Inventions

My very first "real job" was as a fry cook for an Arthur Treacher's Fish'n'Chips restaurant in Lansing, Michigan. Over the couple of years I worked there, we'd do zany things after hours, including experimenting with different blends of food and different ways of cooking things. We came up with some pretty delicious stuff by accident in those days.

The folks at How Stuff Works have just listed nine other things that were created by accident but are now household names.

Post-It Notes and microwave ovens you probably know about ... some of the others may actually surprise you.

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THOUGHTS ON INVENTIONS

"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." (Dave Barry)

"Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried." (Thomas Jefferson)

"There have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and central banking." (Will Rogers)

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end." (Henry David Thoreau)

"All of the biggest technological inventions created by man - the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness." (Mark Kennedy)

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." (Alan Kay)

[collected from the Internet, with special thanks to ThinkExist.com]

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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "Invention is the mother of necessity." (Thorstein Veblen) "Getting caught is the mother of invention." (Robert Byrne)

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