Robert Friedel is a historian of technology who has taught at the University of Maryland since 1984. His books and articles on the processes of invention and discovery include studies of plastics, electric light and power, and the zipper. A more general treatment of the history of technology was published as A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium (MIT Press, 2007).
Nonfiction
Spring 2001
Serendipity Is No Accident
All the inventions that the world contains, Were not by reason first found out, nor brains; But pass for theirs who had the luck to light Upon them by mistake […]