All these wonderful inventions in our daily life come straight from the imagination of extraordinary innovators. They never censured themselves and had unwavering confidence in their potential.

Let’s dicover them:

Hungary 1938, the Bíró brothers are watching kids playing marbles after a rain. They notice the little water trail the marbles left behind them.  They imagine putting ink in a long plastic or metal tube with a little marble made of steel. The marble rotates as one writes, leaving an ink trail and recharging as it turns. Today, ball-point pens can write up to 3 kilometers.

Until year 105, people were writing on tree leaves, bark, animal scales, papyrus reeds from Egypt and parchment.

Then along came the Chinese who had the idea to make paper by soaking vegetal fibers in water and then compressing and drying them out on a flat surface. This process is still the same today.

1876, the American inventor Alexander Graham Bell succeeded in making the first distance vocal transmission. He sent his famous message: “Mister Watson, come here, I need you” to his assistant Thomas Watson located on the upper floor. At the beginning, the telephone was just for emergencies and an operator connected the calls.

On December 22, 1895, at Le Grand Café in Paris, spectators literally shouted with fear. They were watching the first movie ever projected. « The arrival of a train in La Ciotat station » from Auguste and Louis Lumière, silent and in black and white. It was the locomotive that seemed to be heading for the spectators that created the emotion and made the film successful. More films to watch.

You are The Future Shapers, and who knows, may be a hundred years from now, someone will write article on you, that people will read under a light cast by your invention, comfortably installed … in something that you are about to create!

]]> https://www.leclindoeilpetillant.com/en/2015/10/06/votre-quotidien-est-extraordinaire/feed/ 0 <img width="190" height="248" src="https://www.leclindoeilpetillant.com/files/2015/09/Cinématographe-au-format-190x248.jpg" class="attachment-rss_feed wp-post-image" alt="Cinématographe des Frères Lumière" title="Cinématographe des Frères Lumière" /> https://www.leclindoeilpetillant.com/en/2014/11/02/apprendre-des-civilisations-anciennes/ https://www.leclindoeilpetillant.com/en/2014/11/02/apprendre-des-civilisations-anciennes/#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2014 20:22:34 +0000 Le Clin d'Oeil Pétillant http://blog.lecreativcenter.com/?p=1351 5000 years before our medicine, “The Egyptians founded cardiology! They treated their patients with a scientific approach” states Bernard Ziskind, cardiologist and specialist in Egyptian medicine. “The state of the knowledge hasn’t evolved between them and Harvey, this XVIIth century English doctor who understood that the heart functioned as pomp”.

Polynesians have peopled the islands dispersed in Oceania thanks to their very sophisticated navigation techniques. This art, based on the sun and the stars, was transmitted only through initiation. “The real secret of Polynesians was that they mastered an astonishing number of parameters: the color of the water, its temperature, its saltiness, the form of the waves, the seaweeds, the fish, clouds, the wind, the birds, the swells, the currents… absolutely everything you can see, feel or hear when on the sea” decodes Emmanuel Desclèves, vice-amiral and member of the Marine Academy.

To feed the 150 000 inhabitants of the town of Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico), Azteces built small islands 3 to 4 meters square on the lake Texcoco. They immersed layers of braided rushes from bottom to top of the lake and grew cereals, fruit and vegetables. Started around 1345, these ecosystems, called chinampas, are still present in Mexico city.

The Mayan civilizations, around year 800, created the first nanomaterial: a blue pigment that keeps all its beauty throughout the centuries thanks to its mixture of clay and vegetal indigo.  30 years of research were needed for the geologist Hendrick van Olphen to understand the process of fabricating azul maya. This process could open new ecological routes for today’s industries.

All these inventions, and so many others, are still outstanding. So, dear Future Shapers, which civilization can inspire you? And how would you transmit your knowhow so that a grand number of people can benefit from it?

NB : This article was inspired by a special edition of de Sciences et Avenir « Ce que savaient les civilisations disparues » Janvier 2014

Want to know more about azul maya ?

Soleil couchant à Lavacourt, effet d’hiver, 1880
Everything melts, houses, water, sky, we can’t really tell anymore; every shade of blue is sublimated by the orange sun and all that sparkles is reflected in the Seine.

Waterlilies at Giverny, 1917
Immerse yourself in the dazzle of these reflections, ephemeral. This water and flower garden and its palette of colors were so very dear to Claude Monet. It was here he searched for “the illusion of the whole without end, of the wave without horizon and without shore”.

Here are three of Claude Monet’s masterpieces, one of the major impressionist painters.

In the middle of the 19th century, thanks to the invention of folding easels and of tubes of paint, artists began to leave their studios and paint landscapes.

With this, the painters broke away from the faithful and static reproduction of reality to depict a moment, a sensation, in front of a landscape. « To reproduce what I feel » Monet explains and he continues “My eyes were opened at last, and I really understood Nature”.

However, several long years of audacity and perseverance were needed before the impressionist movement was fully recognized and appreciated.

And you, dear Future Shaper, which new way of looking at things will you discover?

To go further:
Visit Giverny close to Paris, to discover the garden created by Monet, « My masterpiece is my garden », he said.

Sources:
« Art that changed the world » Transformative art movements and the paintings that inspired them – www.dk.com
« Le jardin de Claude Monet à Giverny » by Fabrice Moireau – Editions Gallimard

This is how in 1817, after several models, Stephenson was able to tow 70 tons of coal with his brand new locomotive. In 1825, the first railroad line was opened between Liverpool and Manchester with Stephenson at the controls. And in the middle of the nineteen century, his company was the first European industry. Quite a success story isn’t it?

Like all breakthrough innovations, the train delights and frightens at the same time.

Eminent specialists concluded that the voyagers would contract pneumonia, that the milk of cows close by would sour…

Some farmers would be expelled from their properties and the transporters by water and carriage were afraid they would lose their jobs.

The inaugurations of new lines attracted crowds who said “We just went through two enchanting days, two days without precedent in the history of our ancient Burgundy” (2)

Frédéric Passy, a jurist, economist and Nobel Peace prize winner, asserted: “Every improvment in transport betters the intellect, the morality and the riches of the society” (3)

Nevertheless, the fact was that in 1814, 112 hours were needed to travel by carriage between Paris and Marseille whereas, in 1897, just 12 hours by train sufficed. With this unheard of speed, our perception of time and distance changed completely.

Go to see the video  sorry in French.

(1) Extract from a text written by Jules Janin on which the French musician Berlioz composed the music  « Chant des chemins de fer » which means “Chant of the railroad”
(2) The newspaper L’Union bourguignonne, June 4th, 1851
(3) « Georges Stephenson et la naissance des chemins de fer » Frédéric Passy, 1895

Main source : A French book on inventions « Ce fabuleux XIXème siècle, l’histoire extraordinaire de ces inventions qui transformèrent le monde » Pierre Sipriot, Editions Belfond, 1990

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Achievement: Francis Crick, physicist and James Watson, biologist solved the puzzle of genetic inheritance by discovering the structure of DNA molecule.

Inspiration: Cooperation was the key of the success of those two Inventors: they were spending hours and hours in conversation, bouncing off each other’s ideas.

Who? Rabindranath Tagore, India, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1913

Achievement: His profound sensibility to the human experience turned into magnificent verse.

Inspiration: Changing tools. When Tagore was writing in a manuscript book, his creativity was limited by a requirement of perfection. His imagination was freed up by the use of the slate which could be immediately erased.

Who? Dag Hammarskjöld, Sweden, Nobel Peace Prize, 1961

Achievement: Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld was a great creative problem solver.

Inspiration: […]“To preserve the silence within -amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grains ripens […]”

Want to know more about the laureates?

And you, Dear Future Shaper, what’s your favorite source of inspiration?

In his research, he experienced much adversity: “If I have a thousand ideas a year, and only one turns out to be good, I’m satisfied.”

That adversity led to the invention of the first international reward of its kind dedicated, as written in his will, […]”to those who shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”[…].

So, the largest part of his enormous fortune was placed in a fund whose interests would be divided among 5 categories: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.

Since 1901, 829 Future Shapers have been awarded for their outstanding achievements.

So, if by chance, in the middle of the day or night, you get a phone call from the Swedish Academy, don’t hang up. It might be to announce you’ve won the Nobel Prize !!

Hum, by the way, how do you reward the spirit of creativity in your company?

Want to plunge into the atmosphere of the Prize by visiting the Nobel Museum in the historic center of Stockolm? It’s here!

On our next Sparkling Rendezvous, we’ll meet for a lesson of inspiration by 3 Nobel Prizes.

Here are two existential and fundamental questions that explain all.

Who led us to chocolate addiction?

It would be the pre-Olmec’s fault, a pre-Columbian people from Central America, who already, 4000 years ago, knew the numerous virtues of this delicious fruit!

They were using it as a strengthening beverage as well as to appease the forest Gods or as an exchange currency.

Why are we chocolate-addicted?

Probably because our brain detects its 300 beneficial substances… or is it because black chocolate releases
endomorphins and therefore is euphoric and an aphrodisiac?

From this statement to imagine that chocolate is a serious and proven help for creativity, there is just one step…
we certainly will take, won’t we, dear Future Shapers?

Oh, oh… here I must go for a chocolate pause. See you soon!

Dear Future Shapers, with this article, I relive with you the emotion of one of the key episodes that led to what Raoul Dufy would paint later as La Fée Electricité (The sprite of electricity). In ten years hence, America would be a glow with electricity; tramways and skyscrapers with elevators made their appearance in cities.

It was the crowning achievement of the determined work and creative genius of Thomas Edison, the seventh child of a poor family, curious about everything and fascinated by experiments.

His working career started at 12 years old as a vendor of pop-corn and newspapers on the Port-Huron/Detroit train and then he became the father of countless inventions such as the phonograph and the first cinema studio.

On October 21,1931, a minute of darkness was observed throughout America in commemoration of this prolific inventor, dead 3 days. Thanks to him, a new era had begun.

Sources : The present article was written from the books « Edison, the man who made the future » by Ronald W. Clark and « De Gutenberg à Bill Gates » written by Alain Frerejean and Charles-Armand Klein

Yet, from the 1st millenium BC up until the 13th century, the Chinese “first invented and discovered more than half the basic modern technologies we now take for granted”.

Let me give you just a few examples.

The Chinese were the greatest seafarers in history. For nearly two thousand years, their vessels and navigation techniques were by far the most advanced in the world. The famous voyages of Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama and Magellan were only made possible “by the adoption of Chinese nautical technology” i.e. the rudder, multiple masts, batten sails, the compass, and so on.

Today, Western agriculture is the most productive in the world. But well before the 19th century, the Chinese were cultivating crops in rows and using multi-tube modern seed drills, iron ploughs and collar harnesses while the Europeans had to put far more effort into producing much lower yields.

The wheelbarrow, the sunshade and umbrella, the kite, the parachute, brandy and whisky, the suspension bridge, “modern” astronomy, “modern” music, decimal fractions, endocrinology, the multistage rocket and the game of chess were all discovered in China.

I must confess I am bowled over by so many inventions that are fundamentals in our civilisation. What about you, dear Future Shapers?

This article is based on “The Genius of China” by world famous researcher Robert Temple, whose work has been translated into 40 languages, no doubt including your own. It is “the happy and brilliant distillation of my multi-volume Science and Civilisation in China”, says Joseph Needham, the famous British sinologist. All other quotes are by Robert Temple.

In the seventies, Steve Jobs used to tinker around with his father, who worked as a machinist in a laser factory.  He discovered the world of computers and the virus never left him . Neither did his passion for innovation.

In 1976, he and his friend Steve Wozniak sold their personal belongings for $ 1300 and shut themselves up in the Jobs’ family garage for six months. They came up with the first P.C., i.e. a computer that was both compact and user-friendly.

The Apple I was marketed for the unheard of price of $ 666.66. That was the start of the third industrial revolution – Information Technology.

Who were the Apple I’s ancestors? Many years of research preceded the IT revolution. The very first computer, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator), was invented in 1943. Built by American physician and inventor, John William Mauchly, it weighed over 30 tons, took up 1,800 square feet, contained 18,000 vacuum tubes and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors and inductors. Hardly the sort you’d carry around!

Today, on our planet, 11 computers are sold every second. And in just one second, these computers can carry out thousands of operations that would have taken 100 hours in 1971.

We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? So, next weekend, how about meeting up in my garage for some creative tinkling!

Our next issue: Have fun!, the Future Shapers’ first creative challenge!