The Casual Dork Weekly #18

TECH

South African Inventions & Achievements

we’ve created so many great things as a nation…

Throughout the years, South Africa has been a place of great technological advancement and amazing feats of ingenuity.

This Heritage Day, I want to spotlight some of the greatest inventions created by South Africans. Some of them might even surprise you.

Q20

From KwaZulu-Natal, Mr Robertson (first name unknown) invented one of the world's best, and most important, multipurpose lubricants: Q20. It repelled water and prevented rust, and Porche used it extensively on the VW Beetle, which had just been produced.

CT Scan

Allan MacLeod Cormack (February 23, 1924 – May 7, 1998) was a South African American physicist who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with Godfrey Hounsfield) for his work on X-ray computed tomography (CT), a significant and unusual achievement since Cormack did not hold a doctoral degree in any scientific field.

Dolos

A dolos is a wave-dissipating concrete block used in great numbers as a form of coastal management. The design of the dolos is usually credited to the South African Eric Mowbray Merrifield, one-time East London Harbour Engineer, but in the 1990s a theory that Aubrey Kruger actually played a bigger role in the invention of the design.

All we know is that this invention is crucial in ocean dissipation and protecting our shorelines.

Pratley’s Putty

Pratley Putty is an epoxy putty adhesive. It was invented in the 1960s by South African George Montague Pratley, with the assistance of chemist Frank Robinson.

Pratley Putty was carried aboard the Apollo 11 Eagle landing craft. George said he invented Pratley's Putty to hold electrical box components.

Those are just a few of the many inventions that have come from South Africans, you can see a comprehensive list below.

CROSSWORD #8

South African Inventions

do you know them?

SONG OF THE WEEK

Our National Anthem

not officially, but we all know…