10.5. Who Needs Experts?
How To Invent (Almost)
Anything
> 10. Getting Past the Blocks > 10.5.
Who Needs Experts?
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Many great inventions were produced by people who were not only outside the
field of invention, but were not even scientists or engineers. The following
table shows but a small fraction of such people:
| Invention |
Inventor |
Occupation |
| Cotton gin |
Eli Whitney |
Lawyer |
| Fire extinguisher |
George Manby |
Army captain |
| Ballpoint pen |
Ladislao Biro |
Proof reader |
| Disposable razor |
King Camp Gilette |
Salesman |
| Powered flight |
Wright brothers |
Bicycle mechanics |
| Typewriter |
Christopher Scholes |
News editor |
And just listen to what the experts have said:
- 'The phonograph is not of any commercial value.' — Thomas Edison, 1880
- 'The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of
the wise and humane surgeon.' — Sir John Eric Ericson, Surgeon to Queen
Victoria, 1873
- 'Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.' — Irving
Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale, 1929, just before the Wall Street crash
- '640K ought to be enough for anybody.' — Bill Gates, 1981
- 'Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.' — Lord Kelvin, President of
Royal Society, 1895
- 'That bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.' — Admiral
William D. Leahy, 1945 on the atomic bomb
- 'There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.' — Robert
Millikan, Nobel prize winner in physics, 1920
- 'Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if not
utterly impossible.'
- — Simon Newcomb, astronomer, 1902 (Wright brothers flew in 1903)
- 'Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is a ridiculous fiction.' — Pierre Pachet,
Professor Physiology, Toulouse, 1872
And, more than once, the invention experts have over-reached their mark:
- 'Inventions reached their limit long ago and I see no hope for further
development.' — Julius Sextus Frontinus, prominent Roman engineer, circa 40-103
AD
- 'Everything that can be invented has been invented.' — Charles H. Duell,
Commissioner, US Patent Office, in 1899
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