Genius invention 1934 _ Date
You don’t see them much in the USA — but on roads in the UK, you very often see long rows of these things embedded in the center-line markings of roads:
GENIUS INVENTION:
So this humble thing is seen everywhere in the UK and some other countries and people literally never think about them.
The device is called “cat’s eyes”. The two circles in the “face” of it are cheap glass spheres — which act as “retro-reflectors” so as you’re driving along at night, they reflect the light from your headlamps back at you — and they appear to glow. They can be colored to produce red or green reflections — but are mostly white.
So you get a double row of glowing “lights” down the middle of the road — which really helps when you’re driving in crappy weather at night.
Now — by itself — this doesn’t seem especially clever…but when you look into the design it’s absolutely AMAZING.
Firstly, they are glued into a square hole that’s cut into the road surface by a machine — so they can be installed in a matter of seconds — and with modern equipment, pretty much automatically in most cases.
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 though out 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.
The only recognition he got for his invention during his lifetime was an OBE (“Order of the British Empire”) which he accepted by mail rather than in person by the Queen..and there was a TV documentary made about him.
Since his death — there has been a pub that was named after him…and there is a small blue plaque mounted on his former home.
CONCLUSION:
Doubtless there will be other inventions and other inventors…but this one seems to me to be the most extreme example of an INCREDIBLY useful invention that’s saved a ton of lives and which has never been improved upon even after almost 90 years of use…and an inventor who was almost unknown for most of his life.
