Quotes About Invention

Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afarDrag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;Or on wide-waving wings expanded bearThe flying-chariot through the fields of air.

The evolutionary economist Richard Nelson of Columbia University has pointed out that there are in fact two types of technology that play a major role in economic growth. The first is Physical Technology; this is what we are accustomed to thinking of as technology, things such as bronze-making techniques, steam engines, and microchips. Social Technologies, on the other hand, are ways for organizing people to do things.

Booleans are named after George Boole, an English mathematician who invented Boolean logic. You'll

If physical mobility is an essential condition of freedom, the bicycle has probably been the greatest single device for achieving what Marx called the full realization of the possibilities of being human invented since Gutenberg, and the only one without obvious drawbacks.

Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.

The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.

The idea that people of faith cling to God to avoid science has been replaced with the idea that atheists cling to their invented God-of-the-gaps idea to avoid the real God who created the universe that science is discovering, and whose existence is increasingly undeniable because of those very discoveries.

I think football would become an even better game if someone could invent a ball that kicks back.

You are not an artist,an artist creates. You do not write your own songs. End of debate.

Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are so many fascinating new problems waiting out there.

Coining a new language, either by giving new meanings to familiar terms or by inventing new technical terms, is one of the most effective devices for eclipsing reality.

individual or a small group seeking a solution to an individual's or a

strongly agreed with the statement that their need information came from personal needs they

1 Introduction and Overview When I say that innovation is being democratized, I mean that users of products and services-both firms and individual consumers-are increasingly

frequency with which user firms and individual consumers develop or

this chapter by reviewing the evidence that many users indeed do develop and modify products for their own use

Moreover, individual users do not have to develop everything they need on their own:

Pamela Morrison, William Riggs, John Roberts, Stephan Schrader, Mary Sonnack, Stefan Thomke, Marcie Tyre

have been found to be highly correlated

judged to be commercially attractive and/or have actually been

client and make something that they expect to be a more general solution instead. The contrasting incentives of users and

The empirical finding that users often freely reveal their innovations has been a major surprise to innovation researchers.

example, developed the World Wide Web as a lead user working at CERN. The World Wide Web was certainly

Eric von Hippel