 There's also Johannes Gutenberg and the printing press, Ruth Handler
and her line of Barbie dolls, Samuel Morse and his telegraph, Wilbur
and Orville Wright and their flying machine, and so on.
Three of the above inventors are connected with at least one
failed invention -- one that was sent back to the old drawing board,
where it stayed. See if you can match the following clunkers with
the correct inventors mentioned above: Edison, Franklin and Twain.
Talking movies and electric vote counters
Harry Warner, president of Warner Studios, once denounced the
idea of movies that had sound by saying, "Who the (heck) wants to
watch movies with sound?" We take this for granted now, but the
earliest movies had no sound. One very successful inventor tried --
and failed -- to combine movies with sound. He also created an
electric vote counter that failed. Actually, the electric vote
counter worked just fine, but no one wanted to use it. Who was this
inventor who had multiple failures?
Thomas Edison. Yup, even the greatest inventor of all time had a
few failures along the way. The vote counter was a turning point in
Edison's career, though, as it caused him to decide to "only invent
things that will sell." He received 1,093 patents in his career,
which is more than any other inventor in history.
The "Rittenhouse" stove
The original inventor of this cast-iron stove figured that if it
could be placed in the middle of a room it would produce more heat
than a fireplace could. Unfortunately, he designed it so the smoke
would come out from the bottom. Since smoke rises, this made it
impossible for his stove to work.
By the late 1780s, inventor David Rittenhouse had successfully
improved the original version of this stove, so he named it after
himself. Even though he succeeded, it was his predecessor whose name
is on the stove -- Ben Franklin, inventor of the Franklin stove.
[to top of second column]
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 The Paige typesetter
Who invented the Paige typesetter? Who was buried in Grant's
tomb?
The Paige typesetter was a very complex invention, one whose
patent application was the longest in history at the time. James
Paige is the machine's inventor, but this portion of the story is
about a successful inventor who invested his own money in the
invention. In fact, he invested in a number of losing inventions,
causing him to personally turn down the opportunity to invest in the
most valuable patent in history -- Alexander Graham Bell's
telephone. Who was this inventor-investor?
None other than Mark Twain. There were a couple of reasons for
the failure of the complex typesetting invention, which was in
demand by most of the leading newspapers and publishing houses at
the time. First, the patent took more than eight years to issue, as
one of the examiners died while the case was pending, another patent
examiner died insane, and the original patent attorney died in an
insane asylum; and second, James Paige refused to give up enough of
his ownership rights to the necessary investors when it was ready to
hit the market.
So if you ever find yourself looking at certain failure squarely
in the face with your own electric vote counter, Franklin stove or
Paige typesetter, you're in pretty good company!
[By
PAUL NIEMANN]
Paul Niemann may be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Copyright Paul Niemann 2008
(Other
columns)
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