Google fetes zipper inventor with latest Doodle

A big zipper on Internet giant Google's homepage Tuesday morning marked the search giant's tribute to the inventor of the zipper, Gideon Sundback.

 

Visitors to Google's homepage were greeted with a giant zipper - the interactive doodle - dividing the screen.

 

Clicking on the zipper, as in the past, would reveal a Search Results page for Gideon Sundback, whose 132nd birth anniversary was marked on Tuesday.

 

However, some visitors might have more fun getting to the search results page by dragging the zipper handle all the way down to reveal the search results page.

 

Sundback was a Swedish-American electrical engineer most associated with the fastening device that revolutionized the clothing industry, UK's The Guardian noted.

 

The Guardian said that while the idea of a fastener based on interlocking teeth had circulated among engineers for more than 20 years, it was Sundback who perfected it.

 

"His innovation was to place a dimple on the underside of each tooth and a nib on the top that would sit securely within the dimple of the tooth above it," The Guardian said.

 

Sundback, born on April 24, 1880 in Småland, Sweden, moved to Germany following his studies and emigrated in 1905 to the United States.

 

There, he worked at Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was then hired to work for the Universal Fastener Company in Hoboken, New Jersey, and became its head designer in 1909.

 

He died in 1954 and was interred at Greendale cemetery in Meadville, Pennsylvania. — RSJ, GMA News