# What are some surprising facts about technology? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 23, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273 "2015-06-23T19:59:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/21 "2015-06-24T14:37:09Z")
When was the first coin-operated vending machine built? - In ancient Alexandria! It was used to dispense a squirt of holy water in temples. > **[Old World, High Tech](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/old-world-high-tech-141284744/?page=2)** > > An ancient Greek calendar was ahead of its time ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/22 "2015-06-24T15:05:19Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > The Saturn V could put 130 tonnes to LEO and 45 tonnes to lunar orbit. > > The best rockets today can put about 30 tonnes to LEO. In other words, the Saturn V could put 50 % more payload to Lunar Orbit than the top of the line systems can out in Low Earth Orbit today. > > Fuck that depressing. We thought we were the Columbuses of outer space. But it turns out we were the Leif Ericsons. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/23 "2015-06-24T15:21:27Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > 30s & 40s actress Hedy Lamarr was co-inventor of a technology used to jam radio-controlled torpedoes during WWII. Her invention was not put to use until 1962 until the invasion of Cuba, but since then it has been used as the basis for many wireless technologies used today such ad Bluetooth and CDMA. The really shocking thing is that it’s more the equivalent of some hot, sexy actress doing it- Lamarr was most known for being particularly beautiful and sexy, not for her acting chops. It’s almost as if say… Megan Fox turned out to invent something really remarkable. And aerospace technology hasn’t regressed; it’s more that the applications that once made things like the Saturn V and the Concorde useful aren’t there anymore. Nobody really wants to pay that much more to get to London that fast, and 30 tons to LEO is more than adequate for most anything we want. Beyond that the Block 2 SLS rockets under development are supposed to put 130 tons in LEO, as opposed to the 118 of the Saturn V. I suspect Boeing or Airbus could develop a supersonic airliner easily, but the market’s not there. It’s not a matter of technology at all. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/24 "2015-06-24T15:33:51Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > Any reason why? My knee-jerk reaction is that its just a cost cutting measure, but why go backwards? In the 1970’s there was no payload that big (the largest payload and still the largest ever sent up was Skylab, about 80 tonnes). By the time you could feasibly imagine such large modules, you would have had to design afresh, which would be pretty expensive [QUOTE=bump] And aerospace technology hasn’t regressed; it’s more that the applications that once made things like the Saturn V and the Concorde useful aren’t there anymore. Nobody really wants to pay that much more to get to London that fast, and 30 tons to LEO is more than adequate for most anything we want. Beyond that the Block 2 SLS rockets under development are supposed to put 130 tons in LEO, as opposed to the 118 of the Saturn V. [/QUOTE] Saturn V would have been useful in building the ISS for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/25 "2015-06-24T15:56:14Z")
Also, the retiring of the space shuttle with no replacement vehicle can only be seen as another step backward. Currently, the only way to get a human into space is… Soyuz :o ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/26 "2015-06-24T16:39:43Z")
And SpaceX, I have big hopes for the Mars Colonial Transporter. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/27 "2015-06-24T17:14:18Z")
The World Wide Web was born out of a computer scientist’s (Tim Berners-Lee) frustration with computer files not working from one computer to the next. [This article](http://www.npr.org/2013/05/22/185788651/the-first-web-page-amazingly-is-lost) tells the whole story. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/28 "2015-06-24T17:23:59Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Also, the retiring of the space shuttle with no replacement vehicle can only be seen as another step backward. Currently, the only way to get a human into space is… Soyuz :o Chinese are not human? > **[Shenzhou (spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_(spacecraft))** > > Shenzhou (Chinese: 神舟; pinyin: Shénzhōu, /ˈʃɛnˈdʒoʊ/; see § Etymology) is a Chinese spacecraft developed for the nation's crewed space program. Its design was based on Russia's Soyuz, but larger and modernized, Shenzhou is a single-use vehicle composed of three modules. The descent module houses the crew during launch and reentry. The orbital module provides additional living space and storage during orbit but is jettisoned before reentry. The service module, responsible for propulsion and pow... ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/29 "2015-06-24T17:33:57Z")
Apple Computer would not be what it is today without John Draper’s (aka “Captain Crunch”) invention of the [Blue Box](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box). ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/30 "2015-06-24T17:51:02Z")
Although radar was not used in any practical application until the Second World War, it actually was invented in 1904, before the First World War. The biggest wartime advancement in radar was the cavity magnetron, which allowed radars to be much more practically sized and more effective. The very high, concentrated energy they put out heated things close to it, so a guy named Percy Spencer put one in a box, showed it could make food hot, and invented the microwave oven - or as he called it, the “Radarange.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/31 "2015-06-24T20:38:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Benjamin Franklin made several early discoveries about electricity in the mid-18th century. But he eventually stopped working in the field because he was seeking practicable applications for science and he didn’t see how electricity could ever be used for anything in the real world. Uh… He did invent the lightning rod, didn’t he? How useful was that? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/32 "2015-06-24T20:47:39Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > In 1842, female English mathematician [Ada Lovelace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace) was hired to translate a lecture by Charles Babbage about his “Analytical Engine” (which was theorized but never built). She ended up spending a year adding footnotes to the translated lecture, as the Analytical Engine was hard to describe and most scientists could not grasp it. > > Her footnotes ended up describing, basically, what is now known as a computer and software. One of her notes described a process for writing [Bernouli numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_number) using the (theoretical) Analytic Engine. This is considered to be the first computer program (although it remains untested as the Engine remains unbuilt). > > Nobody really gave her paper much thought until it was republished in 1953, 110 years after it was first written. Actually, Babbage’s Analytical Engines WAS built. Two of them, I think. It just took longer than we thought. It was built entirely (or substantially?) according to his original plans, but using modern materials, in recent times. One is on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Ca., where docents give regular demonstrations of the engine in operation. IIRC it was mentioned that there’s another one out there somewhere, also a modern construction from the original plan. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/33 "2015-06-24T20:48:59Z")
Okay, I just googled the Analytical Engine. According to [this blurb](http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/) (photo included), there were at least two (maybe three? Text is unclear.) build from 2002 through 2008. The 2008 model is the one at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. ETA: BTW, it even had an output device. The mechanism at the lower left corner of the machine is a printer! I think one of the intended purposes of the machine was to print tables of sines, cosines, and other such math/engineering tables, such as one commonly sees at the back of modern math textbooks, which were previously all computed and printed by hand in those days. ---
**Author:** ![TwoCarrotSnowman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twocarrotsnowman/32/15879_2.png) [@TwoCarrotSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoCarrotSnowman)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/34 "2015-06-24T21:03:35Z")
Hi everyone - awesome responses. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/35 "2015-06-24T21:07:52Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Although radar was not used in any practical application until the Second World War, it actually was invented in 1904, before the First World War. > > The biggest wartime advancement in radar was the cavity magnetron, which allowed radars to be much more practically sized and more effective. The very high, concentrated energy they put out heated things close to it, so a guy named Percy Spencer put one in a box, showed it could make food hot, and invented the microwave oven - or as he called it, the “Radarange.” The famous story was that he was working with such a magnetron, when he discovered that it had melted a candy bar he had in his pocket. [From Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Discovery): > [@Wikipedia article: Microwave Oven](#): > > In 1945 the specific heating effect of a high-power microwave beam was accidentally discovered by Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer from Howland, Maine. Employed by Raytheon at the time he noticed that microwaves from an active radar set he was working on started to melt a candy bar he had in his pocket. The first food deliberately cooked with Spencer’s microwave was popcorn, and the second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters. The single-word term “Radarange” has ever since been the trade-marked brand-name of the line of microwave ovens built by Amana. ETA: [Magnetrons are seriously fugly](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Magnetron2.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/36 "2015-06-24T21:23:43Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Actually, Babbage’s Analytical Engines WAS built. There are two modern examples of his Difference Engine, but no-one has yet built an Analytical Engine. [These folk](http://plan28.org/) are in the initial stages of building one. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/37 "2015-06-24T23:04:45Z")
The first remote controlled powerboat was demonstrated in 1898. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/38 "2015-06-24T23:29:25Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Thomas Dolby (as in She Blinded Me With Science) probably wrote the ring tone on your phone. If he didn’t, he’s probably involved in it in one way or another. > [Thomas Dolby - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Thomas_Dolby#Headspace_and_Beatnik) > > Margaret Atwood invented the [Longpen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood#Inventor_of_the_LongPen). It gives people the ability to write something in one place and have it robotically done at another. She did it so she could do signings without being present but it’s now used in business so people can sign things without the document having to be mailed back and forth. I don’t what she invented, but I saw such technology before 1950. I had a school bank account with the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS). When you opened an account they made a signature card which was stored at a central office. When you wnt to a branch that you had never been to before, they would call the central office and the next thing you would see was a disembodied pen writing your signature on a card. It was not a fax (although faxes were available by then), but someone at the central office tracing your signature and the machine at the branch responding. After that, the branch forever had your signature. ---
**Author:** ![Moonshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Moonshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonshine)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/39 "2015-06-25T13:58:18Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > That didn’t sound right, so I checked your link. It says the Saturn V cleared the gantry 9 seconds after liftoff and at a speed of 51 mph. > > Eh, what’s an order of magnitude between friends. Rats, my second post in almost fifteen years and I get it wrong! I didn’t read to the end of that page and you’re right, it says the speed was 51mph. But I can’t figure out how the 23 meters per second NASA says Saturn V was doing at that point equates to 51mph? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273/40 "2015-06-25T14:38:50Z")
> [@Moonshine](#): > > Rats, my second post in almost fifteen years and I get it wrong! I didn’t read to the end of that page and you’re right, it says the speed was 51mph. But I can’t figure out how the 23 meters per second NASA says Saturn V was doing at that point equates to 51mph? [https://www.google.com/search?q=convert+23+meters+a+second+to+miles+per+hour&oq=convert+23+meters+a+second+to+miles+per+hour&aqs=chrome..69i57.9615j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8](https://www.google.com/search?q=convert+23+meters+a+second+to+miles+per+hour&oq=convert+23+meters+a+second+to+miles+per+hour&aqs=chrome..69i57.9615j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-some-surprising-facts-about-technology/723273.md?page=3)