The Story of Great Inventions, published by Harper & Brothers (1910), is a seminal work that deserves much more attention and appreciation than it has received. Elmer Ellsworth Burns has this to say about a contemporary, Thomas Edison:

“He sat one night thinking about the problem, unconsciously fingering a bit of lampblack [a pigment made from soot] mixed with tar which he had used in his telephone. Not thinking what he was doing, he rolled this mixture of tar ansd lampblack into a thread. Then he noticed what he had done, and the thought occurred to him: ‘Why not pass an electric current through this carbon?’ He tried it. A faint glow was the result…

“He next set out to find the best kind of carbon for the purpose. He carbonized paper and wood of various kinds — in fact, everything he could find that would yield a carbon filament. He tried the fibers of a Japanese fan made of bamboo, and found that this gave a better light than anything he had tried before. He then began to search for the best kind of bamboo. He learned that there are about twelve hundred varieties of bamboo. He must have a sample of every variety. He sent men to every part of the world where bamboo grows. One man traveled thirty thousand miles and had many encounters with wild beasts in his search for bamboo. At last, a Japanese bamboo was found that was better than any other. The search for the carbon fiber had cost about a hundred thousand [2018] dollars.”

We have no idea what Archimedes had just discovered when he exclaimed “Eureka!” but we do know that most discoveries — including Edison’s — have been the result of continuous collaboration after years, even decades of failed efforts. I highly recommend The Story of Great Inventions as well as Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (2010).

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