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Since many inventions take several
years or even decades to gain widespread acceptance, we take a look
back at the greatest inventions of ’03 … as in 1903. Since you
probably weren’t around in 1903, here’s a list of the hottest new
inventions that were making the news that year – and are more
popular than ever, 100 years after they were invented:
• The first motorized, manned airplane
• The electrocardiogram (EKG)
• Crayola ® crayons
• The windshield wiper
• The disposable safety razor
There are a number of ways to measure the success of a new
invention. For example, how long did it take for the invention to be
accepted by society as a whole? How has it improved people’s lives?
How many people use it? Will it be around 100 years from now?
The many recent news stories tell us all we need to know about the
Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, but there are a couple
of interesting facts that many people are unaware of. For example,
most of the large airlines today are not profitable, with the
exception of Southwest Airlines. It is also statistically safer to
fly in an airplane than to ride in a car.
Back in 1860, physiologist Willem Einthoven was born in Java of the
Dutch East Indies, known today as Indonesia. In 1903 he invented the
string galvanometer, which led him to develop the electrocardiogram
(EKG), for which he received the 1924 Nobel Prize. The EKG is a
graphic record of the heart’s action which tells whether or not the
heart is performing normally. Scientists from all over the world
would visit Einthoven’s laboratory to see his string galvanometer
and today EKG’s are used in many developed countries to diagnose
heart conditions.
The next product hasn’t saved any lives (at least not that we know
of), but can you imagine growing up without your Crayola ® crayons?
Binney & Smith is the company behind the Crayolas. Actually, it was
Binney’s wife, Alice, who came up with the idea as an alternative to
the crayons that were imported from Europe at the time. She also
created the Crayola brand name by combining the French words “craie,”
which meant colored stick and “ola,” meaning oily.
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The first box of Crayolas sold for a
nickel and contained eight crayons – red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, violet, brown and black. Today, 100 billion crayons later, the
Crayola brand is synonymous with the product.
Mary Anderson came up with her idea for a windshield wiper while she
was touring New York City on a streetcar in 1903. Watching the
motorman constantly get out to wipe the snow and ice from the
windshield, she figured there must be a better way, and the rest is
history. It took only 10 years for the windshield wiper to become
standard equipment on automobiles, yet Mary never pocketed a dime
from her invention.
King Camp Gillette invented the first disposable safety razor in
1903. By 1905, he had sold only 168 blades, but sales had jumped to
more than 12 million blades the following year. One hundred years
later, the company’s numerous product lines account for nearly $10
billion in annual sales worldwide.
TIME magazine says that some of the hottest new inventions of ’03 –
that would be 2003 – are the iTunes Music Store for Apple computer
users, the camera phone, the water purifier designed for third-world
countries, the “Robo-Lobster” used to detect and destroy mines,
Toyota’s hybrid car and the nasal-mist flu shot. While they are all
hot items now, it’s too early to tell if they’ll achieve the same
level of success as the airplane, the EKG, Crayola crayons,
windshield wipers and disposable razors – or if they’ll still be
around 100 years from now.
It will be interesting to see what new inventions the New Year
brings us. We’ll review the hottest inventions of ’04 at this time
next year … although the ’04 may refer to 1904 or even 1804, which
was the year of the first steam locomotive (invented in England),
the Jacquard Loom (invented in France) and the Congreve rocket (also
invented in England), which 7 years later produced “the rocket’s red
glare” that Francis Scott Key wrote about in “The Star-Spangled
Banner.”
[Paul
Niemann]
Invention Mysteries is written each
week by Paul Niemann. He can be reached at
niemann7@inventionmysteries.com.
Copyright
Paul Niemann 2003
Last week's column in LDN:
"What kept these inventors from obtaining patents on their own?"
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