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The Renaissance: The Most Important Inventions In Society

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Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci quoted, “learning never exhausts the mind”. This quote reflects on humanity’s ability to remain studious in what the world has to offer. When interpreted further, it may also mean applying that knowledge to their everyday lives. The Renaissance was an age in which numerous concepts were conceived, and aided in moving society forward to what it is today. Some of those concepts formulated contraptions that would evolve throughout time into better innovations; this is the meaning behind da Vinci’s quote. Specific inventions that contributed to society’s advancement during the Renaissance are the printing press, the mechanical clock, and the first compound microscope.
The first invention to move society a step …show more content…

Although the first mechanical clock was invented in China, the first practical mechanical clock was invented by Galileo Galilei, an Italian scientist born in the early Renaissance. The first prototypes of Galileo’s clock used weights to provide power through momentum. Later in the 1400s a new design has been engineered, and smaller, portable clocks such as pocket watches were possible as they ran on coiled springs rather than weights. Though Galileo’s clock was improved from it Chinese predecessor, it occasionally would be off fifteen minutes. This complication was fixed later in the 20th century with the invention of the quartz clock, a battery-powered clock with a more precise accuracy. This development is proof that without Galileo’s clock and its inconstant design, society’s current timekeeping devices wouldn’t be as it is …show more content…

It was invented by Zacharias Janssen and his son Hans in the 1590s while they were experimenting with several lenses in a tube. The father-son duo then discovered that with the lenses, objects could be viewed in an enlarged state. Near the end of the Renaissance era, Dutchman Anton van Leeuwenhoek further enhanced a microscope’s ability to magnify. As an apprentice at a dry goods store, one of his jobs were to count the threads in pieces of cloth with a magnifying glass. Anton was able to teach himself new methods of grinding and polishing lenses, which gave him great magnifications. This led to the manufacturing of his own microscopes. Anton made great biological discoveries, being the first to see yeast plants, different species of bacteria, microbes in a water droplet, and how blood corpuscles circulated in capillaries. The microscope unlocked prosperous opportunities for people to study diverse aspects of

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