Just found out the first elevator safety brake was invented because a guy saw a rope snap at a factory

I was reading an old trade magazine at the library and it mentioned Elisha Otis. The story goes he was working at a bed frame factory in Yonkers in 1852 when he saw a hoisting rope fail. That's what made him design the first automatic safety catch that would lock the car if the cable broke. Kind of wild to think our whole industry's basic safety idea came from watching a broken rope. Anyone know any other old-school inventions that came from random accidents like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

paul_taylor215d ago

That part about the whole industry's basic safety idea coming from a broken rope really hits me. I used to assume stuff like elevator brakes was just engineers slowly figuring things out on purpose. But hearing it was one guy seeing a rope snap and having a lightbulb moment changes how I see it. Makes you wonder how many big ideas started with someone just noticing a problem right in front of them. Like the story of penicillin being found from mold on a petri dish. It's less about planning and more about paying attention when things go wrong.

jamie9405d ago

Sometimes a broken rope is just a broken rope though.

joel_jones5d ago

But how many broken ropes did we miss, @paul_taylor21?