David E. H. Jones

Who is David E. H. Jones?

David E. H. Jones is a British chemist and author, under the pen name Daedalus, the fictional inventor for DREADCO. Jones' columns as Daedalus were published weekly in New Scientist starting in the mid-1960s. He then moved on to the journal Nature, and continued to publish for many years. He published two books with columns from these magazines, along with additional comments and implementation sketches. The first was The Inventions of Daedalus: A Compendium of Plausible Schemes and the second was The Further Inventions of Daedalus.

David Jones was a chemist by profession. In 1962, he earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Imperial College London. In 1974, he was the Sir James Knott Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He then became an independent science consultant to industry providing ideas, brain storming services, and scientific demonstrations for television. He continued as a guest staff member in the chemistry department at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

In scientific circles he is perhaps best known for his study of bicycle stability, his determination of arsenic in Napoleon’s wallpaper and his series of fake perpetual-motion machines, the latest of which is in the Technisches Museum, Vienna.