Incandescent light bulbs existed before Thomas Edison, and when other inventors got wind of Edison's tinkerings, they roundly sued him for patent infringement.&nbsp;So what did Edison actually do? He discovered that a special species of bamboo had a higher resistance to electricity than carbonized paper, which means it could more efficiently produce light. Edison got rich off the bamboo, and from superior manufacturing and marketing of his product.&nbsp;Like all great inventions, the light bulb can’t be credited to one inventor. It was a series of small improvements.

LIGHT-BULB

Speaking of building bikes, that's exactly what Orville and Wilbur Wright did before they became the first team to fly a heavier-than-air machine.&nbsp;When the Wrights asked the Smithsonian for all available information on the history of flight in 1899, they opened  a history that had begun with DaVinci's scribbling and continued all the way to the 19th century gliders of Otto Liliental.But the Wrights solved one of the most nagging problems of airplane developers -- stability -- by having "a single cable warp the wing and turn the rudder at the same time."

THE AIRPLANE

Samuel Morse was with friends and debating electromagnetism when he realized that if an electrical signal could travel instantly across a wire, why couldn't information do the same? The telegraph was invented by not only Morse, but also Charles Wheatstone, Sir William Fothergill Cooke, Edward Davy, and Carl August von Steinhiel so near to each other that the British Supreme Court refused to issue one patent.&nbsp;It was Joseph Henry, who discovered that coiling wire would strengthen electromagnetic induction.&nbsp;Of Morse's contribution -- application of electromagnets to boost signal strength.

TELEGRAPH

Alexander Graham Bell invented a technology that would later bear his name. But how much did he deserve it?&nbsp;The problem that Bell solved was to turn electrical signals into sounds.&nbsp;Philip Reis had already designed a sound transmitter in 1860, and Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz had already built a receiver. Bell's real contribution was "to vary the strength of the current to capture variations in voice and sound," Lemley writes.&nbsp;He was racing against Thomas Edison. Even Bell's final product -- which combined transmitter, fluctuating current, and receiver -- had company.&nbsp;

TELEPHONE

Most of these stories here are about how we mistake incremental improvements. But the story of the movie projector is a story about theft.&nbsp;Francis Jenkins built what we consider the ur-instrument of the motion-picture industry with a projector that showed strips of films for 1/24th of a second, creating the illusion of moving pictures.&nbsp;But his financial backer stole the Jenkins prototype and sold it to a theater chain, which called it the "Edison Vitascope" for no better reason than the word Edison was familiar and useful for branding. His legacy here was mostly the work of a thief.

THE MOVIE PROJECTOR

The car industry represents the epitome of incremental innovation. Take a tricycle. Add an engine. You've got a car. (Just look at the picture of the the original Benz Motorwagen from 1885). Condensing the invention of cars to those six words leaves out a lot of detail and a few main characters.&nbsp;It was Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach who designed the first four-wheel car with a four-stroke engine and Henry Ford who perfected the assembly line.&nbsp;But the long story short is that the car was a typical "invention" that was far too complicated for one person to conceive on his won.

THE AUTOMOBILE

The fabric cotton comes from cotton fibers that mix with seeds in the pods of cotton plants. To make the fabric, therefore, you have to separate the fibers from the seeds. For centuries this was done mostly by hand, until Eli Whitney "invented" the cotton gin in 1793.&nbsp;Five years earlier, in 1788, Joseph Eve developed his own mechanized self-feeding roller gin.&nbsp;In 1795, John Barcley filed a patent on a gin featuring circles of teeth -- awfully similar to Whitney's wire-tooth model.In short, the modern cotton gin was a eureka moment that multiple inventors experienced.

COTTON GIN

The "Farnsworth Invention" was named after Philo T. Farnsworth, the nominal father of television. But his invention was neither his nor an invention.&nbsp;In 1927, Farnsworth projected a straight line on a machine he called the Image Dissector, which is truly the basis for the all-electronic television.&nbsp;One key was the cathode ray tube, but the cathode ray tube itself has so many fathers that it's difficult to say exactly who invented even the central organ of the television."It may be accurate to describe Farnsworth as an inventor of the television, but surely not as the inventor,"

TELEVISION

<ul><li>Alexander Fleming discovered the anti-bacterial properties of penicillin because a sample of bacteria had accidentally been contaminated with mold.</li><li>Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanized rubber when a batch of rubber was accidentally left on a stove; Goodyear had thought that heat was a problem for rubber, not solution.</li><li>Wilson Greatbatch developed the pacemaker when he accidentally grabbed the wrong resistor from a box when he was completing a circuit.</li><li>Louis Daguerre invented film when, having failed to produce an image on an iodized silver plate.</li></ul>

Four inventors they're almost all accidents

The Atlantic covers news, politics, culture, technology, health, and more, through its articles, podcasts, videos, and flagship magazine.

Forget Edison: This is How History's Greatest Inventions Really Happened

These days, practically anyone can be an inventor. You don't have to be an expert in a field to contribute. You can become an inventor simply by having an idea and refining it.

Anyone can be an inventor

Inventions start with a good idea. And a good idea comes from inspiration. Advice from successful entrepreneurs and invention experts:<ul><li>Limor Fried, Founder and Lead Engineer at Adafruit, states that he gets inspiration from a Show and Tell they do every Wednesday in a live Google+ hangout.</li><li>Eric Hintz from The Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation says history shows that inventors often find the world irritating and want to fix it.</li></ul>

Ideas on ideation

Step 1: Research and modelInventors start with representations before they make something.<ul><li>Research to find available materials and possible technologies to use.</li><li>Draw the idea with a pencil on paper.</li><li>Make a model using cardboard, tape and hot glue.</li><li>Create a 2-D and 3 D digital model.</li></ul> Step 2: ExperimentTest your prototype, improve it, then test again until there is no room for improvement. Use milling machines or 3-D printers. Step 3: FinalizeThe final prototype should be presentable to potential investors and customers. Hire expert help with your final creation if it's needed.

Prototyping

Most inventions that die do so because they lack funding. Funding options include: <ul><li>Crowdfunding.</li><li>Competitions. In 2007, NASA used a competition to design the next generation of astronaut gloves.</li><li>Self-funding.</li><li>Investors. The best way to pitch your idea is with a personal connection or introduction. However, many VCs and angels publicly post their emails or are active on Twitter.</li><li>Outsourcing. License or sell your intellectual property as it can help others to apply your idea to their own needs.</li></ul>

Funding

Ideally, you will have a community of true believers who support your product. They should get your prototypes first as they will give valuable feedback and promote the product. <ul><li>A broader reach is possible by spreading information at conferences, meetups, and hackathons and write about it in forums and blogs.</li><li>The media is also a valuable source to reach new audiences.</li><li>Grab every opportunity for an interview.</li><li>Use feedback and market research to determine demand and set the pace for scaling up.</li></ul>

Product to market

All inventions start as an idea—here's how to make them happen.

Stashed ideas

The inventor's handbook

<ul>
<li>Plastics are so common now that we cannot imagine life without them.</li>
<li>The first use of plastics can be seen by the Olmecs in Mexico, playing a rubber ball in 1500 BCE.</li>
<li>Polymers, the main component of all plastics, are made of carbon by a process of replicating the extremely long molecule by reacting it to itself.</li>
</ul>
Natural polymers are also made of other components like rubber, silicone and even DNA.

Plastics: A Primer

Self Improvement

<ul><li>Charles Goodyear patented ‘vulcanized’ rubber(mixing it with sulphur for durability) in 1840, creating it for the bicycle and later for cars.</li><li>Wood has cellulose which itself is a polymer that makes it durable.</li><li>The malleability of plastic also made it the raw material of the movie industry in 1870, marking the debut of celluloid(cellulose and camphor).</li><li>Apart from the film and vehicle industry, polymer plastics were also used in electrical switches in submarines in 1851.</li></ul>

The Versatility Of Plastics

The first synthetic plastics, made using fossil fuels instead of plants or animals, came out in 1929. Polystyrene, polyester and polythene were some of the derivatives of synthetic plastics, driven mainly by the war industry.Petrochemical companies then targeted the mass market with products like Tupperware and for bottling soft drinks and milk.

Synthetic Plastics

<ul><li>An unexpected property of synthetic plastics is that they last forever, as no organism can digest these complicated, alien materials that litter our planet for thousands of years.</li><li>Plastic junk and micro-plastic particles are littering our oceans in giant floating mountains inside.</li><li>New advances in polymers that can decompose can help us in warding off this existential crisis due to non-compostable plastics harming our animal, sea and plant life</li></ul>

Environmental Damage By Synthetic Plastics

From cheap toys to woolly jumpers, plastic can be found in more products than many people realise.

A brief history of plastics, natural and synthetic

A microphone is a device that converts acoustic power into electric power, sound waves to electrical voltages, then converted into sound waves that are amplified through speakers.
We associate microphones often with the music and the entertainment industry, but the device can be dated back as early as the 1600s when scientists figured out that they could amplify sound.

Microphones

The word &quot;microphone&quot; was not used during this time until the 19th century but an English physicist and inventor named Robert Hooke developed an acoustic cup and string style phone, where he was considered to be a pioneer in the field of transmitting sound across a distance.

The microphone in the 1600s

<ul>
<li>1827 - The first person to ever coin the word &quot;microphone&quot; was Sir Charles Wheatstone who was a renowned English physicist and inventor. He was among the first scientists to formally recognize that sound waves were &quot;transmitted by waves through mediums.&quot;</li>
<li>1876-8 - The first modern microphone was invented by Emile Berliner who worked alongside the famed inventor Thomas Edison. Soon after, David Edward Hughes developed the first carbon microphone.</li>
</ul>

The microphone in the 1800s

<ul>
<li>The condenser microphone was patented by EC Wente in 1916</li>
<li>The RCA company developed the first ribbon microphone used for radio broadcasting in 1920</li>
<li>Georg Neumann designed the first commercial condenser microphone in 1928</li>
<li>The first dynamic microphone was marketed by Western Electric in 1931</li>
<li>A patent was filed for the first wireless microphone by Raymond A Litke in 1957</li>
<li>The first uni-directional microphone device was a new level of design that collects sound from the top of the microphone in 1959.</li>
</ul>

The microphone in the early 1900s

<ul>
<li>James West and Gerhard Sessler patented the electroacoustic transducer, an electret microphone in 1964.</li>
<li>In the 1970s, both the dynamic and condenser mics were further enhanced for clearer sound recording and a lower sound level sensitivity.</li>
<li>In the 1980s the first clip-on microphones were developed by Sennheiser.</li>
<li>In the 1990s, Neumann introduced a condenser microphone designed for live performances which set a new standard for quality.</li>
</ul>

The microphone in the late 1900s

<ul>
<li>During the 2000s the trend was miniature mics that were applicable for portable devices. MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) made inroads for this technology.</li>
<li>In 2010, the Eigenmike was released. It&#39;s a microphone that&#39;s composed of several high-quality microphones that were arranged onto the surface of a solid sphere.</li>
</ul>

The microphone in the 21st century

Explore the history of the microphone, spanning nearly four centuries of research and advancements in sound engineering.

The Evolution of the Microphone

Salvio D&#39;Armate possibly invented eyeglasses around 1285. He shared the invention with Allesandro Della Spina, an Italian monk who made eyeglasses public.
The first eyeglasses had metal or bone frames, and the lenses were made out of quartz.

The first eyeglasses

Health

History

<ul>
<li>In the 14th century, Venetian craftsmen made eyeglasses. The lenses were convex to correct far-sightedness. </li>
<li>In 1451 Nicholas of Cusa from Germany produced concave eyeglass for near-sighted people.</li>
<li>In the 17th century, frames of steel were invented.</li>
<li>British optician Edward Scarlett invented eyeglasses where the frame could be placed over the ears and nose.</li>
<li>Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals.</li>
<li>In 1827, Sir George Biddle Airy invented glasses to correct astigmatism.</li>
<li>In 1971, a lens was developed which combined plastic with glass.</li>
</ul>