The Innovations Issue

A Brief History of Failure

What follows is — depending on how you want to think about it — either a gallery of technologies we lost or an invitation to consider alternate futures. Some of what might have been is fantastical: a subway powered by air, an engine run off the heat of your palm. Some of what we lost, on the other hand, is more subtle, like a better way to bowl or type. As new standards emerge, variety fades, and a single technology becomes entrenched. (That’s why the inefficient Qwerty keyboard has proved so difficult to unseat.)

We can take heart, however, in the fact that good ideas never disappear forever; the Stirling engine didn’t pan out in the Industrial Revolution, for example, but it can keep the lights on for a small village. As you look through the images, then, please consider not only what might have been but what could still be again. — RYAN BRADLEY

Longbow

Standing six feet tall and hewed from yew wood, the longbow was among the deadliest of all Middle Ages weaponry. In skilled hands, it could kill a foe across a field. About 2,000 French knights died at the hands of English longbowmen in the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. In England, in the 14th century, the longbow was so important that archery was the only sport allowed on Sundays. But the skill required — basic training took years, and mastery could take decades — eventually became the longbow’s downfall. The crossbow may have had slow loading speeds and shorter range, but it was an easier alternative. After just a week’s training, an unskilled man could kill a knight with it too. Above: The girls’ archery team at Bloomfield High School in New Jersey, circa 1950.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Viol

A close cousin to the lute, the six-stringed viol is a soft, mellow instrument, both plucked and bowed, that is capable of complex harmonies when grouped, which it usually was, in intimate royal courts and chambers. Bach loved the viol family for his chamber-music compositions. But during the 18th century, the rise of the concert hall — where volume mattered, soloists reigned and the microphone had yet to be invented — favored the louder violin and its kin. The same fate befell the guqin, a zither played by Confucius; and the symphonia, which was either a drum, a clavichord or possibly a hurdy-gurdy.

Picture Collection, The New York Public Library

Pneumatic Rail

The pneumatic railway began as a 150-foot-long tube, built by John Vallance on the grounds of his home in Brighton, England, using atmospheric pressure to carry a passenger car at 2 m.p.h. In 1844, London and Croydon Railway built a 7.5-mile pneumatic rail line. A trial run the following year achieved a top speed of 70 m.p.h. A pneumatic tube was underneath the car, between the rails. It closed in 1847, unable to connect to more traditional rails. The idea was revived a few decades later by Alfred Ely Beach, the editor and co-owner of Scientific American, who built a 294-foot line in Manhattan shown here. Rides cost a quarter, and ticket sales brought in $2,805 the first two weeks. But corrupt politicians, a stock-market crash and the construction of the cheaper elevated lines foiled Beach’s dreams. 

Alfred C. Loonam/Museum of the City of New York

Stirling Engine

In 1816, the same year that he became a minister in the Church of Scotland, Robert Stirling patented the Heat Economiser, which could take heat from anything — a fire, say, or the palm of your hand — and turn it into dynamic energy through the use of two pistons. Stirling and his brother, James, spent decades improving the engine before it was able to power a whole iron foundry in Dundee. But steam, which was an inefficient and dangerous power source when Stirling started, had improved and would provide the power and scale to drive the Industrial Revolution. Stirling’s idea would be confined to use as a backup generator (like the Philips model, shown here) for a century or so until Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway, brought the Stirling back as the basis of his Beacon generator, a 1,500-pound, washing-machine-size system that can be tied to solar panels or natural gas to power a small business, a rural village or, in his case, a very large eco-friendly home.

Philips Company Archives

Stirling Engine

Philips Company Archives

Stirling Engine

In 1816, the same year that he became a minister in the Church of Scotland, Robert Stirling patented the Heat Economiser, which could take heat from anything — a fire, say, or the palm of your hand — and turn it into dynamic energy through the use of two pistons. Stirling and his brother, James, spent decades improving the engine before it was able to power a whole iron foundry in Dundee. But steam, which was an inefficient and dangerous power source when Stirling started, had improved and would provide the power and scale to drive the Industrial Revolution. Stirling’s idea would be confined to use as a backup generator (like the Philips model, shown here) for a century or so until Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway, brought the Stirling back as the basis of his Beacon generator, a 1,500-pound, washing-machine-size system that can be tied to solar panels or natural gas to power a small business, a rural village or, in his case, a very large eco-friendly home.

Philips Company Archives

Direct Current 

Edison lost. People forget that. Yes, he had stray dogs, cats and a circus elephant electrocuted using alternating current, to demonstrate its dangers and promote his own direct current. But it didn’t matter. Alternating current could send out a large voltage from a single power plant on small wires across great distances and, with the help of transformers, be converted to higher or lower levels of voltage for homes and businesses. Direct current couldn’t travel like AC; it suffered significant power losses over long distances. AC, which G.E. adapted in 1892, largely triumphed. But today, with the rise of smaller, alternative-energy sources (solar especially), a distributed DC-based grid could again challenge AC. 

Brian Grogan/Historic American Engineering Record/Library of Congress

Steam Car

During the earliest days of the automobile, the external-combustion steam car ruled. None sold more briskly than the Stanley Steamer, a two-cylinder, transmission-less carriage (shown here). Steam cars were quick — in 1906, a steam car set a land speed record of 127 m.p.h. — and quieter, and the engine was smaller and more powerful than internal combustion. But by 1909, the Steamer was losing ground to Ford’s assembly line. By 1924, the last year Stanleys were in production, a Steamer cost eight times more than a Model T. The desire for an alternative to oil led to some steam resurgences over the years, most notably to retrofit an Oldsmobile Delmont 88, which was proposed for the California Highway Patrol in an attempt to reduce emissions.

Picture Collection, The New York Public Library

The Time Machine

Gordon Earl Adams was a London-based engineer, scientist and seeker. In the late 1920s, he built a machine with dozens of flywheels, some perhaps weighing several tons and looking as if they could spin so fast that they would set off powerful electrical charges into the atmosphere. His goal was to control time and space. Adams worked for years in his basement in Shepherd’s Bush and died in 1933, at 68, his machine lost to history. Eight decades later, notes from his project (shown here), along with photographs, were unearthed, highlighting its technical wizardry and spectacle. It was deemed conceptual art far ahead of its time.  

Archive of Modern Conflict

The Time Machine

Archive of Modern Conflict

The Time Machine

Gordon Earl Adams was a London-based engineer, scientist and seeker. In the late 1920s, he built a machine with dozens of flywheels, some perhaps weighing several tons and looking as if they could spin so fast that they would set off powerful electrical charges into the atmosphere. His goal was to control time and space. Adams worked for years in his basement in Shepherd’s Bush and died in 1933, at 68, his machine lost to history. Eight decades later, notes from his project (shown here), along with photographs, were unearthed, highlighting its technical wizardry and spectacle. It was deemed conceptual art far ahead of its time.  

Archive of Modern Conflict

Decorative Helmet

In World War I, each region of the German empire was identifiable by a slightly different spiked helmet, or pickelhaube, designed by King Fredrick William IV of Prussia in 1842. The problem with all these designs, and there were dozens, was one of sourcing. The helmets required refined metalwork, decorative elements and hides all the way from South America. In wartime, they became difficult to replace or fix. By 1915, as the war devolved into the trenches and head injuries caused by shrapnel became common, the German military searched for a more streamlined solution. The stahlhelm, which found its way to the field of battle in 1916, now lives on in the helmets of almost every modern army.

Library of Congress

Decorative Helmet

Library of Congress

Decorative Helmet

In World War I, each region of the German empire was identifiable by a slightly different spiked helmet, or pickelhaube, designed by King Fredrick William IV of Prussia in 1842. The problem with all these designs, and there were dozens, was one of sourcing. The helmets required refined metalwork, decorative elements and hides all the way from South America. In wartime, they became difficult to replace or fix. By 1915, as the war devolved into the trenches and head injuries caused by shrapnel became common, the German military searched for a more streamlined solution. The stahlhelm, which found its way to the field of battle in 1916, now lives on in the helmets of almost every modern army.

Library of Congress

The Dvorak Keyboard

How we became stuck with the Qwerty is a matter of debate, but some historians point to a national typing-speed competition in the late 1880s. Unlike the other contestant, the winner had memorized the key positions, in part, the story goes, because they made no sense. The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, invented in 1932, is objectively superior, so much so that, in the 1940s, the United States Navy determined that it was worth retraining its typists. As the evolutionary biologist and science historian Stephen Jay Gould (whose mother was a typist and father a court stenographer) wrote, ‘‘If every typist in the world stopped using Qwerty tomorrow and began to learn Dvorak, we would all be a winner.’’ (Shown here: August Dvorak oversees a typing class.)

PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection, Museum of History & Industry

The Flying Train

The Bennie Railplane, named after George Bennie, its inventor, opened on July 8, 1930, in Milngavie, just outside Glasgow (shown here). It was suspended from an overhead track in a steel girder frame, powered by electric motors and diesel engines; two propellers, front and back, moved the cigar-shaped carriage, which had stained glass in its door. There were no bumps in the ride, no screaming whistles. It was, according to one account, ‘‘sheer delight.’’ A proposal came for a line between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or as a way for moneyed travelers to ride above London’s slums, but Bennie never found serious backing and declared bankruptcy in 1937. The line came down in 1956, clearing the way for more earthbound, democratic transit. 

Archive of Modern Conflict

Wing Suit

The first fall came hard and fast, and it was fatal: On Feb. 4, 1912, in Paris, Franz Reichelt dove from the Eiffel Tower. Known as the Flying Tailor, Reichelt wore folds of fabric hanging from his shoulder like drapery, stitched together to form wings and fill up with air upon flight. It didn’t, and though reports later claimed he died of a heart attack in midfall, he didn’t quite stick the landing. Decades later, Clem Sohn, above, and his homemade wing suit did much better. The wings were made of a kind of wool called zephyr cloth and a web of steel tubing, and he could glide several thousand feet after jumping from an airplane before opening his parachute and touching down, triumphantly, to applauding crowds. They called him the Bird-Man. He died on the wing too, in 1937, in front of a large crowd, when his chutes failed (shown here, a memorial). But the wing suit returned with a vengeance — and better synthetic materials and air inlets — in 1999, when the world’s first commercial suit, also called the Bird Man, hit the market. These days, about 20 people a year die in wing-suit crashes.

The Estate of André Steiner via Archive of Modern Conflict, Howard Levy Photo Collection/Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum via the Archive of Modern Conflict

Wing Suit

The Estate of André Steiner via Archive of Modern Conflict, Howard Levy Photo Collection/Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum via the Archive of Modern Conflict

Wing Suit

The first fall came hard and fast, and it was fatal: On Feb. 4, 1912, in Paris, Franz Reichelt dove from the Eiffel Tower. Known as the Flying Tailor, Reichelt wore folds of fabric hanging from his shoulder like drapery, stitched together to form wings and fill up with air upon flight. It didn’t, and though reports later claimed he died of a heart attack in midfall, he didn’t quite stick the landing. Decades later, Clem Sohn, above, and his homemade wing suit did much better. The wings were made of a kind of wool called zephyr cloth and a web of steel tubing, and he could glide several thousand feet after jumping from an airplane before opening his parachute and touching down, triumphantly, to applauding crowds. They called him the Bird-Man. He died on the wing too, in 1937, in front of a large crowd, when his chutes failed (shown here, a memorial). But the wing suit returned with a vengeance — and better synthetic materials and air inlets — in 1999, when the world’s first commercial suit, also called the Bird Man, hit the market. These days, about 20 people a year die in wing-suit crashes.

The Estate of André Steiner via Archive of Modern Conflict, Howard Levy Photo Collection/Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum via the Archive of Modern Conflict

Airships

‘‘If the Boeings and Airbuses of the world had put all that money and research into airships, who knows?’’ says Joel Mokyr, an economic historian. After all, airships may have been slower than airplanes, but they were quieter, more energy efficient and logistically simpler. They could lift off from the center of a city, rather than an exurban airport, in silence. They could carry more people than airplanes too. But crashes tended to be slow-motion, stomach-churning spectacles. In 1930, after the R-101, a British airship, fell apart over France, the Air Ministry ordered its sister craft, the R-100, shown here, grounded and scrapped. Seven years later, the spectacular immolation of the Hindenburg, an airship en route from Frankfurt to New Jersey, essentially scuttled the airship’s hopes for good. 

Times Wide World Photos, Topical Press

Airships

Times Wide World Photos, Topical Press

Airships

Times Wide World Photos, Topical Press

Airships

‘‘If the Boeings and Airbuses of the world had put all that money and research into airships, who knows?’’ says Joel Mokyr, an economic historian. After all, airships may have been slower than airplanes, but they were quieter, more energy efficient and logistically simpler. They could lift off from the center of a city, rather than an exurban airport, in silence. They could carry more people than airplanes too. But crashes tended to be slow-motion, stomach-churning spectacles. In 1930, after the R-101, a British airship, fell apart over France, the Air Ministry ordered its sister craft, the R-100, shown here, grounded and scrapped. Seven years later, the spectacular immolation of the Hindenburg, an airship en route from Frankfurt to New Jersey, essentially scuttled the airship’s hopes for good. 

Times Wide World Photos, Topical Press

Mineralite Bowling Ball

The Brunswick Mineralite bowling ball, which made its debut in the early 20th century, was relatively inexpensive and came with a lifetime warranty. Mineralite ran straight and true. This worked when the sport’s chief strategy was picking up spares. But as competition increased, the goal became to hook the ball so it would curve between the foremost pins, making a strike every time. This hard rubber ball was replaced with polyurethane, reactive resins that create a softness on the slick oiled wood of a lane. Today serious bowlers need far more than one or two balls, and the pros use up to a dozen, like golf clubs, each one capable of a slightly different attack on the lane and selling for as much as $300 apiece.

International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame

Modular Megastructures

‘‘Look at what we are doing in our cities today,’’ the architect Paul Rudolph told The Daily Telegraph in 1968. ‘‘We build an office building here and an apartment building over there.’’ A year earlier, the Amalgamated Lithographers of America union approached Rudolph to build a megastructure in Lower Manhattan, featuring two skyscrapers 65 stories tall, 2,100 parking spaces, plazas, an elementary school, restaurants, a marina and apartments, as shown in the composite to the left. Rudolph had been fascinated by prefabricated housing and thought the mobile home could be the brick of his building. He designed each unit to be built and nearly finished offsite, including pipes for plumbing and wires for electric. This turned out, however, to be a major mistake. The union-backed building, if successful, would undermine other unions (particularly plumbers and electricians). They wouldn’t have it, and the structure never got off the ground. ‘‘It will be built somewhere,’’ Rudolph said. And it was, in its way. Decades later, similar mixed-use megastructures are popping up in Singapore, Shanghai and even Brooklyn.

Ezra Stoller/Esto

Modular Megastructures

Ezra Stoller/Esto

Modular Megastructures

Ezra Stoller/Esto

Modular Megastructures

‘‘Look at what we are doing in our cities today,’’ the architect Paul Rudolph told The Daily Telegraph in 1968. ‘‘We build an office building here and an apartment building over there.’’ A year earlier, the Amalgamated Lithographers of America union approached Rudolph to build a megastructure in Lower Manhattan, featuring two skyscrapers 65 stories tall, 2,100 parking spaces, plazas, an elementary school, restaurants, a marina and apartments, as shown in the composite to the left. Rudolph had been fascinated by prefabricated housing and thought the mobile home could be the brick of his building. He designed each unit to be built and nearly finished offsite, including pipes for plumbing and wires for electric. This turned out, however, to be a major mistake. The union-backed building, if successful, would undermine other unions (particularly plumbers and electricians). They wouldn’t have it, and the structure never got off the ground. ‘‘It will be built somewhere,’’ Rudolph said. And it was, in its way. Decades later, similar mixed-use megastructures are popping up in Singapore, Shanghai and even Brooklyn.

Ezra Stoller/Esto

Personal Helicopter

The aerocycle was intended for beginners. It was supposed to be possible to steer it simply by shifting your weight, as on a surfboard, riding a wave of air, a few feet above two contra-rotating propellers. A de Lackner aerocycle, shown here, was favored by the United States military and took test flights out of the Brooklyn Army Terminal in the 1950s. But the blades would wobble, then crash together. Close to the ground, they would kick up all manner of dust and rocks. The core idea, however, of an easy-to-operate, low-flying aircraft held the military’s interest for decades, and it eventually brought us to the drone age.

United States Army via Archive of Modern Conflict

Personal Helicopter

United States Army via Archive of Modern Conflict

Personal Helicopter

The aerocycle was intended for beginners. It was supposed to be possible to steer it simply by shifting your weight, as on a surfboard, riding a wave of air, a few feet above two contra-rotating propellers. A de Lackner aerocycle, shown here, was favored by the United States military and took test flights out of the Brooklyn Army Terminal in the 1950s. But the blades would wobble, then crash together. Close to the ground, they would kick up all manner of dust and rocks. The core idea, however, of an easy-to-operate, low-flying aircraft held the military’s interest for decades, and it eventually brought us to the drone age.

United States Army via Archive of Modern Conflict

Video Chat

On Dec. 9, 1968, Douglas C. Englebart gave a demonstration of the NLS, an online system that he and his team at the at Stanford Research Institute had been working on for most of the decade. Englebart and one team member spoke to each other using audio and video and a shared screen, swapping files and hypertext, and collaborating on work. It was a historic day — the concept of the computer mouse also made its debut — largely because it changed the idea of what a computer might be: a communications device, complete with video. (Companies like Western Electric played with their own versions of the videophone, as seen in this photo illustration.) Now that we can all speak through portable televisions, via the phones in our pockets, we know the real problem with video chatting is that, most of the time, it’s cumbersome. It’s far easier, and less awkward, to send a quick line of text. 

Western Electric

The Joystick

While developing what became the Apple mouse in the ’80s, David Kelley was also working with trackballs and joysticks. ‘‘One reason the mouse worked and the others failed was, say you wanted to move the cursor from here to this dot — it didn’t have to be really accurate ,’’ Kelley says. ‘‘Your brain and eye and hand are going to stop when you get to the dot. It moves to where it is that you need to stop, in other words. With joysticks, it wasn’t that clean. Neither was the trackball. But the mouse hit it right on.’’ Still, it wasn’t perfect. ‘‘We were testing with kids. If you wanted the cursor to go up on the screen, you’d move the mouse forward, but they’d lift the mouse off the table, which was actually more intuitive, because it was closer to what they saw happening, and wanted to happen, on-screen.’’ Inevitably, this led to the allure, for kids and adults alike, of the touch screen. (Top, a NASA control stick from 1956; bottom, a later Atari model.)

NASA, David Corio for the New York Times

The Joystick

NASA, David Corio for the New York Times

The Joystick

While developing what became the Apple mouse in the ’80s, David Kelley was also working with trackballs and joysticks. ‘‘One reason the mouse worked and the others failed was, say you wanted to move the cursor from here to this dot — it didn’t have to be really accurate ,’’ Kelley says. ‘‘Your brain and eye and hand are going to stop when you get to the dot. It moves to where it is that you need to stop, in other words. With joysticks, it wasn’t that clean. Neither was the trackball. But the mouse hit it right on.’’ Still, it wasn’t perfect. ‘‘We were testing with kids. If you wanted the cursor to go up on the screen, you’d move the mouse forward, but they’d lift the mouse off the table, which was actually more intuitive, because it was closer to what they saw happening, and wanted to happen, on-screen.’’ Inevitably, this led to the allure, for kids and adults alike, of the touch screen. (Top, a NASA control stick from 1956; bottom, a later Atari model.)

NASA, David Corio for the New York Times

TV Internet

The idea of interactive television was a dream for decades. In the ’80s, AT&T and CBS beta-tested a home-entertainment terminal (shown here) in Bergen County, N.J. But in the mid-’90s, when the Internet was known as the information superhighway, television seemed as if it might be the on ramp for the masses. Steve Perlman, a software engineer, struck upon what became WebTV after considering an early website for Campbell’s soup. The people who would most enjoy this site and its recipes — Campbell’s customers — were not online. But they had televisions. A device that could bridge this gap could, he thought, sell a whole lot of chicken-noodle soup. After Microsoft purchased Perlman’s company, most WebTV engineers eventually joined the Xbox team. The Internet’s access point in living rooms wasn’t, after all, the TV itself but the things you add to it, like game systems or, today, stand-alone products like AppleTV, Chromecast and Amazon’s about-to-be-released Fire TV stick.  

AT&T

Humans

What’s lost when we replace a person with software or a machine? It’s a question worth asking because we do it all the time. (Shown here are office workers photographed by Lars Tunbjork in New York and Tokyo in the late ’90s.) Humans are inconsistent, error-prone and sloppy. Technology, on the other hand, is predictable. But ‘‘the reality is that there are things instrumentation cannot do,’’ says Sylvia Earle, the former chief scientist of NOAA and marine explorer extraordinaire. ‘‘There are subtleties.’’ Humans accrue experience, machines collect data; even as robots and 3-D printers and apps take over many of our tasks, there is not, and never will be, anything equal to the personal touch. 

Lars Tunbjork/Agence Vu/Aurora Photos

Humans

Lars Tunbjork/Agence Vu/Aurora Photos

Humans

Lars Tunbjork/Agence Vu/Aurora Photos

Humans

What’s lost when we replace a person with software or a machine? It’s a question worth asking because we do it all the time. (Shown here are office workers photographed by Lars Tunbjork in New York and Tokyo in the late ’90s.) Humans are inconsistent, error-prone and sloppy. Technology, on the other hand, is predictable. But ‘‘the reality is that there are things instrumentation cannot do,’’ says Sylvia Earle, the former chief scientist of NOAA and marine explorer extraordinaire. ‘‘There are subtleties.’’ Humans accrue experience, machines collect data; even as robots and 3-D printers and apps take over many of our tasks, there is not, and never will be, anything equal to the personal touch. 

Lars Tunbjork/Agence Vu/Aurora Photos
Correction: Dec. 7, 2014

A picture caption in the Innovations Issue on Nov. 16 about the longbow, anarchery weapon popular in the Middle Ages, misidentifed the group of young women shown at an archery range. They were members of the girls’ archery team at Bloomfield High School in New Jersey, circa 1950, not a group of Girl Scouts.

Correction: Dec. 14, 2014

A picture caption in the special Innovations issue on Nov. 16 about the success of alternating current over direct current described incorrectly how alternating current originates for a home or a business. The alternating of electrical power begins at the power plant, not upon reaching a home or a business.