{"id":5149,"date":"2011-08-25T00:11:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T07:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=5149"},"modified":"2024-12-11T22:30:36","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T06:30:36","slug":"the-slinky-was-originally-used-for-testing-horsepower-on-battle-ships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/the-slinky-was-originally-used-for-testing-horsepower-on-battle-ships\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slinky was Originally Intended to be Used as a Tension Spring in a Battleship Engine Horsepower Meter"},"content":{"rendered":"
Note: This is a guest article contributed by frequent TIFO visitor and owner of DumpADay<\/a>, Jon.
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\"\"<\/a>Today I found the Slinky was originally intended to be used as a tension spring in a battleship engine horsepower meter.<\/p>\n

In 1943, Richard James, a marine engineer in a Philadelphia shipyard, was working at his desk, developing a special meter designed to monitor the horsepower output on naval battleships.\u00a0 This meter required the use of special springs in order to stabilize the instrument in rough seas.\u00a0 At a certain point, James accidentally knocked a length of one of the springs he was working with off his desk.\u00a0\u00a0 To his amazement, the spring fell from its position on the desk, then “walked” from that point to a stack of books, and eventually on to the floor where it coiled back up.<\/p>\n

Richard rushed home and told his wife about what happened and said, “I think if I got the right property of steel and the right tension, I could make it walk.”.\u00a0 He went on to tell her he thought he could make a child’s toy out of it.<\/p>\n

After some time, Richard made a few prototypes, which he let children in his neighborhood play with in order to gauge the response, which ended up being overwhelmingly positive.\u00a0 His wife, Betty, then searched for a name for this new toy. After searching through the dictionary for hours, she finally settled on “Slinky”, meaning “sinuous and slender” and had previously been used mainly as an adjective to describe women or clothing.<\/p>\n

With a $500 loan to pay a company to manufacture a small quantity of Slinkies, in 1945, Richard and Betty made an attempt to sell the toy in a retail outlet store in Philadelphia. The retail store agreed to put 400 Slinkies on display for the upcoming Christmas shoppers. After a few days and no sales, Richard began to fear the worst.\u00a0\u00a0 He decided to go down to the store and display what the toy could do.\u00a0 His wife Betty agreed to meet up with him later that night.\u00a0\u00a0 When she arrived, she saw a line of customers purchasing every last slinky. All 400 Slinkies sold in 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

And the rest, as they say is history…<\/p>\n

Bonus<\/span> Facts<\/strong><\/p>\n