Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure

Satisfeito.

Invention and Innovation is a captivating read, with a subtitle that indicates it is "a brief history of hype and failure." It comprises five chapters that offer aspiring innovators a deeper understanding of what their quest to "change the world" may entail in the grand scheme of things.The first chapter serves as an introduction and establishes the distinction between invention and innovation. Innovation is specifically the process of implementing new materials, products, and ideas for adoption by users, which is not always the case with inventions. However, both inventions and innovations can raise outsized hopes but turn out to be disappointments for various reasons examined in chapters 2, 3, and 4.Chapter 2 delves into highly successful innovations that were embraced globally but had undesirable, sometimes unforeseeable effects after decades of use. Three primary examples are leaded gasoline, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane/DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons CFCs, notably Freon, which depletes the ozone layer. The most encouraging lesson has been that we have come up with better alternatives.Chapter 3 examines inventions that were initially hailed as breakthroughs but eventually failed to dominate. Innovations like airships (the Zeppelin) became asterisks in the history of flying; nuclear fission suffered from a combination of issues (installation costs, regulatory measures, miscalculations on electricity demand catastrophes, etc.), and supersonic flight won’t happen tomorrow. Oppositely many fundamental scientific breakthroughs, such as James Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic waves, which provided the foundation for modern wireless electronics, happened to be recognized only decades after their discovery.Chapter 4 addresses some of the inventions that we are still waiting for, including a radical extension of human lifespan, transportation inside a near vacuum (known as the Hyperloop), cereal plants acting as legumes, securing most of their nitrogen requirements with bacteria rather than using synthetic fertilizers, or fully controlled nuclear fusion.Chapter 5 deconstructs hyperbolic claims and the vision of an ever-faster or exponential pace of both inventions and innovations. The exuberance of a "March of Intellect" promising radical transformation that accompanied the First Industrial Revolution has clung to every single industrial revolution since then and has only become even more pervasive and sensationalistic. Facts, basic physical realities, and known constraints do matter and often contradict bombastic predictions or implausible goals at the very same time they are expressed. For instance, flying about 1.8 billion zero-carbon passengers a year won't happen by 2030 or would require an unprecedented explosion of inventions, which is even more unrealistic.Entrepreneurs and executives should read this book to undergo a sort of mental cleansing process. As aspiring innovators, we are inundated with grand declarations about the accelerated pace of change. Maybe we must have faith in exponential growth to scale up our endeavors or reflect on Moore's Law coming to an end to think that we'll overcome roadblocks. However, we still have to deal with them. And we are more likely to understand them when we read fact-based, technically and historically accurate books such as all of Smil’s essays. They help us to distance ourselves from marketing spins, analyze data rather than fall prey to a “dataism” using half-baked data models or atypical exemplars that don’t not translate to other domains (like the pace of growth in microelectronics). They show to us that even when we believe that we have overcome the “proof-of-concept to production gap,” we still need to audit deployments and interpret the meaning of what we may dismissively call “side-effects.”Smil's quasi-exegetical dive into the history of innovation allows us to take full measure of the multidimensionality of the contexts in which inventors and innovators operate, be they geopolitical, socio-economic, or ideological. Innovations, their nature, pace, and obsolescence rate, as well as their originators, are cultural realities encoded in a world that reproduces itself and often has to correct its course for its own survival. Smil's practical skepticism is not some modern form of Luddism but a reminder that alleviating human misery, decreasing inequalities, reaching sustainability or saving the planet may not be as fancy as walking on Mars but are considerably bigger challenges.

From AI ending civilization soon, to hyper-loop, to landing on Mars and making life multi-planetary, to curing cancer, or evening reversing climate change by 2050, the world is laced with hyperbole. Yet most of us plebians don't understand these matters and thus are destined follow the rhetoric. Science cannot be differentiated from magic if you don't understand the basic principles. Vaclav Smil exfoliates these hypes layer by layer and expose the absurd premise. Did you know that modern integrated chips have reached miniaturization of 2 nano meter chips, but the width of a silicon atom is 0.2 nano meter, so the their not much physical limit to play. The days of Moore's law and ever smaller chips is slowing down. Likewise use of hydrocarbons cannot be replaced with other sources as rapidly as we are made to believe, only 2% of cars int he world are battery driven and even they once which are battery driven are made of material using carbon as a the primary source of fuel.The book is not an easy read though. Despite his science background, Smil, doesn't write in a very linear manner. I found myself having to parse sentences to understand them; paragraphs seemed to veer abruptly from the topic to topic. it is a deliberate read but once you get past his style, which is punctuated with brackets and lots of data, you will be fine.My suggestion is to ignore parts which you don't understand, atleast that what I did. I fully recommend reading at least one of Smil's books because the man really knows his stuff. I wouldn't call him a polymath as Bill Gates does, but he is definitely, an authority on topics related to energy like coal, carbon, hydrocarbons and thus understands the scale of problems like climate change.

Livraison rapide, en parfait état

The book reads well.Contains some good data and interesting perspectives.E.g. the "newest" and environmentally friendly refrigerant R290 was used already 100 years ago at the beginning of refrigeration. After many changes the industry goes full circle "back to the future".For me though the book is not at the level of Smil best works, Energy and Civilization being my reference