Inventor Book Reviews

Forks, Phonographs and Hot Air Balloons

by Robert J. Weber, 1992, 277 pages, $25.00, Oxford University Press, ISBN-0-19-506402-X.

In most fields of endeavor, the people who understand how their tools work have an advantage over that who do not.  The inventor's mind is obviously his or her most important tool.  This author has spent years studying and analyzing inventive thinking.  The author, Robert J. Weber, is Professor of Psychology at Oklahoma State University -- but please note, this book is free of the psycho-babble some popular magazine articles use when claiming to analyze the invention process.

He points out that while designing, engineering and science also solve problems, it is often the inventor who finds "the one good idea".  He presents the classic example of the Wright brothers.  By hands-on experimenting, these two bicycle shop owners succeeded where Samuel Langley failed.

Langley had vast resources at his disposal but he fixed upon automatic control and a powerful motor as the solution.  The Wright brothers believed in manual control -- bicycles work and are not stabilized automatically -- wind tunnel testing to optimize wing and propeller shapes, and they built their own motor to fit their needs.  In the author's words, "Langley represents big science at its worst.  The Wrights represent small science at its best".

In analyzing Leonardo da Vinci's helicopter design, the author notes how far ahead of its time it was.  400 years!  He lacked only a motor and some modern lightweight materials.

In contrast, looking at Edison's phonograph (1878), Weber notes that while it is often cited as totally unanticipated, it can also be argued it could have been invented 20 years earlier.  He gives a sketch of a similar device -- Leo Scott's phonoautograph of 1857 -- which used a smoked drum to record sound waves.

An interesting sidelight is the Montgolfier brothers who in 1783 achieved the first human flight by means of a hot air balloon.  They "thought that burning straw would produce hydrogen".

Not all his examples are of famous inventors.  An eighth-grade Weekly Reader contest winner, James R. Wollin, produced a means for getting all the peanut butter out of a jar.  He simply added a second lid to the bottom of the jar!

He points out that Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Jacob Rabinow (Post Office machine readers) all have commented that the creative process -- at least in the early stages -- is not a logical process.

Throughout the book, the author cites basic concepts that he has run across in analyzing inventions.  For example, "parallelism".  A one-tooth saw would be ridiculous.  "Spatial transformation".  Rotate an arch to generate a dome or repeat it to generate a corridor.

Don't think of this book as "old stuff".  He also takes us up to the present day with discussions of genetic engineering and "smart materials" (materials that change properties in changing environments)

After reading this book, you may never again look at a fork, safety pin or knife as simple devices.  Their evolution is fascinating and the concepts and principles of their evolution can be applied today and tomorrow.

The book is not only useful to the individual but it should be read by those in research labs and industry.  Too often today, departments work in isolation and fail to share information.  The highly successful Walkman resulted from the habit of Sony's retired chairman "wandering" from lab to lab.  One lab had developed light headphones which the other labs were not aware of.  These headphones were used to replace the conventional speakers -- and product history was made.

Beside "wandering", the author advocates "sconcing" as practiced at Cambridge University in England.  It brings together people of different disciplines.  One result at Cambridge was the development of tissue scanning by ultrasound.

All in all, this is a practical and delightful "field guide to inventive thinking".  While it has a 1992 copyright, this reviewer expects it will be around for a long time.