The wheel's many reinventions
"Don't reinvent the wheel" is a common phrase, but structural engineer Roma Agrawal doesn't buy it.
Roma has a new book out, Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way). And in it, she argues that the re-interpretation of the wheel has been critical to modernizing the economy from a pottery wheel in ancient Mesopotamia to the gyroscope on the International Space Station.
Today, how this constant reinvention fuels economic progress.
Related Episodes:
What nails can tell us about the economy
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Roma has a new book out, Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way). And in it, she argues that the re-interpretation of the wheel has been critical to modernizing the economy from a pottery wheel in ancient Mesopotamia to the gyroscope on the International Space Station.
Today, how this constant reinvention fuels economic progress.
Related Episodes:
What nails can tell us about the economy
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
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