Daedalus is a fictional inventor created by David E. H. Jones

David E. H. Jones

David E. H. Jones is best known as Daedalus, the fictional inventor for DREADCO. Jones' columns as Daedalus were published weekly in the New Scientist starting in the mid-sixties. He then moved on to the journal Nature, and continued to publish for many years. He published two books with columns...

 for his Ariadne column in the New Scientist

New Scientist

New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...

and The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, and which is currently featured in Nature

Nature (journal)

Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

.

Daedalus's imaginary inventions are solidly grounded in science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 —
usually just within the bounds of technical plausibility, and often prophetic.

For example, he once designed a locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

 fueled by fine grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

 shavings, to be gathered en route by a lawnmower installed in place of the usual cowcatcher

Pilot (locomotive)

In railroading, the pilot is the device mounted at the front of a locomotive to deflect obstacles from the track that might otherwise derail the train. In some countries it is also called cowcatcher or cattle catcher....

. According to Daedalus's computations, the natural growth of grass planted between the rail

Rail tracks

The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...

s would produce enough shavings to propel a fully laden train

Train

A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...

 every hour.

Other proposals included fullerene

Fullerene

A fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and they resemble the balls used in association football. Cylindrical ones are called carbon nanotubes or buckytubes...

s and the space elevator

Space elevator

A space elevator, also known as a geostationary orbital tether or a beanstalk, is a proposed non-rocket spacelaunch structure...

.

In the columns, Daedalus' inventions are often developed by the fictional company Daedalus Research Evaluation and Development Corporation (DREADCO).

Books

• The Inventions of Daedalus: A Compendium of Plausible Schemes, by David E. H. Jones. W. H. Freeman (1982); ISBN 0-7167-1412-4
• The Further Inventions of Daedalus, by David E.H. Jones. Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  (1999); ISBN 0-19-850469-1.