If someone presented you with an original 1868Sholes and Glidden Type - Writer , and told you to write your senior dissertation using it , you ’d be in for a world of pain . The pep pill you type with on your close - do keys would be go , and most of your fingers would be too weak to give the key the keen strike they required . Plus , you could n’t even see the newspaper , and what was the pedal matter for ? The motorcar you utilise to type today , even if it ’s not a computer , has been so greatly improve over the original innovation that they are no longer the same gadget .
Constant improvement is what we do . So how amazing is it that there exist a fistful of objects that , though they be 100 year previous or more , are still perfect ? Sure , there may have been esthetic changes over metre ; maybe you’re able to buy a reading made of credit card or enhanced with fresh manufacturing technology . But if you were given the original product , you ’d still be able-bodied to use it for the job it was made for . Here are eight inventions done so well the first prison term that they never demand improving .
1. Barbed Wire
So , you want to keep your cows out of your corn in 1880s Oklahoma , do you ? You ’ll need to build a fence . practiced luck with that , Cowboy . You live in grassland , so there are n’t enough trees to do it . And if you taste to argue off your 16 miles of ranch land with Harlan Fisk Stone or brick , you will die from either a variant - induce aneurism or old age first . What to do ? The design of a fencing ( ordinarily still made of wood ) with spiky alloy points had been pour down up in random letters patent office staff around the earth since the 1860s , but nothing much come in of it . It took four guys — Joseph Glidden , Jacob Haish , Charles Francis Washburn , andIsaac L. Ellwood — scuffling and fight and join forces until a brassy and easy way to make briary wire was ready to be sold by the late 1870s . Women have been getting grave up while try on to find a private place to pee on road trips ever since .
2. Bubble Wrap
In the late 1950s , Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes had a brilliant idea , perfectly suited to the esthetic of Space Age design : plastic , three - dimensional , tactile wallpaper ! For only the heppest of cats to grace their swinging pads with ! Sadly , seal off together two plastic shower curtains with air trap inside just did n’t have the trendsetting outcome they were hoping for . So , like many good innovator , they turned their tear into splendor by simply changing their goal . draw a blank wallpaper . In 1964 they patent their " method acting for Making Laminated Cushioning Material . " Thus house of cards wrap became a way to keep your uncommon Tasha Yar figurines safe during shipping , and also the bum kind of repetitive therapy to soothe the pain of know she ’ll never love you .
3. Rocking Chairs
Rocking death chair are not as old as you may consider . They are an American innovation , though likely not make up by Ben Franklin , as some people say . They started showing up in the former 18th century , and were democratic with masses suffer maladies , like bad backs or a toucha the rheumatiz . It was n’t just the soothe rocking motion that made the great unwashed find good . sway chairs automatically adjust their sum of residual to whoever sits in them , bringing each babysitter to a uniquely well-heeled position . Not only that , they make surprisinglycompelling roadside magnet .
4. The Paper Clip
The advent of easily pull wires wire blessed the populace with enoughprospective gem clip designsto create a new hieroglyphical language . The designs that glut the patent place at the end of the 19thcentury admit convolution , wings , triangle , pretzel and every conceivable shape you may believe of . All of them were patent , except the one we ’ve been using for 100 years . The received oblong“Gem ” intent , of arguable provenience , was the one that took hold , bar all other design to the detritus drawer of account .
5. The Teapot
Archeologists think teapots were develop during the Yuan Dynasty , which start in 1279 . They were made of clay and likely evolved as a variety of fuddle multi - tool . You could heat , brew , keep warm and drink the tea with the same physical object . ( It ’s thought that original teapots were single serving , with the drinker sipping directly from the spout . ) Today you’re able to buy a teapot made ofpaper(don’t ) ortitanium , but that simple , utter innovation of handgrip , lid , and spout has remained unchanged .
6. Fly Swatter
A stick . A interlocking foursquare . A brain - damaged fly ball who has attain its head on the windowpane so many times it is now slow enough that you may really hit it . Perfection . The “ Fly Killer ” was patented in 1900 by Robert Montgomery , but he did n’t do much with it . It was a public health worker , Dr. Samuel Crumbine , who vulgarize it in 1905 . He was trying to encourage people in Kansas to belt down flies whenever possible to stop the spread of disease . So he borrowed the Topeka playground ball squad ’s “ swat the ball ! ” chant and commute it to “ swat the tent flap ! ” No ill - made bug mark gun or gross fly paper strip has ever touch the popularity of the flyswat . Because citizenry never outgrow the thrill of reek things with a stick .
7. The Mouse Trap
I am a woman made of stern stuff . But show me a squashed shiner inside a outflow - loaded trap and I will fall to piece . There was a time that the luxuriousness of freaking out over a black eye did n’t exist . They were vermin : a threat to wellness , children and food supply . William C. Hooker ’s innovation of the springiness - loaded mousetrap in 1894 was a boon upon all of civilized humans , superior even to a housecat because no pursual or chance was involved . In 1903 , John Mast better on Hooker ’s design by attain it safer to load and less finger - fracturing . It ’s his design we still use today .
8. LEGO
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Yes , you’re able to grease one’s palms hundred dollar bill sets to make inconceivable machines like thisFerrari F1 1:9 , or go freestyle to designhorrifying modern art . But the first LEGO bricks you had as a kid — those simple , brilliant interlocking block — still exist and still work . Toymaker Ole Kirk Christiansen began producing his newfangled “ Automatic Binding Bricks ” in 1949 . He used the credit card of the mean solar day ( expensive , thin , likely radioactive ) , and the blocking were n’t that pop with parents who believed “ real ” toys were made of wood and metal . His Word Godtfred finally puzzle out the kinks out of the manufacturing and material processes , and patented the modern LEGO in 1958 . bit made from that year can still be used with modern LEGO brick .
All images courtesy of iStock unless otherwise observe .
