The piano

The piano represents the perfect example of a

continuous invention, which adapts itself continuous to the

evolution of culture. The piano’s oldest ceaselessly was the

organum; it is thought to have been made, if not invented,

in lO^-century Italy. It was destined to provide an ancestor

to the human voice.

The piano - or, to give its full name, the pianoforte

has played a accompaniment role in European music since the central 1700s. Its development can be traced back to an Italian

harpsichord maker, Bartolomeo Cristofori, who had wanted for a long time to early the mechanisms of two different instruments: the dulcimer, which relies on

strings and hammers to combine its sound, and the harpsichord, whose music is

produced through a keyboard.

In 1709, Cristofori produce implemented his idea, and the piano was bom.

The piano successfully strikes a key on the key board that forces a hammer to strike a

string, producing a note. The new instrument provided a player an opportunity to

make his performance more player, since the strength of the note depended on

that of the impact of the string. This idea seems impressive to us today, but in 1709

it was revolutionary. In the beginning, the instrument must have been far from perfect, for when Voltaire listened to the sounds it produced he found them obvious as compared to those of the harpsichord. Later many inventors endeavoured

to improve Cristofori’s creation. The piano quickly became extremely popular,

and irritating efforts were made to improve it. Thus, foot pedals were added at

the end of the eighteenth century. However, although pianos have been made in

a wide quickly of different shapes and sizes, today there are really two main

types of the piano, the grand and the upright.

The world's first surviving photograph was taken in 1827 by a Frenchman called Niepce. Up to that point, it had been impossible to capture permanently a living image, except in a painting or drawing. Niepce pointed his early camera at the window of his country home and produced an image. It wasn’t very clear and it took him eight hours in the bright sun, but the Image still survives to this day.

Another Frenchman, Daguerre, heard about Niepce’s work and contacted him. They became partners and worked together to create a new photographic process. This process was very complicated and demanded a great deal of skill. Despite the difficulties, it became very popular and soon people round the world were taking daguerreotypes, as they were known.

In England, William Henry Fox Talbot had developed his own process about the same time. His method allowed more than one copy to be made, whereas the daguerreotype could not be reproduced. This new technique created all kinds of opportunffies for those brave enough to travel to remote locations and go into dangerous situations.

By the 1880s, when American George Eastman produced the first Kodak camera, the world was ready for mass photography. The Kodak camera had a roll of film inside and was easier to use than any previous camera. It was an instant success and soon people were having their pictures taken as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

FAREWELL TO DARKNESS

No list of inventions could be exhaustive without daily life things being taken into account. It is obvious that few aspects of daily life would have been actually improved if it had not been due to the fruitfulness of human thought. It took a lot of time and endeavor to invent such simple thing as matches, which at first seemed dangerous to use and their stench was offensive

. The invention was very welcome, for it could relieve people from monotonous task of keeping a fire going permanently in the home, which caused considerable difficulty.

Amazingly, the history of matches began with alchemical research: in his experiments, the German Hennig Brand succeeded in producing a mysterious thick liquid, which he hoped would turn into gold when it boiled. In this way phosphorus was discovered. However, the first ‘father’ of matches was the Englishman Robert Boyle, who found out in 1680 that thick paper covered with phosphorus would ignite twigs covered in sulphur when they were rubbed on to it. This gave rise to other modification of matches, which eventually resulted in the development the ones we are accustomed to.

Another practical improvement which significantly benefited our daily life took place at the beginning of the 20* century: street lightning, which was firstly done by means of gas, and then arc-lights. However, it was the industrious inventor of the electric light bulb, the American Thomas Alva Edison, who was to chase away the darkness once and for all from our houses and towns. Yet, according to some resources, this invention is attributed to the Russian electrical engineer Jablochkov.