“The most useful way to think of epiphany is as an occasional bonus of working on tough problems,” explains Scott Berkun in his 2007 book, “The Myths of Innovation.” “Most innovations come without epiphanies, and when powerful moments do happen, little knowledge is granted for how to find the next one. To focus on the magic moments is to miss the point. The goal isn’t the magic moment: it’s the end result of a useful innovation.”
I think Picasso had it right. A woman offered to pay him a sum for an original piece. He dashed it off in a few seconds.
She complained "You want all that money for a few seconds of work?"
"No Madame", Picasso replied, "for forty five years of work."
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Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I just finished that book, it's an excellent perspective on innovation. It was refreshing to see that innovation hasn't really sped up, even though today it feels like it has. That it still takes approximately 50 years to go from discovery to mainstream use.
gblaze42 wrote:I just finished that book, it's an excellent perspective on innovation. It was refreshing to see that innovation hasn't really sped up, even though today it feels like it has. That it still takes approximately 50 years to go from discovery to mainstream use.
So lets see. First Farnsworth Fusor 1959. Add 50 = 2009. I'd say we are on track.
Things are going faster because we have so many more people working on stuff.
BTW Bucky Fuller also did some work on the rates of technological innovation. One of the things he found was that the less public understanding (take electronics vs houses) the faster the change. Lawmakers may know lintels from soffits, but in general they know nothing of JFETs and MOSFETs.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.