The difference in densities and composition within these objects however often give rise to changes in the phase of light passing through them, hence they are sometimes called "phase objects". Using the phase-contrast technique makes these structures visible and allows their study with the specimen still alive.
This phase contrast technique proved to be such an advancement in microscopy that Zernike was awarded the Nobel prize
(physics) in 1953.
1939 Submarine snorkel
A submarine snorkel is a device that allows a submarine to operate submerged while still taking in air from above the surface. It was invented by the Dutchman J.J.Wichers shortly before World War II and copied by the Germans during the war for use by U-Boats. Its common military name is snort.
1939 Philishave
Philishave was the brand name for the electric shavers manufactured by the Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care unit of Philips
(in the U.S.A., the Norelco
name is used instead). The Philishave shaver was invented by Philips engineer Alexandre Horowitz
, who used rotating cutters instead of the reciprocating cutters that had been used in previous electric shavers.
1943 Artificial kidney (Hemodialysis
An artificial kidney is the machine and its related devices which allow to clean the blood of patients who have a temporary (acute) or an ongoing (chronic) failure of their kidneys. The first artificial kidney was developed by Willem Johan Kolff. The procedure of cleaning the blood by this means is called dialysis, a type of renal replacement therapy
which is used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney
function due to renal failure
. It is a life support
treatment and does not treat any kidney diseases.
1948 Gyrator
A gyrator is a passive
, linear, lossless, two-port
electrical network element
invented in 1948 by Dutchman Bernard D. H. Tellegen
as a hypothetical fifth linear element
after the resistor
, capacitor
, inductor
and ideal transformer.
Dutch
company Gatsometer BV, founded by the 1950s rally driver Maurice Gatsonides
, invented the first traffic enforcement camera. Gatsonides wished to better monitor his speed around the corners of a race track and came up with the device in order to improve his time around the circuit http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds05/text/50608-10.htm. The company developed the first radar
for use with road traffic
, and is the world's largest supplier of speed camera systems. Because of this, in some countries speed cameras are sometimes referred to as "Gatso
s". They are also sometimes referred to as "photo radar", even though many of them do not use radar.
The first systems introduced in the late 1960s used film cameras to take their pictures. From the late 1990s, digital camera
s began to be introduced. Digital cameras can be fitted with a modem
or other electronic interface to transfer images to a central processing location automatically, so they have advantages over film cameras in speed of issuing fines, and operational monitoring. However, film-based systems still generally provide superior image quality in the variety of lighting conditions encountered on road
s, and in some jurisdictions are required by the courts due to the ease with which digital images may be modified. New film-based systems are still being sold.
1962 Compact Cassette
In 1962 Philips
invented the compact audio cassette medium for audio storage
, introducing it in Europe in August 1963 (at the Berlin Radio Show
) and in the United States (under the Norelco
brand) in November 1964, with the trademark
name Compact Cassette.
1969 Laserdisc
Laserdisc technology, using a transparent disc, was invented by David Paul Gregg
in 1958 (and patented in 1961 and 1990). By 1969, Philips
had developed a videodisc in reflective mode, which has great advantages over the transparent mode. MCA
and Philips
decided to join their efforts. They first publicly demonstrated the videodisc in 1972. Laserdisc was first available on the market, in Atlanta, on December 15, 1978, two years after the VHS
VCR and four years before the CD
, which is based on Laserdisc technology. Philips produced the players and MCA the discs.
1979 Compact disc
The compact disc was jointly developed by Philips (Joop Sinjou) and Sony (Toshitada Doi
). In the early 1970s, Philips
' researchers started experiments with "audio-only" optical discs, and at the end of the 1970s, Philips
, Sony
, and other companies presented prototypes of digital audio discs. Philips
publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference titled "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven, The Netherlands on March 8, 1979.
discovered Bear Island, a week before their discovery of Spitsbergen.
1596 Spitsbergen
On 17 June 1596, Dutch explorers Willem Barentsz and Jacob van Heemskerk
discovered Spitsbergen while searching for the Northern Sea Route
.
1597 Novaya Zemlya effect
The first person to record the phenomenon was Gerrit de Veer
, a member of Willem Barentsz' ill-fated third expedition into the polar region. Novaya Zemlya
, the archipelago where de Veer first observed the phenomenon, lends its name to the effect.
1600 Falkland Islands
The first reliable sighting is usually attributed to the Dutch explorer Sebald de Weert
in 1600, who named the archipelago the Sebald Islands, a name they bore on Dutch maps into the 19th century.
1606 Australia
The first undisputed sighting
of Australia
by a European was made on 26 February 1606. The Dutch
vessel Duyfken
, captained by Willem Janszoon
, followed the coast of New Guinea
, missed Torres Strait
, and explored perhaps 350 km of western side of Cape York
, in the Gulf of Carpentaria
, believing the land was still part of New Guinea. The Dutch made one landing, but were promptly attacked by Aborigines and subsequently abandoned further exploration.
1614 Jan Mayen
After unconfirmed reports of Dutch discovery as early as 1611, the island was named after Dutchman Jan Jacobszoon May van Schellinkhout who visited the island in July 1614. As locations of these islands were kept secret by the whalers, Jan Mayen only got its current name in 1620.
1614 Long Island Sound
The first European to record the existence of Long Island Sound was the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block
, who entered the sound from the East River in 1614.
1614 Connecticut River
The first European to see the Connecticut River was the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block
in 1614.
1615 Staten Island
On 25 December 1615, Dutch explorers Jacob le Maire
and Willem Schouten
aboard the Eendracht, discovered Staten Island, close to Cape Horn.
1616 Cape Horn
On 29 January, 1616, the Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le Maire
and Willem Schouten
sighted land they called Cape Horn, after the city of Hoorn in Holland. Aboard the Eendracht was the crew of the recently wrecked ship called Hoorn.
1616 Tonga
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le Maire
and Willem Schouten
discovered Tonga on 21 April 1616.
1616 Hoorn Islands
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le Maire
and Willem Schouten
discovered the Hoorn Islands on 28 April 1616.
1616 New Ireland (island)
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le Maire
and Willem Schouten
discovered the New Ireland around May-July 1616.
1616 Schouten Islands
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le Maire
and Willem Schouten
discovered the Schouten Islands on 24 July 1616.
1624 Hermite Islands
In February 1624, Dutch admiral Jacques l'Hermite
discovered the Hermite Islands at Cape Horn.
1642 Tasmania
In 1642, Abel Tasman
sailed from Mauritius and on 24 November, sighted Tasmania
. He named Tasmania Van Diemen's Land
, after Anthony van Diemen
, the Dutch East India Company
's Governor General at Batavia, who had commissioned his voyage. Tasman claimed Van Diemen's Land for the Netherlands.
1643 Sakhalin
The first European known to visit Sakhalin was Martin Gerritz de Vries, who mapped Cape Patience and Cape Aniva on the island's east coast in 1643.
1643 Kuril Islands
In the summer of 1643, the Castricum, under command of Maarten Gerritsz Vries
sailed by the southern Kuril Islands, visiting Kunashir, Iturup, and Urup, which they named "Company Island" and claimed for the Netherlands.
1655 Rings of Saturn
In 1655, Christiaan Huygens became the first person to suggest that Saturn was surrounded by a ring, after Galileo's much less advanced telescope had failed to show rings. Galileo had reported the anomaly as possibly 3 planets instead of one.
1674 Infusoria
Infusoria is a collective term for minute aquatic creatures like ciliate
, euglena
, paramecium
, protozoa
and unicellular algae
that exist in freshwater pond
water. However, in formal classification microorganism
called infusoria belongs to Kingdom Animal
ia, Phylum Protozoa
, Class Ciliates (Infusoria).They were first discovered by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.
1676 Bacteria
The first bacteria were observed by Anton van Leeuwenhoek
in 1676 using a single-lens microscope of his own design. The creatures he saw were described as small creatures. The name bacterium was introduced much later, by Ehrenberg
in 1828, derived from the Greek word βακτηριον meaning "small stick". Because of the difficulty in describing individual bacteria and the importance of their discovery to fields such as medicine, biochemistry and geochemistry, the history of bacteria is generally described as the history of microbiology
.
σπερμα (seed) and ζων (alive) and more commonly known as a sperm cell, is the haploid
cell
that is the male gamete
. It joins an ovum
to form a zygote
. A zygote can grow into a new organism
, such as a human being. Sperm cells contribute half of the genetic information
to the diploid offspring. In mammals, the sex
of the offspring is determined by the sperm cells: a spermatozoon bearing a Y chromosome
will lead to a male
(XY) offspring, while one bearing an X chromosome will lead to a female
(XX) offspring ( the ovum
always provides an X chromosome). Sperm cells were first observed by a student of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
in 1677. Leeuwenhoek pictured sperm cells with great accuracy.
1722 Easter Island
On Easter Sunday, 5 April 1722, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island.
1722 Samoa
On 13 June 1722, after his discovery of Easter Island, Jacob Roggeveen discovered the Samoa islands.
1779 Orange River
The Orange River was named by Colonel Robert Gordon
, commander of the Dutch East India Company
garrison at Cape Town
, on a trip to the interior in 1779.
1779 Plant respiration and photosynthesis
Photosynthesis and plant respiration is an important biochemical
process in which plant
s, algae, and some bacteria convert the energy of sunlight
to chemical energy. The process was discovered by Jan Ingenhousz
in 1779. The chemical energy is used to drive synthetic reactions such as the formation of sugars or the fixation of nitrogen into amino acids, the building blocks for protein synthesis. Ultimately, nearly all living things depend on energy produced from photosynthesis for their nourishment, making it vital to life on Earth
. It is also responsible for producing the oxygen
that makes up a large portion of the Earth's atmosphere
. Organisms that produce energy through photosynthesis are called photoautotrophs. Plants are the most visible representatives of photoautotrophs, but bacteria and algae also contribute to the conversion of free energy into usable energy.
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
have a history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
in inventing and discovery
Discovery (observation)
Discovery is the act of detecting something new, or something "old" that had been unknown. With reference to science and academic disciplines, discovery is the observation of new phenomena, new actions, or new events and providing new reasoning to explain the knowledge gathered through such...
. Dutch scientists and engineers have made a remarkable contribution to human progress as a whole, from something as simple as the sawmill to microbiology and artificial organs.
1569 Mercator projectionMercator projectionThe Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Belgian geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator, in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant course, known as rhumb lines or loxodromes, as...
The standard map projection for nautical purposes that supports rhumb lines.1585 (est.) YachtYachtA yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...
Originally defined as a light, fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries. Later, yachts came to be perceived as luxury, or recreational vessels.1590 MicroscopeMicroscopeA microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
In 1590 the Dutchmen Hans and Zacharias JanssenZacharias Janssen
Zacharias Jansen was a Dutch spectacle-maker from Middelburg associated with the invention of the first optical telescope. Jansen is sometimes also credited for inventing the first truly compound microscope...
(Father and son) invented the first compound microscope. It would have a single glass lens of short focal length
Focal length
The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light. For an optical system in air, it is the distance over which initially collimated rays are brought to a focus...
for the objective, and another single glass lens for the eyepiece
Eyepiece
An eyepiece, or ocular lens, is a type of lens that is attached to a variety of optical devices such as telescopes and microscopes. It is so named because it is usually the lens that is closest to the eye when someone looks through the device. The objective lens or mirror collects light and brings...
or ocular. A resident of Delft, Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch tradesman and scientist from Delft, Netherlands. He is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and considered to be the first microbiologist...
, effectively launched high-power microscopy using single-lens, simple microscopes. With these modest instruments he discovered the world of micro-organisms. Modern microscopes are far more complex, with multiple lens components in both objective and eyepiece assemblies. These multi-component lenses are designed to reduce aberrations
Aberration in optical systems
Aberrations are departures of the performance of an optical system from the predictions of paraxial optics. Aberration leads to blurring of the image produced by an image-forming optical system. It occurs when light from one point of an object after transmission through the system does not converge...
, particularly chromatic aberration
Chromatic aberration
In optics, chromatic aberration is a type of distortion in which there is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same convergence point. It occurs because lenses have a different refractive index for different wavelengths of light...
and spherical aberration
Spherical aberration
thumb|right|Spherical aberration. A perfect lens focuses all incoming rays to a point on the [[Optical axis|optic axis]]. A real lens with spherical surfaces suffers from spherical aberration: it focuses rays more tightly if they enter it far from the optic axis than if they enter closer to the...
. In modern microscopes the mirror is replaced by a lamp unit providing stable, controllable illumination.
1594 Wind powered sawmillSawmillA sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
Cornelis CorneliszoonCornelis Corneliszoon
Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest, or Krelis Lootjes was a Dutch windmill owner from Uitgeest who invented the wind-powered sawmill, which made the conversion of log timber into planks 30 times faster than before.-Biography:...
(Born 1550 in Uitgeest
Uitgeest
Uitgeest is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.-Population centres :The municipality of Uitgeest consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: Assum, Busch en Dam, Groot Dorregeest, Uitgeest....
- died 1600) was the inventor of the wind powered sawmill. Prior to the invention of sawmills, boards were rived and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a whipsaw using saddleblocks to hold the log and a pit for the pitman who worked below and got the benefit of the sawdust in his eyes. Sawing was slow and required strong and enduring men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had the advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline.
Early sawmills simply adapted the whipsaw to mechanical power, generally driven by a water wheel
Water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...
to speed up the process. The circular motion of the wheel was changed to back-and-forth motion of the saw blade by a pitman thus introducing a term used in many mechanical applications. A pitman is similar to a crankshaft but used in reverse. A crankshaft converts back-and-forth motion to circular motion.
Generally only the saw was powered and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to steadily move the log through the saw blade.
1602 Multinational corporationMultinational corporationA multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
The Dutch East India CompanyDutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
was the first multinational corporation and the first megacorporation. It was also the first corporation to issue shares of stock
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...
and bonds
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...
.
1606 Stock marketStock marketA stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
The Amsterdam Stock ExchangeAmsterdam Stock Exchange
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is the former name for the stock exchange based in Amsterdam. It merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext, and is now known as Euronext Amsterdam.-History:...
was the first of its kind and it traded the first shares of stock
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...
(from the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
). Here, the Dutch also pioneered stock futures
Futures contract
In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract between two parties to exchange a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed today with delivery occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date. The contracts are traded on a futures exchange...
, stock options, short selling
Short selling
In finance, short selling is the practice of selling assets, usually securities, that have been borrowed from a third party with the intention of buying identical assets back at a later date to return to that third party...
, debt-equity swaps, merchant banking, bonds
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...
, unit trusts
Trust law
In common law legal systems, a trust is a relationship whereby property is held by one party for the benefit of another...
and other speculative instruments
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
. Also, a speculative bubble
Stock market bubble
A stock market bubble is a type of economic bubble taking place in stock markets when market participants drive stock prices above their value in relation to some system of stock valuation....
that crashed in 1695, and a change in fashion that unfolded and reverted in time with the market.
1608 TelescopeTelescopeA telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
Hans Lippershey
Hans Lippershey , also known as Johann Lippershey or Lipperhey, was a German-Dutch lensmaker commonly associated with the invention of the telescope, although it is unclear if he was the first to build one.-Biography:...
created and disseminated the first practical telescope. Crude telescopes and spyglasses may have been created much earlier, but Lippershey is believed to be the first to apply for a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for his design (beating out Jacob Metius
Jacob Metius
Jacob Metius was a Dutch instrument-maker and a specialist in grinding lenses. He was born in Alkmaar and was the brother of Adriaan Adriaanszoon...
by a few weeks) and make it available for general use in 1608. He failed to receive a patent but was handsomely rewarded by the Dutch government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
for copies of his design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
. A description of Lippershey's instrument
Optical instrument
An optical instrument either processes light waves to enhance an image for viewing, or analyzes light waves to determine one of a number of characteristic properties.-Image enhancement:...
quickly reached Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
, who created a working design in 1609, with which he made the observations found in his Sidereus Nuncius
Sidereus Nuncius
Sidereus Nuncius is a short treatise published in New Latin by Galileo Galilei in March 1610. It was the first scientific treatise based on observations made through a telescope...
of 1610.
There is a legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
that Lippershey's children actually discovered the telescope while playing with flawed lenses in their father's workshop
Workshop
A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...
, but this may be apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l.
Lippershey crater
Lippershey (crater)
Lippershey is a relatively tiny lunar impact crater located in the southeast section of the Mare Nubium. It is a circular, cup-shaped feature surrounded by the lunar mare...
, on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, is named after him.
1620 SubmarineSubmarineA submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
Cornelius DrebbelCornelius Drebbel
Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel was the Dutch builder of the first navigable submarine in 1620. Drebbel was an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, optics and chemistry....
, was the inventor of the first navigable submarine, while working for the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. Using William Bourne
William Bourne (mathematician)
William Bourne was an English mathematician, innkeeper and former Royal Navy gunner who invented the first navigable submarine and wrote important navigational manuals...
's design from 1578, he manufactured a steerable submarine with a leather-covered wooden frame. Between 1620 and 1624 Drebbel successfully built and tested two more submarines, each one bigger than the last. The final (third) model had 6 oar
Oar
An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Oarsmen grasp the oar at the other end. The difference between oars and paddles are that paddles are held by the paddler, and are not connected with the vessel. Oars generally are connected to the vessel by...
s and could carry 16 passengers. This model was demonstrated to King James I in person and several thousand Londoners. The submarine stayed submerged for three hours and could travel from Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
to Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
and back, cruising at a depth of from 12 to 15 feet (4 to 5 metres). This submarine was tested many times in the Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
, but never used in combat
1656 Pendulum clockPendulum clockA pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a resonant device; it swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates...
A pendulum clock uses a pendulum as its time base. From their invention until about 1930, the most accurate clockClock
A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
s were pendulum
Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
clocks. Pendulum clocks cannot operate on vehicles, because the acceleration
Acceleration
In physics, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity with time. In one dimension, acceleration is the rate at which something speeds up or slows down. However, since velocity is a vector, acceleration describes the rate of change of both the magnitude and the direction of velocity. ...
s of the vehicle drive the pendulum, causing inaccuracies. See marine chronometer
Marine chronometer
A marine chronometer is a clock that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard; it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation...
for a discussion of the problems of navigational clocks.The pendulum clock was invented by Christian Huygens in 1656, based on the pendulum introduced by Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
.
Pendulum clocks remained the mechanism of choice for accurate timekeeping for centuries, with the Fedchenko observatory clocks produced from after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
up to around 1960 marking the end of the pendulum era as time standard
Time standard
A time standard is a specification for measuring time: either the rate at which time passes; or points in time; or both. In modern times, several time specifications have been officially recognized as standards, where formerly they were matters of custom and practice. An example of a kind of time...
s considered.
Pendulum clocks remain popular for domestic, decorative and antique use.
1673 Fire hoseFire hoseA fire hose is a high-pressure hose used to carry water or other fire retardant to a fire to extinguish it. Outdoors, it is attached either to a fire engine or a fire hydrant. Indoors, it can be permanently attached to a building's standpipe or plumbing system...
In Holland, the Superintendent of the Fire Brigade, Jan van der HeydenJan van der Heyden
Jan van der Heyden was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, draughtsman, printmaker, a mennonite and inventor who significantly contributed to contemporary firefighting. He improved the fire hose in 1672, with his brother Nicolaes, who was a hydraulic engineer...
, and his son Nicholaas took firefighting to its next step with the fashioning of the first Fire hose
Fire hose
A fire hose is a high-pressure hose used to carry water or other fire retardant to a fire to extinguish it. Outdoors, it is attached either to a fire engine or a fire hydrant. Indoors, it can be permanently attached to a building's standpipe or plumbing system...
in 1673.
1739 PyrometerPyrometerA pyrometer is a non-contacting device that intercepts and measures thermal radiation, a process known as pyrometry.This device can be used to determine the temperature of an object's surface....
The pyrometer, invented by Pieter van MusschenbroekPieter van Musschenbroek
Pieter van Musschenbroek was a Dutch scientist. He was a professor in Duisburg, Utrecht, and Leiden, where he held positions in mathematics, philosophy, medicine, and astrology. He is credited with the invention of the first capacitor in 1746: the Leyden jar. He performed pioneering work on the...
, is a temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
measuring device, which may consist of several different arrangements. A simple type of pyrometer uses a thermocouple
Thermocouple
A thermocouple is a device consisting of two different conductors that produce a voltage proportional to a temperature difference between either end of the pair of conductors. Thermocouples are a widely used type of temperature sensor for measurement and control and can also be used to convert a...
placed either in the furnace or on the item to be measured. The voltage output of the thermocouple is read from a digital or analog meter calibrated in degrees Celsius
Celsius
Celsius is a scale and unit of measurement for temperature. It is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius , who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death...
(C) or Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit is the temperature scale proposed in 1724 by, and named after, the German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit . Within this scale, the freezing of water into ice is defined at 32 degrees, while the boiling point of water is defined to be 212 degrees...
(F). There are many different types of thermocouple available, and these can be used to measure temperatures from -200 °C to above 1500 °C.
1746 Leyden jarLeyden jarA Leyden jar, or Leiden jar, is a device that "stores" static electricity between two electrodes on the inside and outside of a jar. It was invented independently by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist on 11 October 1745 and by Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden in 1745–1746. The...
The Leyden jar was the original capacitor, developed by Pieter van Musschenbroek
Pieter van Musschenbroek
Pieter van Musschenbroek was a Dutch scientist. He was a professor in Duisburg, Utrecht, and Leiden, where he held positions in mathematics, philosophy, medicine, and astrology. He is credited with the invention of the first capacitor in 1746: the Leyden jar. He performed pioneering work on the...
in the 18th century and used to conduct many early experiments in electricity.
The device was a glass jar coated inside and out with metal. The inner coating was connected to a rod that passed through the lid and ended in a metal ball. Typical designs consist of an electrode
Electrode
An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit...
and a plate, each of which stores an opposite charge. These two elements are conductive and are separated by an insulator (e.g., the glass dielectric
Dielectric
A dielectric is an electrical insulator that can be polarized by an applied electric field. When a dielectric is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material, as in a conductor, but only slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric...
). The charge is stored at the surface of the elements, at the boundary with the dielectric.
1860 Kipp's apparatusKipp's apparatusKipp's apparatus, also called Kipp generator, is an apparatus designed for preparation of small volumes of gases. It was invented around 1860 by the Dutch pharmacist Petrus Jacobus Kipp and widely used in chemical laboratories and for demonstrations in schools into the second half of the 20th...
Kipp's apparatus, also called Kipp generator, is an apparatus designed for preparation of small volumes of gasGas
Gas is one of the three classical states of matter . Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point , boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons...
es. It was invented around 1860 by the Dutch pharmacist Petrus Jacobus Kipp
Petrus Jacobus Kipp
Petrus Jacobus Kipp was a Dutch apothecary, chemist and instrument maker. He became known as the inventor of the Kipp apparatus, chemistry equipment for the development of gases.-Biography:...
and widely used in chemical laboratories and for demonstrations in schools into the second half of the 20th century.
1903 Electrocardiograph (ECG)
St Mary's Hospital (London)
St Mary's Hospital is a hospital located in Paddington, London, England that was founded in 1845. Since the UK's first academic health science centre was created in 2008, it is operated by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which also operates Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital,...
in Paddington
Paddington
Paddington is a district within the City of Westminster, in central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In 1911 he still saw little clinical application for his work. The breakthrough came when Willem Einthoven
Willem Einthoven
Willem Einthoven was a Dutch doctor and physiologist. He invented the first practical electrocardiogram in 1903 and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1924 for it....
, working in Leiden, The Netherlands, used the string galvanometer
String galvanometer
The string galvanometer was one of the earliest instruments capable of detecting and recording the very small electrical currents produced by the human heart and provided the first practical Electrocardiogram . The original machines achieved "such amazing technical perfection that many modern day...
invented by him in 1901, which was much more sensitive than the capillary electrometer that Waller used. Einthoven assigned the letters P, Q, R, S and T to the various deflections, and described the electrocardiographic features of a number of cardiovascular disorders. He was awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery.
1903 Four-wheel driveFour-wheel driveFour-wheel drive, 4WD, or 4×4 is a four-wheeled vehicle with a drivetrain that allows all four wheels to receive torque from the engine simultaneously...
with internal combustion engine
In 1903, the Dutch car manufacturer SpykerSpyker
Spyker was a Dutch car manufacturer, started in 1880 by coachbuilders Jacobus and Hendrik-Jan Spijker, but to be able to market the brand better in foreign countries, in 1903 the 'ij' was changed into 'y'...
introduces the first four-wheel drive car, as well as hill-climb racer, with internal combustion engine, the Spyker 60 H.P..
1926 PentodePentodeA pentode is an electronic device having five active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid vacuum tube , which was invented by the Dutchman Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926...
A pentode is an electronic device having five active electrodeElectrode
An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit...
s. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
(thermionic valve), which was invented by the Dutchman Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926.
1933 Phase contrast microscope
As light travels through a medium other than vacuum, interaction with this medium causes its amplitude and phase to change in a way which depends on properties of the medium. Changes in amplitude give rise to familiar absorption of light which gives rise to colors when it is wavelength dependent. The human eye measures only the energy of light arriving on the retina, so changes in phase are not easily observed, yet often these changes in phase carry a large amount of information.The same holds in a typical microscope, i.e., although the phase variations introduced by the sample are preserved by the instrument (at least in the limit of the perfect imaging instrument) this information is lost in the process which measures the light. In order to make phase variations observable, it is necessary to combine the light passing through the sample with a reference so that the resulting interference reveals the phase structure of the sample.
This was first realized by Frits Zernike
Frits Zernike
Frits Zernike was a Dutch physicist and winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1953 for his invention of the phase contrast microscope, an instrument that permits the study of internal cell structure without the need to stain and thus kill the cells....
during his study of diffraction gratings. During these studies he appreciated both that it is necessary to interfere with a reference beam, and that to maximise the contrast achieved with the technique, it is necessary to introduce a phase shift to this reference so that the no-phase-change condition gives rise to completely destructive interference.
He later realized that the same technique can be applied to optical microscopy. The necessary phase shift is introduced by rings etched accurately onto glass plates so that they introduce the required phase shift when inserted into the optical path of the microscope. When in use, this technique allows phase of the light passing through the object under study to be inferred from the intensity of the image produced by the microscope. This is the phase-contrast technique.
In optical microscopy many objects such as cell parts in protozoans, bacteria and sperm tails are essentially fully transparent unless stained (and therefore killed). The difference in densities and composition within these objects however often give rise to changes in the phase of light passing through them, hence they are sometimes called "phase objects". Using the phase-contrast technique makes these structures visible and allows their study with the specimen still alive.
This phase contrast technique proved to be such an advancement in microscopy that Zernike was awarded the Nobel prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
(physics) in 1953.
1939 Submarine snorkelSubmarine snorkelA submarine snorkel is a device which allows a submarine to operate submerged while still taking in air from above the surface. Navy personnel often refer to it as the snort.-History:...
A submarine snorkel is a device that allows a submarine to operate submerged while still taking in air from above the surface. It was invented by the Dutchman J.J.Wichers shortly before World War II and copied by the Germans during the war for use by U-Boats. Its common military name is snort.1939 PhilishavePhilishavePhilishave was the brand name for the electric shavers manufactured by the Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care unit of Philips . In recent years, Philips had extended the Philishave brand to include hair clippers, beard trimmers and beard shapers...
Philishave was the brand name for the electric shavers manufactured by the Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care unit of PhilipsPhilips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
(in the U.S.A., the Norelco
Norelco
Norelco is the American brand name for electric shavers and other personal care products made by the Consumer Lifestyle division of Philips.-Norelco and Philishave:...
name is used instead). The Philishave shaver was invented by Philips engineer Alexandre Horowitz
Alexandre Horowitz
Alexandre Horowitz was a Belgian-born Dutch technical engineer and inventor.Alexandre "Sacha" Horowitz was born in 1904 in Antwerp, to parents of East-European Jewish heritage, and lived from 1914 in The Netherlands until his death in 1982...
, who used rotating cutters instead of the reciprocating cutters that had been used in previous electric shavers.
1943 Artificial kidney (HemodialysisHemodialysisIn medicine, hemodialysis is a method for removing waste products such as creatinine and urea, as well as free water from the blood when the kidneys are in renal failure. Hemodialysis is one of three renal replacement therapies .Hemodialysis can be an outpatient or inpatient therapy...
)
An artificial kidney is the machine and its related devices which allow to clean the blood of patients who have a temporary (acute) or an ongoing (chronic) failure of their kidneys. The first artificial kidney was developed by Willem Johan Kolff. The procedure of cleaning the blood by this means is called dialysis, a type of renal replacement therapyRenal replacement therapy
Renal replacement therapy is a term used to encompass life-supporting treatments for renal failure.It includes:*hemodialysis,*peritoneal dialysis,*hemofiltration and*renal transplantation.These treatments will not cure chronic kidney disease...
which is used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
function due to renal failure
Renal failure
Renal failure or kidney failure describes a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter toxins and waste products from the blood...
. It is a life support
Life support
Life support, in medicine is a broad term that applies to any therapy used to sustain a patient's life while they are critically ill or injured. There are many therapies and techniques that may be used by clinicians to achieve the goal of sustaining life...
treatment and does not treat any kidney diseases.
1948 GyratorGyratorA gyrator is a passive, linear, lossless, two-port electrical network element proposed in 1948 by Tellegen as a hypothetical fifth linear element after the resistor, capacitor, inductor and ideal transformer. Unlike the four conventional elements, the gyrator is non-reciprocal...
A gyrator is a passivePassivity (engineering)
Passivity is a property of engineering systems, used in a variety of engineering disciplines, but most commonly found in analog electronics and control systems...
, linear, lossless, two-port
Two-port network
A two-port network is an electrical circuit or device with two pairs of terminals connected together internally by an electrical network...
electrical network element
Lumped element model
The lumped element model simplifies the description of the behaviour of spatially distributed physical systems into a topology consisting of discrete entities that approximate the behaviour of the distributed system under certain assumptions...
invented in 1948 by Dutchman Bernard D. H. Tellegen
Bernard D. H. Tellegen
Bernard D.H. Tellegen was a Dutch electrical engineer and inventor of the penthode and the gyrator...
as a hypothetical fifth linear element
Linear element
In an electric circuit, a linear element is an electrical element with a linear relationship between current and [output[voltage]]. Resistors are the most common example of a linear element; other examples include capacitors, inductors, and transformers....
after the resistor
Resistor
A linear resistor is a linear, passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element.The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the voltage across the resistor's terminals. Thus, the ratio of the voltage applied across a resistor's...
, capacitor
Capacitor
A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. The forms of practical capacitors vary widely, but all contain at least two electrical conductors separated by a dielectric ; for example, one common construction consists of metal foils separated...
, inductor
Inductor
An inductor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in a magnetic field. An inductor's ability to store magnetic energy is measured by its inductance, in units of henries...
and ideal transformer.
1958 Traffic enforcement camera
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
company Gatsometer BV, founded by the 1950s rally driver Maurice Gatsonides
Maurice Gatsonides
Maurice Gatsonides was a Dutch rally driver and inventor. Gatsonides was born in Central Java in the former Dutch East Indies...
, invented the first traffic enforcement camera. Gatsonides wished to better monitor his speed around the corners of a race track and came up with the device in order to improve his time around the circuit http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds05/text/50608-10.htm. The company developed the first radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
for use with road traffic
Traffic
Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel...
, and is the world's largest supplier of speed camera systems. Because of this, in some countries speed cameras are sometimes referred to as "Gatso
Gatso
Gatso is the brand that Gatsometer BV use on their traffic enforcement cameras, most notably their speed cameras and red light cameras. The most commonly encountered Gatso speed cameras emit radar beams to measure the speed of a passing vehicle...
s". They are also sometimes referred to as "photo radar", even though many of them do not use radar.
The first systems introduced in the late 1960s used film cameras to take their pictures. From the late 1990s, digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
s began to be introduced. Digital cameras can be fitted with a modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
or other electronic interface to transfer images to a central processing location automatically, so they have advantages over film cameras in speed of issuing fines, and operational monitoring. However, film-based systems still generally provide superior image quality in the variety of lighting conditions encountered on road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
s, and in some jurisdictions are required by the courts due to the ease with which digital images may be modified. New film-based systems are still being sold.
1962 Compact CassetteCompact CassetteThe Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
invented the compact audio cassette medium for audio storage
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
, introducing it in Europe in August 1963 (at the Berlin Radio Show
Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin
The IFA or Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin is one of the oldest industrial exhibitions in Germany. Between 1924 and 1939 it was an annual event, but as from 1950 it was organized on a two yearly basis until 2005. Since then it has become an annual event again, held in September...
) and in the United States (under the Norelco
Norelco
Norelco is the American brand name for electric shavers and other personal care products made by the Consumer Lifestyle division of Philips.-Norelco and Philishave:...
brand) in November 1964, with the trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
name Compact Cassette.
1969 LaserdiscLaserdiscLaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
Laserdisc technology, using a transparent disc, was invented by David Paul GreggDavid Paul Gregg
Dr. David Paul Gregg was the inventor of the optical disc . Gregg was inspired to create the optical disc in 1958. He originally had it patented as the "Videodisk" in 1961. In 1968 his patents were purchased by MCA who help develop the technology further...
in 1958 (and patented in 1961 and 1990). By 1969, Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
had developed a videodisc in reflective mode, which has great advantages over the transparent mode. MCA
Music Corporation of America
MCA, Inc. was an American talent agency. Initially starting in the music business, they would next become a dominant force in the film business, and later expanded into the television business...
and Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
decided to join their efforts. They first publicly demonstrated the videodisc in 1972. Laserdisc was first available on the market, in Atlanta, on December 15, 1978, two years after the VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
VCR and four years before the CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
, which is based on Laserdisc technology. Philips produced the players and MCA the discs.
1979 Compact discCompact DiscThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
Toshitada Doi
is a Japanese electrical engineer, who played a significant role in the digital audio revolution. He received a degree in electrical engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1964, and a PhD from Tohoku University in 1972. He joined Sony Japan in 1964. He started the first digital audio...
). In the early 1970s, Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
' researchers started experiments with "audio-only" optical discs, and at the end of the 1970s, Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, and other companies presented prototypes of digital audio discs. Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference titled "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven, The Netherlands on March 8, 1979.
1594 Orange Islands
During his first journey in 1594, Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz discovered the Orange Islands.1596 Bear Island
On 10 June 1596, Dutch explorers Willem Barentsz and Jacob van HeemskerkJacob van Heemskerk
Jacob van Heemskerk was a Dutch explorer and later admiral commanding the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Gibraltar.-Arctic exploration:...
discovered Bear Island, a week before their discovery of Spitsbergen.
1596 SpitsbergenSpitsbergenSpitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
On 17 June 1596, Dutch explorers Willem Barentsz and Jacob van HeemskerkJacob van Heemskerk
Jacob van Heemskerk was a Dutch explorer and later admiral commanding the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Gibraltar.-Arctic exploration:...
discovered Spitsbergen while searching for the Northern Sea Route
Northern Sea Route
The Northern Sea Route is a shipping lane officially defined by Russian legislation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from Murmansk on the Barents Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait and Far East. The entire route lies in Arctic...
.
1597 Novaya Zemlya effectNovaya Zemlya effectThe Novaya Zemlya effect is a polar mirage caused by high refraction of sunlight between atmospheric thermoclines. The Novaya Zemlya effect will give the impression that the sun is rising earlier than it actually should and depending on the meteorological situation the effect will present the sun...
The first person to record the phenomenon was Gerrit de VeerGerrit de Veer
Gerrit de Veer was a Dutch officer on Willem Barentsz' third voyage in search of the Northeast passage. De Veer kept a diary of the voyage and in 1597 was the first person to observe and record the Novaya Zemlya effect, and the first westerner to observe hypervitaminosis A caused by consuming...
, a member of Willem Barentsz' ill-fated third expedition into the polar region. Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya , also known in Dutch as Nova Zembla and in Norwegian as , is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia and the extreme northeast of Europe, the easternmost point of Europe lying at Cape Flissingsky on the northern island...
, the archipelago where de Veer first observed the phenomenon, lends its name to the effect.
1600 Falkland IslandsFalkland IslandsThe Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
The first reliable sighting is usually attributed to the Dutch explorer Sebald de WeertSebald de Weert
Sebald or Sebalt de Weert was a Dutch captain and vice-admiral of the Dutch East India Company...
in 1600, who named the archipelago the Sebald Islands, a name they bore on Dutch maps into the 19th century.
1606 AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
Janszoon voyage of 1606
Willem Janszoon made the first recorded European landing on the Australian continent in 1606, sailing from Bantam, Java in the Duyfken. As an employee of the Dutch East India Company, Janszoon had been instructed to explore the coast of New Guinea in search of economic opportunities...
of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
by a European was made on 26 February 1606. The Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
vessel Duyfken
Duyfken
Duyfken was a small Dutch ship built in the Netherlands. She was a fast, lightly armed ship probably intended for shallow water, small valuable cargoes, bringing messages, sending provisions, or privateering...
, captained by Willem Janszoon
Willem Janszoon
Willem Janszoon , Dutch navigator and colonial governor, is probably the first European known to have seen the coast of Australia. His name is sometimes abbreviated to Willem Jansz....
, followed the coast of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, missed Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
, and explored perhaps 350 km of western side of Cape York
Cape York Peninsula
Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...
, in the Gulf of Carpentaria
Gulf of Carpentaria
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...
, believing the land was still part of New Guinea. The Dutch made one landing, but were promptly attacked by Aborigines and subsequently abandoned further exploration.
1614 Jan MayenJan MayenJan Mayen Island is a volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean and part of the Kingdom of Norway. It is long and 373 km2 in area, partly covered by glaciers . It has two parts: larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by an isthmus wide...
After unconfirmed reports of Dutch discovery as early as 1611, the island was named after Dutchman Jan Jacobszoon May van Schellinkhout who visited the island in July 1614. As locations of these islands were kept secret by the whalers, Jan Mayen only got its current name in 1620.1614 Long Island SoundLong Island SoundLong Island Sound is an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, located in the United States between Connecticut to the north and Long Island, New York to the south. The mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook, Connecticut, empties into the sound. On its western end the sound is bounded by the Bronx...
The first European to record the existence of Long Island Sound was the Dutch explorer Adriaen BlockAdriaen Block
Adriaen Block was a Dutch private trader and navigator who is best known for exploring the coastal and river valley areas between present-day New Jersey and Massachusetts during four voyages from 1611 to 1614, following the 1609 expedition by Henry Hudson...
, who entered the sound from the East River in 1614.
1614 Connecticut RiverConnecticut RiverThe Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
The first European to see the Connecticut River was the Dutch explorer Adriaen BlockAdriaen Block
Adriaen Block was a Dutch private trader and navigator who is best known for exploring the coastal and river valley areas between present-day New Jersey and Massachusetts during four voyages from 1611 to 1614, following the 1609 expedition by Henry Hudson...
in 1614.
1615 Staten IslandIsla de los EstadosIsla de los Estados is an Argentine island that lies off the eastern extremity of the Argentine portion of Tierra del Fuego, from which it is separated by the Le Maire Strait...
On 25 December 1615, Dutch explorers Jacob le MaireJacob Le Maire
Jacob Le Maire was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615-16. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy...
and Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.- Biography :Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c...
aboard the Eendracht, discovered Staten Island, close to Cape Horn.
1616 Cape HornCape HornCape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
On 29 January, 1616, the Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le MaireJacob Le Maire
Jacob Le Maire was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615-16. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy...
and Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.- Biography :Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c...
sighted land they called Cape Horn, after the city of Hoorn in Holland. Aboard the Eendracht was the crew of the recently wrecked ship called Hoorn.
1616 TongaTongaTonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le MaireJacob Le Maire
Jacob Le Maire was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615-16. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy...
and Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.- Biography :Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c...
discovered Tonga on 21 April 1616.
1616 Hoorn IslandsHoorn IslandsThe Hoorn Islands are one of the two island groups of which the French overseas collectivity of Wallis and Futuna is geographically composed. The aggregate area is 115 km², and the population 4873 .Geographically, there are two islands:*Futuna Island The Hoorn Islands (also Futuna Islands) are...
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le MaireJacob Le Maire
Jacob Le Maire was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615-16. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy...
and Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.- Biography :Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c...
discovered the Hoorn Islands on 28 April 1616.
1616 New Ireland (island)New Ireland (island)New Ireland is a large island in Papua New Guinea, approximately 7,404 km² in area. It is the largest island of the New Ireland Province, lying northeast of the island of New Britain. Both islands are part of the Bismarck Archipelago, named after Otto von Bismarck, and they are separated by...
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le MaireJacob Le Maire
Jacob Le Maire was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615-16. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy...
and Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.- Biography :Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c...
discovered the New Ireland around May-July 1616.
1616 Schouten IslandsSchouten IslandsThe Indonesian Schouten Islands are an island group of Papua province, eastern Indonesia in the Cenderawasih Bay 50 km off the north-western coast of the island of New Guinea...
The Dutch ship Eendracht with explorers Jacob le MaireJacob Le Maire
Jacob Le Maire was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615-16. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy...
and Willem Schouten
Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.- Biography :Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c...
discovered the Schouten Islands on 24 July 1616.
1624 Hermite IslandsHermite IslandsThe Hermite Islands are a group of Chilean islands in the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego. They form part of the Commune of Cabo de Hornos in Antártica Chilena Province of Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region, at the southernmost end of South America...
In February 1624, Dutch admiral Jacques l'HermiteJacques l'Hermite
Jacques l'Hermite , sometimes also known as Jacques le Clerq , was a Dutch merchant, explorer and admiral known for his journey around the globe with the Nassau Fleet and for his blockade and raid on Callao in 1624 during that same voyage in which he also died...
discovered the Hermite Islands at Cape Horn.
1642 TasmaniaTasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
In 1642, Abel TasmanAbel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...
sailed from Mauritius and on 24 November, sighted Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
. He named Tasmania Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
, after Anthony van Diemen
Anthony van Diemen
Anthony van Diemen , Dutch colonial governor, was born in Culemborg in the Netherlands, the son of Meeus Anthonisz van Diemen and Christina Hoevenaar. In 1616 he moved to Amsterdam, in hope of improving his fortune as a merchant; in this he failed and was declared bankrupt...
, the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
's Governor General at Batavia, who had commissioned his voyage. Tasman claimed Van Diemen's Land for the Netherlands.
1643 SakhalinSakhalinSakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...
The first European known to visit Sakhalin was Martin Gerritz de Vries, who mapped Cape Patience and Cape Aniva on the island's east coast in 1643.1643 Kuril IslandsKuril IslandsThe Kuril Islands , in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater...
In the summer of 1643, the Castricum, under command of Maarten Gerritsz VriesMaarten Gerritsz Vries
Maarten Gerritsz Vries, or Fries, also referred to as de Vries, was a 17th-century Dutch cartographer and explorer, the first Western European to leave an account of his visit to the Sea of Okhotsk and the island of Sakhalin.Not much is known about the life of de Vries...
sailed by the southern Kuril Islands, visiting Kunashir, Iturup, and Urup, which they named "Company Island" and claimed for the Netherlands.
1655 Rings of SaturnRings of SaturnThe rings of Saturn are the most extensive planetary ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometres to metres, that form clumps that in turn orbit about Saturn...
In 1655, Christiaan Huygens became the first person to suggest that Saturn was surrounded by a ring, after Galileo's much less advanced telescope had failed to show rings. Galileo had reported the anomaly as possibly 3 planets instead of one.1674 InfusoriaInfusoriaInfusoria is a collective term for minute aquatic creatures like ciliates, euglenoids, protozoa, and unicellular algae that exist in freshwater ponds...
Infusoria is a collective term for minute aquatic creatures like ciliateCiliate
The ciliates are a group of protozoans characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagella but typically shorter and present in much larger numbers with a different undulating pattern than flagella...
, euglena
Euglena
Euglena is a genus of unicellular flagellate protists. It is the best known and most widely studied member of the phylum Euglenozoa , a diverse group containing some 44 genera and at least 800 species. Species of Euglena are found in fresh and salt waters...
, paramecium
Paramecium
Paramecium is a group of unicellular ciliate protozoa, which are commonly studied as a representative of the ciliate group, and range from about 0.05 to 0.35 mm in length. Simple cilia cover the body, which allow the cell to move with a synchronous motion at speeds of approximately 12 body...
, protozoa
Protozoa
Protozoa are a diverse group of single-cells eukaryotic organisms, many of which are motile. Throughout history, protozoa have been defined as single-cell protists with animal-like behavior, e.g., movement...
and unicellular algae
Algae
Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...
that exist in freshwater pond
Pond
A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens, water features and koi ponds; all designed for aesthetic ornamentation as landscape or architectural...
water. However, in formal classification microorganism
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
called infusoria belongs to Kingdom Animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
ia, Phylum Protozoa
Protozoa
Protozoa are a diverse group of single-cells eukaryotic organisms, many of which are motile. Throughout history, protozoa have been defined as single-cell protists with animal-like behavior, e.g., movement...
, Class Ciliates (Infusoria).They were first discovered by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.
1676 BacteriaBacteriaBacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
The first bacteria were observed by Anton van LeeuwenhoekAnton van Leeuwenhoek
Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch tradesman and scientist from Delft, Netherlands. He is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and considered to be the first microbiologist...
in 1676 using a single-lens microscope of his own design. The creatures he saw were described as small creatures. The name bacterium was introduced much later, by Ehrenberg
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg , German naturalist, zoologist, comparative anatomist, geologist, and microscopist, was one of the most famous and productive scientists of his time.- Early collections :...
in 1828, derived from the Greek word βακτηριον meaning "small stick". Because of the difficulty in describing individual bacteria and the importance of their discovery to fields such as medicine, biochemistry and geochemistry, the history of bacteria is generally described as the history of microbiology
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
.
1677 Spermatozoa
A spermatozoon or spermatozoon (pl. spermatozoa), from the ancient GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
σπερμα (seed) and ζων (alive) and more commonly known as a sperm cell, is the haploid
Ploidy
Ploidy is the number of sets of chromosomes in a biological cell.Human sex cells have one complete set of chromosomes from the male or female parent. Sex cells, also called gametes, combine to produce somatic cells. Somatic cells, therefore, have twice as many chromosomes. The haploid number is...
cell
Cell (biology)
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. The Alberts text discusses how the "cellular building blocks" move to shape developing embryos....
that is the male gamete
Gamete
A gamete is a cell that fuses with another cell during fertilization in organisms that reproduce sexually...
. It joins an ovum
Ovum
An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
to form a zygote
Zygote
A zygote , or zygocyte, is the initial cell formed when two gamete cells are joined by means of sexual reproduction. In multicellular organisms, it is the earliest developmental stage of the embryo...
. A zygote can grow into a new organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
, such as a human being. Sperm cells contribute half of the genetic information
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
to the diploid offspring. In mammals, the sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
of the offspring is determined by the sperm cells: a spermatozoon bearing a Y chromosome
Chromosome
A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. It is a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences. Chromosomes also contain DNA-bound proteins, which serve to package the DNA and control its functions.Chromosomes...
will lead to a male
Male
Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...
(XY) offspring, while one bearing an X chromosome will lead to a female
Female
Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...
(XX) offspring ( the ovum
Ovum
An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
always provides an X chromosome). Sperm cells were first observed by a student of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch tradesman and scientist from Delft, Netherlands. He is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and considered to be the first microbiologist...
in 1677. Leeuwenhoek pictured sperm cells with great accuracy.
1722 Easter IslandEaster IslandEaster Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
On Easter Sunday, 5 April 1722, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island.1722 SamoaSamoaSamoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
On 13 June 1722, after his discovery of Easter Island, Jacob Roggeveen discovered the Samoa islands.1779 Orange RiverOrange RiverThe Orange River , Gariep River, Groote River or Senqu River is the longest river in South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean...
The Orange River was named by Colonel Robert GordonRobert Jacob Gordon
Robert Jacob Gordon , was a Dutch explorer, soldier, artist, naturalist and linguist of Scottish descent.-Life:...
, commander of the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
garrison at Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, on a trip to the interior in 1779.
1779 Plant respiration and photosynthesisPhotosynthesisPhotosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
process in which plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s, algae, and some bacteria convert the energy of sunlight
Sunlight
Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total frequency spectrum of electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the Earth's atmosphere, and solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon.When the direct solar radiation is not blocked...
to chemical energy. The process was discovered by Jan Ingenhousz
Jan Ingenhousz
Jan Ingenhousz or Ingen-Housz FRS was a Dutch physiologist, biologist and chemist. He is best known for showing that light is essential to photosynthesis and thus having discovered photosynthesis. He also discovered that plants, like animals, have cellular respiration...
in 1779. The chemical energy is used to drive synthetic reactions such as the formation of sugars or the fixation of nitrogen into amino acids, the building blocks for protein synthesis. Ultimately, nearly all living things depend on energy produced from photosynthesis for their nourishment, making it vital to life on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. It is also responsible for producing the oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
that makes up a large portion of the Earth's atmosphere
Earth's atmosphere
The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention , and reducing temperature extremes between day and night...
. Organisms that produce energy through photosynthesis are called photoautotrophs. Plants are the most visible representatives of photoautotrophs, but bacteria and algae also contribute to the conversion of free energy into usable energy.