Famous Australian Ideas and Innovations

You're going to be very surprised at some of the great inventions Australians have been responsible for...

Heck, Aussie are even responsible for turning dishwater and beer into electricity, AND running cars on nothing but water!

This page presents a variety of those for your perusal - please REFRESH to see a different selection of ten Aussie innovations.

To find out more, can I suggest you visit
The Power House Museum and Questacon

• The world's first plastic spectacle lenses, 60% lighter than glass lenses, were designed in 1960 by Scientific Optical Laboratories.
  
  
• The Pop Top Can idea of press-buttons on cans (where the button is hinged to the can) so it does not cause a litter problem, was developed by Sir Ian McLennan of BHP in 1973
  
  
• The CSIRO developed a snake antivenom in 1968 which acted against the poison from most Australian snakes.
  
  
• Automated betting at horse races was made possible with the Automatic Totalisator invented by George Julius in 1913.
  
  
• Racecam - the lightweight, fixed camera first used in car racing - was developed by Geoff Healey in 1979 and has changed sports broadcasting worldwide.
  
  
• Developed by Dr Saul Weiner, Redback Spider Antivenom was released in 1956.
  
  
• Bruce Macdonald at the Australian Institute of Marine Science developed the world's first underwater computer in 1993
  
  
• In 1929, Alfred Traeger invented the Pedal Wireless - a pedal-operated generator which was connected to a wireless
  
  
• The Sydney GPO had the world's first mechanised Letter Sorting Machine in 1930. It was developed by an engineer with the Postmaster General's Department.
  
  
• In 1983, Australia II won the America's Cup in part due to the revolutionary winged keel designed by Ben Lexcen.
  
  

Hit REFRESH to reload the page to see another random selection of more Aussie ideas :)

Written by coais

About Stephen Spry

Stephen Spry is a freelance web designer and Internet publisher. He has been working online, full-time, since 1995 after an 18-year career as a high school Careers Adviser. Stephen operates several websites and web directories in a variety of niches. His main web design business can be found here » Come On Aussie.