Screwdriver Facts

Facts related to "Screwdriver"

Phillips screws and screwdrivers should be called Thompsons. They were invented by John P. Thompson, who couldn't find a manufacturer and so sold the design to businessman Henry F. Phillips. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…
San Diego's tallest skyscraper is One America Plaza, which is the maximum height permitted there. The top of the building bears a striking resemblance to the end of a Phillips head screwdriver and has a similar appearance to Two Liberty Place in Philadelphia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One…
Not all cross head screws are Philips heads. There is another standard called JIS that was meant to prevent the screwdriver from jumping out and rounding the screw. rtstools.com/jis-vs-phill…
While Stan Lee was in the army he never missed a deadline for Timely Comics(Marvel in the 40s), when he discovered that mail was being withheld from him, he broke into the mailroom, unhinged the mailbox with the screwdriver, and submitted the assignment, which he was nearly jailed for. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sta…
The Demon Core was a piece of plutonium intended to be used in a third atomic bomb to drop on Japan... due to lax saftely standards, its criticality was being regulated with just a screwdriver, and two physicists were killed maintaining it en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dem…
There is a Space Screwdriver has been circling low Earth orbit at up to 21,600 miles per hour for the last 35 years. theguardian.com/science/2…
Today I learned of Louis Slotin, Manhattan Project physicist who died horribly after his screwdriver slipped and accidentally caused a runaway nuclear reaction. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou…
Screwdrivers "popping out" of Phillips-head screws is an intentional design goal of the Phillips-head shape, to prevent thread damage during automated manufacturing. The design remains popular even though improvements to automatic screwdrivers have largely eliminated its benefits. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scr…
Why there aren't Robertson screwdrivers in the US.

Robertson screws Screws (for metal or wood) with a square hole in the top rather than a straight or X-shaped one. Robertson screwdrivers come in different colors to indicate what size they are. Green number ones and red number twos are the most common. Robertson screws are just about impossible to strip, unlike Phillips-head ones, which become unusable about thirty seconds after you've brandished the screwdriver at them. They'd be popular in the States except that Henry Ford wanted exclusive rights to them, and Robertson (the inventor, a Canadian) refused to sell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives

Philips screws were designed so the screwdriver slips out to prevent over-tightening en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi…
On May 21st, 1946 a US scientist named Louis Slotin was doing experiments to find critical mass when he let a screwdriver slip and accidentally started a fission reaction. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou…
Louis Slotin, a physicist who worked on the manhatten project, died because his hand slipped while holding a screwdriver, which incidentally caused himself and 7 others to be exposed to a massive amount of radiation. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou…
In 2001, a surgeon was in a situation, due to some admitted level of incompetence, that required him to improvise and place a portion of surgical grade stainless steel screwdriver into a patient's spine. He and his hospital were later sued for $5.6 million. He tells his side of the story here. kevinmd.com/blog/2009/08/…
There's another type of screwdriver, other than flathead or Phillips, that's popular in Canada: the Robertson, with a square slot thomasnet.com/articles/ha…
Today I learned about the 'Curta mechanical calculator' - "Many purchasers were the "nerds" of that era, and many were armed with a screwdriver and an insatiable curiosity." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cur…
There is a term for when the screwdriver slips out of a screw when it gets too tight en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam…
The cocktail "screwdriver" origins from Persian Oil Workers in the 1920s. When lacking a spoon to stir, they used screwdrivers. businessinsider.com/the-o…
The drink name "screwdriver" came from engineers mixing vodka into cans of orange juice using screwdrivers. youtu.be/fK-2COWZgbs
The screwdriver was invented centuries after the screw. The screw was invented around the 3rd century BC, while the screwdriver was invented during the Middle Ages. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scr…
The screw has been around since about 400 bc but the screwdriver has only been around since about 1700 ad uh.edu/engines/epi1581.ht…
In Doctor Who, the First Doctor portrayed by William Hartnell never used a Sonic Screwdriver. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son…
The 'screwdriver' drink got its name from American petroleum engineers, while in Saudi Arabia, putting vodka in their canned orange juice and stirring them with screwdrivers en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…
Scientists at the University of Dundee created their own Doctor Who styled Sonic Screwdriver lifting and spinning a free-floating 10 cm diameter rubber disk with an ultrasound beam. (Video link in article) dundee.ac.uk/pressrelease…
A 95-year-old wheelchair-bound women fought off a burglar with a screwdriver and won: he passed out from blood loss. jobsanger.blogspot.com/20…
During the assassination of Soviet official Sergei Kirov, the assassin was captured after an electrician threw a screwdriver at him "with such force that it pinned the assassin's wrist to the wall" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ser…

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