Stick like hell When the Wizard of Menlo Park called invention 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration, he was speaking not only about the creative act of inventing but also about the whole inventive process needed to bring more than intellectual success. Edison warned against discouragement during the perspiration phase in the following way, reminding us that we get things to work by the successive removal of bugs: Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! Any other bright-minded fellow can accomplish just as much of he will stick like hell and remember nothing that's any good works by itself. You've got to make the damn thing work!...I failed my way to success. Thomas Edison, The Evolution of Useful Things inventionsuccess
More easily asked than definitively answered Some design questions are more easily asked than definitively answered. Inventors are seldom at a loss for problems, and so they must choose which ones they will work on. Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things inventionquestionschoice
We feel it in our fingers In System A, there is no architect separate from the contractor. We are builders, simply. As builders, we have a direct feeling about construction. We feel it in our fingers, so it is down to earth. One result of this down-to-earth quality is that everything is somewhat experimental. We make experiments all the time. Sometimes we place a piece of wood this way. Another time, we may like to try it that way. Any time something new comes up in the design of a building, we are very likely to try and invent the best way of building it. This is not a great big invention. Just a simple invention, the way we might invent a way of tying a piece of string, to hold a broken toy together. It is just practical. Christopher Alexander, The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth In Defence of Intuition inventioncreativityproblems
History tends to be charitable History tends to be charitable. It gives credit for understanding what something means when we first do it. But there is a wise saying, “Almost everyone who opens up a new field does not really understand it the way the followers do.” The reason this happens so often is the creators have to fight through so many dark difficulties, and wade through so much misunderstanding and confusion, they cannot see the light as others can, now the door is open and the path made easy. Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn invention
The word invents itself Posits certain neologisms as arising from their own cultural necessity—his words, I believe. Yes, he said. When the kind of experience that you're getting a man-sized taste of becomes possible, the word invents itself. David Foster Wallace, The Pale King wordsmeaningnoveltyinvention
The Evolution of Useful Things A Book by Henry Petroski Here, then, is the central idea: the form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings, their failures to function properly. This principle governs all invention, innovation, ingenuity. Spike and sponShaped and reshapedForm follows failureTheir wrongness is somehow more immediateA small corner of the world of things+23 More The evolution of devices formfunctioninventionprogressfailure
Stepping stones in possibility space An Article by Gordon Brander subconscious.substack.com If we try to cross this lake by following only the stepping stones that lead toward our objective, we’ll soon get stuck. But what if we let go of our objectives? What if we focused on trying to find new stepping stones instead? This is novelty search. Instead of looking for something specific, you look for something new. Novelty search isn’t just random, it’s chance plus memory. Together, these ingredients do something interesting. ...Stepping stones are also combinatorial. Each new stepping stone we discover expands our potential to find even more stepping stones. Collecting stepping stones is a luck maximization algorithm. By collecting and combining stepping stones, we might arrive at our destination by accident, or somewhere more interesting! chanceknowledgeprogressnoveltyevolutioninvention
Ideas behind their time An Article by Tim Harford www.ft.com These days I am more interested in the reverse case [of Da Vinci's helicopter]: ideas that could have worked many centuries before they actually appeared. The economist Alex Tabarrok calls these “ideas behind their time” Curious minds want to know why these ideas appeared so late — and whether there might be anything that would prevent delays in future. One explanation is that the ideas aren’t as simple as they appear. The bicycle is not as straightforward an invention as it seems. To move from ox-hauled cart to human-powered bicycle requires smooth-rolling wheel bearings, which in turn need precisely engineered bearing balls. Modern steel ball bearings were not patented until the late 1700s, and demand from the 19th-century bicycle industry helped to improve their design. Materials and how to employ them inventionideas
Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation A Research Paper www.nber.org We directly establish the importance of environment by showing that exposure to innovation during childhood has significant causal effects on children's propensities to invent. Children whose families move to a high-innovation area when they are young are more likely to become inventors. These exposure effects are technology-class and gender specific. Upstream, Downstream inventioninnovationchildhood
Age of Invention A Series by Anton Howes antonhowes.substack.com I’m a historian of innovation. I write mostly about the causes of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, focusing on the lives of the individual innovators who made it happen. I’m interested in everything from the exploits of sixteenth-century alchemists to the schemes of Victorian engineers. My research explores why they became innovators, and the institutions they created to promote innovation even further. Upstream, Downstream inventioninnovationhistoryindustry
You and Your Research A Speech by Richard Hamming www.cs.virginia.edu This talk centered on Hamming's observations and research on the question "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?" Important problemsOpen doors, open mindsInverting the problemIntellectual investment is like compound interestGreat people can tolerate ambiguity+2 More The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn researchdiscoverycreativitylearning
Important problems Among the important properties to have is the belief you can do important things. If you do not work on important problems, how can you expect to do important work? Yet direct observation and direct questioning of people show most scientists spend most of their time working on things they believe are not important and are not likely to lead to important things.
Open doors, open minds I suspect the open mind leads to the open door, and the open door tends to lead to the open mind; they reinforce each other. doors
Inverting the problem When stuck, often inverting the problem and realizing the new formulation is better represents a significant step forward.
Intellectual investment is like compound interest Intellectual investment is like compound interest: the more you do, the more you learn how to do, so the more you can do, etc. I do not know what compound interest rate to assign, but it must be well over 6%—one extra hour per day over a lifetime will much more than double the total output. The steady application of a bit more effort has a great total accumulation.
Great people can tolerate ambiguity Great people can tolerate ambiguity; they can both believe and disbelieve at the same time. You must be able to believe your organization and field of research is the best there is, but also that there is much room for improvement! I don't necessarily agree with everything that I say
Selling new ideas I must come to the topic of “selling” new ideas. You must master three things to do this: Giving formal presentations, Producing written reports, and Mastering the art of informal presentations as they happen to occur. All three are essential—you must learn to sell your ideas, not by propaganda, but by force of clear presentation. I am sorry to have to point this out; many scientists and others think good ideas will win out automatically and need not be carefully presented. They are wrong; many a good idea has had to be rediscovered because it was not well presented the first time, years before! Scientific writing
A halo of opportunities It seems to me at almost all times there is a halo of opportunities about everyone from which to select.