Finglonger

[Jon Corby]

What's the deal with the Finglonger then? I can think of reasons why either answer could be valid, but I really want to know what YOU think. Yes, YOU.

[Dinos Sfyris]

He probably nicked it off that dastardly Wernstrom. He DID invent the Smelloscope though.

[Mark James]

The Fing-longer (its hypehenated according to the wiki) was only a hypothetical invention that featured on the What-If Machine so technically no one has invented it yet.

[Craig Beevers]

A man can dream though. A man can dream...

[Jon Corby]

The Fing-longer (its hypehenated according to the wiki) was only a hypothetical invention that featured on the What-If Machine so technically no one has invented it yet.

You're wrong - it's featured non-hypothetically in several later episodes. Hence the conundrum - did Farnsworth later realise his dream, or was he displaying envy at another's ingenuity in that episode?

[Mark James]

The Fing-longer (its hypehenated according to the wiki) was only a hypothetical invention that featured on the What-If Machine so technically no one has invented it yet.

You're wrong - it's featured non-hypothetically in several later episodes. Hence the conundrum - did Farnsworth later realise his dream, or was he displaying envy at another's ingenuity in that episode?

Ah, now I see. I think it was likely his idea originally but he just hadn't got round to inventing it yet and used the what-if machine to see what it would be like if he had. But yeah, maybe someone else invented it and he used the what-if machine to see what it would have been like if he had invented it instead. Its a tricky one. The what-if machine though just shows him using it which makes me think it was his invention. If it was someone else's, I reckon the what-if machine would have shown him in a scenario where he's receiving credit for the invention instead of its original inventor. (I probably didn't put enough thought in to it when I first read the post and now I've probably put too much.)