Wheels who invented them

Since the oldest known wheels date to around 3, BC, that means that their invention post-dates the invention of agriculture, boats, and woven cloth. From a period standpoint, this puts the invention of wheels sometime between the Neolithic and Bronze ages. One reason why it may have taken so long to invent the wheel is that wheels and axles are not found in nature.

Tools like levers or pitchforks are based on things that occur naturally, such as forked sticks. Although tumbleweeds and dung beetles use rolling, rolling is of little practical use without an axle. The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving the notion of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It's figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder without impeding the cylinder's movement. Once early civilizations realized how much easier transportation would be with the wheel and axle, it becomes clear why the wheel was invented.

In around , archaeologists discovered the Bronocice pot, a ceramic vase uncovered in a Neolithic village in Poland. It is believed to date to between 3, and 3, B. If accurate, this means that the use of the wheel and axle may have first appeared somewhere in the Eurasian steppes. In fact, many words associated with wheels and wagons derive from the language of the Tripolye people, who lived in modern-day Ukraine. The first carts with wheels and axles involved a fixed wheel and axle design , where the wheel and the axle turned together.

Essentially, pegs were used to hold the wheel and axle in place, and all of the movement was done by this combined axle-wheel. It wasn't until later in wheel history that carts were designed which used holes, rather than pegs, to hold the axles in place. This is harder because, in order to make a fixed axle with revolving wheels, the ends of the axle and the holes in the center of the wheels needed to be almost perfectly smooth and round.

Otherwise, friction would prevent the wheels from turning. Several other crucial inventions actually predate the wheel, including rope, basket weaving, and boats. While the concept of the wheel may seem simple to us today, the engineering required to make one thousands of years ago was actually very complex.

The wheel must have an axle that it rotates around. This is achieved by fitting the axle directly in the centre of the wheel to maximize potential motion. In addition, the axle and the hole alignment must be perpendicular to reduce friction. Furthermore, the axle should remain as thin as possible to reduce its surface area while still being able to support the load. From here, the only friction to overcome is that between the inner wheel and the axle.

The smoother the inner surface of the wheel, and the outer surface of the axle, the less friction the system has to overcome. Not only do all these parameters have to be met for this structure to work, but all at the same time, hence why the invention of the wheel was such a revolutionary moment. Evidence suggests the wheel was in use around BC in Mesopotamia. The oldest wooden wheels have been discovered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and date back to BC. Patent Law was passed.

Although the patent office is aware of this patent being issued, the original record was destroyed along with other patents from the 18th century in an fire. In the s, archaeologists unearthed wheeled toys—ceramic dogs and other animals with wheels as legs—in pre-Colombian layers of sediment in Vera Cruz, Mexico.

The indigenous peoples of North America, however, would not use wheels for transportation until the arrival of European settlers. The origin of the gambling game roulette is a bit hazy. Some sources say Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French mathematician, invented it in his attempts to create a perpetual motion device. If people can pedal away ten miles or so in the middle of the day to a lunch for which they need no dress, where the talk is haphazard, varied, light, and only too easy; and then glide back in the cool of the afternoon to dine quietly and get early to bed…conversation of the more serious type will tend to go out.

Norman Anderson, author of Ferris Wheels: An Illustrated History , surmises that the first pleasure wheels, or early Ferris Wheels, were probably just wheels with buckets, used to raise water from a stream, that children would playfully grab hold of for a ride. Ferris answered that call. He apparently told the press that he sketched every detail of his Ferris wheel over a dinner at a Chicago chophouse, and no detail needed changing in its execution.

Movie cameras typically operate at a speed of about 24 frames per second. But if in that frame another spoke is in the position, then it appears to be revolving backwards. This optical illusion, called the wagon wheel effect, also can occur in the presence of a strobe light.

He wanted to prove that the cheap, streamlined system, which allows inventors to draft a patent online without the help of a lawyer, was flawed. Megan Gambino is a senior web editor for Smithsonian magazine. Evidence indicates the wheel was created to serve as potter's wheels around B.