It's World Cup: 8 Inventions and Innovations Developed by Russians

Russia will become the center of attention around the globe from June 14 to July 15, when the giant country dividing Europe and Asia hosts the 21st World Cup. And despite making the land of football for a month, the country can also be remembered for some technological contributions to the planet.

We have listed some of the main contributions brought to the world by Russians, inside or outside Russia, check out:

1. Helicopter

Sikorsky R-4

Sikorsky R-4, 1944, the world's first large-scale helicopter.

With functional experiments in 1910 and 1912, Russian engineer Igor Sikorsky is considered a major contributor to helicopter development. He moved to the United States after the Russian Revolution and, in 1939, introduced the helicopter's first functional prototype, the first to actually take off. By docking floats at the base of the vehicle, he also created the first amphibious helicopter on the planet.

2. Tape Video Recording

AMPEX

Company that created method for capturing audio and video signals on tape was created by Russian Alekasandr Poniátov.

Alekasandr Ponyatov was a Russian inventor who, in the 1950s, founded AMPEX in the United States. There he developed a method for capturing video signals and recording them on tape, being considered one of the pioneers in the field and having influenced a whole household recording equipment industry.

3. AK-47

AK-47

The AK-47 is one of the best known weapons in the world.

One of the best known weapons in the world, the AK-47 assault rifle was created in 1947 in the former Soviet Union by military engineer Mikhail Kalashinikov. Renowned for being rugged and easy to maintain, the rifle is widely used in both the USSR and allied countries, and has become the darling of guerrillas in the struggle for independence in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

To get an idea of ​​the scope of Kalashinikov's family of rifles in 2004, it was estimated that of the 500 million firearms on the planet, 100 million were AK-47s or derivatives. Speaking specifically about the 1947 model, the estimate was 80 million units worldwide that year - World Bank data.

4. Radiocommunication

Alexander Popov

Alexander Popov, one of the "parents" of the radio.

Radio as we know it today has many "parents", one of them being Russian physicist Aleksandr Popov. In 1885, he introduced a wireless device capable of communicating using electromagnetic radioactivity - the first communication radio on the planet. Years later, Italian Guglielmo Marconi presented a similar experiment and quickly commercialized his idea.

To this day the two are the main names in the dispute for the “ultimate fatherhood, ” so to speak, of this equipment that helped revolutionize communications on the planet from the late 19th century.

5. Electric tram

tram

Electric tram is one of the Russian contributions to the world.

Trams were not invented in Russia, but both there and in most parts of the world they were pulled by a horse. That changed when an electric-powered locomotive was developed by the Ukrainian Russian engineer Fiódor Pirotski. His experiments with electric current transmission between 1874 and 1876 yielded the creation of a "mobile" motor capable of autonomous a line in the city of Sestroretsk.

Although not carried forward in Russia itself, the invention served as the basis for the first known electric tram line, inaugurated in the Berlin region of Germany in 1881.

6. Tetris

Tetris

Will you say you don't like it?

First Soviet software to win the world, Tetris was launched in 1984 and is the work of developers Alexey Pajitnov, Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov. The little game uses tetraminos that need to be nested in a kind of board, eliminating a line whenever it is fully filled.

Tetris is the best selling game in the world, with about 500 million units sold, and is constantly included in the list of most influential games of all time.

7. Mobile Phone

Mobile phone

Leonid Kupriyanovich and his mobile phones.

There is no denying that a device developed in the late 1950s can be considered one of the first mobile phones to be known. Soviet engineer Leonid Kupriyanovich developed, between 1957 and 1961, an experimental portable device capable of communicating with other devices of its kind within a 30-kilometer radius that shared a common base - this base is an ancestor of today's before mobile telephony.

Despite the innovation, the Soviet government did not encourage the development of the equipment and gave priority to the Altay system, also created by Kupriyanovich, which added phones to vehicles all over Russia.

8. Space Exploration

valentina tereshkova

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman sent to space.

If today humans aim their eyes and their probes at various corners of space, it all stems from the advances made by the Soviet Union from the late 1950s. The Soviets were the first to send an artificial satellite (Sputnik) into space. 1, 1957), a living being (the puppy Laika, 1957), a man (Yuri Gagarin, 1961) and a woman (Valentina Tereshkov, 1963).

In addition, the Russians also brought into space the first monolithic space station (Salyut 1, 1971) and the first modular space station (Mir, 1986), also the largest artificial orbiting satellite on Earth until 2001. In the early 21st century, it was completely decommissioned and Russian efforts were focused on the International Space Station in collaboration with several other countries.

It's World Cup: 8 inventions and innovations developed by Russians via TecMundo