Being such a small country, Sweden has been the growing ground for many inventions. Some of them many of us use on a daily basis. Today I want to talk about some of these Swedish inventions, and I will divide this into five main groups; work-related, travel, medical, tech, and everyday items.
Work-related inventions
We will begin in the work-related group with one thing that I have mentioned in an earlier episode from season 1 and that is Dynamite. Dynamite and the blasting cap were invented by Alfred Nobel in 1867. After his death, his will left all the money in a fond that was to become the Nobel prize, and if you are interested in learning more about that you should listen to the episode Alfred Nobel and Swedish Lucia from November last year.
Next, we have something you will find in almost every toolbox, the adjustable wrench. Similar tools had been developed before this, but the Swede Johan Petter, or JP, Johansson improved upon earlier ideas and developed the invention by the Englishman Joseph Stubbs from 50 years earlier to what today is known as an adjustable spanner with one of the two jaws moving by turning an adjusting screw. JP Johansson took out his first patent in 1891.
In 1882 Carl Richard Nyberg invented a vaporizing technique that would improve the blow torch to what would be copied and licensed by many manufacturers around the globe.
Inventions for Travel
Now let’s move on to inventions related to travel.
The first invention I want to talk about is the propeller, which actually was invented by two independent inventors at the same time, Francis Petitt Smith was the first of the two to take out a patent in May 1835. Six weeks later the Swede John Ericsson filed for his patent.
The British Navy was in support of Smith’s propeller and Ericsson got the attention of the United States and became the designer of the US Navy’s first screw-propelled warship USS Princeton.
On to something we use more frequently, the three-point seat belt. The very first three-point seat belt was sold in a Volvo PV544 on August 13, 1959.
The seat belt was invented by Nils Bohlin, who worked for Volvo. Volvo took out a patent but decided not to enforce any patent violations or charge any royalties, and it soon became available in cars all over the world.
It is believed that the seat belt has saved over a million lives since its introduction.
Now it is time to go to space. We wouldn’t have been able to watch the moon landing and the first steps on the moon if it hasn’t been for the Swede Viktor Hasselblad.
Hasselblad and NASA’s journey together began in 1962 during the Mercury program. During the Gemini IV mission in 1965, for example, the first spacewalk was made. And with Hasselblad in hand, James A. McDivitt took a series of pictures of his space-walking colleague, Edward H. White.
A silver Hasselblad Data Camera (HDC) with Réseau plate, fitted with a Zeiss Biogon 60mm ƒ/5.6 lens, was chosen to document the lunar surface and attached to astronaut Armstrong’s chest.
Medical inventions
An area where Sweden has contributed with many important inventions is in the medical field, so let’s take a look at some of them.
1958 was the year when Rune Elmqvist developed the internal pacemaker. There had been a lot of ideas for wearable pacemakers before this but what Rune Elmqvist and surgent Åke Senning accomplished in 1958 was to implant a pacemaker into a human.
The surgery took place at the Karolinska Institute and the first patient was Arne Larsson. He has during his lifetime received 26 different pacemakers and he died in 2001 at the age of 86, he outlived both the inventor and the surgent.
Another important medical invention from a Swede is the Gamma knife.
Professor Lars Leksell and Börje Larsson invented this surgical device that uses gamma waves to treat cancer and brain tumors without making any incisions.
The first gamma knife was developed in 1967.
Today more than 80,000 patients worldwide are safely treated with the gamma knife for brain tumors.
And let’s talk about medication. 1979. In Gothenburg, Sweden in an Astra Zenica laboratory the drug omeprazole was developed. This was going to be known under the name Losec or Prilosec and was in 1990 the best-selling drug worldwide to treat ulcers and acid reflux.
Now let’s talk tech.
If you are listening to this on your smartphone or your computer it is very possible that you are in front of a flatscreen. That is thanks to Sven Thorbjörn Lagervall’s discovery of ferroelectric liquid crystals in 1979, contributing to the development of the flat-screen monitor.
Are you into gaming? You might have played the game Minecraft which was created by Markus “Notch” Persson in 2009. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time with over 238 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active users in 2021.
Today Minecraft is owned by Microsoft.
And talking about Microsoft, they also own another software that initially was founded in Sweden, and that is Skype.
Skype was founded by Niklas Zennström and his Danish co-developer Janus Friis in August of 2003. As of March 2020, Skype was used by 100 million people at least once a month and by 40 million people every day.
Everyday Inventions
And talking about every day, let’s take a look at some everyday use inventions with connections to Sweden.
The first thing I want to talk about is matches. Matches themself are not a Swedish invention but until Gustaf Erik Pasch took a look at them, matches could be dangerous and self- ignite.
Pasch developed the safety matches by moving the phosphorus on which you strike your match to the side of the matchbox. He also replaced the poisonous yellow phosphorus with a non-toxic red version on the tip of the match into the red version.
Thanks to this invention Sweden has produced upwards of 75 % of the world’s matches.
Another invention that we probably use every day is the zipper. The Swedish-American inventor Gideon Sundbäck patented the zipper in 1917 and it is hard to imagine clothing without using zippers today. Its precursor was things like drawstrings and hook-and-eye.
Are you drinking juice in the morning? If so, do you buy it in a carton box? If so, you have a Swedish innovator by the name Erik Wallenberg to thank for that packaging. He created a tetrahedron, or triangular pyramid, shaped plastic-coated paper carton in 1946.
Wallenberg’s invention was the foundation for the company Tetra Pak which was founded by Ruben Rausing in Lund, Sweden. The Tetra Pak revolutionized the packaging system for liquids by making cartons out of paper.
Finally just a fun fact
And let’s end this episode with just a fun fact. Did you know that the now so well-known, original Coca-Cola bottle was designed by a Swede, Alexander Samuelsson. He was born in Sweden and moved to the US in 1883 at the age of 21. He was working for Root Glass Company as a foreman in 1915 when Coca-Cola held a competition to come up with a unique bottle. Alexander Samuelsson was the lead on the team in charge of designing the bottle, so his name was on the patent, but he was not alone in developing it, Earl R Deans and Clyde Edwards were sent to the library to research possible designs, where they came across an illustration of a cocoa pod, which gave them the idea for the ribbing of the bottle. Under Samuelsson, the design concept was put into production, and the rest is history.
These were some examples of Swedish inventions. I hope you enjoyed my examples and maybe learned something.
In my next episode, I will introduce you to some Swedes that have made a name for themselves in the entertainment and internet industries.
Until then, as we say in Sweden,
Hej Då!
