The invention of the Slinky The Slinky was made by Richard T. James who was born on January 1, 1914 in Delaware and he graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1939. When World War 2 started he worked at William Cramp & Sons shipyard. His job there was to design equipment for submarines and ships. He was aboard naval ships trying to make ship equipment steady when in rough seas and he dropped a spring and seen how it rolled. He then got his wife Betty to come up with a name and she looked through the dictionary and for a word closest to what the spring did and found slinky. While his wife found a name he made a machine that coiled 80 feet of wire into smaller springs. He had to redesign the Slinky for over a year until he found the right size because the stairs of that time were much bigger so he had to find a size that would walk down the stairs. He came up with a Slinky that was 0.0575 inches in its diameter. The spring “walks” because of a law of physics called Hooke’s Law. Hooke’s Law states that however much force is put on a spring dictates how far the spring with travel. The Slinky also travels downstairs without stopping because it turns potential energy into kinetic energy …show more content…
At first people didn’t like it and thought it was too plain. A store called Gimbels was the first store that helped them advertise their product before Christmas in 1945. Richard made a stand inside the store and showed off the store to people passing by. By Christmas he sold around 20,000 Slinkys. They then went to National Toy shows and by the end of 2 years they sold more than 200 million Slinkys In 1947, Richard made a patent on his product and made other Slinky products. The Slinky was integrated into lots of other things like antennas and light