A military invention is an invention that was first created by a military. There are many inventions that were originally created by the military and subsequently found civilian uses. Many have found dual usage in both sectors.
Military inventions with civilian uses
| Name | Date invented | Invented by | Original purpose | Civilian uses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASDIC | 1910s |  United Kingdom
|
Submarine detection | Sonar |
| Radar | mid-1930s | United Kingdom
|
Early warning radar, air defence systems | Air traffic control systems, microwave oven |
| Walkie-talkie | 1930s |  Canada (Donald Hings)
|
Portable two-way radio communications system for military | Portable radio communications – business, public safety, marine, amateur radio, CB radio |
| Night vision | 1939 - 1940s |  Nazi Germany
|
Visibility for military personnel in low light situations | Low light photography, surveillance |
| Duct tape | 1942 |  United States
|
Sealing ammunition cases | Multiple uses |
| Ballistic missiles | 1940s | Nazi Germany
|
Long range attack | Space exploration, launch of communication, weather and global positioning satellites |
| Darknet | 1990s | United States |
Anonymous/protected computer networking | Used by journalists, political activists, scientists, etc. |
| Nuclear technology | 1940s | United States |
Nuclear weapons | Nuclear medicine, nuclear power |
| Jet engine | 1940s | Nazi Germany (Hans von Ohain) |
Jet fighters, jet bombers | Airliners |
| Digital photography | 1960s |  United States |
Spy satellites, eliminated the need to recover deorbited film canisters | Digital cameras |
| Compiler | 1952 | United States
|
Allow programs to be written for multiple target computers by different vendors without needing to rewrite the assembly for each of them. | Compiler |
| Internet | 1960s - 1970s | United States (ARPANET) |
Reliable computer networking | Led to invention of the World Wide Web by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee; subsequently widespread availability of information, telecommunication and electronic commerce |
| Rodriguez well | 1960s | United States Army |
Nuclear weapons and logistics, provide water supply for bases hidden in polar regions | Colonization of Mars |
| Satellite navigation | 1970s | United States Air Force |
Nuclear weapons force multiplier, increased warhead accuracy through precise navigation | Navigation, personal tracking |
| Sanitary napkins | 1920s | United Kingdom
|
Prevent bleeding using cellulose in bandages. | British & American nurses picked up the bandages and started using them as Sanitary Napkins. |
See also
References
- Angela Hind (February 5, 2007). "Briefcase 'that changed the world'". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-08-16.
It not only changed the course of the war by allowing us to develop airborne radar systems, it remains the key piece of technology that lies at the heart of your microwave oven today. The cavity magnetron's invention changed the world.
- Harford, Tim (9 October 2017). "How the search for a 'death ray' led to radar". BBC World Service. Retrieved 9 October 2017.
But by 1940, it was the British who had made a spectacular breakthrough: the resonant cavity magnetron, a radar transmitter far more powerful than its predecessors.... The magnetron stunned the Americans. Their research was years off the pace.
- Don-Hings-Walkie-Talkie-Development.PDF
- ^ Kim, Byung-Keun (2005). Internationalising the Internet the Co-evolution of Influence and Technology. Edward Elgar. pp. 51–55. ISBN 1845426754; Hauben, Ronda (1 May 2004). "The Internet: On its International Origins and Collaborative Vision A Work In-Progress". Retrieved 25 September 2017; by Vinton Cerf, as told to Bernard Aboba (1993). "How the Internet Came to Be". Retrieved 25 September 2017.
We began doing concurrent implementations at Stanford, BBN, and University College London. So effort at developing the Internet protocols was international from the beginning.
; "The Computer History Museum, SRI International, and BBN Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of First ARPANET Transmission, Precursor to Today's Internet". SRI International. 27 October 2009. Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2017.But the ARPANET itself had now become an island, with no links to the other networks that had sprung up. By the early1970s, researchers in France, the UK, and the U.S. began developing ways of connecting networks to each other, a process known as internetworking.
External links
| Inventions and discoveries | |
|---|---|
| Lists of inventions or discoveries by country/region |
|
| by topic | |
| Lists of inventors or discoverers by country/region | |