The Art of Inventing

by Edwin J. Prindle

The term composition of matter covers all combinations of two or more substances, whether by mechanical mixture or chemical union, and whether they be gases, fluids, powders or solids; such as, a new cement or paint.

These definitions are not legally exact, but serve to illustrate the meaning.

In the making of all inventions which do not consist in the discovery of the adaptability of some means to an end not intentionally being sought after, the first step is the selection of a problem. The inventor should first make certain that the problem is based upon a real need. Much time and money is sometimes spent in an effort to invent something that is not really needed. What already exists is good enough or is so good that no additional cost or complication would justify anything better. The new invention might be objectionable because it would involve counter disadvantages more important than its own advantages, so that a really desirable object is the first thing to be sure of.

Having selected a problem, the next step should be a thorough analysis of the old situation, getting at the reasons for the faults which exist, and in fact discovering the presence of faults which are not obvious to others, because of the tendency to believe that whatever is, is right.

Then the qualities of the material, and the laws of action under which one must operate should be exhaustively considered. It should be considered whether these laws are really or only apparently inflexible. It should be carefully considered whether further improvement is possible in the same direction, and such consideration will often suggest the direction in which further improvement must go, if a change of direction is necessary. Sometimes the only possible improvement is in an opposite direction. A glance at the accounts of how James Watt invented the condensing steam-engine will show what a large part profound study of the old engine and of the laws of steam played in his invention, and how strongly they suggested the directions of the solutions of his difficulties.

We now come to the constructive part of inventing, in order to illustrate which, I will seek to explain how several inventions were, or could have been, produced.

The way in which the first automatic steam engine was produced was undoubtedly this—and it shows how comparatively easily a really great invention may sometimes be made. It was the duty of Humphrey Potter, a boy, to turn a stop-cock to let the steam into the cylinder and one to let in water to condense it at certain periods of each stroke of the engine, and if this were not done at the right time, the engine would stop. He noticed that these movements of the stop-cock handles took place in unison with the movements of certain portions of the beam of the engine. He simply connected the valve handles with the proper portions of the beam by strings, and the engine became automatic—a most eventful result.

As one example of the evolution of an invention, I will take an instrument for measuring and recording a period of time, known as the calculograph, because it lends itself with facility, to an explanation from a platform and because my duties as a lawyer have necessitated my becoming very familiar with the invention, and have caused me to consider how it was probably produced.

And first the problem: There was much occasion to determine and record the values of periods of elapsed time; such as, the length of time of a telephone conversation; as the revenue of the telephone companies depended upon the accuracy of the determination. All the previous methods involved the recording in hours and minutes the times of day marking the initial and the final limits of the period to be measured, and then the subtraction of the one time of day from the other. This subtraction was found to be very unreliable as well as expensive. The problem then was to devise some way by which the value of the period could be arrived at directly and without subtraction and also by which such value could be mechanically recorded.

The prior machine from which the calculograph was evolved is the time-stamp, a printing machine having a stationary die like a clock dial and having a rotating die like the hand of the clock, as in Fig. 1. The small triangle outside the dial is the hour hand, it being placed outside the dial because it is necessary that the two hands shall be at the level of the face of the dial and yet be able to pass each other. The hour hand may be disregarded here, as the records needed are almost never an hour long. The manner of using the time stamp to determine the value of an interval was to stamp the time of day at the beginning of the period, and then to stamp the time of day at the close of the period at another place on the paper, as shown in Fig. 2, and finally mentally to subtract the one time of day from the other to get the value of the period.