Vacuum

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To many, a vacuum is what we call the actual device that is used to clean our living room carpets or automobile floors.  But what a vacuum actually is a volume of space that is empty of matter.  Strange that the definition is such when we use vacuum cleaners to pick up matter from the floor. 

Various Uses

A vacuum is also used in a number of other objects and processes.  For example, the first use of the vacuum was in incandescent light bulbs, or the bulbs that give off a yellowish light.  What the vacuum does is protect the tungsten from degrading.  This kind of vacuum is also used in reducing convection, improving the use of such items like thermal bottles.  Some vacuum processes are also used in freeze drying and distillation.  Without the vacuum process, we wouldn’t have such items like electron microscopes and cathode ray tubes (like in the CRT monitor you are probably using right now to read this).  But of call these uses, it is the most practical that is the most popular.  A vacuum is best known for its suction properties and even this can be used in a variety of applications.  One of them is picking up dirt from hard to reach spaces like in between threads of a carpet.  Other uses include operating pistons but this is not a common application.

What We Know Best

Of course, that is all technical babble and we are all really comfortable knowing what an actual vacuum cleaner is.  Well, the vacuum that we know and use in our homes (known as a hoover in England) is actually an air pump that can create an artificial vacuum that in turn can create suction to pick up dust and dirt.  So the stronger the pump, then the stronger the force of the suction in the vacuum and the more items you are more likely to pick up with the machine.  Since most homes in developed countries are carpeted, this is one of the most useful devices to have lying around in the house.  Where does the dirt go?  It is collected in the machine’s filtering system and then into a bag that can be cleaned out later on.

A History of the Appliance

The first vacuum was actually developed in 1868; so you can see how far this little sucker has come (no pun intended).  The machine was light and it was small.  However, it was difficult to use since it required manual operation.  This meant that one had to turn a crank to make the pump move and create a vacuum.  So you can imagine how weak that vacuum was but the idea was there and all one had to do was to find a way to make a stronger vacuum and thus promote better suction.  In 1901, this was achieved with the creation of a powered vacuum.  The idea was based on a device that blew dust off of trains.  By 1905, a vacuum that is probably the first domestic vacuum cleaner was developed.  It closely resembles the vacuum cleaner that we have today and it draws on the same principles of a pump operating to create a vacuum to suck up dust that is then caught inside the filter and eventually into a bag that collects all the dirt for disposal.