Theme: Inventors

Inventors are the genius scientists that frequently turn up in science-fiction. Inventors are frequently known to be eccentric and frequently absent-minded about everyday matters and are almost always bespectacled. They can be middle-aged and white-haired or young juvenile nerds.

They are capable of churning out an amazing array of devices, inventions and Fantastical Vehicles that are usually passport to a series of adventures or comic escapades or else are given to friends or relatives who will depart on such adventures.

The concept of the inventor came out of turn of the 20th Century scientists – in particular Thomas Edison who created the image of the genius pushing amazing frontiers of research in their own laboratory. This image came at contrast to real world science, which has increasingly been conducted by university, private or government laboratories involving research grants, double-blind experiments, teams of scientists and engineers and rigorous publication of peer-reviewed papers.

The inventor was popular on screen throughout the 1930s through the 1960s from Flash Gordon’s Dr Zarkov to a range of screwball comedies from Disney in the 1960s. Nowadays the inventor is more a comic caricature, although such geniuses regularly appear from time to time, often in children’s works.

Inventors should be differentiated with those whose discoveries have a habit of going amok and causing social chaos who are listed under Mad Scientists.