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📘 Kharidar syllabus: Paper I, Section A, Unit 4.1 (Inventions and recent scientific activities) · Open the full Kharidar course
Unit 4.1 asks about inventions that have a direct impact on human life and about recent scientific activities. Learn the pairs below: invention, inventor and roughly when.
1. Inventions in communication and transport
| Invention | Inventor | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Printing press | Johannes Gutenberg | about 1440 |
| Steam engine (improved) | James Watt | 1769 |
| Telephone | Alexander Graham Bell | 1876 |
| Electric bulb (practical) | Thomas Edison | 1879 |
| Radio | Guglielmo Marconi | 1890s |
| Aeroplane | Wright brothers (Orville and Wilbur) | 1903 |
| Television | John Logie Baird | 1920s |
| World Wide Web | Tim Berners-Lee | 1989 |
2. Discoveries in medicine
| Discovery | Scientist | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Smallpox vaccine | Edward Jenner | 1796 |
| X-rays | Wilhelm Röntgen | 1895 |
| Penicillin (first antibiotic) | Alexander Fleming | 1928 |
| Insulin | Banting and Best | 1921 |
| Polio vaccine (injected) | Jonas Salk | 1950s |
| Structure of DNA (double helix) | Watson and Crick | 1953 |
3. Great scientific ideas
- Isaac Newton: laws of motion and the law of gravitation.
- Albert Einstein: theory of relativity (E = mc²).
- Charles Darwin: theory of evolution (On the Origin of Species).
- Charles Babbage: father of the computer.
- Alfred Nobel: invented dynamite; the Nobel Prizes are named after him.
4. Space and recent scientific activities
- Sputnik 1 (USSR, 1957) was the first artificial satellite.
- Yuri Gagarin (USSR, 1961) was the first human in space.
- Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11, 1969) was the first person to walk on the Moon.
- NepaliSat-1 (2019) was Nepal’s first satellite.
- India’s Chandrayaan-3 landed near the Moon’s south pole in 2023.
- mRNA vaccines were used against COVID-19 from 2020.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as chatbots are changing work, education and government services.
5. Impact on human life
- Medicines and vaccines have increased life expectancy.
- Communication technology connects people instantly and supports e-governance.
- Transport inventions made trade and tourism possible.
- Some inventions also bring risks: pollution, weapons, cyber crime and misuse of AI.
6. More inventions often asked
| Invention | Inventor | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Electric battery | Alessandro Volta | 1800 |
| Electric dynamo / electromagnetic induction | Michael Faraday | 1831 |
| Sewing machine (lockstitch) | Elias Howe | 1846 |
| Petrol motor car | Karl Benz | 1885–86 |
| Diesel engine | Rudolf Diesel | 1890s |
| Transistor | Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley | 1947 |
| ENIAC, an early electronic computer | Eckert and Mauchly | 1946 |
| Email between computers | Ray Tomlinson | 1971 |
| Handheld mobile phone | Martin Cooper (Motorola) | 1973 |
7. More discoveries in science and medicine
| Discovery | Scientist | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Circulation of blood | William Harvey | 1628 |
| Rabies vaccine | Louis Pasteur | 1885 |
| Tuberculosis bacterium | Robert Koch | 1882 |
| Mosquito spreads malaria | Ronald Ross | 1897 |
| Radioactivity | Henri Becquerel | 1896 |
| Electron | J. J. Thomson | 1897 |
| Blood groups (ABO) | Karl Landsteiner | 1901 |
| Neutron | James Chadwick | 1932 |
8. Science and Nepal
- NAST (Nepal Academy of Science and Technology) was set up in 2039 BS (1982) to promote science and research in Nepal.
- NepaliSat-1, Nepal’s first satellite, was built by Nepali engineers under Japan’s BIRDS-3 project and launched in 2019 (2076 BS).
- Tissue culture and improved seeds from NARC help farmers grow disease-free potato, banana and other crops.
- Hydropower technology is Nepal’s biggest use of engineering for development.
9. How this topic is asked in the exam
- Matching: invention with inventor, or discovery with scientist. Learn them in the pairs given in the tables.
- Year questions: learn rough dates (century or decade); exact years are asked only for very famous ones like the telephone (1876) or penicillin (1928).
- Short answer: “Write the impact of science and technology on human life” — use the points in section 5, with good and bad effects.
10. Quick self-check
- Telephone? Alexander Graham Bell.
- Light bulb? Thomas Edison.
- Penicillin? Alexander Fleming.
- World Wide Web? Tim Berners-Lee.
- Radio? Guglielmo Marconi.
- Printing press? Johannes Gutenberg.
Cover the answers and test yourself before the exam.
📌 Key points to remember
- Telephone: Graham Bell; bulb: Edison; radio: Marconi; aeroplane: Wright brothers; TV: Baird.
- Penicillin: Fleming; smallpox vaccine: Jenner; X-ray: Röntgen; DNA structure: Watson and Crick.
- Newton: gravity; Einstein: relativity; Darwin: evolution; Babbage: father of computer.
- WWW: Tim Berners-Lee (1989).
- First satellite Sputnik 1 (1957); first man in space Gagarin (1961); first on Moon Armstrong (1969).
📝 Quiz
Test yourself: Major Scientific Inventions, Discoveries and Recent Scientific Activities
Practise Inventions in communication and transport, Great scientific ideas and Impact on human life with 50 questions. Each attempt picks 25 at random.
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