Inventors Quiz

Another for the History Buffs.
None of these of course stand up to the achievements of the famous twenty-first century Northamptionshire inventor Roo Hare, currently working on a new super-efficient snorkelling device, but these were also seen as quite important in their day.

The first question is on the Agricultural Revolution, and the other nine are on the Industrial Revolution.

1. Who, in 1701, invented the horse-drawn seed drill ?
2. Who, in 1698, developed the first steam pump ?
3. Who in 1709 developed the first coke-fired blast furnace ?
4. Who, in 1712, introduced a steam-powered pumping engine for use in mines ?
5. Who in 1733 introduced the flying shuttle ?
6. Who in 1764 invented the Spinning Jenny ?
7. Who in 1769 patented the Water-frame (a water-powered spinning machine) ?
8. Who in 1769 patented an improved sream engine, and in 1782 developed a rotary steam engine ?
9. Who in 1784 developed the puddling iron ?
10. Who in 1785 invented the power loom ?

One point for each. Good luck !

[Kevin Pringle (R.I.P.)]

As a mad inventor this is my subject ;D

1. Jethro Tull (not the singer)
2. Thomas Savery
3. Abraham Darby
4. Thomas Newcomen ( but wasn't the first, Thomas Savery's was used for this purpose earlier)
5. John Kay or is that just a Yarn ;)
6. James Hargreaves from Lancashire
7. Richard Arkwright
8. The infamous James Watt of course
9. Henry Cort, though there has been some dispute on this as it was all about the process of creating wrought iron, and many claims were made in a short period though Cort was believed to been the first.
10. Edmund Cartwright had the first patent on it.

[Kevin Pringle (R.I.P.)]

11. Who invented the first working parachute?

kpringle said:

11. Who invented the first working parachute?

First of all, KP, 10 out of 10 on my part of the quiz - I probably took longer to set the questions than you did to answer them !

Now to answer yours: the answer is that it's debatable, my own encyclopaedia mentions six Europeans from the last three centuries who have laid claim to it.
But credit for the idea - though not necessarily for a working model - must go to Leonardo Da Vinci - who also designed the prototype helicopter !
As for the first in practice - probably the Chinese in the twelfth century.

Quiz winner:
[glow=red,2,300]KPringle 10pts [/glow]

[Kevin Pringle (R.I.P.)]

11. I will rephrase the question, 'Who invented the modern parachute' it was from the same industrial era that your quiz covered.
12. Who was the first tester of the parachute.

The inventor of the first MODERN parachute (as we know it) was definitely not from the Industrial Revolution era.
He was Leslie Leroy Irvin (b. Los Angeles) and made the first free-fall parachute jump in 1919.

Irvin was a stunt-man for the fledgling Californian film industry, for which he had to perform acrobatics on trapezes from balloons and then make descents using a parachute.

For a film called Sky High, he first jumped from an aircraft from 1000 feet in 1914.

HOWEVER - obviously the answers you want are:
11) Sébastien Lenormand
12) Jean-Pierre Blanchard

Leonardo da Vinci sketched a parachute while he was living in Milan around 1480-1483. However, the idea of the parachute may not have originated with him: the historian Lynn White has discovered an anonymous Italian manuscript from about 1470 that depicts two designs for a parachute, one of which is very similar to da Vinci's. The first successful test of such a parachute was made in 1617 in Venice by the Croatian inventor Faust Vranèiæ which he named Homo Volans (Flying Man).



(Vranèiæ's on the left and Leonardo's on the right).


The parachute was re-invented in 1783 by Sébastien Lenormand in France. Lenormand also coined the name parachute. Two years later, Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a means of safely disembarking from a hot air balloon. While Blanchard's first parachute demonstrations were conducted with a dog as the passenger, he later had the opportunity to try it himself when in 1793 his hot air balloon ruptured and he used a parachute to escape.

[Kevin Pringle (R.I.P.)]

The two answers I was looking for was Lenormand and the dog of Blanchard :)

So you get 2 points :)

However I disagree with Leslie Leroy, but it will depend on the definition of MODERN. To me that means using similar construction to that of the modern day, ie sewn silk, and this was Lenormand who started out in 1783 using a wooden frame but a few years later went over to a sewn silk version which is in the Science Museum I believe. Irvin may have been the first to use one from an aircraft, as Lenormand and Blanchard used balloons and as rightly stated he had to use it when his baloon ruptured and he made his escape with one.

kpringle said:

The two answers I was looking for was Lenormand and the dog of Blanchard :)
So you get 2 points :)

Thanks I'll take 'em. Not that I'm points-hungry, you understand, but you made me work very hard for that one. ;) ;D

1. KPringle 10pts
2. tommo 2pts