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After Effects

The English literary association of a suburban college asked me to pen my thoughts on the link between invention and necessity. After months of research I presented them with a study that I suspect would have a lasting effect on the scientific community! So read further at your own risk!

Thorstein Veblen was probably right when he said invention is the mother of necessity and not vice versa. But to understand that we need to understand the world of inventions beyond their surface histories.

Come to think of it, some smart guy invented the sandwich, right? We don’t know his name, though it’s been named after an 18 th century English aristocrat who was the fourth Earl of a town called Sandwich in Kent.

Simply, because it was his preferred form of food - it allowed him to eat and play cards at the same time! I suspect the anonymous guy who invented the sandwich was pretty much looking at a similar convenience in multi-tasking.

I guess a lot of inventions take place out of desperation. Like, King Gillette was heartbroken when his girlfriend dumped him after his beard came in their way during a particularly romantic moment. Thereafter it took eight agonising years for Gillette to invent the safety razor and find another date!

It might come as a surprise to you that zippers weren’t invented purely out of the need for quick sex. In fact, it wasn’t originally invented for trousers at all! A chap in Chicago named Whitcomb L Judson was so fed up with tying his shoelaces that he invented the zipper as an easy solution in 1891.

He couldn’t have imagined that some day the zipper would move up the legs from shoes to trousers. And centuries later, a White House intern would actually get fascinated by an American President’s zipper in the Oval Office!

But not all inventions have been the result of necessities. Some have been due to sheer laziness. Like in the case of Elisha Graves Otis who hated the idea of climbing staircases and invented the elevator in 1852.Ironically, hundred years later, fitness experts re-invented climbing staircases as part of weight-loss programs!

Lastly, in 1596, angrez Sir John Harrington invented a flush toilet for Queen Elizabeth I - don’t ask why! However, his design found no takers in England, but was adopted by France under the name - hold your breath - Angrez!