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Nairaland Forum / Entertainment / Celebrities / Artur Fischer,inventor With More Patents Than Edison(light Bulb), Dies At 96 (427 Views)
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Artur Fischer,inventor With More Patents Than Edison(light Bulb), Dies At 96 by ashjay001(m): 3:58pm On Feb 09, 2016 |
Artur Fischer, a German
inventor who registered more
than 1,100 patents, including
the first synchronized camera
flash and an anchor that
millions of do-it-yourselfers
use to secure screws into walls,
died on Jan. 27 at his home in
Waldachtal, in southwestern
Germany. He was 96.
His death was announced by
his company, the Fischer
Group.
Mr. Fischer, a locksmith by
training and an obsessive
tinkerer, came up with his first
patented invention in 1947,
when he wanted to take
pictures of his newborn
daughter.
“At the time, you could only
use a powder flash for interior
shots, which you had to ignite
with a cord,” he told the
magazine Der Spiegel in 2015.
“It was dangerous, and the
picture quality was poor
because the subject usually
blinked at the flash.”
He came up with a
synchronized mechanism that
triggered the flash when the
shutter was released. The
device was bought by Agfa, a
large camera company, and
Mr. Fischer was on his way,
coming up with hundreds of
solutions to nagging technical
problems over the next seven
decades.
In 1958, he addressed a
problem faced by construction
workers and home-repair
amateurs alike: how to insert a
screw securely into plaster or
drywall. He devised a nylon
plug with a split tip to be
inserted into a drilled hole. As
the screw turned, the plug
prevented it from dislodging
the plaster. As the screw
advanced toward the tip, the
anchor expanded, pressing
tightly against the hole. Two
anti-rotation fins on the plug
wedged into the plaster,
keeping the anchor securely in
place.
This was the proverbial better
mousetrap, a major
improvement from the hemp-
filled metal anchors then in
use. Today, about 14 million of
Mr. Fischer’s plugs are
produced every day around the
world.
“What Bill Gates was to the
personal computer, Artur
Fischer is to do-it-yourself
home repair,” Der Spiegel
wrote in its interview.
Mr. Fischer’s other inventions
included Fischertechnik model-
making kits, cup holders with
retractable lids, ventilation
nozzles and edible play-
modeling material made from
potato starch.
“I am interested in any
problem to which I can provide
a solution,” Mr. Fischer told the
German magazine Technology
Review in 2007.
His total number of inventions
put him just ahead of Thomas
Edison, who had 1,093 patents
to his name. In recognition of
Mr. Fischer’s work, the
European Patent Office gave
him a lifetime achievement
award in 2014.
Artur Fischer was born on Dec.
31, 1919, in Tumlingen, now
part of Waldachtal. He was the
son of a tailor. His mother, who
ironed collars to make ends
meet, recognized her son’s
mechanical aptitude and
encouraged him at every turn,
helping him set up a
workbench at home and
buying him the German
equivalent of an Erector Set.
Artur attended a vocational
school but left at age 13 to
serve an apprenticeship with a
locksmith in Stuttgart,
Germany. He joined the Hitler
Youth and enlisted in the
military with the hope of
becoming a pilot, but he was
nearsighted, short and lacked a
high school diploma. He was
trained as a mechanic for the
Luftwaffe and was assigned to
a base in the Palatinate region,
where Adolf Hitler paid a
surprise Christmas visit in
1939.
“I had made a model airplane
to give my mother as a
Christmas present,” Mr.
Fischer told Der Spiegel. “Then
my commanding officer said
that I was the best mechanic
and I should give the plane to
Hitler. It was a horrible time.”
Mr. Fischer survived the Battle
of Stalingrad, leaving on the
last plane, and later in the war
was captured in Italy and sent
to a prisoner-of-war camp in
England. After returning to his
hometown in 1946, he found
work as an assistant at an
engineering company and
began making lighters and
loom switches out of military
scrap. In 1948, he founded his
own company, the Fischer
Group, which today has 42
international subsidiaries,
employs 4,000 people
worldwide and sells its 14,000
products in more than 100
countries.
In Germany, Mr. Fischer is
famous for his Fischertechnik
kits — sets of nylon blocks with
electric motors and
photosensitive cells that
schoolchildren and hobbyists
have used to make machines
and robots, and engineers have
used to model prototypes. The
first kits were given to clients
in 1964 as Christmas gifts, but
they were so popular that they
were sold to consumers the
next year.
Many of Mr. Fischer’s humble
inventions led to spinoffs. He
applied the principle of his
wall plug, for example, to
create a series of surgical plugs
to hold broken bones together.
Mr. Fischer’s wife, the former
Rita Gonser, died in 2013. He is
survived by a son, Klaus, and a
daughter, Margot Fischer-
Weber.
One of Mr. Fischer’s most
recent inventions is a gadget
that makes it possible to hold
and cut the top off an egg of
any size. He got started on the
problem when a hotel owner
complained to him that his
guests, on opening their boiled
eggs for breakfast, always
made a mess — the year was
1946. |
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