The Indicator from Planet Money
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
The wheel's many reinventions
8 minutes Posted Dec 7, 2023 at 9:53 pm.
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"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.

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