The Development of the Gyrocompass – Inventors as Navigators

Abstract

Most reference books or monographs about the history of the gyrocompass portray individual inventors, each as an inventive genius, respected as a national hero and probably depicted creating novelties in ‘brooding meditation’. This seems to be an accepted, rather comfortable point of view, as the subject covers the invention of a ‘black-box’-type too. But the invention, development and the adaption of this gyro instrument in a complex technological and social system was not achieved on the basis of a ‘single-handed’ venture.If emerging technologies are not only scientific, but also involve social or cultural requirements, then communication along the networks of knowledge between inventor, mechanic and mathematician, the code of patent lawyers and financiers and – last but not least – navigation officers and the red tape of a navy must play an influential role. I would thus like to sketch out the subject of invention as communication and present the inventor as a navigator, someone who leads his crew through all currents, shallows and drifts and, while keeping ahead of other competitors, arrives at some still uncertain location.