!060194 A book on the invention of zippers A new book has been published, "Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty" by Robert Friedel, available from Norton, New York, NY, $23. The book has gotten good reviews for reviewing how a string of people struggled to invent and commercialize the zipper. To quote the head of Bell Laboratories in 1943: "I have often thought of how infinitesimally small would have been the chance of any may or group of men, except the one who actually had the idea, planning to invent the common zipper". Interesting facts such as that in 1991 1.25 million miles of zippers were produced, fill the book. From the reviews, it seems to be a good mix of historical review, entrepreneurial analysis and social mores under which the zipper became popular. And what's a book today without sex, here the metaphor of the zipper's efficiency and effortless and anonymous sex. As important as inventing devices is commercialization, which oftens depend as much on social and psychological details as it does business saavy. Books like Zipper (and a book published last year on the history of Pencils) can be very inspiring to us basement tinkerers. Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service