THE ARTS
Who: Henry Fox Talbot
Known for: Developing calotype.
Why you should know him: Amidst the rise in film photography today, many of us probably take photographs for granted, physical or otherwise. Without the Englishman’s breakthrough with the development of the calotype (an early photographic process using negatives), we wouldn’t have photography today. The cameras that we use have since evolved from the early days of little wooden boxes called mousetraps—much lighter, and easier to operate in the time of TikTok.
Who: Hyman Lipman
Known for: Registering the first patent for a pencil with an attached eraser.
We’re probably (mostly) over the time of picking up a pencil to physically write down notes, or to sketch something random on our notepad while trying to look busy during a meeting. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that we had the convenience of erasing pencil markings as soon as we made them—thanks to Lipman, who conceptualised an attached eraser on pencils.
