J
Jobst Brandt
Guest
Peter Chisholm writes:
>> So everything is just improvements and nobody's really innovating anything?
> 'Everything' and 'nobody' and 'anything' are big words..
I think those words fall directly out of your claim that there are no inventions because there is
nothing new in technology.
> Most things these days seem to be improvements on existing designs, not genuine inventions. The
> auto was just an improvement of the horse drawn cart, but the internal combustion engine was an
> invention, IMO.
That sounds like sour grapes. Invention is the process of applying observed needs with an
appropriate mechanism to perform the task, be that by combining previously unrecognized synergies or
a claw hammer that can pull nails as well as drive them. The Wright Brothers combined a special
version of an internal combustion engine, with an appropriate flying machine to make a powered
aircraft with horizontal, vertical, and turns controls that no one had put together before. That was
a large series of inventions that required great scientific learning and practical skills.
You are stretching "improvement to existing designs" to extremes. Similarly a cell phone is only a
better two paper cups with a string between them in that respect. CD's are more than an extension of
Edison's wax cylinders.
Your complaint sounds vaguely similar to those who believe that garage mechanics know more about
cars than the engineers that design them.
Jobst Brandt [email protected] Palo Alto CA
>> So everything is just improvements and nobody's really innovating anything?
> 'Everything' and 'nobody' and 'anything' are big words..
I think those words fall directly out of your claim that there are no inventions because there is
nothing new in technology.
> Most things these days seem to be improvements on existing designs, not genuine inventions. The
> auto was just an improvement of the horse drawn cart, but the internal combustion engine was an
> invention, IMO.
That sounds like sour grapes. Invention is the process of applying observed needs with an
appropriate mechanism to perform the task, be that by combining previously unrecognized synergies or
a claw hammer that can pull nails as well as drive them. The Wright Brothers combined a special
version of an internal combustion engine, with an appropriate flying machine to make a powered
aircraft with horizontal, vertical, and turns controls that no one had put together before. That was
a large series of inventions that required great scientific learning and practical skills.
You are stretching "improvement to existing designs" to extremes. Similarly a cell phone is only a
better two paper cups with a string between them in that respect. CD's are more than an extension of
Edison's wax cylinders.
Your complaint sounds vaguely similar to those who believe that garage mechanics know more about
cars than the engineers that design them.
Jobst Brandt [email protected] Palo Alto CA