The Me-262, nicknamed the Shwalbe, or “Swallow”, was the world’s first operational-level-jet-powered fighter. Initially, it was produced with a piston engine in the nose until jet engines could be made ready. On the first experimental flight, the turbojet engines flared out and forced the pilot to make an emergency landing with only the power of the piston engine. The engines were mounted under each wing and the system was armed with four 30 mm cannons and additional air-to-air rockets could be added. Only about 300 units were ever operational, but they easily defeated Allied bomber formations. However, it was particularly vulnerable before and during takeoff and the 4 x 30 mm cannon assembly was unfortunately prone to jamming at inconvenient times.
In 1940, the first color TV was introduced to public by John Logie Baird. It was a monochromatic picture tube TV that featured 600 lines of resolution (nowadays, TVs normally have over 2000 lines). A rotating disc fitted with transparent color filters was placed in front of the screen to produce color.
The first computer was built by John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry in 1942 at Iowa State University. The builders designed a special-purpose computer, called the ABC, to solve linear equations. John Mauchly, a physicist funded by the US Army, expanded on the previous design and developed the first rudimentary computer, which he called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. It was a machine powered by 18,000 vacuum tubes that solved the Army’s problem of computing artillery and bombing tables and replaced over 200 women who worked with mechanical desk calculators.
The Slinky was invented in 1943 by Richard James, an engineer from Philadelphia. While working in his home laboratory, he was trying to invent a set of springs that could support instruments on ships and ensure stability in rough seas. He accidentally knocked off one of the springs, and instead of falling normally, it behaved in the behavior that we associate with Slinkys today, by “stepping” in a series of arcs from the shelf, to books, to a tabletop, and finally the floor. His wife, Betty, realized its potential as a toy and the James’s unveiled their toy at the Gimbels Department Store in downtown Philadelphia in 1945, where they sold 400 Slinkys in 90 minutes. To this day, Slinkys are still used for several purposes, including: demonstrations by high school teachers to demonstrate the properties of waves, mobile radio antennas in Vietnam, and zero gravity experiments performed by NASA in the Space Shuttle.
The Atomic Bomb Was another major scientific advancement made in the 40s. The first atomic bomb was set off on July 16, 1945 in the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico. The US government’s secret project, the Manhattan Project, was responsible for developing the nuclear bomb. This project was started in 1939 after Albert Einstein told FDR about the possibility of Germans developing nuclear technology to use against the US. The Los Alamos research and weapon-design scientists collaborated with Harold Urey to ultimately build the bomb.
The microwave was the product of various rapid advancements made in radar technology during World War II. In 1946, Dr. Percy Spencer, a Raytheon Corporation engineer, noticed that a magnetron vacuum tube could melt candy, pop popcorn, and cook eggs. He invented a box that condensed the microwaves and used the energy to cook food. The first commercial microwave was released in 1947, and was 5.5 feet tall, weighed 750 pounds, and cost a total of $5000.
Christina Heumann