Safety cut rope axe man In the first nuclear reactor, constructed by Enrico Fermi in 1942 under the bleachers of the University of Chicago football stadium, the control rods were held up by a manila rope. A man with an axe was told to cut the rope if the reactor got out of hand. This "safety cut rope axe man" is supposedly the origin of the term SCRAM for an emergency shutdown procedure. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape wordsacronymsenergy
The inventive process was often a nonverbal one Through the ages, the professional users of tools by and large have not needed to, been able to, or wanted to talk to outsiders about their implements. They did not need to because tools themselves are used to make other tools, and thus users could very often fashion a new tool with their old ones. If they did need to communicate the design for a new tool to someone outside their trade, they could do so without having to reveal the tool's intended use...Besides, the inventive process of conceiving a new tool was often a nonverbal one. Finally, craftsmen were unwilling to share information about their specialized tools because to do so would have been to give up their competitive edge and their value to those outside the craft. Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things Focal awareness tools