"A curious child who always knew he wanted to be an inventor when he grew up, Frank spent much of his youth experimenting in his basement laboratory -- mixing and measuring, testing and inspecting, studying and scrutinizing. One of his favorite things to experiment with was soda water, and one day after discovering the perfect flavoring for his most recent invention, he left it outside on his back porch with a spoon in it. The next morning, the drink...

A humorous and reflective look at one thousand years of the development of humankind: those who dreamt, those who taught, those who opposed, and those who, ultimately, did. Each and every one of our inventions and discoveries was first envisioned and then developed by a single person, or a handful of people, who dreamt of the seemingly impossible. Each of these inventions has had a profound effect on the course of human history, and each one was rejected,...