Technology
- February 19 - The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison. The oldest known audio recording is later recovered from this device, in 2012.
- March - The 'basic' process, enabling the use of phosphoric iron ore in steelmaking, developed at Blaenavon Ironworks by Percy Gilchrist and Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, is first made public.
- October 14 - The world's first recorded floodlit football fixture is played at Bramall Lane in Sheffield.
- August - Cleopatra's Needle is raised onto its base in London.
- December 18 - Joseph Swan of Newcastle upon Tyne in England announces his invention of an incandescent light bulb.
- December 31 - Karl Benz produces a two-stroke gas engine.
- William Crookes invents the Crookes tube which produces cathode rays.
- Gustav Kessel obtains a patent in Germany for an espresso machine.
- Lester Allan Pelton produces the first operational Pelton wheel.
Read more about this topic: 1878 In Science
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)
“Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body—we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technology instead of mysticism!”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)