Articles about the origins of everyday objects
Why did Goryeo's metal type, which predated Gutenberg by 78 years, fail to spark a revolution? This article traces the history of movable type from Bi Sheng's clay type in Song dynasty China to Gutenberg's press — and asks what it really takes for a technology to change the world.
Plastic was first invented to save elephants from extinction. From Celluloid in 1869 to Bakelite in 1907 and the synthetic revolution that followed, here is the story of how an unlikely material came to define — and haunt — modern civilization.
Nature never evolved a wheel. Why not? And how did humans invent something that 5 billion years of evolution couldn't — tracing the wheel from the potter's wheel to steam-powered railways.