Who invented the automobile? Who invented the light bulb? If you're a typical person you might say, "Well any fifth grader knows that!" Henry Ford invented the automobile. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Unfortunately, reality rarely comes in such neat packages. Henry Ford does indeed get the credit for the automobile, but you may be surprised to learn that he had no hand whatsoever in it's invention.
Horseless carriages were available to the wealthy and hand made by German builders for many years. Henry Ford toured Europe and saw clothing being made cheaply on assembly lines, each person adding a bit to the finished product before being passed along for the next part. Ford saw that if he could apply this principle to building automobiles, everyone in the world could have one. This was exactly what Henry Ford did. He gathered the most brilliant engineers he could find and set out to mass produce cars. They told him that the heavy iron engine block could not be mass produced. He told them, "You'll find a way to do it within six months, or you're FIRED!!" They had it done in five.
This is not to belittle Ford's contribution to the world, he made cars affordable to the masses, which is why the world paid him handsomely for bringing his vision to fruition.
The story is similar for Thomas Edison's light bulb. Edison is thought of as a great inventor, but few of his inventions, save for the phonograph, and a few others were created single-handed. No, Edison's greatest invention was Menlo Park, where he gathered, and funded the most innovative inventors and engineers he could find. It was this team that conducted the famous 10,000 failed experiments before hitting on the electric light bulb. Bill Gates was a mediocre programmer, and Steve Jobs knew little about electrical engineering or electronics. But these men who changed the world as we know it, had the vision to combine seemingly disparate fields together and bring the world a new synthesis of old things.
Horseless carriages were available to the wealthy and hand made by German builders for many years. Henry Ford toured Europe and saw clothing being made cheaply on assembly lines, each person adding a bit to the finished product before being passed along for the next part. Ford saw that if he could apply this principle to building automobiles, everyone in the world could have one. This was exactly what Henry Ford did. He gathered the most brilliant engineers he could find and set out to mass produce cars. They told him that the heavy iron engine block could not be mass produced. He told them, "You'll find a way to do it within six months, or you're FIRED!!" They had it done in five.
This is not to belittle Ford's contribution to the world, he made cars affordable to the masses, which is why the world paid him handsomely for bringing his vision to fruition.
The story is similar for Thomas Edison's light bulb. Edison is thought of as a great inventor, but few of his inventions, save for the phonograph, and a few others were created single-handed. No, Edison's greatest invention was Menlo Park, where he gathered, and funded the most innovative inventors and engineers he could find. It was this team that conducted the famous 10,000 failed experiments before hitting on the electric light bulb. Bill Gates was a mediocre programmer, and Steve Jobs knew little about electrical engineering or electronics. But these men who changed the world as we know it, had the vision to combine seemingly disparate fields together and bring the world a new synthesis of old things.
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