The Man Who Proved No Two Hands Are Alike

In 1858, British magistrate Sir William Herschel was working in Jungipoor, India, when he pressed a local contractor's hand into ink and onto the back of a contract. It began as a way to prevent fraud, but over the next twenty years, Herschel became obsessed with what he found. He collected thousands of prints, tracked individuals across decades, and arrived at a staggering conclusion: no two human fingerprints are identical.…