The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are.

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Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Dec 1, 2010 - Technology & Engineering - 304 pages

   How did the table fork acquire a fourth tine?  What advantage does the Phillips-head screw have over its single-grooved predecessor? Why does the paper clip look the way it does? What makes Scotch tape Scotch?

   In this delightful book Henry, Petroski takes a microscopic look at artifacts that most of us count on but rarely contemplate, including such icons of the everyday as pins, Post-its, and fast-food "clamshell" containers.  At the same time, he offers a convincing new theory of technological innovation as a response to the perceived failures of existing products—suggesting that irritation, and not necessity, is the mother of invention.

 

Contents

Preface
5
Form Follows Failure
22
From Pins to Paper Clips
51
Little Things Can Mean a
79
Stick Before Zip
92
Tools Make Tools
114
Patterns of Proliferation
130
Domestic Fashion and Industrial Design
154
The Power of Precedent
171
When Good Is Better Than Best
220
Always Room for Improvement
237
Notes
253
List of Illustrations
275
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. The author of more than a dozen previous books, he lives in Durham, North Carolina, and Arrowsic, Maine.

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