Rube Goldberg was a professional cartoonist for over 60 years, the creator of more than a dozen nationally syndicated comic strips, and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning, yet he is remembered at the end of the twentieth century chiefly for one thing—the Rube Goldberg Invention. In various strips over the years he concocted elaborate, multi-part machines to perform the simplest of tasks. These struck readers as extremely apt comments on the overly complicated and often circuitous lives led by just about everybody in modern society. Eventually, Goldberg's inventions earned him a listing in most dictionaries and made his name part of the language. Rube Goldberg Machine competitions continue to be held in high schools and colleges around America, and Purdue University has an annual National Competition for the best Goldberg variations.

Born Reuben Lucius Goldberg into an affluent San Francisco...