British journalist Gavin Weightman (The Industrial Revolutionaries) examines the "eureka" moment when a new technology works for the first time, with the stories behind five of the 20th century's most transformative inventions. The airplane, television, barcode, personal computer and mobile phone were innovations on existing technologies, and Weightman uses these inventions as a framework to recount the colorful stories behind the discoveries that ushered in today's most ubiquitous tools.
He begins with the iconic Kitty Hawk and the Wright brothers' first flight on December 17, 1903, and quickly finds fresh and unexpected angles. Orville and Wilbur Wright owned a business selling and repairing bicycles in Dayton, Ohio, using their mechanical experience and appropriating bicycle parts to build propellers and other airplane components. A century earlier, the ballooning craze, and reports of a Viennese clockmaker who used counterweights, hoists and wings strapped to his arms to become airborne, became the talk of Europe. This inspired the British inventor Sir George Cayley to build a simple glider that resulted in the first true, fixed-wing airplane flight. Other characters, like the Berlin brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal, convinced that gliding would soon be as popular as bicycling, a sport they also enjoyed, carried on their own experiments and ultimately influenced the Wrights.
Weightman brings similar behind-the-scenes stories and unfamiliar histories to each invention. The first image captured on a screen, a crude precursor to television, took place on October 2, 1925. It was the brainchild of Scotsman John Logie Baird, who was inspired by the development of the radio, the light bulb and the camera to devise a way to "see by wireless." The barcode was created by Norman Joseph Woodland, an IBM employee who first drew a prototype in the Miami Beach sand in 1949, in response to pleas from a supermarket manager who needed to help shoppers check out more quickly. It was a rare instance where necessity drove invention, rather than the more typical scenario where an invention by an amateur or outsider creates its own demand. In an ironic twist, IBM was not interested; it wasn't until the invention of laser light allowing scanning in 1960 that barcodes caught on.
Eureka is an informative look at the nature of invention and, equally important, it is an entertaining, well-written and accessible account full of wonderful stories, colorful characters and little-known events, bringing a fresh perspective and appreciation for technologies that many now take for granted. --Jeanette Zwart, freelance writer and reviewer
Shelf Talker: Eureka is an entertaining account of the people and discoveries behind five major technologies that have transformed daily life.