The Counterintuitive Fact at the Centre of It
For the first half of the twentieth century, cars were built to resist damage. A heavy chassis, thick steel, rigid construction. After…
A smoke alarm is a white plastic disc with a button and a battery, and the assumption is that something inside it can somehow see smoke. Neither of the two…
The height is the mechanism, not the storage. Here are sixteen.
1. The Height Is the Pressure
Water pressure at a tap comes from the vertical distance down from the…
The cheapest components on the building, protecting the most expensive ones. Here are eleven.
1. They Stop the Roof Edge Being Fed Into the Wall
A roof with no gutter…
Somebody laid it, and then everybody dug it up. Here are ten.
1. Large Rectangular Slabs Mean Somebody Was Spending
Big sawn stone flags were expensive and were laid where…
Nobody numbered a house until somebody official wanted something. Here are eleven.
1. Numbering Was Imposed, Not Adopted
Systematic house numbering spread through Europe in the eighteenth century, introduced by…