Published Resources Details

Book

Author
Ingpen, Robert
Title
Australian inventions and innovations
Imprint
Rigby Publishers Limited, 1982, 80 pp
ISBN/ISSN
0727015052
Description

With assistance from: Sally Carruthers, Kirsty Elliot, Robina Lees, Ken Evans, Ross George, Glen Hosking, Ashley Payne, and Marcus Thorne.

Includes bibliography and index.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:
The Nature of Invention;
How do Inventions Come About?;
About This Book.

A RICH TRADITION:
Aboriginal Life - adaption and invention.

SETTLEMENT AND IMPROVISATION:
The Stump Jump Plough - the result of a broken bolt;
The Coolgardie Safe - an outback innovation;
The Rotary Hoe - the first of its kind in the world.

A GRAND NEW LAND:
Rust-free Wheat - a breakthrough;
A Subterranean Clover;
A New Merino for Australian Conditions;
The Famous Ridley-Bull Stripper;
A Mechanical Shearing Machine;
Refrigeration - the invention that reduced its creator to bankruptcy.

DIVERSIFICATION:
Lawrence Hargrave and his Theories of Flight;
Three Successful Businessmen - Hugh Victor McKay, Walter Reginald Hume, A. G. Michell.

SCIENCE AND ITS ROLE IN INVENTION:
The Story of Myxomatosis;
Tropical Legumes - the salvation of Queensland;
A Continent's Search for Water - turning around, making rain, saving water;
Objective Measurement for Wool - breaking down old myths;
The Self-Twist Yarn Spinner - a revolution for the textile industry;
The Atomic Absorption Spectrophometer - a major advance;
Ralph Sarich - A success story.

INVENTION FOR SOCIAL SERVICE:
The Pedal Wireless and Flying Doctor - 'The mantle of safety';
The Surf Lifesaving Reel'- protecting the people;
Anti-Venene - seventy years of collective effort;
A Fair Voting System.

PECULIARLY AUSTRALIAN INVENTIONS:
Two-up - the scourge of the Nation;
Food Glorious Food - the Lamington, the Pavlova, Vegemite.

See also

EOAS ID: bib/ASBS17964.htm

This Edition: 2026 February - 1926 Centenaries
Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar - Late summer: late January to late March - season of eels
Reference: https://www.bom.gov.au/resources/indigenous-weather-knowledge/indigenous-seasonal-calendars/gariwerd-calendar#bom-anchor-list__item-kooyang-season-of-eels

Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology.

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/bib/ASBS17964.htm

For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260