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Reader question: Please explain “reinvent the wheel”, as in: “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.” My comments: Alright, suppose you’re building an eco-friendly, or green, car. Instead of an engine that burns on oil, you may want to invent a new one that burns on gas, which is more efficient, or use a battery, which is even better and which is what most green car manufacturers are currently doing anyway. But you don’t have to, literally, reinvent the wheel. That is, you don’t have to make major changes to the round-shaped tyred wheel, unless, of course, you’re building an eco-friendly tank or tractor. Anyways, whenever someone says “there’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” they’re merely saying that there’s no need to make a complete overhaul to something and start anew – better take advantage of existing technologies, materials, or what works. In other words, there is no need to waste time inventing a new wheel to the proverbial vehicle when existing wheels are perfect, or perfectly adequate to use. As you can see, this idiom is often used in the negative, as a caution against making more changes than necessary. However, when drastic changes or complete overhauls are called for, it’s perfectly alright to suggest that we do reinvent the wheel, figuratively speaking, from time to time. Here are media examples: 1. Don’t you sometimes notice that a lot of tech companies are simply reinventing the wheel? Take for instance search engines. Long before Google was king, there have been several search engines that have pre-dated it (and perhaps now we can say Google has “predated” those other search engines in another sense). And even after Google took dominance in the search industry, a host of other search outfits are trying to get into the game. Some are small, but some are arguably giants in themselves. Take Microsoft, for instance. | 
