The jet engine is a technology so successful that is now considered somewhat obvious. Even to the initiated, the history of its success is narrated as an inevitable foregone conclusion: where there once were heavy and complex piston engines, there suddenly was a light and elegant reaction engine to replace them. In reality, what we know today as a synonym for the aviation age is but one combination of many technological threads that were coming together in the early part of the 20th century, and not an obvious one at that. This talk will explore some of these threads and combinations to celebrate them as the invisible building blocks of a revolution.