Inventions Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Sir Richard Arkwright invented the spinning frame.

Patented in 1769, the water frame spun cotton strong enough to be used as warp, which the jenny's yarn was not. Because it needed water power it had to be housed in a mill, and so created the factory system.

Answer: C

James Dewar invented the vacuum flask.

He made it in 1892 to hold liquefied gases: a double-walled glass vessel with the space between evacuated and the surfaces silvered, so that conduction, convection and radiation are all cut off. He never patented it.

Answer: A

George Stephenson invented it.

He built Locomotion No. 1 for the Stockton and Darlington in 1825 and the Rocket, which won the Rainhill trials in 1829 with its multi-tubular boiler and blast pipe - the pattern of every steam locomotive after it. Richard Trevithick had built the first rail locomotive in 1804.

Answer: C

Samuel Colt invented the revolver.

He patented the revolving-cylinder pistol in 1836, having whittled a model of the mechanism from wood while at sea, watching a ship's capstan lock at each turn.

Answer: B

Helium was found there first.

Pierre Janssen and Norman Lockyer saw an unexplained yellow line in the solar chromosphere during the eclipse of 1868. Lockyer named the element after helios, the sun; it was not found on earth until 1895.

Answer: A

J.B. Dunlop invented the pneumatic rubber tyre.

The Scottish veterinary surgeon, living in Belfast, made it in 1888 for his son's tricycle by wrapping an inflated rubber tube in canvas. Robert Thomson had patented the idea in 1845 but it had been forgotten.

Answer: D

There is no sure date.

Joseph Fry of Bristol is usually credited with the first moulded eating chocolate in 1847, and Cadbury followed in 1849, but the claims are disputed and the earlier history of solid chocolate is not documented.

Answer: D

Samuel F.B. Morse invented it.

With Alfred Vail he devised the code of dots and dashes, giving the shortest signals to the commonest letters by counting the type in a printer's case - which is why E is a single dot.

Answer: B

The first commercial network opened in 1979.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone launched it at Tokyo that year. Martin Cooper of Motorola had made the first handheld mobile call in 1973, ringing his rival at Bell Labs from a New York pavement.

Answer: C

It is an American invention.

Morris Titterington devised the earth inductor compass in the 1920s. It measures the current induced by the earth's magnetic field in a rotating coil, and being unaffected by the aircraft's motion it was far steadier than a magnetic compass. Lindbergh used one to cross the Atlantic.