list+of+inventions

Inventions that didn't find their lasting purpose until after they had been around a while. These famous examples illustrate the "invention is the mother of necessity" principle Jared Diamond puts forth in Chapter 13 of //Guns, Germs, and Steel//. His point was that many breakthroughs of technological innovation come not when an inventor locks himself in a room to solve some problem (invention filling a need) but rather comes from a product that exists being re-purposed to fill a need.


 * **Inventor** || **Invention** || **Date** || **Original Purpose** ||
 * Thomas Edison || Phonograph || 1877 || Recording last words of dying people, books for the blind, teaching spelling, and others. ||