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Spring 1997


Volume 12, Issue 4

FEATURES

One of the grandest features of late-twentieth-century building technology got its start in 1901 in a small Indiana town

Few inventors have been more glamorous than Hedy Lamarr, whose idea for a torpedo-guidance system is till used by today's military.

To get his hard coal into the houses of Philadelphia, Josiah White had to invent and build a complete transportation system in the Pennsylvania wilderness. His innovations live on today—but mainly in amusement parks.
Open-heart surgery made implanted pacemakers possible. Then a new type of pacemaker made surgery unnecessary.
WIDE-BODY RACKETS changed tennis and I became a staple of the game; spaghetti strings changed tennis and were banned. What was the difference?
FOR BOTH BETTER and worse, technological innovations never work out quite the way anyone expects. Edward Tenner spent years figuring out why this is and what we can do about it.

DEPARTMENTS

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