Fantasy of Knowledge

If someone thinks of conquering the heights of success without hard work and labor, he is like a fool who waits for a magical stick which is expected to bring about drastic changes in his life, but never exists in reality. The golden pages of human history are full of stories of successful men. But none of them have achieved their greatness simply by jostling the street up and down. They worked hard, day and night, with a single-minded determination to materialize their dreams. In short, success is possible only when a person has the willingness to sacrifice certain pleasures and work hard with hundred percent dedications.
Everything knows that there is butter in milk. But letting know is not everything. The one who has the patience to wait till the milk turns curd and has the willingness to churn it out will gain it. When it comes to success also it seems to be true. Most of us know what success is and to a great extent, how to achieve it. But, many of us fall short of achieving them mainly because they do not work hard with utmost dedication.

The word success had got certain magical powers. Though like a magnet it attracts everyone, many fail to get hold of it in practical life. It happens not because one does not have the ability to perform or achieve something, but just because one fails to develop a dreamful vision.
Accuracy in shooting is really a quality one gains through practice. Shooting down an object that is in a standstill may not be a Herculean task, because it can be achieved through basic training and practice. However, the success of a shooter is well it demands a great deal of vision and proper judgment to make it possible. If he to shoot a bird flying high in the air, he will have to assess the various factors and the speed at which the bullet travels. Considering all these judgments he will have to aim ahead the bird, to hit it accurately.
It is kind of vision and accuracy expected of a man who dreams to succeed. He must be basically a visionary who has the ability to evaluate the various factors of the present and make use of them to mould a better future.

An explosive is a substance that produces a volume of rapidly expanding gas that exerts sudden pressures on its surroundings. There are three common types of explosive; chemical, mechanical, and nuclear.

Black Powder was the first explosive used by man. It is unknown who invented it. Black Powder is also known as gun powder. It is a mixture of saltpeter (potassium nitrate), sulfur, and charcoal (carbon). It originated in China around the tenth century and was used in fireworks and signals.
Black powder was used with early muzzle-type firearms. It was a mechanical explosive that is messy. So, cleaner smokeless powder explosive eventually replaced black powder. In 1831, William Bickford an English leather merchant invented the first safety fuse. Using a safety fuse made black powder explosives more practical and safer.
Nitroglycerin is a chemical explosive that was discovered by Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero. It was discovered in 1846.Nitroglycerin is a mixture of nitric acid and glycerin. In 1846, Chemist Christian Schonbein discovered nitrocellulose or guncotton. The invention happened when he accidently spilled an acid mixture on a cotton apron exploded.

Ray Tomlinson was the inventor of Internet based email. He was a computer engineer. This invention was made in 1971. Email is the short form of electronic mail. It is the ability to send simple messages to another person across the network.
Ray Tomlinson was experimenting with a popular program he wrote. This was called SNDMSG. This was used on the network computers to leave messages for each other. SNDMSG was a “local” electronic messages program. You could only leave messages on the computers that you were using. So that, other persons using that computer could read the message. Tomlinson used a file transfer protocol to send electronic messages to any computer on the ARPANET network.
Ray Tomlinson chose the @symbol to tell which user was “at” what computer. The @ goes in between the user’s login name and the name of his computers. The first email message was “QWERTYUIOP”.Ray Tomlinson says that the idea of email came naturally to him. No one was asking for email

Success is never an accident. It is the result of systematic hard work. Just as one ought to know where one goes even before the real journey starts, you should know what success is, before you really set out to gain it.
To some people success may mean money and wealth. To others, it is recognition, good health, a good family, happiness, satisfaction, formidable friendships and peace of mind. In fact, the idea of success goes on changing from person to person. It is said to be subjective because success means different things to different people. For a writer or an artist, success may be producing inspiring works that could move the hearts to millions. For a sportsman, success may be bringing out excellent performance in the game. For a politician, it may be all about winning elections and being in power.
Though the perspective in which everyone sees success is different, the various factors contributing to it are almost the same. Once you are to know what success means to you personality, you can set out the journey to attain it.

Charles Marie de la Condamine was a French scientist and explorer. He took to Europe the natural substances called “India” rubber. He brought a sample to the institute de France in Paris in 1736. South American Indian tribes used rubber to make bouncing playing balls. It was also used as an adhesive for attaching feathers and other objects to their bodies

In 1770, Sir Joseph Priestly found out the other use of rubber- to wipe out black marks from paper. Priestly was a famous scientist who had before discovered oxygen. However, rubber was not an easy substance to work with. The reason was that it went bad very easily.
English engineer, Edward Naime is also credited with the creation of the first eraser in1770. Before rubber, breadcrumbs had been used to erase pencil marks. Naime claims he accidentally picked up a piece of rubber instead of his lump of bread and discovered the possibilities. He went on to sell the new rubbing out devices or rubbers.
In 1839, Charles Goodyear discovered a way to cure rubber. He succeeded in making it a lasting and useable material. He called his process vulcanization. This particular name was given after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. In 1844, Goodyear patented his process. With the better rubber available, erasers became quite common.

Wet babies are always problems for mothers. In 1946, a very tired mother was faced with a wet, crying baby. Her name was Marion O’Brien Donovan. She changed her second daughter’s wet cloth diaper and bed sheets. But she was thinking of a better way to keep babies dry. Suddenly there came an idea to her mind. She tore down a curtain hanging in her bathroom. She cut out a section of it. She sat down to make a diaper cover that would prevent leaks. It was the beginning to the creation of a reusable diaper covers. It was also the base for the invention of disposable diapers, later.
In 1951, Donavan received four patents for her invention. That same year, she sold the rights to Keko Corporation of Kankakee, for $1 million. She called the cover the Boater because she thought it looked like a boat. She used the money to finance other invention projects. She went on to create numerous products intended to make life more efficient.

Chewing Gum was invented by Thomas Adams of United States. It was in the year 1872. Though the official invention was in this year, the habit of chewing gum existed before. From reliable sources we come to know that the Mexican Indians had this particular habit. They gathered gum from a particular tree. They put pieces of gum in their mouths and chewed them. The purpose was to keep their cheeks moist when they went for long walks to another place.
Thomas Adams was originally a photographer in New York. He got a piece of Mexican gum in 1870. He conducted some experiments on it. The experiments continued for two years. Actually, his intention was to create a substitute for rubber. One day he got some of it accidentally in his mouth. He simply began to chew it. No doubt, he immediately liked it.
First he thought of selling the idea of a chewing gum to a company. But his idea was not accepted. But he was not ready to give it up. He began to produce and distribute it himself. Gradually, he became more and more confident. People also began to cherish it. By 1890 Adams had a huge chewing-gum factory. Almost 250 employees worked in it. The whole of United States went crazy about chewing-gum.

For many centuries, accounting was a difficult job. Till 1888 most accountants did their calculating with pencil. Door Eugene Felt and William Seward Burroughs of United Stated changed it altogether with invention of calculator or adding machine. Felt knew that many accountants could do much of the calculation mentally. There were some efficient accountants who could add 4 columns of figures at a time. So, his primary desire was to design a calculating machine that could beat them.
Felt constructed the first key-driven adding-machine model. It was in 1884. First he constructed a wooden model. Then he constructed the real machine. He used for it some articles like a box, punch keys staples, elastic bands, etc. Felt built his model with a penknife. His employer, Robert Tarrant, backed the invention. In 1887, they became partners in selling the Comptometer. For 15 years it was the only key-driven calculator on the market.

Among the alcoholic drinks, beer was the first to be used by man. We do not have any information on who prepared and drank the first beer. It will be interesting to know that the first product humans made from grain and water was beer. They made it even before learning to make bread.
Every cultural society developed their own version of beer. They used different grains for that purpose. Africans used millet, maize and cassava. The Chinese used wheat. The Japanese used rice. The Egyptians used barley. However, modern beer beverages were used only after the invention of refrigeration, methods of automatic bottling, and pasteurization.
We also have some information on some interesting traditions related beer. The habit of drinking beer was very common in Babylon even four thousand years ago. There, for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the beer he could drink.

The game of basket was invented by James Naismith. He was a Canadian physical education instructor. He invented basketball in 1891. James Naismith was born in Almonte, Ontario. He was educated at McGill University and Presbyterian College in Montreal
He was the physical education teacher at McGill University (1887 to 1890) and at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachuetts (1890 to 1895). At Springfield College he invented the indoor sport of basketball. James Naismith worked under the direction of American physical specialist Luther Halsey Gulick.
The first formal rules were prepared in 1892. Initially, players dribbled a soccer ball. Points were earned by landing the ball in a peach basket. Iron hoops and a hammock-style basket were introduced in 1893. At that time, the ball had to be taken out of the basket. It was really an unnecessary botheration and a waste of time.
The open-ended nets put an end to this practice. However, such nets were used only in the first decade of the twentieth century. On June 25, 1929 G.L.Pierce was given the patent for the “basket” used in the game.

We do not have any information about a particular person who invented the Band-Aids. It came into through a slow process. The process started in 1830 and ended in 1874.In a Philadelphia medical journal, Samuel D. Gross reported his use of medicated adhesive plasters for body fractures. It was in the year 1830.
In 1845 Dr Horace H. Day patented an adhesive plaster. It as painted with rubber. Dr. Thomas Allcock marked this particular adhesive plaster. It was called Allcock’s Porous Plaster. In 1848, Dr John Parker Maynard announced a new development. His contribution was a plaster consisting of a fluid derived from gun cotton. In 1874, Robert W. Johnson and George J. Seabury developed an adhesive plaster with a rubber base.
In 1886, Johnson left Seabury. He set up his own business. It came to be known as Johnson & Johnson. He produced his Band-Aids with their rubber base. It became a huge success in the market

There two kinds of floating aircraft. The first one is the balloon. It is an unpowered aircraft. The second is the airship. It is a powered aircraft. Both of them can lift themselves from the ground. The balloon however moves in the direction of the wind. But the airship can move in any direction against the wind.
Balloons and airship lift because they are buoyant. It means that the total weight of the airship or balloons is less than the weight of the air it displaces. The Greek philosopher Archimedes was the first one to establish the basic principle of buoyancy.
Hot air balloons were first flown by the brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. It was in 1783. Today, the materials and technology used in hot balloons are very different.

John Dunlop was born in Scotland. He invented pneumatic tire in 1880s. This Scottish man lived in Belfast. He was very much worried about his son. The son was interested in riding his tricycle. It had its metal wheels. Riding over the rough cobblestone streets was an uncomfortable experience. Moreover, there were a few accidents too.
John Dunlop was determined to find a solution to it. He wanted to make the tricycle ride smoother. For that purpose, Dunlop got hold of rubber tubes. He filled them with compressed air and fitted them on the wheels of the tricycle. The result was really fantastic. It became so smooth that the rider felt himself riding on air.
In 1891, the pneumatic tire was commercially produced. It was produced by the George R.Bidwell Cycle Company, New York. It was the most famous cycle company in United States.
A year later, Alexander T Brown and George F.Stillman patented a pneumatic automobile tire for horseless carriages. In 1895, the pneumatic tire was being manufactured by Hartford Rubber Works. In the same year there came the news of victory too. A Duryea race car used pneumatic tire and won the first place.

Banks use an automatic teller machine or ATM. It allows a bank customer to conduct their banking transactions from any part of the world. We cannot just one person as the inventor of ATM. In fact, many inventors contribute to the development of the ATM. In 1939, Luther George Simjian produced a model of ATM. It was not a very successful attempt. He approached a bank with the idea of creating a hole-in-the wall machine that would allow customers to make financial transactions. The invention was tested in a bank. After six months, the bank discontinued its use It reported that there was little demand for the new invention. James Good fellow of Scotland made some better attempts in 1966. However, it is John D White of United States who made it perfect. Today, he is often credited with inventing the first modern ATM design. In 1967; John SheperdBarron installed an ATM in a Barclays Bank in London. Don Wetzel invented an American made ATM in1968. Various banks began to use ATMs only by the end of 1980s. From that time onwards, ATMs became part of mainstream banking.