While necessity may be the mother of invention, its paternal roots can be traced to accidents and eccentricity. IMT contributor Ilya Leybovich looks at the unexpected sources of some of today’s most common inventions, plus some unusual proposals for products yet to find a niche.
One of today’s most widely used adhesives was the product of an unrelated series of experiments. During World War II, Dr. Harry Coover was hired by the U.S. military to develop plastic gun-sights using a resin compound known as cyanoacrylate. The chemical proved too sticky and the gun-sight idea was soon scrapped. Years later, while developing heat-resistant jet canopies, Coover discovered that cyanoacrylate could be made to bond with virtually any substance and had great potential as a glue. He filed a patent for the material in 1956, and sold it under the trade names “Superglue” and “Krazy Glue.”
Carl Scheele (1742-1786) is credited with discovering a vast number of simple substances, including oxygen (which he called “fire air”), chlorine and hydrogen sulfide. He began working as a pharmacist and parleyed his skills into a successful career in experimental chemistry. Scheele was the first to isolate and identify a number of different compounds, such as glycerol and tartaric acid. Unfortunately, he also tended to work in poorly ventilated spaces and conducted taste-tests on many of his chemicals. The combination of inhaled and digested toxins is believed to have killed him at age 43.
In 1943, another unexpected event led to the creation of the ever-popular Slinky line of toys. Richard James, a naval engineer, was attempting to develop a device for monitoring a ship’s horsepower at sea, when he saw a torsion spring fall off his desk and continue to coil along the floor. James researched the best steel gauge and coil type to use, and began marketing his invention as a toy. Today, nearly 300 million of them have been sold worldwide, and the Slinky is the Official State Toy of Pennsylvania.
Sealing things up appears to be a popular pursuit among fringe inventors, as evidenced by the Banana Protective Device (#6612440). This padded, banana-shaped container serves as a sort of fruit-lover’s suitcase, allowing bananas to be stored and transported with minimal damage. A sequence of hinges and latches seals the device to “keep a banana fresh, appealing, and appetizing,” according to the inventor’s proposal. No mention is made of the banana’s preexisting cover, which is presumably patented by nature.
Photo by Krazy Glue.
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