What Needs Inventing?

Abstract

The nineteenth century was a great period for the individual inventor. Siemens and Bessemer developed processes that led to steelworks producing hundreds of thousands and, eventually, millions of tons of steel per year; Edison and Parsons founded great companies, while the inventors of small things like the safety pin or the bicycle free-wheel made their fortunes. Hundreds of other inventions, however, fell by the wayside either because they were not economic, the materials were not available or they simply wouldn’t work—like steam operated helicopters which were no more practical than Leonardo da Vinci’s human power helicopter designed five hundred years earlier.