Imagination and a Pile of Junk
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More About This Title Imagination and a Pile of Junk
English
A celebration of the extraordinary people who created the modern world, spiced with anecdotes and wit and woven with a seductive mix of eureka moments, disasters, and dirty tricks
Although inventors were often scientists or engineers, many were not: Samuel Morse (Morse code) was a painter, Lazlow Biro (ballpoint pen) was a sculptor and hypnotist, and Logie Baird (TV) sold boot polish. The inventor of the automatic telephone switchboard was an undertaker who believed the operator was diverting his calls to rival morticians so he decided to make all telephone operators redundant. Inventors are mavericks indifferent to conventional wisdom, so critics were dismissive of even their best ideas: radio had "no future," the electric light was "an idiotic idea," and X-rays were "a hoax." Even so, the state of New Jersey moved to ban X-ray opera glasses. The head of the General Post Office rejected telephones as unnecessary as there were "plenty of small boys to run messages." Some inventions were almost stillborn; the first vacuum cleaner was horse drawn on a cart. The first zippers didn't zip. It often took a while for great inventions to be exploited. Transistors languished in hearing aids for 10 years before they transformed radios. 20 years after anesthetics were invented some hospitals in Britain were still operating without them, and vaccination ("a giant delusion") had to wait almost a century before it was fully accepted. Even the inventor didn't always know the real use of their discovery. Edison designed the phonograph for dictation, not to play music. Nobel thought his dynamite would bring about world peace. Norton answers such burning questions as "How did embroidery save thousands of lives?" and "Why did it take a World War to get women to wear bras?" Inventomania is a magical place where eccentrics are always in season and their stories are usually unbelievable—but rest assured, nothing here has been invented.
Although inventors were often scientists or engineers, many were not: Samuel Morse (Morse code) was a painter, Lazlow Biro (ballpoint pen) was a sculptor and hypnotist, and Logie Baird (TV) sold boot polish. The inventor of the automatic telephone switchboard was an undertaker who believed the operator was diverting his calls to rival morticians so he decided to make all telephone operators redundant. Inventors are mavericks indifferent to conventional wisdom, so critics were dismissive of even their best ideas: radio had "no future," the electric light was "an idiotic idea," and X-rays were "a hoax." Even so, the state of New Jersey moved to ban X-ray opera glasses. The head of the General Post Office rejected telephones as unnecessary as there were "plenty of small boys to run messages." Some inventions were almost stillborn; the first vacuum cleaner was horse drawn on a cart. The first zippers didn't zip. It often took a while for great inventions to be exploited. Transistors languished in hearing aids for 10 years before they transformed radios. 20 years after anesthetics were invented some hospitals in Britain were still operating without them, and vaccination ("a giant delusion") had to wait almost a century before it was fully accepted. Even the inventor didn't always know the real use of their discovery. Edison designed the phonograph for dictation, not to play music. Nobel thought his dynamite would bring about world peace. Norton answers such burning questions as "How did embroidery save thousands of lives?" and "Why did it take a World War to get women to wear bras?" Inventomania is a magical place where eccentrics are always in season and their stories are usually unbelievable—but rest assured, nothing here has been invented.
English
Trevor Norton is a marine biologist and the author of Reflections on a Summer Sea, Stars Beneath the Sea, and Underwater to Get Out of the Rain.
