Who invented the first computer? Who invented the first telephone: the history of the creation of the most popular means of communication

For us, for people who have moved into an era that was described in many scientific books, which was dreamed of by science fiction writers of the past, into the 21st century, the Internet is a completely familiar thing. For us, going online and getting to some site is now as easy as for people of the past to light a candle or go outside. But once upon a time, quite recently (and we even remember this time), the Internet was a fantastic invention, and we could not even think that we would use it, participate in it, and even create it.

Now we don’t think about it, but once upon a time there was a man who invented the Internet, invented and created the first website in the world. And it is about this man and his inventions that we will tell you.

Tim Berners-Lee's very first website in the world

The person to whom we owe the modern Internet is the English scientist, Oxford graduate and winner of many scientific awards, Tim Berners-Lee. It is thanks to him that we can now so easily get to any site, get absolutely any information from the web and.

In 1990, Berners-Lee published the first website in the world. It is still available at the same address info.cern.ch. This site contains information on English, which talks about the then new technology for transferring HTTP data via World Wide Web, about URLs and markup HTML text. All this turned out to be the foundation modern Internet and is still relevant today. In the same year, the world's first browser was created, which was called World Wide Web.

The inspiration to create the world's first website came to Berners-Lee while working at the European Nuclear Research Centre. There he invited his colleagues to store information with hyperlinks. Tim Berners-Lee dreamed that every text ever written by a person would be filled with hyperlinks leading to other interesting and explanatory material.

However, for the sake of fairness, it should be said that Tim Berners-Lee was not visited by the Internet muse on empty space. Other scientists worked before him and expressed their ideas and hypotheses regarding information storage. Thus, Vennevar Bush back in the 40s of the last century came up with a theory about how to index human memory for quick search it contains the necessary data. And Theodore Nelson came up with the so-called “branching text,” that is, text with links. But this was all a theory, and it only became reality in the 90s.

Today Tim Berners-Lee is the head of the World Wide Web Consortium.

First of all, we need to remind you that numbers and numbers are not the same thing. We call numbers the special signs that represent numbers.


The answer to the question of who invented such icons and who began to use them for the first time is not so simple. Obviously, a person first learned to count, that is, he learned that everything in the world can be measured, everything can be assigned a numerical value. Having invented, people also thought about denoting numbers with some special signs.

The very first numerical symbolism

Initially, these were serifs that were made with a stick on soft material, or cut out. One mark is the number 1, two marks are 2, and so on. Moreover, in the most ancient surviving documents, the number of serifs corresponded to the number that was expressed - for example, a thousand. Many centuries passed before people figured out that numbers need to be assigned ranks and large quantities need to be denoted by separate signs. This made recording much easier

It is believed that the very first numerical designations appeared in Ancient Egypt and ancient Babylon. The Egyptians developed a hieroglyphic script in which numbers were indicated by dashes and ranks by special symbols. Starting from a hundred, it was a stylized image of the sacred Egyptian animal - the cat.

The ancient Babylonians made a huge leap in the designation of numbers. They invented positional notation, in which the place of the sign in the sequence matters. In Babylon they used the sexagesimal number system, which we use to this day to determine time (our hour is divided into 60 minutes, a minute into 60 seconds).

The ancient Romans came up with their own numbers. Roman numerals are still in use, but their scope of application is strictly limited. Roman numerals indicate, for example, centuries and chapter numbers in a book. Looking at these signs, you can immediately understand that they trace their history back to the simplest notches - stripes.


Roman digital notation is not positional: you can understand which number is indicated by numbers by performing certain arithmetic operations - adding or subtracting numbers according to a certain algorithm. It is very difficult to write large numbers in Roman numerals, and it is almost impossible to use these notations for calculations.

Where did the modern numbers come from?

The credit for inventing modern numbers (namely, they can be considered real numbers) belongs to the Indians. In the fifth century AD, they made a major discovery: they introduced the concept of zero into mathematical use and came up with a symbol for it - emptiness circled. How important the discovery of zero was is evidenced by the fact that translated from Arabic the word itself "Syfr"(from which ours came "number" ) means zero. The Indians wrote down the remaining numbers from 1 to 9 using simple symbols, similar to those we use now.

Hindus began to represent numbers in a positional way, when the number of tens, hundreds, thousands and other digits is indicated by one digit standing at a certain position. They adopted this tradition from the Babylonians. It became possible not only to write down any numbers from zero to infinity, but also to carry out mathematical operations with them.

How did Indian numbers get to Europe and why do we call them Arabic? The Arabs were in close contact with the Indians and carried on brisk trade. In addition, science, culture and business were actively developing in the Arab countries of that time, and for this it was absolutely necessary to study mathematics. The Arabs accepted Indian numbers and began to use them.

The name of the person who first used the decimal positional notation of numbers according to the Indian method and popularized this idea in the Arab world is known. It was the Persian scientist Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who wrote his famous treatise on arithmetic. In the book he outlined the basics of Indian calculation and digital recording.

This happened in the 9th century AD. New system quickly spread to the Middle East, and in the 10th-13th centuries it came to Europe. In European countries, Arabic numerals were initially used when minting coins, then when numbering pages in books, documents, etc.


The Arabic digital recording system allowed humanity to make huge leaps in science, economics, and education. Any preschooler can learn this system; it has become familiar, and we rarely think about the fact that we once recorded large numbers people had to draw a lot of sticks or draw a cat on papyrus!

Modern life is impossible without lighting, cars, equipment, digital and other technology, they are based on a single resource, in connection with this, many people wonder who invented the electricity that is used everywhere. Who was the person with whom the development of science and production began, and who made the current comfort of life potentially possible?

There was no invention of electricity as such, since this is a natural phenomenon and its study began in Ancient Greece in the 7th century BC. The philosopher and naturalist Thales of Miletus drew attention to the fact that if amber is rubbed with sheep's wool, the stone acquires the ability to attract certain light objects. He also formulated the term. Since in Greek amber is called “electron,” the identified force was designated by Thales as “electricity.”

Scientific research

Real scientific research electrical nature began only in the 17th century during the Renaissance. In Magdeburg at that time Otto von Guericke served as burgomaster, but power was not the official’s real passion. All free time he spent in his laboratory, where, after carefully studying the works of Thales of Miletus, he invented the world's first electric car. True, its application was not practical, but rather scientific; it allowed the inventor to study the effects of attraction and repulsion through electrical force. The machine was a rod on which a ball of sulfur was spinning; in this design it replaced amber.

Founder of Electrical Engineering

Also at the end of the 17th century, the court physician and physicist William Gilbert worked at the English court. He was also inspired by the works of the ancient Greek thinker, and he moved on to his own research on this topic. This inventor developed a device for studying electricity - the versor. With his help, he was able to expand his knowledge of electrical phenomena. So he established that schists, opal, diamond, carborundum, amethyst and glass have properties similar to amber. In addition, Gilbert established the relationship between flame and electricity, and also made a number of other discoveries that allowed modern scientists to call him the founder of electrical engineering.

Transmitting electricity over a distance

In the 18th century, research on the topic was successfully continued. Two scientists from England, Grenville Wheeler and Stephen Gray, found that electricity passes through some materials (they were called conductors) and does not pass through others. They also carried out the first experiment in transmitting electric force over a distance. The current traveled a short distance. So 1729 can be called the first date when answering the question in what year industrial electricity was invented. Further discoveries followed one after another:

• a mathematics professor from Holland, Maschenbroek, invented the “Leyden jar,” which in essence was the first capacitor;
• French naturalist Charles Dufay classified electrical forces for glass and resin;
• Mikhail Lomonosov proved that lightning is produced due to potential differences, and invented the first lightning rod;
• Professor from France Charles Coulomb discovered the law of relationship between stationary charges of point format.

All established facts were collected under one cover by Benjamin Franklin, who also proposed several promising theories, for example, that charges can be both positive and negative.

From theory to practice

All established facts were correct and formed the basis practical developments. In the 19th century, scientific research one after another found practical implementation:

• Italian scientist Volt developed a source of direct electric current;
• the Danish scientist Oersted established electrical and magnetic relationships between objects;
• scientist from St. Petersburg Petrov developed a scheme that made it possible to use electric current for room lighting;
• Englishman Delarue invented the world's first incandescent lamp

• Ampere discovered the fact that the magnetic field is formed not by static charges, but by an electric field;
• Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction and designed the first motor;
• Gauss developed the theory of the electric field;
• Italian physicist Galvani established the presence of electricity in the human body, in particular the execution of muscle movements through electric current.

The works of each of the above-mentioned scientists served as the basis for certain directions, so any of them can safely be called the first scientist in the world who invented electricity.

The Age of "Great Discoveries"

The discoveries made and the developments carried out made it possible to perform a systematic analysis of the phenomenon and its capabilities, after which projects of various electrical systems and devices became possible. By the way, to Russia’s credit, we can say that the first populated area on the planet to be illuminated by electricity was Tsarskoe Selo in 1881. Thus, as a result of the work of several generations, we can live in the most comfortable world possible.

History of electricity: video

Who came up with the first numbers and when?

Roman numerals appeared about 500 BC among the Etruscans.
Used by the ancient Romans in their non-positional number system.
Natural numbers are written by repeating these numbers. Moreover, if a larger number is in front of a smaller one, then they are added (the principle of addition), but if a smaller number is in front of a larger one, then the smaller one is subtracted from the larger one (the principle of subtraction). The last rule applies only to avoid repeating the same number four times.

The origin story of Null!
The word “digit” comes from the Arabic word “sifr” (“zero”)!

The first reliable evidence of the recording of zero dates back to 876; in a wall inscription from Gwalior (India) there is the number 270. Some researchers suggest that the zero was borrowed from the Greeks, who introduced the letter “o” as a zero into the sexagesimal number system they used in astronomy.
Others, on the contrary, believe that zero came to India from the east; it was invented on the border of Indian and Chinese cultures. Earlier inscriptions from 683 and 686 have been discovered. in present-day Cambodia and Indonesia, where zero is depicted as a dot and a small circle. The Mayans used zero in their 20-digit number system almost a millennium before the Indians.
In the Inca Empire Tawantinsuyu for the record numerical information the knotted quipu system was used, based on a positional decimal number system. The numbers from 1 to 9 were indicated by knots of a certain type, zero - by skipping a knot in the desired position.

In the 19th century, long before the age of electricity, Englishman Charles Babbage came so close to developing the basic functions of a computer that he is now considered the father of the computer.

The first machine Babbage designed, the differential engine, was powered by a steam engine. She calculated tables of logarithms using the method of constant differentiation and recorded the results on a metal plate. The working model he created in 1822 was a six-digit calculator capable of performing calculations and printing numerical tables. In 1833, Babbage announced his intention to create a more powerful multifunctional machine, the Analytical Engine. The new machine was designed to perform a wide range of computer tasks with a memory of one hundred 40-digit numbers. Consisting of many gears, it would manipulate the numbers while an operator would instruct the machine, or, using modern terminalology, program it by punching out a series of cards.

The idea of ​​card composting, or punching, was not new. The French weaver Joseph Marie Jacquard had already used the punched card method for an automatic loom. Jacquard improved his technology so much that the spinning of one complex sample of silk was carried out according to a program outlined on ten thousand cards. Unfortunately, other technologies of that time did not allow Babbage to implement the analytical engine he designed, although it contained the fundamental principles of a modern computer.

Differential motor

A working model of a differential engine, constructed from Babbage's notes a hundred years after his death, glitters with dazzling gears and dials.

The analytical engine design has features that can easily be found in modern computer. Punch cards carry commands and data; mechanized engine doing work central processor. The result, or output, is sent directly to the printed memory plates.

Even an inexperienced operator of this silk spinning machine can weave complex silks on it simply by inserting the correct punch cards.

The silkworm machine follows the pattern laid out in the program. Punch cards are organized in the same way as in the program.

Charles Babbage (1792-1871) devoted his genius to creating computer. In addition, he helped found the Royal Astronomical Society and occupied the same chair as Isaac Newton as head of mathematics at Cambridge.