They All Laughed...: From Light Bulbs to Lasers: The Fascinating Stories Behind the Great Inventions

by Ira Flatow

Book Overview

An enlightening and fun look at scientific discoveries and the often wacky and accidental ways in which they have led to some of the most important inventions--by award-winning journalist Ira Flatow.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060924152
• ISBN13: 9780060924157
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

He who laughs last, lasts

This is a well-researched book that will amaze you if you are not already familiar with some of the stories behind the great inventions that we now take for granted. While you may laugh at the trials and tribulations that these inventors had to go through to get people to take them seriously, the hope is that you won't be so quick to laugh at the fellow next door who spends so much time in his basement or garage trying to invent the next "next" great thing. It was such a good book that, although I had to toss my original copy because of a bedbug situation, I thought so hihgly of it that I bought it again.

Fascinating

I found this book fascinating - it's like traveling back in time, to the worlds of Edison and the like. Seeing their failures and triumphs through the eyes of the ever-passionate Ira Flatow humanizes the scientists behind the inventions we take for granted today. Entertaining, informative, just great.

Patent attorneys: give more to NPR!

Surprise: Ira Flatow is as smart as he sounds. This book is very well researched and very well written. Skinny as it is, the book gives a great summary of many famous inventions in a funny and accessible way. Overall, the book is a great homage to the times when the inventor was an eccentric guy in the garage. But I was shocked to find out how far the legends have gone from the real facts. Thanks Ira for setting the record straight.

A working fax machine was developed before the telephone?

Yes, a working fax machine was developed in the early 19th century by an Italian priest. The microware oven came about because a chocolate bar melted in someone's pocket. The story behind these and others inventions are covered in this book by Ira Flatow, currently science anchor of NPR's Talk of the Nation Science Friday. What Mr. Flatow does in this book is show how inventing can be serentipitous and exciting. This book is not a dull treatise on the history of technology, but a fun journey through the history of familar inventions and their inventors. The prose is extremely readable as you might expect from someone who has hosted public radio and television programs on popular science topics. As the title connotes, many famous inventions were first received with ridicule. Such is the process of invention which is full of struggles and dead-ends that is usually necessary to achieve something significant (which is what Edison was trying to communicate with his famous quote about inspiration and persperation). If there is any weakness to this book it is the lack of depth, so the interested reader should seek out books that complement this one such as "Inventors at Work : Interviews With 16 Notable American Inventors" by Kenneth A. Brown for a perspective on active inventors and "Edison: Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin for an in-depth biography on the world famous inventor. Fans of televisions "Connections," "Invention," or "Newton's Apple" (which Ira Flatow wrote and hosted) are sure to like this book. Inventing is really about the application of science rather than the discovery of scientific principles, so those who prefer the latter might want to consider the writings of Jeremy Bernstein or James Gleick. All in all, "They All Laughed" is an excellent book.

A Wonderful, Cheeky Tour of Discovery and Serendipity!

If you travel through this modern world with even the slightest sense of childlike wonder, you'll delight in this book. If you travel through this world without benefit of that childlike wonder, then you absolutely need this book. Beginning with the first few pages, Ira Flatow takes you on fascinating and occasionally irreverent tour of science institutes, research laboratories and all those other places where science is practiced, but often something more akin to magic happens. The book is well written, highly informative and even capable of revising much of what you might have once believed about science. If you think, like I once did, that modern science is a wholly precise and calculating world, this book will change your mind. In fact, after reading this book I came away with a much greater appreciation both for the role that pure accidents sometimes play in all our lives and for the strange way these opportunities have and can lead to great discoveries. I doubt they'll ever teach this in high school science classes, but then cheeky science was never this fashionable.