- Main
- Science (General) - Scientific-popular
- Invention and Innovation: A Brief...
Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure
Vaclav SmilHow much do you like this book?
What’s the quality of the file?
Download the book for quality assessment
What’s the quality of the downloaded files?
From the New York Times-bestselling author, a new volume on the history of human ingenuity—and its attendant breakthroughs and busts. The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm. Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation. He then looks at three different types of inventions. Inventions that failed to dominate as promised: Airships Nuclear fission Supersonic flight Inventions that turned disastrous: Leaded gasoline DDT Chlorofluorocarbons Inventions we have long been promised (and that would be highly beneficial): Travel in vacuum (hyperloop) Nitrogen-fixing cereals Nuclear fusion Finally, he offers a “wish list” of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century. Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity—and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.
Categories:
Year:
2023
Publisher:
MIT Press
Language:
english
Pages:
232
ISBN 10:
0262048051
ISBN 13:
9780262048057
File:
PDF, 12.96 MB
Your tags:
IPFS:
CID , CID Blake2b
english, 2023
The file will be sent to your email address. It may take up to 1-5 minutes before you receive it.
The file will be sent to you via the Telegram messenger. It may take up to 1-5 minutes before you receive it.
Note: Make sure you have linked your account to Z-Library Telegram bot.
The file will be sent to your Kindle account. It may take up to 1–5 minutes before you receive it.
Please note: you need to verify every book you want to send to your Kindle. Check your mailbox for the verification email from Amazon Kindle.
Conversion to is in progress
Conversion to is failed
Premium benefits
- Send to eReaders
- Increased download limit
- File converter
- More search results
- More benefits