Since time immemorial, thousands of inventions by man have gone on to transform the world. Here is a list of 50 (in alphabetical order) that may have played a bigger part than most:
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Abacus- 190 AD
Use of the abacus, with its beads in a rack, was first documented in China in about 190 AD. The Chinese version was the speediest way to do sums for centuries and, in the right hands, can still outpace electronic calculators.
Aspirin- 1899
Little tablets of acetylsalicylic acid have probably cured more minor ills than any other medicine. Hippocrates was the first to realise the healing power of the substance. At the turn-of-the-century, German chemist Felix Hoffman perfected the remedy.
Barbed wire- 1873
The world's most divisive invention was conceived not to keep people in or out, but cows.
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Barcode- 1973
Barcodes were conceived as a kind of visual Morse code by a Philadelphia student in 1952. Now, black stripes have appeared on almost everything we buy.
Battery- 1800
In 1780s, Italian physicist Luigi Galvani discovered that a dead frog's leg would twitch when he touched it with two pieces of metal. His friend, professor Alessandro Volta made the first battery which were voltaic cells stacked in a Voltaic pile.
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