France advanced to the 2022 World Cup final after beating Morocco in the semifinal match. If in the World Cup they are known as the defending champions, in the world of science and technology they have a number of inventions that change the world.
In many areas of life, French inventions have changed the way we live and work everyday. Here are some of the most influential inventions from France.
1. Hot air balloon
The world's first hot air balloon was successfully built by Joseph and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier, two French innovators from Vidalon-les-Annonay, near Lyons.
Their first balloon was launched in December 1782, and flew to a height of 300m. Montgolfiére balloons are made of paper and use hot air by burning wet wool and straw.
After some time, it was time to test the balloon with passengers. The flight in September 1783 reached an altitude of 500m and lasted eight minutes.
Luckily for the passengers consisting of roosters, sheep and ducks, they were able to land safely. The event was witnessed by King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette who were on the throne at the time.
2. Braille system
Braille, a reading and writing system for the blind, was invented by Louis Braille. At the age of three, he accidentally stabbed himself with one of his father's saddle makers. An eye infection resulting from the incident left him blind.
He went to a school for blind youth in Paris where he learned to play the cello and organ. However, it was always frustrated by the complicated system of raised letters used to teach students how to read.
When Louis was twelve years old, a former French army officer came to school to demonstrate the twelve-dot code and raised dash.
The code was designed to be used at night when the lights could not be turned on, to communicate battle orders. The code was difficult to learn, but Louis saw its potential.
By the time he was fifteen, Louis had developed a much simpler system using only six points so that it was easy to scan with a single fingertip.
Louis became a teacher at the school, but his Braille system was not adopted there during his lifetime. Sixteen years after his death, the Royal National Institute of the Blind was founded.
Books using clever Braille codes began to be published. Now, the global written communication tool for the visually impaired uses the code. Louis Braille is buried in the Pantheon in Paris, as a national hero of France.
3. Canned food
Keeping Napoleon Bonaparte's troops well-fed was a challenging job because they were always moving to faraway places. Without adequate means to secure supplies, mass starvation could become a very real danger.
In 1800, Napoleon offered a reward of 12,000 francs to anyone who could find a way of preserving food to supply the troops' daily food rations over a long period of time. Nine years later, the award goes to a confectioner named Nicolas Francois Appert.
The method involves sealing thick glass jars filled with food, wrapping them in canvas for protection, then dunking them in boiling water to cook. In his experiments, he managed to preserve lamb meat. The next innovation came from another Frenchman named Pierre Durand. He modified Nicolas' invention by switching from glass jars to cans.
4. Pasteurization
French chemist Louis Pasteur studied the fermentation process. He wondered if this process was produced by microscopic organisms other than yeast, which Pasteur called germs.
He hypothesized that these germs might be responsible for some diseases. Pasteur disputed the notion of "spontaneous generation" suggesting that organisms could arise from nothing. Pasteur showed that organisms came from other pre-existing organisms.
Applying his theory to food and drink, Pasteur invented the heating process, now called pasteurization, to sterilize food and kill any micro-organisms that contaminate it.
5. Aqualung
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French underwater explorer, environmentalist, innovator and member of the Academie Francaise. In 1943, Cousteau and French engineer Emile Gagnan invented the Aqualung, a respirator that supplied divers with oxygen and allowed them to stay underwater for several hours.
Innovations in this device include a mechanism that provides inhalation and exhaust valves at the same level. This safe, easy to use and reliable device was the first modern scuba system. These tools aid in the study and exploration of all things ocean-related, from rescue teams to marine life research and historic shipwrecks.
6. Mayonnaise
In Spain in the early 18th century, Louis XIV sent his favorite general, Duc de Richelieu, to eradicate some troubled Englishmen holed up in the fort overlooking the harbor of Mahon. During the long siege, the Duke's cook had trouble getting his master, who was used to Versailles' extravagant banquets, to enjoy his meal.
He wanted an interesting sauce to liven up the mood for his meal, but all he had at the time were eggs and olive oil. Then he mixed the ingredients, then added a little vinegar. The result of this experiment was a sauce that he called "la sauce mahonnaise". During its development, the letter 'h' in the word mahonnaise was changed to 'ay' so that it is now known as mayonnaise.
7. The metric system
In 1790, the French National Assembly directed the Academy of Sciences of Paris to standardize units of measurement. A committee of renowned Mathematicians of the academy uses the decimal system. They defined the meter as one ten millionth of the distance from the equator to the Earth's Poles. That means, the circumference of the Earth will be equal to 40 million meters.
They named this new system "metric" from the Greek word metron, which means measure. The metric system was legalized in France on August 1, 1793. In 1960, the definition of the meter was changed to 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of krypton 86 orange-red radiation. In 1983, the meter was redefined as 1/299,792,458 the distance traveled by light in one second in a vacuum.
8. Refrigerator
Father Marcel Audiffren is a religious leader who serves as abbot of a monastery in France. Outside of his duties, he was also a physicist and took a keen interest in developing devices for keeping liquids cold, including the wine drunk at monasteries.
In 1894 he was granted a patent for the hand or engine crank unit which served as a forerunner to this goal. The patent was later bought by an American company and the first refrigeration machine intended for home use was produced by General Electric. This machine went on sale to the public in 1911.
These first refrigerators were very expensive, costing almost a thousand dollars, about twice the price of cars at the time. Today, nearly every household owns at least one of these life-changing inventions.
9. Sewing machine
Barthelemy Thimonnier was a tailor who worked tirelessly throughout his life to perfect his "Couseuse", aka sewing machine.
In 1830 he opened a sewing factory on Rue de Sevres in Paris. Unfortunately, the following year the factory went bankrupt and was destroyed by some 200 angry tailors who threw out 80 machines. They claim this invention could put conventional tailors out of business.
Although other inventors had worked on the idea, it was the Thimonnier chain sewing machine that provided the first practical application of the invention.
Thimonnier never saw a proliferation of his machines, despite winning prizes and being highly regarded. During its development, an American, Isaac Merrit Singer, turned sewing machines into big business.
His clever marketing strategy appeals to modern women. He offers machine service guarantees and installment payment schemes. Unfortunately, the glory of this discovery was not enjoyed by Thimonnier in his old age. He died a poor man at the age of 64 years.