Screw That Wouldn't Loosen?
"The wheel falling off - it's like an episode in Lupin III, no? But, it really happened. And that motivated me to create a screw that wouldn't come loose. Such a screw would eliminate the kinds of accident I personally experienced.
"I thought of, first, putting aside the conventional image of screw thread - the spiral thread, that is. An idea crossed my mind of a special kind of screw thread that wouldn't loosen either way, right or left, with the two nuts interfering."
"I actually set out to make one way afterward, though - a decade after my accidents."
Hiroshi Michiwaki recalls his childhood spent in his mother's laboratory, playing with watches, sensors and such mechanisms. He made a lightbulb that went on and off as people approached far and near the bulb.
He says he was obsessed with his mind's dream of what he could to help people out through his inventions.
"Invention must have been a thought that bound me and the world," says he. "If my inventions prove useful," adds he, "the world is then worth my living in."
Quite a story - a series of car accidents led to a rare invention. More power to you, Hiroshi Michiwaki. (Nathan Shiga)
Source: Nikkei
