Alum Charles Hall Designs Next-Generation Waterbed

MONEY WEEK -- In 1967 during “the summer of love,” Charles Hall, the inventor of the waterbed, was a student at San Francisco State University experimenting with “flotation furniture,” says Penelope Green in The New York Times.

At first Hall filled his designs with a jelly and cornflour mixture. But after that turned rancid, he switched to water. His first 8-foot-square heated “pleasure pit”, debuted at a gallery show called The Happy Happening. It made headlines. Both bed and chair, it was meant to be the only piece of furniture you would ever need.