How many inventions do you suppose came about because of the curiosity of children?

I watched “The History of Glass,” on PBS last night. It started with the Italians discovering, and perfecting, the art of glass blowing to make art objects.

Then somebody, in some tiny Italian town, discovered that if you take a piece of domed glass, that is flat on the bottom, it magnifies things, such as the tiny script of hand written Bibles. And glasses eventually evolved out of that (as did the printing press, which started as a modified version of the grape press.)

Then, another glass blower, in that same small town, saw his kids playing with a couple of pieces of domed glass. They were holding one piece in front of the other. He realized that this made things that were far away look very close. And the telescope was invented.

And then the microscope. And fiber glass. And fiber optics. It was a fascinating program. To me, anyway.

But this got me to wondering. Kids can think outside of the box in ways that most adults can’t. In the 80’s, when we had our first computer, my 2 year old was sitting on my lap and started banging on random keys…and that’s how I discovered short cut keys.

So shall we use our imaginations and create scenarios of inventions that could have evolved because of the curiosity of children?