This joke is actually true of the can opener. The metal can was invented as a way to preserve foods hundreds of years before the can opener was invented. People would quite literally simply smash the cans open or use whatever tools at their disposal to open them. Cans with liquids were often punctured at the top with a spiked implement of some sort, even motor oil came in such cans for a long time after cars were invented. It wasn’t until much later that designs of self opening (such as by tab or peelable lid) can would appear, and the can opener as an implement as well took centuries. Early can openers looked little like what we know today, as cans tended to be thick metal and designed very differently. The modern can designed for easy interface with a can opener actually came out after the opener did!
Lol. Yeah. What is funny isn’t the invention of the tool after the item- people solve problems when there is a problem to solve. It’s the length of time after. The screw was invented a looong time ago. Metal screws date from around the 15th century. The earliest known “screw driver” was invented around the 1740’s. It was an add on for a carpenters brace (sort of a hand held drill with an exentric center like a spare car jack handle on a car, and tending to be about as large (1-2’ length or so).
Mass produced screws came about 1770, and the first hand held screw driver like one we would recognize was around 1800! That’s 4 centuries from inventing the screw to inventing a screw driver, and about 60 years from the point it was recognized a convenient and portable tool was needed for screws to actually making one! So it’s just funny is all how long it took when in modern times we have an almost endless parade of new tools and variations of designs coming out to address any problem.
*throws can at floor* "Microsoft went down two points today!" - Sunny Koufax, Big Daddy.
@guest_ as for the screw... it's even longer if you consider the Archimedes' screw... although I doubt you do since that was one a totally different scale and for an entirely different purpose.
In this case I wasn’t even thinking of it, but good point. Even though it wasn’t so much a fastener as a machine- I think you’re right to include it. It shows a gap of thousands of years between the invention of the screw and the discovery of its principals; and the application of the screw as a fastener. Several types of Ancient machinery using screw type components as clock work mechanisms has been found and dated to well before it was believed such principles and crafting ability should exist. So that’s quite a long time for humanity to have sat on what is- even though it seems simple and plain- a world changing invention. So thousands of years before a tool to turn screws was invented, the screw was invented as a tool that turned!
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Mass produced screws came about 1770, and the first hand held screw driver like one we would recognize was around 1800! That’s 4 centuries from inventing the screw to inventing a screw driver, and about 60 years from the point it was recognized a convenient and portable tool was needed for screws to actually making one! So it’s just funny is all how long it took when in modern times we have an almost endless parade of new tools and variations of designs coming out to address any problem.
@guest_ as for the screw... it's even longer if you consider the Archimedes' screw... although I doubt you do since that was one a totally different scale and for an entirely different purpose.