The Wheel
Getting about in cars, trains, or planes is a very modern method of transport. It has taken us a very long time to invent these forms of convenient transport.
Other than using our legs or riding animals such as elephants, camels, donkeys or horses, hundreds of years ago that was the only way to get from one place to another until the wheel was invented.
Wheels today are on all sorts of vehicles from planes to cars, from bikes to skateboards. We believe that the first wheels invented were to help move objects that were very heavy. Humans discovered that something heavy was more easily moved by something round and by rolling it. Eventually wheels were developed for carts and wagons.
The wheel is probably the most mechanical invention of all time. Wheels with spokes are thought to have first appeared in Egypt on chariots around 2000 BC.
Just try and imagine the world today without the wheel, not only in transportation but also in technology. Important applications include the water wheel, the cogwheel, and the spinning wheel. More modern applications include the jet engine, the propeller, and the turbine.
1. Who?
2. What?
3. Where?
4. When?
5. How?