lives... it all is so radically different from the time of our grandparents. Now, the editors of TIME tell the fascinating stories behind the most important innovations of the past 100 years, from computers, space shuttles, and cell phones, to zippers, Teflon and the internet. Here is a celebration of ingenuity in every form, from the kitchen to the garage, from the multiplex to the mousepad. Here are intriguing portraits of the brilliant scientists, oddball inventors and shade-tree mechanics who created our modern world.

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