Originally published 6 May 1985
In one of H. G. Wells’ books a character asks for “a ball of string that won’t dissolve into a tangle.” Almost a century later, we have tamed the atom and sent a man to the moon, but balls of string still end up in jumbled knots.
Not long ago I came across a little pamphlet called “What’s Wanted,” published 57 years ago by the British Institute of Patentees. It listed, for prospective inventors, 300 things that the world needed in 1928.
It seems to me that the list makes a satisfactory yardstick by which to measure the progress of our times: How many of the 300 required items are available in 1985?
Some of the items on the 1928 list are now commonplace. “The transmission of speech by light” (#92) has been made possible with glass fibers and lasers. The telephone company moves speech by light through many American cities.
“Wireless television” (#183) and “photographic paper for color prints” (#239) have been around for so long that it is hard to imagine a world without them.
“A device to correct mistakes made on a typewriter” (#32) has finally arrived. I am typing this column on a Macintosh word processor.
I have in the kitchen “an electric toaster that will cut off the current just before the toast begins to burn” (#171), at least most of the time.
And it is probably safe to say that “non-slip soles for footware” (#110) have been struck from the list of pressing needs.
“A machine whereby a bottle of liquid refreshment could be obtained after the closing time of pubs” (#124) is no longer a technological problem: if it were not for licensing laws there would undoubtedly be a “liquid refreshment” machine on every street corner.
“A device for darning socks” (#117) was made superfluous by the advent of cheap synthetic fibers. The little pamphlet from the British Institute for Patentees makes it clear the device was required only “for bachelors.”
But before you begin to take too much pride in the inventive genius of our century, let me point out that the really crucial items on the 1928 list are as sorely needed today as yesterday.
There is still no way to “prevent the stale smell of cigars from accumulating in closed rooms” (#26).
Nor have vast sums of federal dollars for scientific research and development found “something to prevent fluff under beds” (#39).
We have nuclear power plants and missiles that fly 4000 miles to land on a dime, but many of us are still waiting for “an effective dandelion extractor” (#195).
The world still wants “something to grow hair on a bald head” (#153), “a cure for indigestion” (#279), and “a means to keep men’s pants from getting baggy at the knees” (#283).
Let someone invent the latter items and I will concede civilization a measure of progress after all.
