Cold Hard Truth

In the summer of 1895, Thomas Edison was locked in a high profile competition with Alexander Graham Bell. The source of the rivalry was a challenge issued by mutual friend Henry Ford. Ford had observed that although great advances had been made in the field of automotive design, there had been no progress made on the automatic transmission.

The wager between Edison and Bell, both incredibly wealthy, was one silver dollar.

So, that summer, both men set aside their other projects to tackle the concept of the automatic transmission. The automobile itself was quite a new invention, so it was slow going to improve the transmission concept. As is often the case, when great minds work on a difficult problem, new technologies are accidentally invented.

Very few people know this, but while working on this challenge, Thomas Edison invented the penguin.

It all stemmed from the inverse gear ratio principle. This led to advances in the beak and flipper-wings. Bell had invented the oil-coated feather necessary for Antarctic birds the previous winter while grappling with the concept of text-messaging. Edison stole the idea, citing his work on the milk-dud from 1877.

This was a common tactic of Edison’s. Bell had to keep quiet about it because he had broken Edison’s prototype for the communications satellite, and burned the blueprints with a cigar butt and a bottle of brandy.

So, combining these disparate elements brought about everybody’s favorite flightless bird. However, Bell won the wager.

And if you believe that, then you probably can be convinced the President’s surge is working.