Deadly Inventions.

The four years and four months of war that consumed Europe from the summer of 1914 until the armistice of 11 November 1918 redirected the focus of much science and technology. The death struggle in Europe slowed the progress of the pure sciences, but technology, at least insofar as it supported the war effort, flourished. Many European and American scientists and engineers served in the war effort. New products were developed for the war, including plastics, rayon, cellulose acetate (for film), and aluminum alloys. The machine gun, invented in the mid nineteenth century and substantially improved and refined by Hiram Maxim during the 1880s, became one of the most deadly weapons of World War I. Col. I. N. Lewis developed a lightweight machine gun that was a significant improvement over those in use, and within a year of entering the war in 1917 the...