Word: petroski
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Dates: during 1992-1992
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...MOST DINNER FORKS HAVE FOUR tines? How did the zipper come about? Henry Petroski, the inquisitive engineering professor from Duke who gave us a history of The Pencil (it's more interesting than you would imagine), provides the answers in a lively new treatise on design called THE EVOLUTION OF USEFUL THINGS (Knopf; $24). In a lifetime, notes the author, the average adult will encounter 20,000 or more everyday objects, most of which are taken for granted. Petroski argues that form follows failure rather than function, meaning that the inadequacies of existing things have inspired inventors...
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