Buzz
While many inventors have careers lasting decades, they are often celebrated for just one major breakthrough. This article delves into some of their lesser-known creations, which, despite being innovative, useful, or unusual, have faded into obscurity.
10. Hiram Maxim’s Captive Flying Machines
Hiram Maxim, a prolific 19th-century inventor, is best known for his groundbreaking creation in 1883: the Maxim gun, the world's first fully automatic machine gun. Unlike earlier weapons such as the hand-cranked Gatling gun, the Maxim gun was recoil-operated, portable, water-cooled, and capable of firing 600 rounds per minute with a single trigger press. It played a crucial role in World War I and later evolved into the Vickers gun, which became a staple of the British Army for many years.
Following the triumph of his machine gun, Maxim shifted his focus to aviation. To finance his research and generate public enthusiasm for flight, he created an amusement ride for the 1904 Earl’s Court Exhibition. This innovative swing ride featured rocket-shaped cars instead of traditional chairs and quickly became a crowd favorite.
The attraction was named “Sir Hiram Maxim Captive Flying Machines.” Maxim initially intended to equip the cars with rudders and airfoils to give riders control, but safety regulations prevented this. Frustrated, he dismissed the ride as a “glorified merry-go-round.” Despite his dissatisfaction, the ride gained immense popularity, with new versions installed at various resorts and fairgrounds across England. The Blackpool Pleasure Beach installation, shown above, remains operational and holds the title of Europe’s oldest functioning ride.
9. Hugo Gernsback’s Isolator
Hugo Gernsback is often hailed as the “father of science fiction” by enthusiasts of the genre. The prestigious Hugo Awards, which honor excellence in science fiction and fantasy, are named after him. Gernsback had a prolific career as a magazine publisher and editor, notably launching Amazing Stories in 1926, the world’s first dedicated sci-fi magazine.
Despite his later acclaim, Gernsback’s reputation during his lifetime was far from spotless. While he dabbled in writing, his stories were poorly received. He gained notoriety in the publishing industry for repeatedly attempting to avoid paying his writers, earning him the nickname “Hugo the Rat” from H.P. Lovecraft. Gernsback also saw himself as an inventor, holding numerous patents. Although he had a visionary outlook, predicting advancements like wireless technology, television, and air conditioning, his own inventions often fell short of expectations.
One such invention was “The Isolator,” a helmet designed to enable its wearer to work in complete tranquility regardless of external distractions. Marketed as entirely soundproof and airtight, it required an external oxygen supply to function.
Gernsback introduced this invention in the 1925 issue of Science and Invention, a magazine focused on scientific advancements. He personally modeled The Isolator in a photograph to demonstrate its use, but despite the publicity, the helmet never made it to mass production.
8. John Logie Baird’s Socks
John Logie Baird is best known for his pioneering work in television development. While numerous individuals contributed to the evolution of TV, Baird is credited as the inventor of television for creating and showcasing the first functional mechanical television system in 1926.
Much of Baird’s later career focused on refining television technology. However, his earlier endeavors were far more eclectic. He invented various items, such as a glass razor and pneumatic shoes designed for individuals with flat feet. While these inventions didn’t gain traction, Baird eventually achieved success with a unique type of sock.
In 1915, Baird attempted to enlist in World War I but was deemed unfit for service. Instead, he worked at a munitions factory, where he learned about trench foot, a widespread issue among soldiers forced to wear damp socks for extended periods. Untreated, this condition could cause severe infections and even necessitate amputation.
This led to the creation of the Baird Undersock. Essentially, it was an additional pair of socks (referred to as “gents’ half-hose” at the time) worn beneath regular socks to absorb moisture. It was also treated with borax, which served as an antiseptic agent.
The Baird Undersock achieved significant success, enabling Baird to leave his job and focus entirely on its sales. The product also benefited from an innovative marketing strategy, featuring endorsements from soldiers and women parading through cities with sandwich boards advertising the undersock.
7. Eugene Rimmel’s Toilet Vinegar
Even nearly 150 years after his passing, Eugene Rimmel remains a giant in the cosmetics industry. A trailblazer in his field, he introduced numerous innovative products, including the non-toxic mascara still referred to as “rimmel” in many parts of the world. His cosmetics brand, established in 1834, continues to thrive and is available in numerous countries globally.
Beyond enhancing personal fragrance, Rimmel was also dedicated to advancing hygiene standards. Recognizing that increased bathing would lead to greater use of his products, his efforts, while commercially motivated, had a universally beneficial impact.
One of Rimmel’s early triumphs was a product known as toilet vinegar. This blend of oils, white vinegar, lavender extract, and tincture of benzoin was infused for 10 days and then filtered. Initially designed as a moisturizer or shampoo, it was soon discovered to be highly effective at removing stubborn stains from toilets.
Although Rimmel never intended his creation to serve as a toilet cleaner, he adeptly rebranded it. Marketed as a “tonic and refreshing addition to the toilet or bath,” his toilet vinegar was praised for its superior disinfectant and sanitary qualities, surpassing even those of traditional Eau du Cologne.
6. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Bronze Horse
In 1482, Leonardo da Vinci received a commission from the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, to create an equestrian statue. Leonardo’s vision, known as the Gran Cavallo, was a colossal 7.3-meter (24 ft), 80-ton bronze masterpiece that would have been the largest equestrian statue ever built.
The Duke, impressed by Leonardo’s proposal, allocated bronze for the project. However, like many of da Vinci’s grand ideas, this one demanded extensive preparation and innovation. While equestrian statues were not uncommon, Leonardo aimed to cast the entire 80-ton horse from a single piece of bronze—a feat never attempted before and deemed impossible at the time. To achieve this, Leonardo developed a groundbreaking casting technique, which he detailed in his notes.
Sadly, Leonardo never saw his vision realized. By 1492, he had completed a clay model of the statue, which stood prominently within the Duke’s castle. However, Milan’s conflict with France forced the Duke to reclaim the bronze intended for the statue to produce cannons, halting the project indefinitely.
For the next seven years, Leonardo’s ambitious project remained dormant until France seized Milan in 1499. During the invasion, French troops destroyed Leonardo’s clay model, bringing the Gran Cavallo project to an abrupt end. It wasn’t until recent decades that the statue was finally brought to life, thanks to the efforts of an American named Charles Dent.
5. John Napier’s Bones
John Napier, a renowned Scottish polymath, is best remembered for his groundbreaking work in mathematics. He introduced logarithms and played a key role in popularizing the decimal point. Beyond mathematics, he explored astronomy, physics, and, as previously noted, had a keen interest in the occult.
Napier also created a calculating tool known as Napier’s Bones, which laid the groundwork for early mechanical calculators. The device featured a series of numbered rods attached to a base plate. While the standard configuration facilitated multiplication and division through basic addition and subtraction, Napier also explained how to adapt it for solving square and cube roots. This system was rooted in the lattice multiplication technique, originally developed by Arab and Indian mathematicians.
Within decades of Napier’s Bones being introduced, the first true mechanical calculator emerged, credited to either Blaise Pascal or Wilhelm Schickard, depending on historical interpretation. Despite this, Napier’s Bones remained a functional tool for centuries, undergoing only slight modifications. It also inspired several offshoots, such as the Genaille-Lucas ruler in 1891. Its most notable successor was undoubtedly the slide rule, invented by William Oughtred in 1621. Based on Napier’s design, the slide rule was still in use centuries later, even by NASA during the Apollo Program.
4. Nikola Tesla’s Egg Of Columbus
A popular anecdote claims that Christopher Columbus once challenged his critics to balance an egg on its tip. After their repeated failures, Columbus succeeded by gently tapping the egg on the table to flatten its base. His aim was to demonstrate that what seemed impossible was, in fact, achievable with a simple solution. Today, this story symbolizes creativity and unconventional thinking. A century ago, however, Nikola Tesla took the concept quite literally.
In 1893, during the Chicago World’s Fair—also known as the World Columbian Exposition, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage—Tesla sought to showcase his alternating current induction motor amid the ongoing “War of Currents.”
For this purpose, Tesla created his own Egg of Columbus device, which could balance a copper egg on its tip. The device featured an iron core stator with multiple coils. When activated, it produced a rotating magnetic field that not only stood the copper egg upright but also caused it to spin along its major axis due to gyroscopic forces.
Tesla’s egg served as a fitting exhibit for the World’s Fair and effectively demonstrated the principles of the rotating magnetic field, a fundamental aspect of alternating current motors. While the original device has been lost, replicas can be found in various museums today.
3. Alexander Graham Bell’s Vacuum Jacket
Although best known for the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell had a lifelong passion for diverse fields, including aviation and medicine. This led to several significant inventions, such as an early metal detector designed to save President James Garfield and a precursor to the iron lung called an artificial respirator.
Around the time Bell was attempting to save the president’s life, his wife was expecting their third child. Edward Bell was born on August 15, 1881, but tragically died hours later due to respiratory issues. Determined to prevent such a tragedy, Bell developed a rudimentary artificial respirator he named the vacuum jacket.
The vacuum jacket featured an iron cylinder that tightly encased the patient’s chest. A hand pump allowed an assistant to adjust the air pressure inside the cylinder, compressing and releasing the chest to simulate breathing and move air in and out of the lungs.
In 1882, Bell created a scaled-down version of the vacuum jacket for use on animals and successfully revived a lamb with it. Over the following decades, he refined the design. Although the vacuum jacket never saw widespread use, it demonstrated the foundational principles later applied in the development of the iron lung.
2. Thomas Edison’s Electric Pen
Thomas Edison, one of history’s most prolific inventors, held over 1,000 patents. Among his lesser-known creations, the electric pen stands out as one of his early successes. At the time, Edison was a relatively unknown 28-year-old inventor focused on improving telegraph technology. Observing that the printing telegraph’s stylus left impressions on paper, Edison, alongside his colleague Charles Batchelor, developed a duplicating machine that used perforated paper as a stencil to produce copies.
The electric pen was the centerpiece of a kit that included a wet-cell battery, an ink roller, and a cast iron holder, stand, and duplicating press. Resembling a sewing machine, the pen didn’t write but instead punctured thousands of tiny holes into paper to form a stencil. This stencil was then placed in the duplicator, and the ink roller produced multiple copies. The machine claimed to achieve 15 copies per minute and up to 15,000 copies from a single stencil.
Edison’s electric pen marked the first commercial device powered by an electric motor and was his initial invention to enter mass production. While it achieved global success, its popularity waned with the advent of the typewriter.
1. Harold Edgerton’s Loch Ness Monster Hunter
Harold Edgerton, nicknamed “Papa Flash,” transformed photography with his invention of the electronic flash. Using a stroboscope, he captured groundbreaking images, including his iconic photograph of a bullet piercing a playing card, reproduced above.
Although Edgerton pioneered this technology in the 1930s, it took time to gain widespread acceptance. As a result, he explored new applications for his innovations, contributing significantly to advancements in sonar and underwater photography.
In 1972, Edgerton received a telegram from his friend and fellow inventor Robert Rines, who sought his expertise in locating the Loch Ness Monster. Rines believed Edgerton could develop equipment capable of penetrating the loch’s dark, murky waters. Intrigued by Rines’s suspicious photographs, Edgerton agreed to assist.
While not a firm believer in Nessie, Edgerton was excited by the technical challenge of photographing a creature under such conditions. Over the following years, he dedicated himself to creating advanced equipment. As late as 1987, he corresponded with Rines about developing a new “streak camera” designed to detect moving objects.
Though they never found Nessie, their efforts weren’t in vain. Much of Edgerton’s new technology found its way into mainstream cameras. Additionally, the team discovered a World War II Wellington bomber and mysterious stone circles at the lake’s bottom, later identified as ordinary rocks from construction boats.
