Originally Posted by Pat Gill

It must have been the Cobhians who made off with the lifeboats then.

Rather than the efficient Ulster accountants who forgot to pack enough of them.

You have to watch those Cork fellah's like a hawk.

Although I suppose Ulster did successfully produce William Thompson-Lord Kelvin best known for his work in thermodynamics (Kelvin scale of temperature) but who was also the key to the economic and technical success of the early transatlantic telegraph cables, the first internet.

Titanic was carrying the required number of lifeboats mandated by The British Board of Trade.

From Irish Whiskey to the Catalytic Converter but nothing in recent times

List of Irish inventions and discoveries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

14th century
Caid (precursor to modern Gaelic football)
Irish whiskey

17th century
1661: Modern Chemistry founded by Robert Boyle with the publication of The Sceptical Chymist
1662: Boyle's law discovered by Robert Boyle
Irish road bowling

19th century
1806: Beaufort scale created by Francis Beaufort
1813: Clanny safety lamp created by William Reid Clanny[1]
1831: Column still design enhanced and patented by Aeneas Coffey
1836: Induction coil created by Nicholas Callan
1843: Quaternion (a mathematical entity) first described by Sir William Rowan Hamilton
1844: Hollow needle in syringe created by Francis Rynd
1851: Seismology founded by Robert Mallet (1810 - 1881), Dublin man Robert Mallet used dynamite explosions to measure the speed of elastic waves in surface rocks - pioneering and coining the word 'seismology'.
1851: Binaural stethoscope created by Arthur Leared
1874: Electron introduced as a concept by George Johnstone Stoney
1874: Brennan torpedo created by Louis Brennan
1879: The rules of Hurling first standardized with the foundation of the Irish Hurling Union
1880: Boycott triggered by Charles Boycott over a dispute with the Irish Land League
1888: Gregg Shorthand created by John Robert Gregg
1894: Joly color screen created by John Joly
1897: first military-commissioned submarine created by John Philip Holland

20th century
1900 Reflector sight, invented by Howard Grubb
1910s: Radiotherapy founded by John Joly
Kelvin scale created by William Thomson
1930: Nickel-zinc battery created by Dr. James Drumm
1930s: The first disintegration of an atomic nucleus by artificially accelerated protons (splitting the atom) discovered by Ernest Walton et al.[2]
1965: Portable defribrillator created by Frank Pantridge
1967: Pulsar discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell
1981: Catalytic Converter created by Joe Kavanagh

Originally Posted by Odyessus

Titanic was carrying the required number of lifeboats mandated by The British Board of Trade.

Yes Odyessus, I was aware of that and the fact that the Titanic was built from the best steel available at the time.

I was attempting a little political humour.

I wonder though has a study ever been made on the Irish contribution to the building of the British Empire.

Originally Posted by Catch 22

From Irish Whiskey to the Catalytic Converter but nothing in recent times

List of Irish inventions and discoveries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Could that be due to the deliberate downgrading of technical education begun by DeValera in the 1930's.

Which only began to be countered in the 70's and which was possibly the reason for our poor standard of indigenous economic development.

Originally Posted by Pat Gill

Could that be due to the deliberate downgrading of technical education begun by DeValera in the 1930's.

Which only began to be countered in the 70's and which was possibly the reason for our poor standard of indigenous economic development.

As far as I know, Dev was quite fond of the maths and physics himself. But he probably thought it was all above and beyond the common Irish person.

And you also have these good people: the Silicon Valley Irish. I suppose you could count them as modern inventors

ITLG.org - Silicon Valley 50

DeValera also brought the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger to Dublin and set up the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies. It's strange physics was never promoted more?

Einstein, de Valera and the Institutes for Advanced Study « Antimatter

Schrödinger Lectures, Trinity College Dublin

During the years he spent in Dublin, Schrödinger, like Einstein, sought a unified field theory of electromagnetism and gravitation. But probably his most important contribution to science during that period was to discuss the application of modern physics and chemistry to biology in his series of lectures entitled 'What is Life?' and the book of the same title which was based on them.

'What is Life?' originated as a set of statutory public lectures, delivered in Trinity College on three successive Fridays in February 1943. The audience, which included De Valera and well- known members of Dublin society, was so large that the lectures were repeated on Mondays for those who were unable to get into the lecture theatre.

There's even a theatre in TCD and a building in UL named after Schrödinger

Originally Posted by Catch 22

DeValera also brought the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger to Dublin and set up the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies. It's strange physics was never promoted more?

Einstein, de Valera and the Institutes for Advanced Study « Antimatter


There's even a theatre in TCD and a building in UL named after Schrödinger

Catch 22,

Perhaps you have answered your own question.

When the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies was set up, DeValera thought it best that it study theoretical physics and celtic studies.

Would engineering not have been a better bedfellow for theoretical physics?

Although earwigging the conversations in the canteen might have been interesting.

Without doubt engineering would have been a better bedfellow. Perhaps Dev had a more romantic attachment to physics than practical. Must follow up more on this. Only found out about it a while back and was actually quite surprised that he was even interested at all.

Originally Posted by Pat Gill

Yes Odyessus, I was aware of that and the fact that the Titanic was built from the best steel available at the time.

I was attempting a little political humour.

I wonder though has a study ever been made on the Irish contribution to the building of the British Empire.

She was built of the best steel all right, but the cast iron rivets holding the steel plates together were not the best quality available at the time. They were the Achilles heel of the ship, and ultimately doomed her when they failed after the collision with the iceberg.

Originally Posted by KongMing

Boycotts...

followed by

Lynchings...

followed by

A Wake...

we didnt invent lynchings , a young irish chap by the name of lynch was the unfortunate recipient of the first one at the hands of upright american WASPs , hence the name .