Quelle invention de génie mérite plus de crédit ?

Vous ne les voyez pas beaucoup aux États-Unis - mais sur les routes du Royaume-Uni, vous voyez très souvent de longues rangées de ces choses incrustées dans les marquages ​​​​de la ligne médiane des routes :

INVENTION DE GÉNIE :

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Donc, cette humble chose est vue partout au Royaume-Uni et dans d'autres pays - et les gens n'y pensent littéralement jamais.

L'appareil s'appelle "yeux de chat". Les deux cercles sur le "visage" sont des sphères de verre bon marché - qui agissent comme des "rétro-réflecteurs" de sorte que lorsque vous conduisez la nuit, ils réfléchissent la lumière de vos phares vers vous - et ils semblent briller. Ils peuvent être colorés pour produire des reflets rouges ou verts - mais sont majoritairement blancs.

Ainsi, vous obtenez une double rangée de "feux" lumineux au milieu de la route - ce qui aide vraiment lorsque vous conduisez par mauvais temps la nuit.

Maintenant - en soi - cela ne semble pas particulièrement intelligent… mais quand vous regardez le design, c'est absolument INCROYABLE.

Tout d'abord, ils sont collés dans un trou carré découpé dans la surface de la route par une machine - ils peuvent donc être installés en quelques secondes - et avec un équipement moderne, presque automatiquement dans la plupart des cas.

You’d think that those retroreflectors would shatter every time someone drove over one - but the center part is made of a rubbery material that is squashed down into the hole beneath whenever something drives over it.

You’d also think that they’d get covered in dirt and oil over time - but they’re even cleverer than THAT - whenever someone drives over them - the act of squashing the rubber causes it to gradually rotate the spherical lenses in their mounts and thereby wipe them clean.

There are two lenses - so if one does break - the other continues to work (which doubles the life of the device).

Even better, there is a small reservoir inside the rubber molding that captures rainwater which is used in the wiper mechanism so the lenses are WASHED and then wiped by the rubber as they slowly rotate!

The shape of that reservoir is really well thought out so that it allows trapped oil to float off of the surface (oil and water don’t mix and the oil floats on top) and the muddy dirt that sinks to the bottom to be forced out sideways as it compresses so they don’t get clogged up with mud.

The degree of cleverness packed into one piece of cheap, weirdly-shaped rubber is AMAZING!

They also last for a VERY long time - there are still plenty of 80 year old cats eyes still embedded in older roads and still working perfectly.

The number of lives saved by this contraption is hard to estimate - but it’s got to be HUGE.

These things were invented in 1934 - and were installed in VAST numbers into British streets in World War II when car headlamps had to be fitted with thin slots to aim the light downwards to avoid alerting enemy bombers where the main roads were. With poor headlamps - and without streetlights - these things were the only thing making it possible to drive safely at night thoughout the time when German midnight bombing raids were happening almost daily.

These contraptions are made in their MILLIONS every year.

So “Genius Invention”…definitely.

DOES IT DESERVE MORE CREDIT?

They were invented by Percy Shaw in 1934 - Shaw was born in 1890, and had worked his entire life in very humble jobs - eventually starting his own one-man business as a road contractor in 1929. He was no genius inventor, not an engineer, had ZERO training in design or whatever.

This was the only thing he ever invented.

In 2006 (30 years after Shaw died), there was a vote for the top ten “design icons” in the UK…the winners included the Concorde airplane, the “Mini” car, the red phone booths, the World Wide web and the classic British double-decker busses were all on the list…along with the humble cat’s eyes.

In 2005 he was listed as one of the 50 greatest Yorkshire people.

Did the genius inventor get credit during his life?

He must have been fairly rich - getting money from every one of these things that were made…but he never moved out of his family home where he lived his entire life - he didn’t have carpets or curtains - his only furniture was a row of chairs going around all four walls of his living room - plus one single bed.

He never married or had girlfriends - he invited all of his friends to his home every Friday and served free beer and potato chips.

He did buy four TV’s so his guests could see all three British TV channels without arguments about which to watch - but all with the sound turned down because he preferred conversation. Three of the TV’s were black-and-white - only the fourth was in color.

His *ONLY* significant purchase over his entire life was a Rolls Royce Phantom car!

It’s not known for sure - but he seems that he must have mostly given away the money he earned - because when he died, his estate was only worth a little more than the value of the house and car that he owned.

La seule reconnaissance qu'il a obtenue pour son invention de son vivant était un OBE ("Ordre de l'Empire britannique") qu'il a accepté par courrier plutôt qu'en personne par la reine... et un documentaire télévisé a été réalisé sur lui.

Depuis sa mort, il y a eu un pub qui porte son nom… et il y a une petite plaque bleue montée sur son ancienne maison.

CONCLUSION:

 Il y aura sans doute d'autres réponses ici avec d'autres inventions et d'autres inventeurs… mais celle-ci me semble être l'exemple le plus extrême d'une invention INCROYABLEMENT utile qui a sauvé une tonne de vies et qui n'a jamais été améliorée même après presque 90 ans de utiliser… et un inventeur qui était presque inconnu pendant la majeure partie de sa vie.