List of Pakistani inventions and discoveries explained
This article lists inventions and discoveries made by scientists with Pakistani nationality within Pakistan and outside the country, as well as those made in the territorial area of what is now Pakistan prior to the independence of Pakistan in 1947.
Bronze Age
Indus Valley civilisation
See main article: List of inventions and discoveries of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Indus script was a Bronze Age script developed along Indus river, in modern day's Pakistan.[1]
- Button, ornamental: Buttons—made from seashell—were used in the Indus Valley civilization for ornamental purposes by 2000 BCE.[2] Some buttons were carved into geometric shapes and had holes pieced into them so that they could attached to clothing by using a thread.[2] Ian McNeil (1990) holds that: "The button, in fact, was originally used more as an ornament than as a fastening, the earliest known being found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley. It is made of a curved shell and about 5000 years old."[3]
- Plough, animal-drawn: The earliest archeological evidence of an animal-drawn plough dates back to 2500 BCE in the Indus Valley Civilization in Pakistan.[4]
- Stepwell: Earliest clear evidence of the origins of the stepwell is found in the Indus Valley Civilization's archaeological site at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan.[5] The three features of stepwells in the subcontinent are evident from one particular site, abandoned by 2500 BCE, which combines a bathing pool, steps leading down to water, and figures of some religious importance into one structure.[5] The early centuries immediately before the common era saw the Buddhists and the Jains of India adapt the stepwells into their architecture.[5] Both the wells and the form of ritual bathing reached other parts of the world with Buddhism.[5] Rock-cut step wells in the subcontinent date from 200 to 400 CE. Subsequently, the wells at Dhank (550-625 CE) and stepped ponds at Bhinmal (850-950 CE) were constructed.[6]
- Bow Drill
Bow drills were used in Mehrgarh between the 4th and 5th millennium BC. This bow drill—used to drill holes into lapis lazuli and carnelian—was made of green jasper.[7] Similar drills were found in other parts of the Indus Valley civilisation and Iran one millennium later.
The earliest public baths are found in the ruins in of the Indus Valley civilisation. According to John Keay, the "Great Bath" of Mohenjo Daro in present-day Pakistan was the size of 'a modest municipal swimming pool', complete with stairs leading down to the water at each one of its ends.[8]
By 2600 BC, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, and other major cities of the Indus Valley civilisation, were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north–south and east–west. Each block was subdivided by small lanes.[9]
Mohenjo-Daro circa 2800 BC is cited as having some of the most advanced, with toilets built into outer walls of homes. These toilets were Western-style, albeit a primitive form, with vertical chutes, via which waste was disposed of into cesspits or street drains.[11] [12]
The Indus Valley civilisation had advanced sewerage and drainage systems. All houses in the major cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had access to water and drainage facilities. Waste water was directed to covered gravity sewers, which lined the major streets.[13]
Tanning was being carried out by the inhabitants of Mehrgarh in Pakistan between 7000 and 3300 BCE.[14]
Ancient Age
A symbol for zero, a large dot likely to be the precursor of the still-current hollow symbol, is used throughout the Bakhshali manuscript, a practical manual on arithmetic for merchants, discovered in Northern Pakistan.[15] In 2017, three samples from the manuscript were shown by radiocarbon dating to come from three different centuries: from AD 224–383, AD 680–779, and AD 885–993, making it South Asia's oldest recorded use of the zero symbol. It is not known how the birch bark fragments from different centuries forming the manuscript came to be packaged together.[16] [17] [18]
They were developed in what is now Northern Pakistan in 2nd century BCE, later evolving into Hindu–Arabic numeral system.[19] It later gave rise to modern Arabic Numerals.
In his treatise Astadhyayi, Panini gives formal production rules and definitions to describe the formal grammar of Sanskrit.[20]
Panini, who lived during 5th century BCE in Gandhara developed methods of morphological analysis. Pāṇini's theory of morphological analysis was more advanced than any equivalent Western theory before the 20th century.[21]
- Early Universities: Pakistan was the seat of ancient learning and some consider Taxila to be an early university[22] [23] [24] or centre of higher education,[25] others do not consider it a university in the modern sense[26] [27] [28] in contrast to the later Nalanda University.[29] [30] Takshashila is described in some detail in later Jātaka tales, written in Sri Lanka around the 5th century CE.[31] Generally, a student entered Taxila at the age of sixteen. The Vedas and the Eighteen Arts, which included skills such as archery, hunting, and elephant lore, were taught, in addition to its law school, medical school, and school of military science.[32]
Medieval Age
Windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what are now Pakistan and Iran, making its one of the earliest mentioned use.[33]
Post-independence
See main article: History of Pakistan.
Chemistry
- Development of the world's first workable plastic magnet at room temperature by organic chemist and polymer scientist Naveed Zaidi.[34] [35] [36]
Physics
Nuclear energy
- Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood a Pakistani nuclear engineer developed a device to detect heavy water leaks in nuclear steam cylinders while working at Knapp nuclear power reactor near Karachi in 1972.[45] The device is patent in his name under his initials SBM probe and is widely used in nuclear power plants to date.[46]
Medicine
Computing
Music
Economics
See also
External links
Notes and References
- Web site: Mallory . Locklear . After a century of failing to crack an ancient script, linguists turn to machines. . Science: Machine learning could finally crack the 4,000-year-old Indus script . . Manhattan, New York, NY . . 25 January 2017 . 25 January 2017.
- Hesse, Rayner W. & Hesse (Jr.), Rayner W. (2007). Jewelrymaking Through History: An Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. 35. .
- McNeil, Ian (1990). An encyclopaedia of the history of technology. Taylor & Francis. 852. .
- Thematic evolution of ISTRO: transition in scientific issues and research focus from 1955 to 2000. R.. Lal. Soil and Tillage Research. 61. 1–2. August 2001. 3–12 [3]. 10.1016/S0167-1987(01)00184-2.
- Livingston & Beach, 20
- Livingston & Beach, page xxiii
- Kulke, Hermann & Rothermund, Dietmar (2004). A History of India. Routledge. 22. .
- Keay, John (2001), India: A History, 13–14, Grove Press, .
- Jane McIntosh, The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives ; ABC-CLIO, 2008; ; pp. 231, 346.
- Web site: Excavation Bhirrana ASI Nagpur. 2020-08-21. excnagasi.in.
- Teresi et al. 2002
- Sewerage in Ancient and Mediaeval Times. 25029094. Gray. Harold Farnsworth. Sewage Works Journal. 1940. 12. 5. 939–946.
- Book: Arthur Coterell. The Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations. Rainbird Publishers. 1980. 0-7112-0036-X. 176–178.
- Possehl, Gregory L. (1996). Mehrgarh in Oxford Companion to Archaeology, edited by Brian Fagan. Oxford University Press.
- News: Weiss . Ittay . 20 September 2017 . Nothing matters: How India's invention of zero helped create modern mathematics . The Conversation .
- News: Devlin . Hannah . 13 September 2017 . Much ado about nothing: ancient Indian text contains earliest zero symbol . The Guardian . 14 September 2017 . 0261-3077.
- News: Revell . Timothy . 14 September 2017 . History of zero pushed back 500 years by ancient Indian text . New Scientist . 25 October 2017.
- News: 14 September 2017 . Carbon dating finds Bakhshali manuscript contains oldest recorded origins of the symbol 'zero' . Bodleian Library . 25 October 2017.
- Flegg (2002), pp. 6ff.
- Web site: Panini biography. www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk.
- Book: Staal . Frits . Universals: studies in Indian logic and linguistics . University of Chicago Press . 1988 . 47 . 9780226769998 .
- [Radha Kumud Mookerji]
- [Hermann Kulke]
- [Balakrishnan Muniapan]
- Radha Kumud Mookerji (2nd ed. 1951; reprint 1989), Ancient Indian Education: Brahmanical and Buddhist (p. 479), Motilal Banarsidass Publ., :
- [Anant Sadashiv Altekar]
- F. W. Thomas (1944), in John Marshall (1951; 1975 reprint), Taxila, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi:
- http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-7133 Taxila
- "Nalanda" (2007). Encarta.
- "Nalanda" (2001). Columbia Encyclopedia.
- Marshall 1975:81
- Radha Kumud Mookerji (2nd ed. 1951; reprint 1989). Ancient Indian Education: Brahmanical and Buddhist (p. 478-489). Motilal Banarsidass Publ. .
- Book: Lucas, Adam . 2006 . Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology . Brill Publishers . 90-04-14649-0 . 61.
- http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29163 CERN courier: New polymer enables room-temperature plastic magnet
- https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6326-first-practical-plastic-magnets-created.html New Scientist: First practical plastic magnets created
- http://www.dur.ac.uk/oem.group/People/Naveed/naveed.htm Bio: Dr. Naveed Zaidi
- Web site: Abdus Salam - Biography . Nobelprize.org . 1996-11-21 . 2011-12-23.
- Web site: Pakistan shuns physicist linked to 'God particle' . https://web.archive.org/web/20120709142446/http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/07/09/pakistan-shuns-physicist-linked-to-god-particle/ . dead . 9 July 2012 . Fox News . 2012-07-09.
- S.L. Glashow . 1961 . Partial-symmetries of weak interactions . . 22 . 579–588 . 10.1016/0029-5582(61)90469-2. 1961NucPh..22..579G . 4 .
- S. Weinberg . 1967 . A Model of Leptons . . 19 . 1264–1266 . 10.1103/PhysRevLett.19.1264. 1967PhRvL..19.1264W . 21. free .
- A. Salam . N. Svartholm . 1968 . Elementary Particle Physics: Relativistic Groups and Analyticity . 367 . . . Stockholm.
- F. Englert . R. Brout . 1964 . Broken Symmetry and the Mass of Gauge Vector Mesons . . 13 . 321–323 . 10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.321. 1964PhRvL..13..321E . 9. free.
- P.W. Higgs . 1964 . Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons . . 13 . 508–509 . 10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.508. 1964PhRvL..13..508H . 16. free .
- G.S. Guralnik, C.R. Hagen, T.W.B. Kibble . 1964 . Global Conservation Laws and Massless Particles . . 13 . 585–587 . 10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.585. 1964PhRvL..13..585G . 20. free .
- Albright . David . Higgins . Holly . 2003-03-01 . A bomb for the Ummah . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists . 59 . 2 . 49–55 . 10.2968/059002012 . 0096-3402.
- Web site: 2012-01-14 . Darulhikmat . 2024-05-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120114180131/http://www.darulhikmat.com/author.html . 14 January 2012 .
- Web site: The Wisdom Fund Board Member Ayub Khan Ommaya, Leading Neurosurgeon and Inventor, Dead at 78 . Twf.org . 2011-12-23 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111217054830/http://www.twf.org/bio/AKOmmaya.html . 2011-12-17 .
- Web site: DAWN.COM Suhail Yusuf October 21, 2011 . New neurological test by a Pakistani | Sci-tech . Dawn.Com . 2011-10-21 . 2011-12-23.
- Web site: Boot sector virus repair . Antivirus.about.com . 2010-06-10 . 2010-08-27.
- Web site: Amjad Farooq Alvi Inventor of first PC Virus post by Zagham . YouTube . 2010-08-27.
- Web site: Krish . Aahan . 25 Famous Computer Viruses Of All Time [INFOGRAPHIC] |publisher=Ry.com |date=2011-03-16 |access-date=2011-12-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110513142427/http://wwwery.com/12791-most-popular-computer-viruses.html |archive-date=2011-05-13 ].
- Web site: 'Hor Vi Neevan Ho' goes on air! . nooriworld.net . 2011-12-23 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111008005851/http://nooriworld.net/2010/07/18/hor-vi-neevan-ho-goes-on-air/ . 2011-10-08 .
- Web site: The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - The Tribune Lifestyle . Tribuneindia.com . 2011-12-23.
- Haq, Mahbub ul. 1995. Reflections on Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press.
- 4407121. Mahbub ul Haq and Human Development: A Tribute. Baru. Sanjaya. Economic and Political Weekly. 1998. 33. 35. 2275–2279.