Is the design an alert of some kind?
Does it involve measuring weight?
Does it provide a safety measure?
He designed the first elevator shaft
NO
NO to all
So Pete designed the first elevator shaft for a building. Let’s look at the puzzle again.
** Pete was a bit of an odd kind of guy. An inventor and tinkerer. He eventually designed something that was initially seen as ludicrous and dangerous, but was later viewed as brilliant. What did he design? **
I’ll add the obvious follow up. If he designed the elevator shaft, why was it seen as initially ludicrous and dangerous, but later viewed as brilliant?
I saw a youtube video once. I think it was by Tom Scott and about the very first elevator shaft. If I remember correctly, the very first elevator shaft was a round tube instead of square.
Is that it?
Did elevators not have walls? That would make a shaft hella dangerous.
It was round, but that was not the issue.
No.
Hmmm…Probably would be cheating to go back and watch the video again.
Yes, I just checked. Tom Scott’s video covers my puzzle, though I did not get this puzzle from him at all.
Was the concern:
physical injury from contacting the shaft
suffocation
motion related injury, with the shaft affecting the car’s motion
fall related injury
mental/emotional injury
Fall Related Injury
Pretty sure Tom Scott did a video about those too. 
Nope, not a paternoster.
Was the concern that people would walk into the shaft thinking an elevator was there?
Yes, I’m going to end this one at this point.
Pete designed the first elevator shaft before the first elevator was invented. He could tell that an elevator was going to be necessary and most likely invented fairly soon, so he designed the first building with an elevator shaft a few years before an elevator was invented to go in it.
It’s still there, with an elevator in it. It was round, but had a rectangle elevator for years. I believe it has a round elevator now, though?
Tom Scott’s video is not where I heard of it, but it is quite good.
Ha ha. The entire video is about the elevator shaft being designed before the elevator was invented and mostly I just remembered that it was round.
nm - wrong thread.
Yes and I am glad you showed me that. I have seen Tom Scott and yet have no memory of seeing this one before. He does a better job than I would showing it.
Very interesting event, hard to uncover, but neat that the elevator shaft was invented before the elevator.
Similar to the fact that the fax machine was invented before the telephone.
n/m