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The transistor, built at Bell Labs in 1947, replaced bulky vacuum tubes with small, reliable, low-power switches and amplifiers, enabling modern computers and electronics.
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A barcode encodes data in a pattern that a scanner reads as reflected light and converts to digits. The retail version grew from a 1948 idea and an IBM design standardized in 1973.
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From the 1450s, printing made books more numerous and cheaper, widened reading, spread religious and scholarly ideas, and prompted censorship, while ending much scribal work.
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Teflon came from a gas cylinder that unexpectedly turned to powder in 1938. Bubble wrap began as failed 3D wallpaper in 1957 and found a use as packaging.
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The zipper grew from 19th-century fastener patents and became a practical device when Gideon Sundback redesigned it around 1913. Its interlocking teeth are locked and unlocked by a Y-shaped slider.
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No single person invented the paper clip. Many designs were patented from 1867, and the familiar looped Gem clip appeared around 1892 without a patent. Johan Vaaler's credit is a myth.
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3M chemist Spencer Silver made a weak, reusable adhesive around 1968 to 1970. Years later Art Fry used it for a hymnal bookmark, which became Post-it Notes.
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Swiss engineer George de Mestral copied the hooks of burdock burrs after a hunting walk, then spent years developing a nylon hook-and-loop fastener patented in the 1950s.
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