What Color is My World

What Color Is My World? The Lost history of African American Inventors

Very interesting and engaging!

This book is kind of a strange hybrid that pulls together a variety of elements

We have a story about a brother and sister who move into an old house. Mr. R. E. Mital, the local handyman helps them clean up the house, gets them to work together, and uses his engaging narrative to hip the kids to the hidden history of African American inventors.

There are three distinct elements that come together in this book. You have the story of the siblings and R. E. Mital. The second component is Mital’s embedded and interspersed information about black inventors. The third component consists of the notes and entries from the “journals” that the kids make based on their conversations with Mital.

The effect is quite profound. Information is presented on different levels and in different voices. For example, the kids’ journals boast a more informal writing style and provide a kids’ eye view translation of Mital’s information. This contrast is an opportunity to provide students with insights into note taking and putting information in your own words.

The inventions and topics of focus include the following.

Gamma Electric Cell

Induction Telegraph

Louis Latimer

Computer Innovations

Foil Electret Microphone (commonly used in cell phones)

Bread Machine

Food Preservation Innovations

Potato Chips

Refrigerated Railroad Cars

Open Heart Surgery

Charles Drew

Ice Cream Scoop

Super Soaker

There are also some very engaging graphic novel style pages. My favorite is the one that features Garrett Morgan’s first use of his “safety hood” invention. This device was a precursor to gas masks and respirators. It was previously untested when Morgan happened upon the scene of a fire. It was too smoky for the firefighters to go in and rescue the people inside. When Morgan showed them the invention, the firefighters doubted that it would work. Morgan and an assistant donned hoods and went inside to rescue people. Once they emerged, the firefighters were convinced, and they put on hoods and joined Morgan.

All in all, I must say that I am very excited about this book; However, I do have some caveats.

The first is very minor. At the end of the day, when the kids are discussing their experience with R. E. Mital, they piece together his name by running it backwards –Latimer, and when they look up Latimer, they find the image of Mital. If I had ten dollars for each time that I have seen this cliché , I would own real estate on Nob Hill. What makes a cliché is repeated overuse, However, kids often have not had accumulated experience with the hackneyed in order for it to become stale. It takes an accumulation of a critical mass of repeated exposure for one to become jaded in this regard.

My second quibble is anything but minor. Red flags immediately went up when I read the book’s treatment of the gamma electric cell. The book posits that nuclear power plants directly produce electricity from the nuclear reaction, and that gamma cells make this possible.

Contrary to popular thought, nuclear power plants do not work in this fashion. The fission reaction is used as an ultra efficient way of producing steam. This steam is used to run the turbines that produce the electricity.  It is the heat energy from the reaction that is leveraged into producing electricity. The radiation is a by product.

It is true that the gamma cell uses radiation to convert into electricity, however, this is not the linchpin of how nuclear power plants produce electricity. There are no power plants that use gamma cells as a primary means of electrical production.

So I did a little digging around to find out more about gamma cells. Information on the web widely varied and was imprecise. I found myself wishing that I could ask the inventor about it when I realized that I could. I looked up the patent of the gamma cell in order to determine its capabilities.

If you subject a gamma cell to radiation, it will generate electricity. Its most common current use is to detect radiation in the ground. If electricity is produced in the measuring device, then radiation is present. Since power is produced in the detection process, no external power supply is needed.

Gamma cells are also used in some nuclear power plants, however their utility is limited. One use is to measure the radiation output of a power plant. Another use is to have gamma cells integrated into the shielding mechanism of the power plant. In this capacity, it would absorb some of the radiation while serving as a source of auxillary power for the operation of the plant.

I feel that this particular oversight stems from the popular assumption that nuclear power plants use an esoteric process to leverage the energy of the reaction into electricity. I am curious, however, whether this is the only oversight of this nature that made it into this book.

I absolutely love the book in spite of this caveat; however, I will take a much closer look for any other errors. If I find them, I will post an update.