Category: Possible inventions

It seems that when a ball is seen in peripheral vision as spinning it appears to be moving in the direction of the spin more than it actually is. Combine this illusory motion with the normal gravitational acceleration and baseball’s famously hard-to-hit curveball is the result.

This effect must also occur in other sports, eg soccer, when a goalkeeper has to cope with spinning freekicks which appear to dip much more than aerodynamics suggests. (This, rather than any drag related phenomena, may be the main reason why professional bowlers in cricket sometimes scratch the ball on one side).

Balls used in sports all seem to have some kind of surface texture which shows up the direction of their spin. Today’s invention is therefore sports contact lenses which blur the periphery just enough to make marks or seams on the ball in their particular event so diffuse as to be just undetectable. Peripheral vision already provides low levels of detail perception.

The keeper or batter can still locate the ball very accurately in space but can’t see its (rotating) internal surface texture and is thus not fooled by the apparent motion illusion.

Getting rid of flies is an increasingly technical business (I particularly dislike filling a room with insecticide vapour: that stuff can’t be good for people to inhale).

So today’s invention is a new form of fly swatter. This consists of a pistol grip handle at the front of which is tethered a pair of elastic straps.

These are gripped by the other hand and stretched taught. One strap is slightly shorter than the other, so that as the stretching hand is gradually withdrawn, this strap is released first.

Being made in a high visibility pattern, it encourages the fly to react and begin to jump out of its way. In doing so, it will fail to notice the arrival, milliseconds later, of the low-contrast (longer) strap, which it will have just failed to outjump, and be killed by impact with it.

When you are overweight, for example, lots of things get in the way of starting to do some exercise (even a tiny amount is very much better than none). Going to a public gym is just too difficult for anyone who has become sensitised to how they look.

Today’s invention is a 1-person gym. This is in the form of a crate-like, self-contained cubicle with a credit-card door entry system. Without windows or mirrors, there would be just enough space to undress, exercise using a built-in stepper machine and then shower. The shower might even double as a spraywasher for the entire interior, after use.

These cubicles would be placed, using eg a forklift, in quiet locations, walkable from town centres. They would also record the level of usage of the stepper -allowing them to be relocated to the most effective sites and to provide encouragement to the users (identified on entry).

It’s about time the world had a new musical instrument that anyone could play (even the Stylophone was too hard for many of us).

Today’s invention is a wooden box (an old guitar body or even a cigar box, if you must). To this is attached an eccentric weight and a motor to rotate it. The motor is controlled by an external, rotary switch so that the frequency of the resulting vibration is variable.

In this way, a loud guitar-like noise can be made using only a single dial (rather than having to cope with all the usual plucking, pecking and bowing).

In order to allow a mechanical watch to stay as waterproof/dustproof as possible, today’s invention is one such watch with no winding crown to penetrate the case.

In fact there would be no route between inside and outside because the case would consist of a crystalline, transparent shell, formed by a process of computer-controlled deposition around the movement.

Setting the time would be done by having one of the hands made of soft iron. This could be rotated, using an external magnet applied to the front face and turned (This might also be used to wind the watch spring up, if turned anticlockwise).

For multi-leaf paper items, such as calendars and novels, today’s invention is a way to build in a representation of the passing time between the first and last sheets.

This takes the form of paper which is a pristine white on eg the January sheet but with each successive leaf increasingly wrinkled, stained and torn as the December page is approached.

If it’s good enough for Bugatti, then air brakes should be tried on other vehicles too.

Rather than using the crude flap approach, today’s invention takes the form of ‘petals’ which hinge outwards from a lightweight disc secured in place by the wheel bolts.

When the (conventional) brakes are applied, the petals would be actively driven outwards from their parked position, overlapped across the wheel hub. This would significantly increase the drag force on the vehicle, slowing it down and also providing a ‘cool’ visual effect.

On a left hand bend, for example, opening the petals on the left wheels would also serve to increase the turning effect and partially unload the steering.

Someone I know was recently playing golf when the rain got so heavy that the course was closed. Apparently, their Club’s insurance policy didn’t cover them for the possibility that a swinging stick might slip from a wet hand and collide with a wet head.

Today’s invention is a simple wrist strap for golfers which they would attach securely before playing a round. This would have a short lead ending in a plastic clip. The clip would be attached to one fitted to all clubs (bonded securely into where the endcap normally fits). This would allow normal grip of the club and the absolute minimum strap length to avoid interfering with one’s swing.

Exclusive golf clubs might also offer GPS tracking, information/alerts and clubhouse access facilities embedded within such a band.