MILES SULLIVAN “The Father of Inventions”
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MILES SULLIVAN “The Father Of Inventions” June 26, 2006 Contact: Dave Brodsky DaSBro Enterprise 2760 Grand Concourse #3K Bronx, NY 10458 phone: (718) 933-0633 fax: (718) 933-3563 email:[email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3 Fact Sheet 4 “The Father Of Inventions” by Anne Sullivan 5 The Bobbing Bird (a/k/a The Dipping Bird, The Drinking Bird, The Dunking Bird) 7 Newspaper/Magazine Articles 9 U.S. Patent Office; Registration # 2,402,463; June 18, 1946; Novelty Device 17 2 Introduction Miles Sullivan, 89, lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The father of three, grandfather of nine and, as of last year, a great grandfather, he is known for his invention of the bobbing bird - the bird that sits on the edge of a glass of water and perpetually bobs for water using no energy source. Miles worked for Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey for 35 years, his work yielding more than a dozen patents. He is still active, helping resolve computer problems for his friends and family, as well as fixing plumbing and electricity problems at the family cottage in Paw Paw, Michigan. 3 Fact Sheet x Born Miles V. Sullivan in 1917; Winona, Minnesota x Served In World War II, U.S. Navy, Lieutenant x Ph.D. from Purdue University x Married in 1948 to Evelyn x Inventor x Holder of numerous patents x Settled in Summit, New Jersey x Worked for 35 years at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey x Three children: Douglas: lawyer, Executive Vice President – Michaels Stores, Inc., Dallas, Texas; Anne: musician, teacher, Wheaton, Illinois; Daughter: Jane, Social Director Riverside Place, Midland, Michigan x Widowed in 2004 x Currently residing in Kalamazoo, Michigan 4 “The Father Of Inventions” © 2003, Anne Sullivan (daughter) All I could think gaining new information was “Dodging college, Miles?” the about was how tempered by a growing unease that teacher queried. itchy the most of our household appliances Disappointment was written on electrodes on my were struggling with multiple both of their faces. temples had personalities. It could be laser beams, “College is only a dream at this become. But I computer chips, the little bobbing bird point,” my father responded, couldn’t let my that made my father internationally mirroring his teacher's frustration. mind linger there famous, or just the dial on a washing “You need to be – you must be – in too long, because the physicists had machine – in the end, they all college Miles. I will get you there.” an uncanny way of tracing my eye assumed human personalities. Single-handedly arranging a full movements when I lapsed into a Difficulties can inspire humor and scholarship to Wabash College, daydream. I was a test subject – creativity – my father, Miles Sullivan, covering tuition, room and board, and officially. Unofficially, I was a 16- is proof of that. In central Minnesota even a steady job, the teacher couldn’t year old trying to earn college money of the early 1920’s warmth and easy have foreseen the additional degrees, at my father’s laboratories. living were as common as, well, down a master’s and Ph.D. from Purdue Surrounded by musty books, jackets in Florida. I’m not sure if University. disheveled papers, test tubes and, thoughts of this sort ever crossed my With the ink on his undergraduate bulky components, I spent my school father’s mind though. Whatever diploma barely dry, my father was vacations enduring glued-on provided a challenge and whatever drafted into World War II service – electrodes, refrigerator temperatures could be invented, or even reinvented, his main residence, The Naval in the computer rooms and talking made him smile. Research Laboratory in Washington, computers that had years to go before After his father died, a small one- D.C. the warmth of a human voice would room Winona store front - a tiny A four-year stint as a lieutenant in be programmed into them. general store, complete with sewing the Navy sparked ideas for several Just one of the many Ph.D. supplies, food, gum and comic books patents. As the war was drawing to a inventor-scientists at Bell Labs in – doubled as living quarters for my close, his partially finished Murray Hill, NJ, my father’s father, his brother and their mother. A assignment was to reduce the telltale credentials were fairly ordinary in that small curtain near the back of the bubble trails left by torpedoes; the setting. But, he was far from an store did its best to partition off the trails worried the Allies because they ordinary man and far from an ordinary boys’ bed from the rest of the gave the enemy advance warning of father. As much as he loved pure cramped store. an impending attack. His emotions a science – the pride of every true With limited heat and no hot water mix of intrigue and trepidation, he scientist – he loved his family more. for bathing at home, my father and his would occasionally stand on a Patience came easily to my father, brother were star struck by the platform in the middle of Chesapeake and he never seemed to tire of his luxuries offered at the local YMCA. Bay taking notes while comrades three children’s unscientific minds. By day their needs were well-served launched torpedoes directly under his “But, how does this work, Dad,” at the Y, but during cold Minnesota feet. was our perpetual theme. His answers nights, nothing could prevent snow What does one do after returning were thematic too. from blowing through the store’s from a war? A Purdue University The sensor filament inside the cracked walls, randomly accumulating Ph.D. partially in hand, my father toaster says to the release mechanism: by the beds. married my mother, a graduate “Our toast looks just crusty enough to By the end of high school it was student in English literature. Their eject now.” apparent that his mind was capable of non-traditional honeymoon was The soap says to the grease on your great things, but a lack of money peppered with job interviews hands: “You’re history!” stubbornly blocked my father's stretching from the east coast back to The battery’s positive charge says college aspirations. Months after their roots in the midwest. to the negative: “Potentially, we graduation, an accidental meeting Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ could make a complete circuit.” with a former math teacher settled the quickly hired my father as a member The answers usually launched my issue. of their semiconductor technology brain into battle – the enthusiasm for team. He soon acquired a series of 5 patents, including photo-mask Albert Einstein’s encounter with the where the building's passkey appeared lithography systems used in computer bird was reported in a 1964 Time to be: “above all else, let’s never be chip circuitry. He also developed new Magazine story. After several days of routine – if it’s new and different, contacts that allowed energy to flow theorizing about what propelled the let’s develop it, and let’s revel in it.” away from solar panels and into little bird, the great physicist's He’s 86 now. He’s still a mix of energy-consuming machines. These attempts at unraveling the bird's secret contentment and discontent that he contacts are still widely used in proved futile. can’t reinvent everything he comes in communications systems as well as At one point, Einstein believed he contact with. experimental projects like the Mars had the perpetual motion puzzle When toaster filaments converse rovers. solved. His explanation was based on about degrees of crustiness – and they Facts tumbled out of my father’s the assumption that gas in a tube do – my father is still listening in, brain like salt from a loosely-capped within the bird alternately condensed taking notes, dreaming up a newer, shaker. He must have been born with and vaporized to shift weight, but he better, and more chatty toaster. an extra curiosity gene, because his soon realized he had hit a flaw in his fascination with life permeated reasoning. Admitting defeat but everything he touched. Except remaining a purist, he refused to take clothes. He was, and still is, a type of apart the little bird in order to find a black hole in the fashion world. But solution. my mother gracefully filled this Talk of the puzzling toy continued. problematic void. Presenting him to A reporter from This Week magazine the world each day in passably wrote, “... the bird has fascinated and matching navys or blacks, she got his fooled scientists for years. A friend of ties tied, tuck-ins tucked in, and mine ... had been to a big dinner and button-downs buttoned down. sat near President Herbert Hoover, Pursued by lawyers and marketers and was delighted to hear him attempting to partner with him in discussing the little bird. Mr. Hoover business, my father stubbornly refused said that he, as an engineer, had to stray too far from his love of pure thought a lot about it and finally science. During an interview soon guessed the secret. Was Mr. Hoover after he gained the bobbing bird right, I asked. Nope – not even patent, an Associated Press reporter close!” quoted him as saying, “My heart is In 1949 a Washington Post reporter not in business; my field is science.” said that the drinking bird was the top But, he also liked having fun. In entertainment feature in the House 1946 he patented the little toy bird and Senate. Miles Sullivan hadn't yet that seems to bob endlessly for water set foot on Capitol Hill, but the little without an apparent energy source.