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    Science's Strangest Inventions: Extraordinary but true stories from over 200 years of inventive history
    Unavailable
    Science's Strangest Inventions: Extraordinary but true stories from over 200 years of inventive history
    Unavailable
    Science's Strangest Inventions: Extraordinary but true stories from over 200 years of inventive history
    Ebook300 pages3 hours

    Science's Strangest Inventions: Extraordinary but true stories from over 200 years of inventive history

    By Tom Quinn

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The history of science is littered with mad, bad and delightfully dotty inventions, from the bicycle that relied for its momentum on the rider waggling his head back and forth continually to the Improved Pneumatic Advertising Hat - a bowler that hurled a lit-up billboard into the air at the touch of a button - or the suitcase that turned into a small boat for the nervous ferry passenger. Here is the chance to sample, among other delights, Professor Ray's Nose Adjusting Machine, Admiral Popov's Circular Warship, The Perfect Sleeping Partner (a Japanese pillow shaped just like a man with an arm fitted at the right angle for a comforting cuddle) and last, but by no means least, Calantarient's Improved Dung Trap for Carriage Horses Employed by Ladies of Fashion and those of a Delicate Constitution.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortico
    Release dateJun 4, 2015
    ISBN9781910232477
    Unavailable
    Science's Strangest Inventions: Extraordinary but true stories from over 200 years of inventive history
    Author

    Tom Quinn

    Tom Quinn was born in Glasgow in 1948. Leaving school at 15, he worked in a shipping line office for some years, becoming involved in the North Sea Oil industry, at one stage, captaining a barge on the River Clyde. He moved to Rotterdam, the world’s largest port, in 1975 where he continued his career in shipping, making regular trips to other European cities. He returned to Scotland and became a founding partner in a small shipping and forwarding company before emigrating to Australia in 1988. In his time in Australia, as part of his work for the oil industry, he has spent time living and working in Melbourne, Darwin, and visiting Singapore, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. In 2000, he won the HarperCollins Fiction Prize for his first novel, Striking It Poor. Tom is married and now lives in Melbourne with his wife, three children and nine grandchildren. He plays the guitar, reads literature, listens to classical music, and occasionally works as a logistics consultant for a major multinational.

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    Reviews for Science's Strangest Inventions

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    • 3/5
      From a structural and editorial standpoint, Quinn's book leaves much to be desired. Each of the 200 'inventions' is given less than two pages resulting in a very fragmented presentation that causes the reader to hop from one topic to the next with no hope whatsoever of a reasonable transition. Clearly this is someone's blog born into book. The reader would have been much better served with an extended description of each, some cultural context and even maybe an illustration. As it stands, just as you're starting to get interested in something it's time to move on to something completely different.Despite its technical faults, the author has chosen a fine and interesting topic. His description of the "make your own dimples" kit (complete with scalpel and sutures) and the mousetrap that results in shooting the mouse with a large caliber revolver will make it into my party conversation for quite a while. These, along with the anti-masturbation underwear and nuclear fallout tent, do prove his thesis that humans in their infinite inventiveness have really tried just about everything. Unfortunately, some of the editorial issues do make me wonder about the veracity of many of the claims made. At several points Mr Quinn mentions the same wacky 'innovation' under multiple headings and repeats the exact same story making me doubt the care with which any of these are constructed. This generally erodes confidence so that I may repeat his work in casual conversation but I will certainly not stake any bar bets on the correctness of anything he described.To summarize, the book is an entertaining one but best suited perhaps as a bathroom reader. Sitting down to read it from cover to cover leaves one with a rather dubious taste in one's mouth. A further point of entertainment should be noted in that the author is from the United Kingdom. As a result, his repeated references to Americans as "gigantically fat" and obsessed with their pets is highly amusing if not accurate.