Why do some inventions take so long to arrive?

From clinical trials to Dungeons & Dragons: the ideas that emerged later than you think.

We often overrate the eureka moment of the inventor's doodle and overlook the importance of materials to enable or inspire that idea. PHOTO: UNSPLASH
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(FINANCIAL TIMES) - I confess, as a boy, to wearing a Leonardo da Vinci T-shirt.

Da Vinci was my idea of cool and the attraction lay not in the Mona Lisa's smile or his sketches of natural phenomena. It was the helicopter.

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