Science from 1930 - 1945

1930-Chocolate Chip Cookie Invented

Ruth Wakefield accidentally invented the chocolate chip cookie know as the “Toll House Crunch Cookies”. Wakefield was baking chocolate cookies one day only to realize that she was out of baker’s chocolate. Instead she through in chunks of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate thinking it would melt into the batter to create chocolate cookies. Instead she had invented chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate chip cookie has become the most popular cookie in America.

 1943-Slinky Invented

 

The Slinky was invented by a naval engineer named Richard James. James was trying to develop a meter designed to monitor horsepower on naval battleships. While working with tension springs to use on the meter one fell to the ground and continued to move. This gave him the idea for the slinky.

Slinky made its début at Gimbel's Department Store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the 1945 Christmas season and then at the 1946 American Toy Fair.

Today, all Slinky’s are made in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania using the original equipment designed and engineered by Richard James. Each one is made from 80 feet of wire and over a quarter billion Slinky’s have been sold worldwide.

1943-Aqualung Invented

Jacques Cousteau (commander in the French navy) and Emile Gagnan (control valve engineer) invented the Aqualung in 1943. The Aqualung is a device that supplies air to under water divers. It supplies air automatically to the lungs from an oxygen cylinder on the divers back.

 The Aqualung has been modified since 1943, but is basically operated the same today. These are what the divers now use today.

 1945- First Atomic Bomb Blast

Before the beginning of WWII Albert Einstein Wrote to the US president Roosevelt and told him of of efforts in Nazi Germany to purify uranium-235, which could be used to build an atomic bomb. This caused the US government to start the Manhattan Project. From 1939 to 1945, more than $2 billion was spent during the history of the Manhattan Project. After 3 years of planning, in a remote area of New Mexico the first Atom Bomb was tested. Even before the bomb was tested, a second bomb was secretly dispatched to the Pacific for an attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Scientists Who Invented the Atomic Bomb under the Manhattan Project: Robert Oppenheimer, David Bohm, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Otto Frisch, Rudolf Peierls, Felix Bloch, Niels Bohr, Emilio Segre, James Franck, Enrico Fermi, Klaus Fuchs and Edward Teller.

OTHER TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES 

Ballpoint Pen - 1938 Hungary by Laszlo Biró - also called a biro (UK) 
BBC

Television - 1932 England first regular TV broadcasts (London) 


Catseyes - 1934 England by Percy Shaw - for lighting roads 


Electric Razor - 1931 USA by Jacob Schick 


Electron Microscope - 1933 Germany by Ernst Ruska 


Frequency Modulation FM - 1939 USA by Edwin H Armstrong - sound by radio waves

Helicopter - 1936 Germany by Heinrich Focke 


Jet Engine - 1930 England by Frank

Whittle
Nylon - 1931 USA by Wallace Corothers - artificial silk 


Magnetic Recording - 1936 USA audio tapes 


Photocopier - 1938 USA by Chester Carlston 


Polaroid - 1932 USA by Edwin Herbert

Land 
Radar (for Aircraft) - 1935 Scotland by Robert Watson-Watt 


Radio Telescope - 1932 USA by Karl Jansky 


Sticky Tape -  1930 USA

Atomic Power - 1942 USA by Enrico Fermi's team creating first self-sustaining chain reaction

Guided Missile - 1942 Germany by Werner von Braun

Kidney Dialysis - 1944 Netherlands by Willem Kolff

Napalm - 1942 USA from Harvard University

By: Miranda Hampton