The cartoon series that brought him lasting fame was "The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, A.K.", which ran in "Collier's Weekly" from January 26, 1929 to December 26, 1931. In that series, Goldberg drew labeled schematics in the form of patent applications of the comically intricate "inventions" that would later bear his name. The character of Professor Butts was based on Rube's professor Frederick Slate at the College of Mining and Engineering at the University of California, where Rube attended from 1901 to 1903. Frederick Slate gave his engineering students the task of building a scale that could weigh the earth. The scale was called the “Barodik". To Goldberg, this exemplified a comical combination of seriousness and ridiculousness that would come to serve as an inspiration in his work.