Flick on the light switch, turn on your TV set and watch a news report of the first nuclear-powered submarine, and you are seeing inventions at work.

They nylon sweater you wear and the frozen orange juice you drink are the direct result of some inventor's work. In fact, the houses we live in, the cars and planes we travel in, and the music we dance to are possible only because certain imaginative persons tinkered with strange gadgets until they accomplished what people had thought impossible.

The amazing story of those inventive people and their remarkable achievements is told by Fletcher Pratt in this book, which covers more than fifty of the greatest inventions of all time, from the wheel and the jib sail to frozen foods and the audion tube.

Sometimes these inventors were looked upon as mad men as they made on try after another with their wires and tubes and chemicals. But today we accept the results of their genius as naturally as we accept sunshine and rain.

You'll find this story of inventors and their inventions really inspiring — and exciting as well!

From the dust jacket