Arts,
Machines,
Manufactures, and
Compositions of matter.
In popular language an art may be said to be any process or series of
steps or operations for accomplishing a physical or chemical result.
Examples are, the art of telephoning by causing undulations of the
electric current corresponding to the sound waves of the spoken voice.
The art of casting car wheels, which consists in directing the metal
into the mold in a stream running tangentially instead of radially,
so that the metal in the mold is given a rotary movement, and the
heavy, sound metal flows out to the rim of the wheel, while the light
and defective metal is displaced toward the centre, where it is not
subjected to wear.
The term machine hardly needs any explanation. It may be said to be an
assemblage of two or more mechanical elements, having a law of action
of its own.
A manufacture is anything made by the hand of man, which is neither a
machine nor a composition of matter; such as, a chisel, a match, or a
pencil.
The term composition of matter covers all combinations of two or more
substances, whether by mechanical mixture or chemical union, and
whether they be gases, fluids, powders or solids; such as, a new cement
or paint.
These definitions are not legally exact, but serve to illustrate the
meaning.
In the making of all inventions which do not consist in the discovery
of the adaptability of some means to an end not intentionally being
sought after, the first step is the selection of a problem. The
inventor should first make certain that the problem is based upon a
real need. Much time and money is sometimes spent in an effort to
invent something that is not really needed. What already exists is good
enough or is so good that no additional cost or complication would
justify anything better. The new invention might be objectionable
because it would involve counter disadvantages more important than its
own advantages, so that a really desirable object is the first thing to
be sure of.
Having selected a problem, the next step should be a thorough analysis
of the old situation, getting at the reasons for the faults which
exist, and in fact discovering the presence of faults which are not
obvious to others, because of the tendency to believe that whatever is,
is right.
Then the qualities of the material, and the laws of action under which
one must operate should be exhaustively considered. It should be
considered whether these laws are really or only apparently inflexible.
It should be carefully considered whether further improvement is
possible in the same direction, and such consideration will often
suggest the direction in which further improvement must go, if a change
of direction is necessary. Sometimes the only possible improvement
is in an opposite direction. A glance at the accounts of how James
Watt invented the condensing steam-engine will show what a large part
profound study of the old engine and of the laws of steam played in
his invention, and how strongly they suggested the directions of the
solutions of his difficulties.
We now come to the constructive part of inventing, in order to
illustrate which, I will seek to explain how several inventions were,
or could have been, produced.
The way in which the first automatic steam engine was produced was
undoubtedly this--and it shows how comparatively easily a really great
invention may sometimes be made. It was the duty of Humphrey Potter,
a _boy_, to turn a stop-cock to let the steam into the cylinder and
one to let in water to condense it at certain periods of each stroke
of the engine, and if this were not done at the right time, the engine
would stop. He noticed that these movements of the stop-cock handles
took place in unison with the movements of certain portions of the beam
of the engine. He simply connected the valve handles with the proper
portions of the beam by strings, and the engine became automatic--a
most eventful result.
As one example of the evolution of an invention, I will take an
instrument for measuring and recording a period of time, known as the
calculograph, because it lends itself with facility, to an explanation
from a platform and because my duties as a lawyer have necessitated
my becoming very familiar with the invention, and have caused me to
consider how it was probably produced.
And first the problem: There was much occasion to determine and record
the values of periods of elapsed time; such as, the length of time of
a telephone conversation; as the revenue of the telephone companies
depended upon the accuracy of the determination. All the previous
methods involved the recording in hours and minutes the times of day
marking the initial and the final limits of the period to be measured,
and then the subtraction of the one time of day from the other. This
subtraction was found to be very unreliable as well as expensive. The
problem then was to devise some way by which the value of the period
could be arrived at directly and without subtraction and also by which
such value could be mechanically recorded.
The prior machine from which the calculograph was evolved is the
time-stamp, a printing machine having a stationary die like a clock
dial and having a rotating die like the hand of the clock, as in
Fig. 1. The small triangle outside the dial is the hour hand, it being
placed outside the dial because it is necessary that the two hands
shall be at the level of the face of the dial and yet be able to pass
each other. The hour hand may be disregarded here, as the records
needed are almost never an hour long. The manner of using the time
stamp to determine the value of an interval was to stamp the time of
day at the beginning of the period, and then to stamp the time of day
at the close of the period at another place on the paper, as shown in
Fig. 2, and finally mentally to subtract the one time of day from the
other to get the value of the period.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.