Have you ever wondered how more advanced human beings could have been, If the Dark Ages had never occurred? We are taking a look through the past, from ancient antiquity to modern days, to find inventions that were lost that could’ve changed the world. The very first invention in this list is truly amazing and helpful for mankind in their daily life and business but unfortunately was unable to progress due to some stupid reasons that won’t be discussed here.
In the following few paragraphs, I will tell you lost Inventions that, if they were present today, would change the world. So, let’s get started.
Water fuel Cell
Stanley Meyer’s water fuel cell is mired in controversy, with one side claiming complete fraudulence, and the other side claiming pure genius and innovation. The water fuel cell is a technical design of a perpetual motion machine, where Stanley claimed that an automobile retrofitted with the device could use water as fuel instead of gasoline or petrol.
The fuel cell would split water into its component elements, hydrogen and oxygen, where the hydrogen was then burned to produce energy.
This theory was discouraged in 1996, when two investors sued Meyer, and claimed to pay back their $25,000 investment due to the court ruling that Meyer had committed gross and egregious fraud.
Stanley died suddenly on March 20, 1998, while dining at a restaurant, from a cerebral aneurysm, which has only spurred conspiracy theories that he was somehow assassinated.
Cloud buster
A cloud buster is a pseudoscientific device designed and invented by Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, which he claimed could produce rain by manipulating what he called orgone energy, or hypothetical universal life force, present in the atmosphere.
The device was intended to be used similarly to a lightning rod, where it focused on a location in the sky and was grounded, which in turn would draw the orgone energy out of the atmosphere, where it created cloud formation and rain.
The cloudbuster consisted of an array of parallel hollow metal tubes, which were connected at the rear to a series of flexible metal hoses, smaller than the main tubes. The open end of these hoses was placed in water, and the pipes aimed where they wanted to draw energy. The remains of a cloudbuster of Reich’s can be found in Rangeley, Maine.
Olestra
Olestra is technically not believed to be a lost invention, but rather a shelved one, due to the negative backlash it received from its over cautionary side effects. Olestra was a miracle fat substitute that added no fat, calories, or cholesterol to products, meaning that it could be used in otherwise high-fat foods such as potato chips, where it would lower or eliminate their fat content.
It was approved by the United States Federal Drug Administration in 1996, concluding that it met the safety standards for food additives, with reasonable certainty of no harm.
The side effects mentioned were abdominal cramping and loose stool, and that Olestra inhibited the absorption of some Vitamins and nutrients. These symptoms, however, normally occurred only by excessively consuming Olestra products in a short period of time.
Chronovisor
Marcello Pellegrino Emetti was an Italian Roman Catholic Benedictine priest, and the most famous exorcist who worked in the Venice area for his time, but he is also credited to have constructed the Chronovisor, a time viewer that allegedly allows those who use it to see and hear events from the past.
It was proposed that the device was constructed by a team of twelve world famous scientists, including Enrico Fermi and Wernher von Braun.
According to an explanation by Emetti, luminous energy and sound that objects emanate are recorded in their environment, allowing his device to reconstruct from the energy images and sound of a specific set of events from the past. Emetti claims that he witnessed the lost tragedy of Thyestes, by Quintus Ennius, and Jesus dying on a cross. The chronovisor is now assumed to be dismantled.
Silphium
A plant used in classical antiquity as seasoning, medicine, and a potent contraceptive, silphium was created by nature, but lost due to human overharvesting. It became an essential item of trade in the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and so critical to the Cyrenian economy, that most of their coins were adorned with the picture of the plant. The plant was also used by the Egyptians, Knossos Minoans, and most Mediterranean Cultures, including Romans.
Most believe that the identity of the plant, widely thought to belong to the genus Ferula, is just misidentified nowadays, but there are references that the last plant was gifted to Emperor Nero, which he promptly consumed.
While the civilizations of the time should’ve been in a population boom, there is evidence that shows it was declining.
These are the top five most mysterious inventions that our ancestor inventors left in the history, and are currently drowning or completely vanished. These invention ideas are still alive in our books, and have great lessons for those interested in think and inventing phenomena.