Editing Tom Swift (section)

== Inventions ==
[[File:Tom Swift Cover 1939 unrenewed.jpg|right|thumb|alt=Book cover showing title with ''TOM SWIFT'' in huge letters. In the illustration, a group of people look at a large tubular telescope angled upwards to the right.|''Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope'' (1939), from the original Tom Swift series]]

In his various [[incarnation]]s, Tom Swift, usually a teenager, is inventive and science-minded, "Swift by name and swift by nature."<ref name="Prager">Prager (1976).</ref> Tom is portrayed as a natural genius. In the earlier series, he is said to have had little formal education, the character modeled originally after such inventors as [[Henry Ford]],<ref name=":0">Burt (2004), 322.</ref> [[Thomas Edison]],<ref name="Dizer35">Dizer (1982), 35.</ref> aviation pioneer [[Glenn Curtiss]]<ref name="Dizer35"/> and [[Alberto Santos-Dumont]].<ref>[http://www.jatm.com.br/papers/vol4_n3/JATMv4n3_p355-380_Open_Source_Philosophy_and_the_Dawn_of_Aviation.html Open Source Philosophy and the Dawn of Aviation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016205422/http://www.jatm.com.br/papers/vol4_n3/JATMv4n3_p355-380_Open_Source_Philosophy_and_the_Dawn_of_Aviation.html |date=2015-10-16 }}, page 9.</ref> For most of the six series, each book concerns Tom's latest invention, and its role either in solving a problem or mystery, or in assisting Tom in feats of exploration or rescue. Often Tom must protect his new invention from [[villain]]s "intent on stealing Tom's thunder or preventing his success,"<ref name="Prager"/> but Tom is always successful in the end.

Many of Tom Swift's fictional inventions describe actual technological developments or predate technologies now considered commonplace. ''Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers'' (1911) was based on [[Charles Algernon Parsons|Charles Parsons]]'s attempts to [[synthetic diamond|synthesize diamonds]] using electric current.<ref>Hazen (1999), 30.</ref> ''[[Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone]]'' was published in 1914. Sending photographs by telephone was not fully developed until 1925.<ref name="Pyle"/> ''Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera'' (1912) features a portable movie camera, not invented until 1923.<ref name="Pyle">Pyle (1991).</ref> ''Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive'' (1922) was published two years before the [[Central Railroad of New Jersey]] began using the first [[diesel electric locomotive]].<ref name="Master Inventor">"Tom Swift, Master Inventor" (1956).</ref> The house on wheels that Tom invents for 1929's ''Tom Swift and His House on Wheels'' pre-dated the first [[mobile home|house trailer]] by a year.<ref name="Pyle"/> ''Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter'' (1952) features a [[flying submarine]] similar to one planned by the [[United States Department of Defense]] four years later in 1956.<ref name="Master Inventor"/> Other inventions of Tom's have not happened, such as the device for silencing airplane engines that he invents in ''Tom Swift and His Magnetic Silencer'' (1941).<ref name="Pyle"/>