Wrinkle

Names the means or technique of solving a problem rather than the tool employed. Can also be a non-material idea or concept, or a material demonstration of a scientific concept.

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Year: 1917

Quote: “Aviator boys of twenty and eighteen had not thought of any motto at all, but they live up to it. Their only pass words are ‘gadget’ and ‘stunt,’ they show you in delight this and that bit of machinery, and it is a ‘gadget,’ and they do their ‘stunts’–eights and inside edges in the air, they seemed to me… […] The gadgets and stunts we have invented for our aviation and observation and photography are marvellous. Each officer shows you his own invention with a boy’s delightful pride, devices for signalling, quick methods for flying camp records, codes for announcing each shell where it falls,tricks for simplifying map reading. Something like Y.12.15 sent by wireless means that a shell has burst within so many yards of such an enemy position, and in a certain direction. The precision of aeroplane photographs is wonderful. I saw those of Guillemont before and after our shelling. Before, the minute map of the village; after, a square piece of pockmarked skin; that is exactly what it looked like, with the requisite patience one could have exactly counted the shell holes.”

Author:

Source: The Contemporary Review. no. 114. March, 1917

Year: 1920

Quote: “You make me smile. Upon getting under way what special entry must be made in the ship’s log? Likewise and also, what is a Polyconic Projection? Snap it out, now!’ / ‘Your poor simp! I’m the man that invented that gadget. ON the level, there’s only one question on the whole list that you are sure of.”

Author: Paine, Ralph Delahaye

Source: Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. 1920

Year: 1922

Quote: “Finally, there is the ‘gadget,’ which is employed when insufficient fall [gravitational momentum] is available, in order to push the packages along.” (209) “The ‘Gadget.’ – A ‘gadget’ is illustrated in Figs. 302 to 304 (Rownson, Drew, & Clydesdale’s patent). This device comes into play principally when a sufficient gradient for a gravity runway is unobtainable, and where, therefore, a very slight incline or even a level path, has to be chosen. A ‘gadget’ may likewise be used for an uphill gradient for stacking purposes (see Fig. 305), or it may take the place of a ‘humper’; generally speaking, a ‘gadget’ will push a steady stream of cases for about 200 ft. on a level path. This device is made 8 ft. long in order that it may replace an 8-ft. section of a runway without necessitiating any rearrangement of the rest of the lay-out. The machine consists of an angle frame which may stand on a level floor in case of a stationary installation, or may be mounted on wheels for a portable lay-out; it totally elcloses the elctro-motor and the propelling device. […] It would not be practicable for the ‘gadget’ to push cases round the corner; the path must always be in a straight line. If angles have to be negotiated, this must be done on a gravity run after the cases leave, independently of the pushing influence of the ‘gadget.’”

Author: Zimmer, George Frederick

Source: p. 213-215

Year: 1924

Quote: “His remarkable youth at 93 is only a fitting crown to an absorbing Use. Lord Mayo, one of India’s Viceroys, was for years his closest friend. He knew Charles Dickens Intimately as a young man, and among his acquaintances were Thackeray. Landseer and almost every one of note in the artistic world of the period. It is a. period he has outlived but still has hardly time to regret, for in addition to keeping abreast of the engineering world today, attending to his business as Chairman of the Southern Punjab Railway, Inventing new “ gadgets “ from time to time and interesting himself in the pure food problem. Sir Bradford has at last started to write his reminiscences.”

Author: Bourbon, Diana

Source: New York Times: (Features): 19241123

Year: 1928

Quote: “one of Jefferson’s most ingenious devices, for the rungs are all hinged, the uprights are grooved, and the whole thing folds up into the appearance of a single, solid, slender piece of mahogany (see page 484). Above the same portico is a weather vane, but its mechanism extends down to the out-of-door ceiling, where he installed a dial and indicator, so that he could inform himself of the direction of the wind without leaving the protection of his own roof (see Color Plate XVIII). THE OWNER OF MONTICELLO LOVED A GADGET Jefferson designed and built several curious tables. One of these had a revolving top, so that sitting by it he could, without |p488 rising, bring to his hand objects on the opposite side of it? a sort of first cousin to “ Lazy Susan. “ Another of his tables had hollow legs, in which were rods supporting the writing surface; but these rods were so hinged to the top that he could not only raise and secure the top at a height which made it convenient for him to write or read or draw at it when standing up or sitting down, but he could also tilt the top at any angle he found convenient. Obviously he belonged to that large brotherhood which loves a gadget. Quick to appreciate ingenious novelties, he picked them up wherever he found them, and not only brought them home, but he improved them. One such contrivance was an attachment which he found in Milan, for the hub of his carriage wheel to tell the nummer of revolutions made obviously the granddaddy of the modern speedometer. Another was a polygraph, a writing machine, which made two copies with only one writing (see Color Plate XXIV). Jefferson improved on this, so that his polygraph”

Author: Wilstach, Paul

Source: National Geographic: 1928: April: 481-503

Year: 1930

Quote: “In the course of a post mortem on the late and generally lamented international yacht races, a London newspaper remarked that ‘British seamanship was defeated by Yankee gadgets.’ This referred, of course, to the fact that the ‘Enterprise’ used various mechanical labor-saving devices for the speedy raising and lower of sails, whereas the ‘Shamrock’ relied exclusively on old-fashioned elbow grease. / Hollywood’s position of leadership in the celluloid world is invariably attributed to the superiority of ‘Yankee gadgets’—the sound recording apparatus behind the greatest gadget of all. / There is plenty of truth in this. For this development of the purely mechanical part of film production in Hollywood has become one of the major miracles of history. If only some of the other departments had kept pace with this development . . . but there is no point in indulging in depressing and fruitless speculation. [. . . ] There has been much talk lately of the dreadful mechanical Robot that is ruining Art in our modern civilization. Our finer aesthetic sensibilities, we are told, are being mangled in the ruthless cog-wheels of the Machine Age. / Insofar as Hollywood is concerned, however, it is the Robot, the Spirit of the Gadget, that most nearly approaches that goal of perfection toward which all art strives. / How often do we see pictures in which the technical qualities—the photography, sound reproduction, mechanical effects—are inferior to the flesh, the blood and the grey matter? Almost never. For an excellent example of just what I mean, have a look at ‘Hell’s Angels.’”

Author: Sherwood, Robert E.

Source: American Cinematographer: November 1930

Year: 1931

Quote: “If technique is, as Mark Twain suggested, doing something simple in a complicated way, then a wrinkle suggests the reverse of this; that is, a simple method of doing something complicated. If a botanist requires several complex solutions to stain certain fibbers, that is technique. Another botanist’s suggestion that he would get the same result with a drop of marking ink is a wrinkle.”

Author:

Source: Watson’s Microscope Record. Issues 22-38. 1931

Year: 1931

Quote: “We often wonder when Jackson Rose sleeps. Jack is one of Hollywood’s best known cameramen. But he is equally well known for his creation of new gadgets and devices to aid in the cinematographic field. Some time ago he brought out a focus chart that created much interest. Now he has improved upon that chart and has produced a gadget that should prove a very valuable adjunct to any cameraman’s equipment. It is a combination focus chart and scene slate. On one side is the chart, on the other the slate. The entire gadget is of a heavy quality fabrakoid. The entire chart and slate folds up and when ready for packing or putting in the pocket is 12 inches x 4 3/4 inches in size. On the outside of the gadget is a place for the camera report for the laboratory. The device should be very valuable on location trips.”

Author:

Source: American Cinematographer: April 1931

Year: 1934

Quote: “After years of unsuccessful toil on inventions, Victor C. Goodridge, forty years old, inventor and chemist, hit upon one invention that clicked. He ended his life with it. / He was found dead in his apartment at 6942 Kimbark avenue. On a table beside him lay dozens of gadgets and appliances, products of his genius.”

Author:

Source: Wyandotte Echo (Kansas City, Kansas) • 01-26-1934 • Page PAGE [TWO]

Year: 1937

Quote: “I have found Americans out,’ writes a dear English friend, who is a good deal of a wag. ‘They are gadget-minded. If they see a thing that needs to be done, they rig up a device, mechanical or mental, and make the thing do itself with no further bother.’ / ‘As a result,’ he goes on,’ they have created a touch-the-button civilization, and I for one admire it. Why go on doing a thing in the same old way, over and over again, if we can make a robot do it for us, and do it better? My hat is of to the gadget mind.’ / To prove his point he refers to the Mark Twain story of the Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. The Yankee saw a saint swaying to and fro in an ecstasy of devotion, and to him it was a clear case of lost motion. So he sat about and invented a device by which to harness the saint and use his motions to run a sewing machine. In other words, he put religion to a practical use. / But, my friend goes on to say, there are some fields in which the gadget mind will not work; and here he gets under our skin a bit. We tried to achieve temperance by prohibition, and it failed. We passed the law, wrote it into the Constitution and thought that the thing was done, and would stay done, or else would go on doing itself. / In the same way, he adds–rubbing it in rather sharply–we proposed the Pact of Paris; just another glorious gadget. We wrote a law outlawing war, renouncing it as a policy of nations. The Law was solemnly signed; an dew thought the thing was done once for all. But, alas, we see now that much remains to be done before war is ended. / In other words, my friend argues rightly, something more than a gadget mind is needed to deal with the issues now before mankind. It cannot be done by a twist of the wrist or the turn of a trick, much less by touching a button. We need vision, and the courage, wisdom and patience to work it out, though it may take a long time. / Yes, the gadget mind is useful in its place; it can do many things. But the spiritual mind, God-illumined, is the hope of the race.”

Author: Newton, Joseph Fort

Source: Living Every Day: A Book of Faith, Philosophy, and Fun. p. 25-6

Year: 1937

Quote: “It must require a lot of ingenuity for actors to think up the things that they think up to buy and do when they are between pictures—or even when they are between scenes in a picture. . . . They can’t even relax for a few moments between shots when they are working the set. They have to think up practical jokes to play on some one or a new game for next week’s party. Or they send to the corner drug store for a gag or a gadget. How they all love gadgets! / Maybe I had better try to explain, in my slightly bewildered fashion, what a gadget is / If I understand it rightly, it is something which seems to be useful but isn’t. It must be expensive. It must be something the like of which you never saw before—so that when the proud owner displays it you will look astonished and say, ‘Oooops! How cute!’ Or maybe you just say, ‘Well! Well!’ Any exclamation of that sort will make the owner happy. . . . Guy Kibbee attaches a little motion-picture camera in front of his hat when he goes fishing alone. Robert Taylor’s cuff links are weensy-weensy watches too small to tell the time except with a magnifying glass. Hugh Herbert has a time clock arrangement that dims the light when it’s time for him to stop reading in bed. Chester Morris’s electric toothbrush is the smartest gadget in town these days.”

Author: Walker, Helen Louise

Source: Picture Play Magazine, November 1937

Year: 1938

Quote: “But if a gadget is a machine, an invention, a mechanical means of achieving a result, a wrinkle is a method of procedure. Again our lexicographer, rating the word as colloquial, one step higher than slang, describes it as ‘a curious or ingenious notion; happy thought.’ I will accept that phrase ‘happy thought’ as particularly pat. But to the seaman, a gadget is a thing, and a wrinkle is a method, and both of them for most part unusual and unstandardized.” (viii)) / That a gadget is a solution that arises naturally out of the materials of the ship – similar to distinction made in US Court of Appeals case on the difference between a gadget and an invention: “In the long centuries in which men have sailed the seas, they have faced and solved oft-recurring problems. When these problems present themselves on every passage and on every tack, the means of solving them are built right into the ship or her rigging. ut when, as so often occurs, the problem arises out of some unusual situation, the sailor is forced to turn inventor. He calls upon all his ingenuity. He summons to his aid his past experience with the solution of some similar problem. And perhaps he remembers, with that strange race memory which is often mis-called instinct, some similar experience of a sea-going ancestor.” / “Our lexicographers define a gadget as ‘anything the name of which cannot be recalled at the moment,’ and in parentheses, they add (Slang, U.S. Navy.) But the name has a broader meaning and a riper antiquity than the dictionary credits. I believe the term is older than the navy itself, ad far too deeply imbedded in the language to merit the transitory stigma of slang. A landsman’s synonyms for gadget are thing-um-bob, widget, what-do-yer-call-it, do-funny. A sailor’s synonym is gilhickey, although a purist would make a distinction by never using the term gilhickey except to distinguish one gadget from another. The first gadget is the gadget. The second gadget in any situation in which two appear is the gilhickey.” (viii) / The temporality/longevity/life-span of a gadget–“But it must not be considered that the term is applied merely as a temporary substitute for an object’s true name. Most of the unusual things about a ship go nameless forever. When an invention becomes so standardized that it acquires a name, it ceases to be a gadget except for those brief periods when its distinguishing name is forgotten. But there are thousands of unusual things about a ship or a yacht that were born gadgets and will remain gadgets as long as they are used. They are the inventions that solve the rare problems, the machines that are unnecessary on most vessels and at most times and are therefore nameless.” That at any moment, a gadget could become a wrinkle and vice versa–the difference between a tool and a procedure is not readily identifiable: “I have been sore put to it to organize this book. For I am dealing with concepts that have thus far resisted organization so well that they have avoided being tagged with names. Also it is pretty hard to tell where a gadget begins and a wrinkle ends or vice versa. Take a familiar example. You are about to tie two lines together. You tie them into a weaver’s knot. Standard practice so far–no gadgets, no wrinkles. The nrealizing that ther eis going to be a terrific strain on that line and that the knot will be pulled so tight that you will never be able to untie it again, you decide to slip a toggle into the knot. That’s a happy thought, for you can always take a hammer and drive out the toggle and the knot will be loose. What is that toggle–a winkle or a gadget? Now suppose we decide that the strain is going to be so great that it will be difficult to drive out an ordinary toggle. So we use a large fid whose sloping shape assures us that the slightest driving with the hammer will loosen the knot. Is the wrinkle now a gadget? Or if the small end of the fid is greased to make it slip more easily through the the tight turns of the knot, does it become a wrinkle again? I don’t know and I don’t pretend to try to find out. The line of demarkation is too indistinct. So I shall write about gadgets and wrinkles without worrying much about branding them with their proper names.”

Author: Calahan, Harold Augustin

Source: Gadgets and Wrinkles: A Compendium of Man’s Ingenuity at Sea. 1938.

Year: 1942

Quote: “From now on we shall see a rapid development of electronic gadgeteering–the non-radio application of radio technique–according to Charley Golenpaul, of the Aerovox Corporation. / “I believe the era of electronic gadgeteering is now opening up in a big way,” states Mr. Golenpaul. “In the first place, the ban on amateur radio communications is not going to leave the enterprising ‘ham’ twirling his thumbs. Of course many ‘hams’ are already or will soon be in our armed and technical services. Many will find wartime jobs with other United Nations. But those remaining on the home front are going to put their experience, equipment, and ambition to work on new and startling applications in the home, shop, factory, and elsewhere, far removed from customary radio practice. / “I suppose most radio men have heretofore been too busy with radio proper to find extra time and energy for non-radio or electronic gadgeteering possibilities. However, many of them now are going to use their ‘rigs’ and parts for new functions. I can visualize some interesting developments – light-beam telephones for conversing over considerable distances; automatic photo-electric garage-door openers; photo-electric switches turning lights on and off with darkness or daylight; checking the stoking of furnaces or boilers by the chimney smoke; various comparators or instruments for comparing and matching colors and shades; checking solution concentrations and chemical studies by conductivity means; and so on. / “As a starter, electronic gadgeteer­ing can be based on well-known ele­mentary principles and basic circuits long known to radio amI electrical workers. Many industrial plants are already electronic-gadget conscious. I know of radio servicemen who’ve got­ ten themselves good jobs in plants he­ cause of their ability to do things better, quicker, and less expensively by electronic means. / “Make no mistake about it, the temporary suspension of ‘ham’ communications may well turn out to he a boost. It will generate a lively in­terest in electronic gadgeteering. And when ‘ham’ communications are re­sumed again with the return of peace, I venture to predict that electronic gadgeteering will comprise a greater field for radio parts, particularly the quality or extra-heavy-duty compo­nents, than all amateur radio activities put together. Furthermore, many a ‘ham’ will find an interesting way of making real money out of his hobby, and that’s something.””

Author:

Source: Scientific American 167, (July 1942). p. 25-35

Year: 1945

Quote: “When a chemist or engineer has to decide whether he can obtain an improvement in a process by introducing some modification of practice, for instance, by the adoption of some ‘gadget,’ he performs two sets of trials, one employing the gadget (or its equivalent) and the other omitting it, and then compares the results.”

Author: Evans, U. R.

Source: Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry. vol. 64. 1945. p. ii?

Year: 1948

Quote: “The homely Philadelphian, often treated by historians as a politician with a spare-time interest in gadgets, was actually one of the great experimental scientists. […] It is often said that Franklin’ was typically American in his approach to science-a utilitarian interested in science chiefly, if not solely, because of its prac­tical applications. It is true that when he had discovered the action of pointed grounded conductors and proved that clouds are electrified, he applied these discoveries to the invention of the lightning rod. But he did not make these dis­coveries in order to invent a lightning rod! Franklin’s inventions were of two kinds. One type was pure gadgetry; in this class were his inventions of bifocal glasses, which required no recondite knowledge of optical principles, and of a device for taking books down from the shelf without getting up from one’s chair. The lightning rod, on the other hand, de­veloped from pure scientific research. If Franklin’s approach to science had been strictly utilitarian, it is doubtful that he would ever have studied the subject of electricity at all. In the 18th century there was only one practical application of electricity, and that was the giving of electric shocks for therapeutic purposes, chiefly to cure paralysis.”

Author: Cohen, I. Bernard

Source: Scientific American 179, (August 1948). p. 36-43

Year: 1949

Quote: “Sampling is more than a statistician’s gadget. It is a twentieth century tool of management used to handle mass production and management jobs realistically and effectively. Sampling is a relatively precise method of estimating group characteristics and patterns of characteristics at low cost.”

Author: Farioletti, Marius

Source: National Tax Journal, v. 2 n.2 June 1949

Year: 1950

Quote: “Besides its many handsome diagrams and striking photographs, it possessed a side pocket containing a collapsible, multicolored dodecahedron (held to­gether by rubber bands which made it self-erecting when removed from its hid­ ing place), a set of motion-picture ‘cards which when rapidly riffled displayed cer­tain geometrical laws, a pair of red and green Cagliostro spectacles which con­ferred three dimensions on the book’s several anaglyphs, and a few other equally ingenious gadgets. Dr. Steinhaus’ introduction was so modest and amiable as to disarm all criticism. “You are right,” he said, “there is no system in this book; important things are omitted and trifles are emphasized. Many things do not deserve the name of mathematics, and the author himself does not seem to know what his aim really was in publish­ ing his ‘mathematical snapshots.’ They are too scientific for a child and too childish for a mathematician.” Still, this was excessively modest. For Steinhaus succeeded not only in serving up a re­ past of mathematical objects “as pecu­liar as the most exotic beast or bird,” but his book, for all its grab-bag disorder and despite the fact that his morsels rarely more than tickled the appetite for the strange and wonderful, afforded an amazing display of the richness, the va­riety and especially the interrelatedness of mathematical thought. His snapshots had a dual role. They were often beau­tiful and fascinating in themselves and from that standpoint it was unnecessary to ask what they meant. Yet they were also pictorial representations of purely abstract relations possessing universal validity. Thus they could illumine for the thoughtful reader something of the nature of intellectual process-how we are able to interpret the physical world and make coherent and useful systems describing its behavior. The very mish­ mash quality of the book serves to carry out this purpose.”

Author:

Source: Scientific American 183, (November 1950), p. 56-59

Year: 1950

Quote: “The attempts through the years to get a broader, looser conception of patents than the Constitution contemplates have been persistent. The Patent Office, like most administrative agencies, has looked with favor on the opportunity which the exercise of discretion affords to expand its own jurisdiction. And so it has placed a host of gadgets under the armor of patents – gadgets that obviously have had no place in the constitutional scheme of advancing scientific knowledge. A few that have reached this Court show the pressure to extend monopoly to the simplest of devices: Hotchkiss v. Greenwood, 11 How. 248: doorknob made of clay, rather than metal or wood, where different shaped door knobs had previously been made of clay. Rubber-Tip Pencil Co. v. Howard, 20 Wall. 498: rubber caps put on wood pencils to serve as erasers. Union Paper Collar Co. v. Van Dusen, 23 Wall. 530: making collars of parchment paper where linen paper and linen had previously been used. Page 340 U. S. 157 Brown v. Piper, 91 U. S. 37: a method for preserving fish by freezing them in a container operating in the same manner as an ice cream freezer. Reckendorfer v. Faber, 92 U. S. 347: inserting a piece of rubber in a slot in the end of a wood pencil to serve as an eraser. Dalton v. Jennings, 93 U. S. 271: fine thread placed across open squares in a regular hairnet to keep hair in place more effectively. Double-Pointed Tack Co. v. Two Rivers Mfg. Co., 109 U. S. 117: putting a metal washer on a wire staple.” etc. etc. “The patent involved in the present case belongs to this list of incredible patents which the Patent Office has spawned. The fact that a patent as flimsy and as spurious as this one has to be brought all the way to this Court to be declared invalid dramatically illustrates how far our patent system frequently departs from the constitutional standards which are supposed to govern.”

Author:

Source: A. & P. Tea Co. v. Supermarket Corp., 340 U.S. 147 (1950). U.S. Supreme Court

Year: 1950

Quote: “Well, I do it thisaway. The glass rotates while the template slides over it, back and forth. The linkage keeps the template always vertical. Throw on the abrasive and both glass and template automatically go paraboloid, the only curve we know of that can be made that way. Starting, say, with a hemisphere, or any segment of a sphere, and a thin, circular template, you can keep going and get any focal length you want. Of course, the above is a convex paraboloid but it works equally well on a concave one. / The reason why this gadget works this way lies in the equation of the pa­raboloid and the fact that every section cut from a paraboloid, like a, b, c, d, e, is a parabola and all are identical.”

Author: Ingalls, Albert G.

Source: Scientific American 183, (October 1950). p.60-63

Year: 1952

Quote: “Appellee-plaintiffs sued for the infringement of three patents relating to steering gear idler arm assemblies of automobiles. Appellants-defendants,2 asserted that the patents were invalid because of lack of invention and that there was no infringement. The trial court upheld validity, found and enjoined infringement, and ordered an accounting. Later Jamco was found to be in contempt for violation of the injunction. […] [gadgetry as commonsense solution to a problem:] Jamco asserts that these devices do not constitute invention, were anticipated by the prior art, and at the most show only mechanical improvements which should have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art. […] The crucial issue is whether ‘the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.’ […] The dividing line between what results from mechanical ability and what displays inventive genius is ill-defined. Perhaps no hard and fast definitive rule can or should be established. We have here combination patents utilizing such well and commonly known elements as bearings, grease seals, washers, bushings, nuts and bolts. In Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp., 340 U.S. 147, 151, and 152, 71 S.Ct. 127, 129, 95 L.Ed. 162, it was said that ‘the concept of invention is inherently elusive when applied to combination of old elements’ and that ‘courts should scrutinize combination patent claims with a care proportioned to the difficulty and improbability of finding invention in an assembly of old elements.’ […] Recognizing that patentability is a question of law for the court,13 we cannot say that here there is a gadget as opposed to an invention. Certainly in a particular environment, the steering mechanism of motor vehicles, the peculiar and difficult problem of stabilizing that mechanism and protecting if from undue wear is solved in an expert, inexpensive and effective manner which attains an improved result. If the distinctive arrangement of the known elements would be apparent to a skilled mechanic, such fact is established neither by an examination of the devices nor by the evidence adduced at the trial. From the record presented to us the novel and distinctive combinations which make up the three patents in question require ‘greater skill and higher thought than would be expected of an ordinary mechanic trained in the art.’14 In the circumstances, Jamco has not sustained the burden of overcoming the presumption of validity by clear and convincing evidence.”

Author:

Source: United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit

Year: 1953

Quote: ““…he has been able to learn something–some mechanical device, some ingenious method of overcoming a difficulty, some mining practice which while common in one country is unknown in others. The tips and gadgets described in this book area selection of these practices…”

Author: Spalding, Jack

Source: Mining Publications. 1953.

Year: 1953

Quote: “At some time or another most women show some concern about their Figure Type or their personality Type. Now there is another source of worry–What is your Perfume Type? / It seems that there are at least two ventures in the direction of making the next few weeks. These constitute a type of gadget to help women find the type of fragrance most “compatible with their personality type.” In each case the testing is done by sampling. [samples and questionnaire]”

Author: Henderson, Freddye S.

Source: The Plain Dealer (Kansas City, Kansas) • 10-16-1953 • Page 3

Year: 1954

Quote: “In the A&P case, Justice Douglas writes a concurring opinion in which he speaks scornfully of simple ‘gadgets,’ not worthy of patents, and implies that the atomic bomb was a great invention. Perhaps courts, so far as possible, should leave mechanical theories to mechanics and engineers and theories on science to scientists. There is always the chance that what may appear a subtle mechanical theory to a jurist may be obvious to even an apprentice, or what may appear to be sound science to him may be foolish to even a freshman in science.” “parable of the raft of two logs” “When the raft of two logs rested on the surface of the water, two natural forces were at work upon each log. The force of gravity acting upon each log held it down upon the water and its buoyancy, responding to the law of displaced liquids, held it up. When some force acted to overturn the raft, these two natural forces were brought into conflict, because either one log would have to rise against the law of gravity, or one would have to sink against the law of displaced liquids, before the raft could overturn. To the extent that the two forces acted against each other, an entire new force, stability, wasp resent in the raft. / For good or evil, great as the invention of the atomic bomb may have been, the general invention produced no new force; it only released forces already present in nature. / The chieftain may only have produced a ‘gadget’ in the raft, but it still embodied a force which did not have even an incorporeal former existence. / Countless such forces are embodied in the mechanical devices that surround us. Such forces are more fantastic than the fairies and genii who served favored mortals in the tales of the Arabian Nights. Yet they are real. They serve by the dozen in every American home, but, to legal sophisticates, the devices which embody them are only ‘gadgets.’” Cites Reckendorfer v. Faber 1975 decision about pencil with eraser tip, and the simple, logical language used in that decision to decide whether or not a combination of two existing elements constitutes a new “force,” and ultimately a patentable invention. Admires the simple language, written for a general public, of Justice Hunt’s decision, wishes Douglas had consulted it. Hunt: “The combination to be patentable must produce a different force or effect, or result in the combined forces or process, from that given by the separate parts. There must be a new result produced by their union: if not, it is only an aggregation of old elements.” Ends up arguing that lead pencil and attached rubber that “Not only is there no new result, but there is no joint operation.” “

Author: Crouch, Logan R.

Source: American Bar Association Journal. Feb 1954. p. 103

Year: 1956

Quote: “One exhibit displayed ceramics, leather craft, crayola stencils, felt stenciling, gadget printing, spatter prints, sawdust modeling, woodwork, puppet show, finger painting and other miscellaneous articles.”

Author:

Source: Arkansas State Press (Little Rock, Arkansas) • 08-31-1956 • Page 7

Year: 1957

Quote: “Turning out clean and accurate work is the aim of every craftsman. In addition to hand skills, the average fellow rigs up all kinds of gimmicks and gadgets to help him with his work. Sometimes it’s how you do a job that makes the difference between the craftsman and the sloppy workman. Here are seven different gimmicks, gadgets, and ‘how-to’s’ that will give you suggestions for doing a few jobs easier and better.” “Use a block of wood when you want to line up two pieces accurately for gluing or nailing. Block holds surfaces [sic] absolutely flush and even.” “Sanding small pieces is easiest if you move the work to the sandpaper. Fasten a sheet of fine garnet paper to a piece of wood with tacks.”

Author: Collins, Ted

Source: Boys’ Life. Oct 1957. p. 97

Year: 1958

Quote: “With high electrical power one can generate extremely strong magnetic fields, but the difficulty is that such fields place severe strains on the coil, or solenoid, as it is called. A magnetic field can produce both mechanical and heat­ing effects. The mechanical effects are illustrated by a clever gadget known as Roguet’s spiral. It is a suspended coil with its lower end dipping into a bowl of mercury. When a current passes through the coil, the magnetic field around the loops causes the adjacent turns of the coil to be attracted to each other while the opposite sides of each loop repel each other.”

Author: Furth, Harold P., Morton A. Levine, Ralph W. Waniek

Source: Scientific American 198, (February 1958). p. 28-33

Year: 1960

Quote: “He spends his time inventing and has a gadget to make newspaper reading on the subway easier, about ready to market.”

Author:

Source: Los Angeles Tribune (Los Angeles, California) • 01-15-1960 • Page 24

Year: 1960

Quote: “Because she hated to hear her favorite surgeon grumble, Registered Nurse Meloneze Robinson, above, became an inventor. / “Why,” asked Dr. Asa Yancey, also shown, each time he was to perform an amputation, “doesn’t someone devise a simple method to keep the patient’s limb immobile during the operation?” / At her post at the Tuskegee Veterans Administration hospital, Staff Nurse Robinson devised the first amputation surgery limb support, shown above. Dr. Yancey was the first to use the gadget after it was patented after two years work, $800 and tons of anxiety. It has been used over 40 times at Tuskegee by surgeons and may possibly quiet the grumblings of many physicians across the country when it is marketed this year.”

Author: Tuskegee Institute, Ala;

Source: Los Angeles Tribune (Los Angeles, California) • 01-15-1960 • Page 3

Year: 1962

Quote: “Up-to-date archaeologists interested in esoteric problems heard last week about a handy way of finding answers to such questions-for a latrine’s humus-rich contents have magnetic properties that vary from the earth around them. The clever instrument that can tell the difference was the hit of an erudite conference that met at Venice to discuss new methods of archaeology. Called a proton magnetometer, the gadget is based on a principle of nuclear physics discovered only a few years ago. The nuclei of hydrogen atoms (protons) are, in effect, tiny magnets, and they line up like compass needles parallel to the earth’s magnetic field. When nudged out of alignment, they oscillate for a few seconds, the speed of their oscillation changing with the local strength of the earth’s magnetism. Buried objects that affect the field show up plainly.”

Author:

Source: Time Magazine: 1962/06/01

Year: 1965

Quote: “The large mobiles and stabiles are built in foundries, from models, with Calder supervising, He uses no power tools, and has invented many of his hand tools, including a gadget for locating the center of gravity of a piece of material, He balances the piece on a metal tip which stands below a metal arm holding a poised nail. He then raps the nail down to mark the central spot. His studio is a magician’s junkyard. overflowing with old models and mobiles, and hits and snips of metal.”

Author: Lemon, Richard

Source: Saturday Evening Post: 2/27/1965, Vol. 238 Issue 4, p30-35

Year: 1971

Quote: “… many people today flee from the realities of power into psychological interpretations of social behavior in order to avoid the challenge of contemporary political faiths or to restore a wished-for malleability to politics by reliance on a new analytical gadget. Nevertheless, it should be equally obvious that a political realism that ignores the dimensions of character, that ignores how people interpret power configurations on the basis of their psychic needs, will only be useful in short-run interpretations and not always even there, “ The Lonely Crowd, p. 179”

Author: Birnbaum, Norman

Source: New York: Oxford University Press. 1971

Year: 1973

Quote: “Besides fishing, Nixon rides around the 125-acre island on a golf cart, and swims in the shark-filled waters-always, of course, under close watch by Secret Service agents. Abplanalp was born in The Bronx to Swiss immigrant parents. His father was a machinist who instilled in his son a liking for gadgetry and tinkering. Abplanalp studied engineering at Villanova, but dropped out to open his own machine shop.”

Author:

Source: Time Magazine. 11 June 1973.

Year: 1975

Quote: “Try to conceive of the quantity of energy being wasted throughout the country by pilot lights on stoves burning 24 hours a day. Then hearken to this suggestion: Extinguish all pilot lights and seal them. As a substitute for them I remember my grandmother used a gadget, which to the best of my recollection is called a match.”

Author:

Source: New York Times. 10 July 1975.

Year: 1978

Quote: “To teach arithmetic Peirce recom­mended the constant use of counters such as beans, the early introduction of binary notation, the use of 101 cards numbered 0 through 100 and other de­vices now common in grade school in­struction. In one textbook he wanted to insert a cardboard mechanical gadget for doing multiplication. “The objection to inserting this,” he jotted in a note­book, “would be that the teachers would not understand the mathematical prin­ciple on which it depends, and might therefore be exposed to embarrassing questions.””

Author: Gardner, Martin

Source: Scientific American 239, (July 1978). p. 18-26

Year: 1981

Quote: “Sesame Place develops gadgets to make pedagogy a pleasure # Through the cheerfully gaping maw of Big Bird, beguiled children with parents in tow enter a dazzling futuristic playground designed to make pedagogy a pleasure. Created a year ago by the same people who brought you Kermit the Frog, Ernie and Bert, Sesame Place, in the tamed wilds of Bucks County, Pa., unites outdoor “ participatory “ playgrounds with “ handson “ scientific exhibits. # Various slides provide the perceptive skidder with firsthand knowledge of the battle between gravity and friction”

Author: Carter, E. Graydon

Source: Time Magazine: 1981/09/21

Year: 1981

Quote: “BACK IN THE good old days, folks wore high button shoes, spats, buttoned gloves, and stiff shirt fronts with a row of little buttons that were hard to manipulate. So little gadgets called “ button hoolts, “ “ buttoners, or sometimes even “ hookers “ were used to do the job. Hutton hooks certainly were born out of necessity, and they were produced in various sizes, styles, shapes, and materials. Because they’re small, easy to display, and usually found for reasonable prices, button hooks are one of the nicest things to get hooked on.”

Author:

Source: Chicago Tribune: 19810410

Year: 1986

Quote: “Grant hunched over the wheel and said, “ As important as any one man can be. I grant you that no one is indispensable, but Ralson has always seemed to be rather unique. He has the engineering mentality “ “ What does that mean? “ “ He isn’t much of a mathematician himself, but he can work out the gadgets that put someone else’s math into life. There’s no one like him when it comes to that. Time and again, Inspector, we’ve had a problem to lick and no time to lick it in. There were nothing but blank minds all around until he put some thought into it and said, Why don’t you try so-and-so?’ Then he’d go away. He wouldn’t even be interested enough to see if it worked. But it always did. Always!”

Author: Asimov, Isaac

Source: New York: Berkley Books