Invention
The earliest forebears of the bicycle were velocipedes, and included many human-powered vehicles. One, the scooter-like dandy horse or celerifere of the French Comte de Sivrac, dating to 1790, was long cited as the earliest bicycle. Most historians now believe these unsteerable hobby-horses probably never existed, but were made up by Louis Baudry de Saunier, a 19th-century French bicycle historian.
The most likely originator of the bicycle was the German Baron Karl von Drais, who rode his 1816 machine while collecting taxes from his tenants. He patented his draisine, a pushbike powered by the action of the rider's feet pushing against the ground.
Read more about this topic: French Bicycle Industry
Famous quotes containing the word invention:
“Justice is a moral virtue, merely because it has that tendency to the good of mankind, and indeed is nothing but an artificial invention to that purpose. The same may be said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good manners. All these are mere human contrivances for the interest of society.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”
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““Art” is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers.... What we call art is a game.”
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