For Fertile Minds

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 614, 16 March 1929, Page 18

For Fertile Minds

| INVENTIONS NEEDED TO MAKE LIFE EASIER

SINCE most people have, at some time or other, invented something—even though it be only a new style in hat-pegs inventions are of interest to everyone. Fame and fortune await inventors who can satisfy the necessities that are arising day by day. Much valuable time and energy would be saved, however, if inventors first studied a list of inventions that are really needed. It is obviously futile to produce, as one inventor did recently, a “trap to catch ghosts”; for having caught them, what does one do next? An invention, however original, is useless unless there is a demand for it. The amateur inventor is often a rather unobservant person. Many of the suggested inventions could be bought at any general store. Another common fault is to invent something that saves a shilling, but costs pounds to make. Mere scientific merit is not sufficient —the manufacturer, quite naturally, expects to see a return on his capital. Manufacturers would not scrap their existing plant, for example, to change the pattern of a saucepan. Inventions relating to petrol engines are not very easy to sell, because motor-car designs are decided upon six months ahead and suitable plant already laid down. A new loom might cost £20,000 to make, an old plant be scrapped, but the manufacturer would make certain of doubling his output. But inventions involving extensive alterations of plant should be avoided by the amateur and left to the trade experts. Every year the English Institute of Patentees organises an Inventors’ Exhibition, and visitors are provided with a form on which to record suggestions for inventions that they think are needed. One suggestion, the “Transmission of Speech by Light,” is already receiving the attention of the greatest scientists- An “apparatus for turning pages of music on the piano without removing the hands from the keys” is a problem that could be solved by the lay mind, and might earn a profitable reward for the person with ingenuity enough to invent such a thing. Such ideas as “a practical system for the transmission of power by wireless waves” would require special kuowledge. but another suggestion anyone interested in experiment might solve is “a paint for ships to which barnacles will not cling.” A census of the suggestions showed that men thought of personal comfort, while feminine ideas were for domestic use.