When I have time, I get up in the morning, go to the kitchen, turn on the stove and make myself a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs or pancakes.
I owe the fact that I can do this to a Canadian - Thomas Ahearn - who invented the electric stove.
Ahearn was an electrical engineer, business man, telegraph operator and Ottawa branch manager of the telegraph and telephone companies in the late 1800s. He started an electrical contracting business which eventually grew into a network of companies controlling electricity supply, streetcars and streetlights in Ottawa. Needless to say, his inventions and his business acumen eventually made him rich.
This coming Saturday, UNBC and School District 57 host the Central Interior Science Exhibition at the Bentley Science Centre.
It is a celebration of some of our best and brightest young minds from around the north as they explore the world of science. It's a chance for a future Thomas Ahearn to strut his or her stuff.
After all, Canadians have made important contributions in a number of areas, not just household appliances. We may not have invented the airplane, the automobile or the CD, but Canadians scientists invented plexiglass, AM radio, pablum, the snowmobile, the zipper and a whole host of other things. The Government of Canada, through Industry Canada, has a great deal of information about Canadian inventions on their website while Wikipedia has a long list with hyperlinks. Canadians have definitely left their mark.
Take, for example, plexiglass.
It's actually a compound called methyl methacrylate - a name only a chemist could love. It is an organic polymer.
It is tough and transparent. It is ideal for the glass in an ice hockey rink or the windows of a jet. It was invented by a McGill chemist, William Chalmers.
Indeed, McGill University in Montreal has generated a number of famous polymer chemists, including James Guillet, who has invented biodegradable plastic garbage bags and might have solved an environmental problem.
AM radio was devised by Reginald Fessenden back in 1905. In his day, he was called the "father of radio."
His invention allowed the transmission of human speech by modulating the amplitude of the radio waves. Without Fessenden's breakthrough, our lives would be significantly different.
I doubt television as we know it would have been invented without radio as a precursor. The world of technology is highly interwoven with one invention kickstarting others. Radios lead to television which facilitates computers which will lead to who knows where?
Certainly one of the earliest uses of a television screen was the invention of the electron microscope. While early microscopes were first invented in Germany, Canadian Eli Burton and his students Cecil Hall, James Hillier, and Albert Prebus designed and built the first North American electron microscope in 1938 at the University of Toronto.
As with radio, electron microscopy opened up whole new worlds to scientific inquiry and has led to many modern inventions.
It is unlikely we would have modern microchips or our understanding of virus and bacteria without being able to look at the world in such fine detail.
Pablum was invented by pediatricians T.G.H. Drake, A. Brown, and T.F. Tisdall. The snowmobile by Armand Bombardier. The zipper by Gideon Sundback. Canadians all. Yes, we have made the world a better place.
As an undergraduate at UVic, I could have taken part in a Canadian invention. John Hayward, Martin Collins and John Eckerson were studying hypothermia. They were interested in devising a suit that would protect fishers and oil rig workers from immersion in the cold ocean. The suit - the UVic Thermo-Float - is used all over the world and has saved many lives.
My part? Well, they needed volunteers to sit in a tub of ice water so they could make vital measurements on body temperature and such - when not wearing the suit.
Fortunately, I had a cold that day and wasn't allowed to participate.
This Saturday, the Central Interior Science Exhibition in the Bentley Science Centre at UNBC will allow our young scientists and inventors to show us what they can do. I am sure it won't involve me getting into a large tub of ice water, but who knows? There are always interesting inventions and explorations of science at the event.
So please come out and have a look! The exhibition is free for everyone and you might get to meet the next great Canadian scientist or inventor.
