Invention

Chemist Fredric Baur, whose Invention was the iconic Pringles tube Packaging, asked that his ashes be buried in a Pringles can. When he died in 2008, his family stopped at a drugstore on the way to the funeral to buy an original-flavor can and placed his remains inside.

Lewis Carroll, author of 'Alice in Wonderland,' invented a writing system called Nyctography for writing in complete darkness. Every letter consists of dots and lines that fit a square grid. With a cardboard template called a nyctograph, he could write legibly with his eyes closed.

The Yagi-Uda antenna, invented in Japan in 1926, was vital for radar, but Japan ignored it. Britain used it to gain a decisive edge in World War II. At Singapore, Japanese soldiers found "Yagi" in a British technician's notes—and asked him what it meant.

In 1945, engineer Percy Spencer noticed his chocolate bar had melted near a radar device. He tried popcorn—it popped. An egg exploded. Realizing microwaves heated water molecules, he patented the idea, and the world's first microwave oven was born.

In 2004, physicist Andre Geim discovered graphene by peeling scotch tape off graphite during a casual Friday evening experiment. This "dream nanomaterial"—200 times stronger than steel and 100 times more electrically conductive than copper—earned him the Nobel Prize in 2010.

The hot air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783 was made of hemp sacking and lifted by burning straw and wool. The only skills required were sewing and fire-making—technically possible since the Neolithic era.

About 1,700 years before James Watt, the Egyptian mathematician Heron invented the first steam engine, the Aeolipile. A sphere filled with water, when heated, released steam through nozzles, spinning the ball — likely used to open temple doors.

The lighter was invented before the match. In 1823, German chemist Döbereiner created the first lighter using hydrogen from a zinc-sulfuric acid reaction. The friction match wasn't invented until 1827, four years later, by English chemist John Walker.

The world's first sunglasses were invented about 2,000 years ago by Arctic indigenous people. They carved animal bones or ivory to fit the face with thin slits, preventing snow blindness from UV rays reflected off the snow.