Lay a patch.

You know you're having a good day when there is a choice of cool things invented on the same day. I am torn between tire (tyres for those British folk) and the Dewey Decimal System. Seeing how in my own way, I have had a few discoveries about tires in the last few weeks, I will run with the invention of the pneumatic tire by British engineer Robert William Thompson in 1845. Mind you I will get back one day soon and prattle on about Melvil Dewey.

Born in 1822 in Stonehaven Scotland, he was one of several very famous Scottish inventors of the 19th century. He ranks with John Baird (television), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone) and another rubber pioneer, John Dunlop. More about that relationship in a minute.

The 11th of 12 children he was chosen for the ministry but couldn't figure out Latin, so at 14 he went to North America to stay with relatives in South Carolina. That didn't pan out either, so he was back in under 2 years. He did, however, have a natural ability with chemistry and physics.

His father, recognizing a budding mind, set up a shop for him. His first project was the rebuilding of his mothers washing mangle (that must have gone over well).He apprenticed with an engineering firm and started work in Edinburgh as a civil engineer.One of his early engineering coups was coming up with a way to ignite explosives with electricity. Miners loved him.

Off to London in 1844 to work in the budding railway industry. It was here he came up with his patent for an air filled tire or aerial wheel as he called it.The trouble was there were no cars then, bicycles were a curiosity, and no one with a cart could afford the luxury of air filled rubber tires to run their chickens to market. It was almost 35 years later when Dunlop re-invented the pneumatic tire that they actually took off commercially. No matter. Thomson also patented the fountain pen and steam shovel, so there.