Barcodes/Barcode Scanners
1949 - Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland Invent the Barcode
Bernard Silver, born September 21, 1924, and Norman Joseph Woodland, born September 6, 1921, were both inventors, and are best known as the creators of the barcode. Both were graduate students at the Drexel Institute of Technology in 1948, when Bernard Silver overheard a conversation between a supermarket executive and Drexel's dean of students. The supermarket executive was asking the dean of students to figure out a way to obtain product information automatically at checkout. While Drexel's dean of students turned down the supermarket executive's request, Silver mentioned the problem to Woodland. After thinking up some preliminary ideas, Woodland agreed that a solution to the problem was viable. Thus, Woodland quit his teaching job, took some of his stock market earnings, and moved to his grandfather's apartment in Florida. While sitting on the beach contemplating the problem, Woodland remembered his Boy Scout training on Morse code. Morse code uses dots and dashes to send information electronically. Woodland started to draw Morse code in the sand. Then, he began to turn the dots into thin lines and the dashes into thick lines in the sand. This drawing gave him the idea for a two dimensional Morse code that used thick and thin lines, rather than dots and dashes. After sharing his idea with Silver, the two applied for a patent on October 20, 1949. After successfully receiving the patent, the two tried to have IBM develop and market their idea, but after discovering it wasn't feasible commercially, the two sold the idea to Philco for $15,000 in 1952.
Bernard Silver, born September 21, 1924, and Norman Joseph Woodland, born September 6, 1921, were both inventors, and are best known as the creators of the barcode. Both were graduate students at the Drexel Institute of Technology in 1948, when Bernard Silver overheard a conversation between a supermarket executive and Drexel's dean of students. The supermarket executive was asking the dean of students to figure out a way to obtain product information automatically at checkout. While Drexel's dean of students turned down the supermarket executive's request, Silver mentioned the problem to Woodland. After thinking up some preliminary ideas, Woodland agreed that a solution to the problem was viable. Thus, Woodland quit his teaching job, took some of his stock market earnings, and moved to his grandfather's apartment in Florida. While sitting on the beach contemplating the problem, Woodland remembered his Boy Scout training on Morse code. Morse code uses dots and dashes to send information electronically. Woodland started to draw Morse code in the sand. Then, he began to turn the dots into thin lines and the dashes into thick lines in the sand. This drawing gave him the idea for a two dimensional Morse code that used thick and thin lines, rather than dots and dashes. After sharing his idea with Silver, the two applied for a patent on October 20, 1949. After successfully receiving the patent, the two tried to have IBM develop and market their idea, but after discovering it wasn't feasible commercially, the two sold the idea to Philco for $15,000 in 1952.
Justification - Bernard Silver, Norman Joseph Woodland and the barcode were included in this project for a good reason. The barcode was developed by Norman Joseph Woodland and is based on a form of Morse code. Due to the fact that it's hard to improve the barcode, the barcode that Silver and Woodland developed is still used today. This invention helped improve the world.