史上伟大发明的真实故事
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The world’s most famous inventors are household names. As we all know， Thomas Edison invented the light bulb， Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone.
Except they didn’t. The ideas didn’t spring， Athena-like， fully formed from their brains. In fact， they didn’t spring fully formed from anybody’s brains. That is the myth of the lonely inventor and the eureka moment.
那些世界上最著名的发明家都是家喻户晓的人物。大家耳熟能详的是，托马斯・爱迪生发明了灯泡，亚历山大・格雷厄姆・贝尔发明了电话。
只是他们没搞过这些发明。这些想法并非如智慧女神般在他们头脑中凭空而生。实际上，没有哪项发明创造是完全萌发自哪个人的大脑，那些单个发明家和“灵光一现”都是虚构的故事而已。
Telegraph
As the tale goes， Samuel Morse was having dinner with friends and debating electromagnetism when he realized that if an electrical signal could travel instantly across a wire， why couldn’t information do the same？ Like most fun eureka stories， it’s a fib. The telegraph was invented by not only Morse， but also Charles Wheatstone， and Sir William Fothergill Cooke， so near to each other that the British Supreme Court refused to issue one patent. Morse’s key contribution was the application of Henry’s electromagnets to boost signal strength.
Telephone
Like Morse， Alexander Graham Bell invented a technology that would later bear his name. But how much did he deserve it？ The problem that Bell solved was to turn electrical signals into sounds. But this was such an obvious extension of the telegraph that there were many people working on it. Philip Reis had already designed a sound transmitter in 1860， and Hermann von Helmholtz had already built a receiver. Bell’s real contribution was “to vary the strength of the current to capture variations in voice and sound”， Lemley writes. In this tweak， he was racing against Thomas Edison. Even Bell’s final product―which combined transmitter， fluctuating current， and receiver―had company. Elisha Gray filed a patent application on the exact same day as Bell， only to lose the patent claim in court.
Light-bulb
As just about everyone is taught， Thomas Edison invented the light-bulb. And as just about everyone later learns， Thomas Edison in no way invented the light-bulb. Electric lighting existed before him， incandescent light bulbs existed before him， and when other inventors got wind of Edison’s tinkerings， they roundly sued him for patent infringement. So what did Edison actually do？ He discovered that a special species of bamboo had a higher resistance to electricity than carbonized paper， which means it could more efficiently produce light. Edison got rich off the bamboo， and filthy disgusting rich from superior manufacturing and marketing of his product.
The automobile
Today’s cars bear the names of their founders and innovators： Benz， Peugeot， Renault. But have you ever heard of a Dodge bicycle？ Or a Mercedes tricycle？ In fact， both companies specialized in bikes before moving the autos. The car industry represents the epitome of incremental innovation. Take a tricycle. Add an engine. You’ve got a car. It was Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach who designed the first four-wheel car with a four-stroke engine and Henry Ford who perfected the assembly line. But the long story short is that the car was a typical “invention” that was far too complicated for one person to conceive on his own.
The airplane
Speaking of building bikes， that’s exactly what Orville and Wilbur Wright did before they became the first team to fly a heavier-than-air machine. But， as we’ve learned， every great inventor stands on the shoulders of giants. When the Wright brothers asked the Smithsonian for all available information on the history of flight in 1899， they opened a history that had begun with Leonardo da Vinci’s scribbling and continued all the way to the 19th century gliders of Otto Liliental. But the Wrights solved one of the most nagging problems facing airplane developers―stability―by having “a single cable warp the wing and turn the rudder at the same time”. That was the tweak that put the first plane in the air.
电 报
如这则逸闻所述：萨缪尔・莫尔斯一边和朋友一起用餐，一边讨论电磁学，这时他突然意识到如果通过电线可以即刻传送电子信号，那为什么不能同样传输情报信息呢？跟大多数突发灵感的发明趣事一样，这也是杜撰出来的。电报发明者不仅有莫尔斯，还有查尔斯・惠特斯通、威廉・福瑟吉尔・库克爵士等，只是他们发明的时间过于接近，英国最高法院拒绝给所有人颁发专利权。莫尔斯的主要贡献是应用亨利的电磁体来提高信号强度。
电 话 机
和莫尔斯相似，亚历山大・格雷厄姆・贝尔发明了一项后来归于他名下的技术。不过他在多大程度上受之无愧？贝尔所攻克的难题是将电子信号转换成声音。但这明显是基于电报发明的延伸，当时有很多人都在钻研这个课题。菲利普・雷斯早在1860年就已经设计出传声机，而赫尔曼・冯・亥姆霍兹当时也已发明了听筒。莱姆利在书中写道：贝尔的真正贡献是“通过改变电流强度来捕捉声音的变化”。在这次“微调”中，他的对手还有托马斯・爱迪生。即使是贝尔的最终产品结合了传声机、波动电流技术和听筒，也已有人造出了类似产品。伊莱莎・格雷与贝尔在同一天提交了专利申请，仅仅是因为法庭判决而与此项专利失之交臂。
灯泡
正如近乎人人所受的教导，托马斯・爱迪生发明了灯泡。不过也正如人们后来所了解的一样，爱迪生不可能发明了灯泡。电灯在他之前就已经存在，白炽灯泡在他“发明”之前就已问世。而且当其他发明家风闻爱迪生对灯泡所做的“小修补”后，他们群起向法院控告他侵犯了专利权。那么爱迪生实际做了什么贡献呢？他发现一种比碳化纸电阻更大的特殊竹子，这就意味着它可能更高效地发光。爱迪生靠竹子大发横财，又通过胜人一筹的产品制造和营销手段而为人所不齿地赚得盆满钵满。
汽 车
现代汽车都以其公司创始人或革新者的名字来命名，如奔驰、标致、雷诺。不过，你是否听说过道奇牌自行车？或是梅赛德斯三轮脚踏车？事实上，这两家公司在转行生产汽车前都专门生产自行车。汽车工业堪称渐进式创新的缩影。譬如，脚踏三轮车装上引擎，它就摇身变成一辆汽车。戈特利布・戴姆勒和威廉・迈巴赫设计了世界上第一台四冲程发动机的四轮汽车。亨利・福特则完善了汽车装配线。但长话短说，汽车是典型的太过复杂、绝非一己之力所能完成的“发明”。
飞 机
说到造自行车，奥维尔・莱特和威尔伯・莱特两兄弟在成为世界上最早驾驶重于空气的飞行器的人之前正是做这行的。不过，正如我们所知，每一位伟大的发明家都是站在巨人的肩膀上的。1899年，莱特兄弟向史密森尼学会求得了所有飞行器发展史资料，他们展开了从达・芬奇的涂鸦设计一直到19世纪奥托・利林塔尔设计制造的滑翔机的历史。但莱特兄弟通过让“一根缆索使机翼弯曲同时旋转方向舵”解决了稳定性这一最困扰飞机设计者的难题之一，正是这一微小的调整让第一架飞机翱翔蓝天。