Gideon Sundback the zipper inventor celebrated on Google
Posted By RichC on April 24, 2012
Google’s latest doodle is a zipper down the center of the search engine’s homepage marking the birthday of Gideon Sundback, the Swedish-American electrical engineer creating the “zipper” which revolutionized the clothing industry. How many times have you “zipped” without thinking that some inventor created this.
Before Sundback’s intervention, the idea for a fastener based on interlocking teeth had circulated among engineers for more than 20 years but no one had perfected it.
His innovation was to place a dimple on the underside of each tooth and a nib on the top that would sit securely within the dimple of the tooth above it.
As a result, the join between two rows of teeth was then strong because no single tooth has enough room to move up or down and come apart. He also created the manufacturing machine for the new zipper.
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