What do you need for an invention to be a success?
To begin with, good timing is very1 . You can have a good idea which the public doesn't want yet. Take Giovanni Caselli as an example. He invented the first fax machine in the 1860s. Though the quality was excellent, his invention quickly2 . The fax machine did not become a necessary piece of equipment in every office until the 1980s.
Money also helps. The Frenchman Denis Papin had the idea for a steam engine almost a hundred years before James Watt was born. Denis never had enough money to3 one.
You also need to be patient. It took scientists nearly eighty years to invent a light bulb.
4 , you shouldn't be too slow. In the 1870s, Elisha Gray developed plans for a telephone. Gray saw it only as "a beautiful toy". When he finally sent details of his invention to the Patent Office ( 专 利 局 ) on February 14th, 1876, it was too5 . Almost the same designs had arrived just two hours earlier. The young man who sent them was Alexander Graham Bell. He is remembered as the inventor of the telephone.
Of course what you really need is a wonderful idea. If you haven't got one, a walk in the countryside and a careful look at6 can help. The Swiss scientist, George de Mestral, had the idea for Velcro (粘扣) when he found his clothes covered in sticky seed pods after a walk in the countryside.
