Title:
They All Laughed
Author:
Ira Flatow
Publisher:
HarperCollins, New York, 1992
ISBN:
0-06-016445-X

I don't intend to review *every* book I read, but They All Laughed is the sort of book certain AFUisti are referring to, when they exhort the clueless to "read a book!"

The reluctant march of technological progress is rife with legend, not a few of which have appeared on AFU. Flatow, known best for having been the host of USAn TV show "Newton's Apple," tackles about two dozen inventions, and tells the reader all about the Rest of the Story, in mostly entertaining and usually well researched words.

The book comes complete with a number of illustrations, some of which are less than exciting in the copy I read. (A picture of a wasps' nest is so underexposed that only the caption holds a clue as to the subject.) The printing is a typeface easy on the eyes, although the book's undersized format (8.5"x5.5") makes for some awkward page layouts.

More importantly, the text is footnoted in many places, with references to the sources in the back of the book. Most of the references appear to be fairly good. Sadly, some of the most significant references are second hand. (Although I cannot say if there was a better way to find Priestley's account of Franklin's kite flying, than to read about it in Bern Dibner's book, Benjamin Franklin, Electrician.)

The book has an index which seems to be fairly complete, giving me fits only when I tried to find a reference to the word "kite." The table of contents lists the twenty-four subjects of the book, but has no list of illustrations.

Content-wise, AFU high points include a discussion of the kite-flying experiment, described by Franklin, but possibly never actually performed, although Priestley said Franklin did it. This is a controversy about as satisfying as the Babe/Baby Ruth candybar. A similar controversy may be said to be raging about the invention of silly putty, which is claimed by both scientists working for GE and for Dow Corning. And then there is, of course, the ongoing court battle over patent rights to the laser.

There is an account of an early version of the two-fifty problem. In it, R. Champeix is quoted telling of a circus owner telegraphing to India, "I need macaque monkeys; please send two." Came the response, "I am sending you 1500 macaques, 500 more will come next month." (I wonder if this is not also legendary: can someone find Savants M'econnus, Inventions Oubli'ees?)

The reader finds out that one Russian experimenter died, performing Franklin's sentry box experiment with lightning. There is a chapter on Edison's lightbulb, and on the Current War, which included an attempt to make the term "westinghouse" synonymous with electrocution. The microwave oven gets a chapter, which describes the first exploding egg. (No poodles, though.) The discovery of artificial sweeterners is full of chemists sticking their fingers in their mouths.

The chapter on the real first electronic computer may as well be about cryptography, another subject that has come up on AFU time and again, and, since the British agents are still keeping details secret, certainly will again. And the chapter on the invention of the electrical gun controller describes how the USAn government, while rejecting many inventions based on solid thinking and showing working models, may at times buy into an invention based on little else than a dream.

Other topics include photography (Eastman), blenders (Osius), fax (Caselli, 1843!), telephone (Bell), television (too many to list), photocopying (Carlson), velcro (Mestral), teflon (Plunkett), nylon (Carothers), vaseline (Chesebrough), submarine (Holland), typewriter (Sholes), wood pulp paper (a wasp?), and video games (Higinbotham).

The book attempts to show that, while one person may lay claim to the fame, in most cases the credit can in no way be assigned to a single individual.

The book makes an effort to provide sources, and to present all available information in an objective manner. Most importantly, Flatow seems to have taken care to identify those items that are not based on solid evidence. All this earns it an AFU bookshelf score of eight.