Mexico is characterized by the creativity of its inhabitants. Here are some of the inventions that bear the Mexican stamp.
- Color TV
In 1940, Mexican Guillermo González Camarena (Guadalajara, Jal. February 17, 1917-Las Lajas, Ver. April 18, 1965) created a system for transmitting color television: the trichromatic sequential field system, whose patent was granted on September 15, 1942 in the United States. In 1950, Columbia College in Chicago asked the young Mexican researcher to manufacture the television system, and color television equipment designed and manufactured in Mexico was exported to the US. In January 1951, he was commissioned by Radio Panamericana to locate the first repeater station of Mexican television, which was installed in Altzomoni, between Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl.
- Birth control pill
On May 9, 1960, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Committee recommended approval of the first oral contraceptive pill. The Mexican chemist Luis Ernesto Miramontes (Tepic, March 16, 1925 – CdMx, September 13, 2004) was in charge of creating this first contraceptive by synthesizing norethisterone in 1951, whose patent he obtained together with Carl Djerassi and George Rosenkranz, members of the Mexican chemical company Syntex. Miramontes, then 26 years old, was considered the Mexican scientist with the greatest world significance of the 20th century, according to the criteria of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, being the only Mexican in the USA Inventors Hall of Fame.
- Indelible ink
In 1994, the chemist Filiberto Vázquez Dávila (Guadalajara, Jal. August 22, 1943) created the indelible ink that we use in each election when voting. Unlike rubber stamp inks, this one enters through the first layer of skin cells, which are already flaking off. The only way to remove the paint is to remove those cells. That is the basis of an authentic indelibility. For his invention, the chemist received the National Prize for Sciences and Arts, the Maestro Rafael Ramírez Medal, dozens of awards, and has participated in the development of inks for newspapers and books.
4.- Tortilla machine
The first device to streamline tortilla production dates back to 1905, when Ramón Benítez joined two square plates that, with the help of a lever, crushed the dough to thin it, and then passed it through fire. Five years later, Luis Romero manufactured a roller machine. Finally, Fausto Celorio Mendoza in 1915 incorporated an oven for the continuous cooking of tortillas.In 1920, he was the first to use gas, and a year later, he built a machine that used oil. In 1947, he implemented the roller system to punch and transport the tortilla, for which he is remembered as the true inventor of the tortilla machine.
5.- Toilet bowl float
The Mexican scientist José Antonio de Alzate (Ozumba, Edomex, November 21, 1737-), invented the bath float in 1790, a mechanism that controls the flow of water into and out of toilet bowls, and is activated when the lever is pulled, saving millions of liters of drinking water. It is a device so common in daily life that we pay little attention to it, and we owe it to a Mexican.
- Car with hydrogen engine and electricity
The Mexican engineer Pedro Castañeda Jiménez (Baja California) created a device called a hydrogen generator that reduces polluting emissions generated by gasoline, diesel, or fuel gas vehicles. This prototype took more than two and a half years to develop, and reduces an average of 60 % of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and hydrocarbon emissions from engines. This device opens the door to the commercialization of hydrogen cars.
- Anti-graffiti paint
At the beginning of 2002, anti-graffiti paint began to be manufactured industrially, developed by doctors Víctor Manuel Castaño and Rogelio Rodríguez Talavera, as well as a team of collaborators at the Center for Applied Physics and Advanced Technology of the UNAM (Mexico). Deletum 3000 paint is created with components that reject oil and water, so when the paint is applied and dried, it presents a surface that prevents the adhesion of these two elements. The anti-graffiti paint was developed by the university researchers in just three weeks.
8.- Anahuac Helix
In 1915, engineer Juan Guillermo Villasana López (Pachuca, Hidalgo, February 10, 1891 – CdMx , February 23, 1959) designed and manufactured a new propeller model, registered in 1918. The project was born in 1912, when the Mexican Government commissioned him to build the first formal airplane. The first thing he did was merge his knowledge of the family business of cabinetmakers to design a propeller with various types of wood and a new assembly that allows the aircraft to rise faster, and with better height, with which changed world aeronautics.
9.-Solid rain
Mexican engineer Sergio Jesús Rico Velasco made it possible to preserve rainwater for a period of time in a solid way, and thereby solve the problem of droughts in crops. To do this, particles of the acrylate powder are used. This powder has the capacity to absorb up to 200 times its weight in water, and, when hydrated by rainwater, turns into a gel. The gel, which is the “solid rain,” retains the water that has been absorbed for up to six weeks. This is stored in plastic bags in a shaded place, and is ready to be used at any time for a year.
10.- Flying Belt
The flying belt, also known as the Mexican jet pack, was invented by the Mexican engineer Juan Manuel Lozano Gallegos (CdMx, May 26, 1954), founder of the Mexican Aerospace Technology company. It is a device that is placed on the back, and, thanks to its hydrogen peroxide jet propulsion engine, it allows the person who carries it to fly. It was the device that was used during the opening ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games – the same one James Bond wore in one of his films.