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My favorite is that luggage with wheels was invented in 1972. The tech was there already. We just waited for somebody to invent it.
by plastic3169 2y ago
My favorite is that luggage with wheels was invented in 1972. The tech was there already. We just waited for somebody to invent it.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoDid it wait for someone to invent it, or for it to make economical sense to put this tech in that particular application?
- Zaiberia 2y agoYou can’t little wheely luggage until it’s little wheely luggage time?
- lukan 2y agoNot on unpaved, bumpy roads.
- beedeebeedee 2y agoNor if you have a class of low paid (and before that unpaid) people who carried luggage for travelers. There was a lot of social change in the US after the 1960's, and travel only became democratized recently.
- setr 2y agoYou have this in India today, yet wheeled luggage has completely displaced unwheeled in any airport
- TeMPOraL 2y agoPresumably that's because most of the people flying in or out are traveling from/to other countries, and it makes no sense for them to own one set of luggage for India, and another for the rest of the planet, especially if the latter is compatible with the former anyway.
- msh 2y agoI guess this kind of invention also depends on a few things outside what is technically possible: Do you have enough flat surfaces where the wheels will work in the places people travel. How cheap and dependable can you build it without adding too much weight to the luggage. Are there enough people traveling and carrying their own luggage for them to purchase this.
- ch4s3 2y agoMore importantly, prior to airline deregulation in the 1970s only the wealthy and business travelers were flying and someone else carried their bags for them. It is the middle class traveler who lugs their own bags.
- inglor_cz 2y agoA bag on wheels is also practical in rail or boat travel, which wasn't exactly an abode of the rich. Ever lugged a huge wheel-less piece of luggage around a big railway station? I have. It is hell.
- ch4s3 2y agoI think the difference is that flight opened up quick trips where you might want a bag with just enough clothing for a few days. I also think the 1970s also hits a point where peoples' clothing had become a good bit simpler. Wheeled bags shine in airports for carry on bags.
- inglor_cz 2y ago"I think the difference is that flight opened up quick trips where you might want a bag with just enough clothing for a few days." Traveling salespeople etc. would often go on relatively short trips, even in the steam engine era. We underestimate mobility of pre-WWII people by a lot... The point about simpler clothing is really interesting. I can imagine that this could be the crucial difference.
- dmbche 2y agoMine is how we have evidence of wheels being used on children's toys in some south american cultures but not for transportation - they fully discovered everything to create wheeled transportation, but it's suspected that living on hilly terrain made it much less advantageous and it was not adopted. Edit0: A good read : https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/the-concept-of-the-wheel-in-ancient-mesoamerica https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/the-concept-of-the-... Edit1: from the source: "Rather, and as Hernandez said (1950: 40), the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica did not apply the concept of revolving movement to transportation “simply because they did not want to, because of atavistic concepts worthy of being taken into account.” In a perceptive way, Hernández emphasized the indigenous ethos towards sacrifice and the offering of physical effort to the deities. Today, in Western thought, the constant technological innovation that leads to consumerism is valued, but in other cultures - ancient and modern - greater value is given to conservatism."
- shawabawa3 2y agoi guess the real invention for wheeled transportation is not wheels, but (flat) roads
- inglor_cz 2y agoPlus draft animals capable of pulling large wagons. Oxen and horses were unavailable for pre-Columbian civilizations in the new world, and poor llamas cannot cut it.
- ashoeafoot 2y agoThey had giant sloths?
- nkozyra 2y agoWell except they died out ~ 9,000+ years before the initial invention of the wheel.
- OJFord 2y ago
- aqme28 2y agoActually, this makes me think the opposite. This is a great example actually. Polyurethane wheels weren't introduced to skateboarding until 1971. It took off in popularity due to this because the previous wheels were made of clay and were basically terrible. I don't know the history of luggage wheels, but it sounds like it was waiting for the invention of the polyurethane wheel.
- SilasX 2y agoThis. What held up wheeled luggage was the difficulty of having small, reliable wheels that could bear a lot of weight. You could have big wheels, but that would be impractical here, though not for chariots, wheelbarrows, pushcarts, or rickshaws ... which did exist in antiquity.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoI remember metal skates (steel perhaps) in the early seventies.
- JackFr 2y agoPeople credit Dick Fosbury for inventing the modern high jump approach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosbury_flop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosbury_flop but it was the switch from jumping onto foam pads rather than into a pile of sawdust and sand that made it possible.
- pas 2y agohow come they didn't raise the platform and put "pillows" on it? :o
- arrowsmith 2y agoMy favourite is that humanity had fire, baskets, ropes and silk by 3500 BCE, but it took thousands of years before anyone combined them into a hot air balloon. We could have been flying in the neolithic period.
- pas 2y agodid people had that much usable silk in one place back then?
- mont_tag 2y agoPerhaps the need was less pressing when airports were smaller and fewer people traveled.
- ghaff 2y agoI had a wheeled suitcase in probably the late 70s--which was an unstable wheeled traditional suitcase. (i.e. narrow configuration with a high center of gravity.) Not sure why it took a while for manufacturers to reimagine to a more stable orientation. There was some parallel technical innovation--such as the wheels and bearings for rollerblades--that was going on during the 80s.