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Indians have been foremost in many of the inventions and discoveries that have changed the world. It is a matter of pride to know that simple things that we use in our daily lives like buttons, ink, cotton, rulers and even shampoo are India’s gift to the world!
The excavations at Mohenjo Daro proved that buttons were used to fasten clothes - 2000 years ago during the Indus valley Civilization! Ivory rulers with decimal subdivisions on them were also excavated here and dated back to 1500 BCE. During the 5 th and 4th millennium BCE, Indians not only cultivated cotton but made clothes out of it. Pretty cool, isn’t it?
Let’s move over to the 19th century. If someone were to be asked who invented the radio, most people might say Marconi. He is credited with having invented the wireless radio communication and even received a Nobel prize for it.
But did you know that two years before Marconi’s demonstration, an Indian Scientist, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose had already demonstrated the use of radio in 1895! A century later, Sir Jagadish was recognized for his feat and posthumously awarded for his achievement. Sir Jagadish’s revolutionary technology is what forms the basis of most of the modern technology we use today, ranging from mobiles to WiFi, and satellites to radars.
The daily Chronicle, England, 1896, wrote about his extraordinary invention. “The Inventor J. C. Bose has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel.”
Moving on to modern times, there are plenty of new age inventions that are credited to Indians. The most notable ones are the invention of the Pentium chip and the USB – two inventions that literally shaped our present day communication, and the invention of Fiber Optics.
Vinod Dham is called as the Father of the Pentium Chip and is held in high regard for his contribution to this highly successful Pentium Processor from Intel.
Indian-American Ajay V Bhatt is the inventor of the USB. He is also the man behind AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) , PCI Express , Platform Power management architecture and various other chip-set improvements.