The Toilet Yes…those tales you’ve heard are true.
The toilet was first patented in England in 1775,
invented by one Thomas Crapper, but the
extraordinary automatic device called the flush
toilet has been around for a long time. Leonardo
Da Vinci in the 1400’s designed one that worked,
at least on paper, and Queen Elizabeth I reputably
had one in her palace in Richmond in 1556,
complete with flushing and overflow pipes, a bowl
valve and a drain trap. In all versions, ancient and
modern, the working principle is the same.
Tripping a single lever (the handle) sets in motion a
series of actions. The trip handle lifts the seal,
usually a rubber flapper, allowing water to flow
into the bowl. When the tank is nearly empty, the
flap falls back in place over the water outlet. A
floating ball falls with the water level, opening the
water supply inlet valve just as the outlet is being
closed. Water flows through the bowl refill tube
into the overflow pipe to replenish the trap sealing
water. As the water level in the tank nears the top
of the overflow pipe, the float closes the inlet
valve, completing the cycle. From the oldest of
gadgets in the bathroom, let’s turn to one of the
newest, the toothpaste pump. Sick and tired of
toothpaste squeezed all over your sink and
faucets? Does your spouse never ever roll down
the tube and continually squeezes it in the middle?
Then the toothpaste pump is for you! When you
press the button it pushes an internal, grooved rod
down the tube. Near the bottom of the rod is a
piston, supported by little metal flanges called
“dogs”, which seat themselves in the grooves on
the rod. As the rod moves down, the dogs slide
out of the groove they’re in and click into the one
above it. When you release the button, the spring
brings the rod back up carrying the piston with it,
now seated one notch higher. This pushes
one-notch’s-worth of toothpaste out of the nozzle.
A measured amount of toothpaste every time and
no more goo on the sink. Refrigerators Over 90
percent of all North American homes with
electricity have refrigerators. It seems to be the
one appliance that North Americans can just not
do without. The machine’s popularity as a food
preserver is a relatively recent phenomenon,
considering that the principles were known as
early as 1748. A liquid absorbs heat from its
surroundings when it evaporates into a gas; a gas
release…
…
alone are sold every day in North America. Ink
feeds by gravity through five veins in a nose cone,
usually made of brass, to a tungsten carbide ball.
During the writing process, the ball rotates, picking
up a continuous ink supply through the nose cone
and transferring it to the writing paper. The ball is
a perfect sphere, which must fit precisely into the
extremely smooth nose cone socket so that it will
rotate freely yet be held tightly in place so that
there is an even ink flow. Although it sounds
deceptively simple, perhaps the most amazing
thing about ball-point pens is the ink. Why doesn’t
it just run out the end? Why doesn’t it dry up in the
plastic cartridge? Bic describes the ink as
“exclusive, fast-drying, yet free flowing”. The
formula is, of course, secret. In the 19th century,
writer and thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson
expressed a fear that perhaps we all feel to some
extent, that “things are in the saddle and ride
Mankind”. But with the help of good household
reference books, friendly reference librarians, and
helpful manufacturers only too willing to help
consumers understand their products, we can at
least get a rein on the technology in our homes.
