Science in Shakespeare’s time

In anticipation of William Shakespeare’s 449^th birthday, our Science and Innovation team decided to pay homage to the most celebrated poet and playwright in history. Brimming with the “stuff as dreams are made on”, Shakespeare’s plays have captivated readers throughout the ages. Although his plays have had a spellbinding effect on their readers, we can’t help but wonder what technological advances of the time captivated Shakespeare. In a recent blog, we covered the up-and-coming eight great technologies. However, nothing puts the truly innovative nature of these technologies more in perspective than a rendezvous back in time to the great technologies of the Shakespearean era.

1. Pocket watch (1510)
   Clocks were an old invention, but in 1510 pocket watches made up the first generation of “portable devices” (although there was nothing “portable” about these devices as they were large and worn around the neck like a medallion). The evolution of pocket watches hasn’t stopped since. The latest craze in wrist watches is the smart watch; tech companies like Britain’s

   sWaP

   are now developing watches that are effectively wearable computers.
2. Graphite pencil (1565)
   A large graphite deposit discovered in Cumbria made possible the innovation of the tool that we now take for granted – the pencil. Graphite is the predecessor to today’s “wonder material” graphene, the discovery of which earned Dr. Andre Geim and Dr. Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester a

   Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010

   . A substance composed of carbon atoms arranged in a single layer honeycomb structure, graphene has huge potential for applications from IT to energy to medicine.
3. Knitting machine – Stocking frame (1589)
   In 1589, Englishman William Lee invented a knitting machine called the stocking frame which jump-started the textile industry. The next generation of apparel makes use of nanotechnology, and will be available as early as 2014. Researchers from the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K. are

   working on a thermoelectric generator

   . These generators can be incorporated into clothing, and will use the body’s temperature to power electronic devices. Soon, there will be no excuse for not having your mobile charged!
4. Compound Microscope (1590)
   While trying to help people with poor sight see better, in 1590 the Dutchman Zacharias Janssen invented the compound microscope that allowed a magnification of objects by 9 times. More recently, researchers at the University of Manchester set a world record by developing an optical microscope that allows viewing of items on the scale of

   50 nanometres using just ordinary white light

   . Just to give a sense of scale, there are 10 million nanometres in a centimetre.
5. Refractive Telescope (1609)
   More commonly known as the Galilean telescope, the refractive telescope magnified objects by 30 times, and allowed Galileo to see the craters on the Moon and the satellites of Jupiter. More recently, however, the

   ALMA telescope

   in Chile is 10 times more powerful than the Hubble telescope, and can show unprecedented amount of detail about the universe we live in.

While Shakespeare’s literary genius has remained largely unmatched, technological evolution has certainly made a quantum leap since his time.