The Entrepreneurial Sources of Invention

Outlines and Notes

by Gregory F. Rehmke

1. Adventures in flying

a) England's sad contest between the R100 and the R101.

b) The Wright brothers vs. Smithsonian Director Dr. Samuel Langley. ($2,000 private funding vs. $70,000 govt. funding). Later, years of flying without recognition.

c) Inventing rockets: K.E. Ziolkowsky (1903), Hermann Oberth (By Rocket into Interplanetary Space, 1923). The young German amateurs in the interwar years.

2. The Modern View of scientific advance

a) "In the 19th century most inventions came from the individual inventor who had little or no scientific training ...simple equipment… empirical methods." Little link between science and technology. In the 20th century now the simple advances are already made, and giant organizations and vastly expensive equipment are necessary to push technology forward. Giant corporations and government research programs needed, in this view, to fund scientific progress.

3. Findings from John Jewkes, "The Sources of Invention"

a) Jewkes (and co-authors) studied the details of 60 major scientific inventions in the first half of the 20th century, across disciplines. They examined role of individual inventor and research organizations.

b) Simple generalizations not possible. However, the cross-fertilization of scientific and engineering disciplines…

c) More than one-half were work of individual inventor. Jet engines, hydraulic power steering, foundations of radio industry, catalytic cracking of petroleum. Groundwork for "Kodachrome process was laid by two young collaborators, both musicians…"

d) Other advances by large firms: Nylon, acrylic fibers, television (RCA), transistor.

e) Views of both 19th century sources of invention and 20th century are distorted in opposite ways.

f) Also see: Joel Moyker's Lever of Riches.

4. The Problems of centralized government space exploration.
NASA was founded as a research and development agency. Always pushing new technology. Engineers skilled at accomplishing specific tasks (land a man on the moon).

a) Political decision-making distorted even the space race (probably should have developed space station first and from there to Moon and later Mars.

b) "The Right Stuff" &endash; space planes vs. space rockets?

c) Space station&emdash;every Shuttle takes potential space station into orbit&emdash;and drops it into Indian ocean (the main booster tank). Proposals to convert two into giant space stations.

d) Mars mission: Lawrence Livermore vs. NASA.

e) Giant NASA satellites and Mars rovers vs. JPL and MIT mini-satellites and micro-rovers.

f) A card-reader for the Shuttle simulator (1980s!). NASA Shuttle team fights real-time computer video. "We landed a man on the moon with slide-rulers." Unusual Apollo.

g) Space enterprises. Private rockets in Texas and Seattle.

5. Examples for other technologies

a) The race to develop the blue laser diode. Japanese inventor from unknown tiny firm.

b) Computer technology advances in general. UNIVAC doesn't develop a mainframe. IBM doesn't develop a mini-computer. Digital Equipment doesn't develop a microcomputer (personal computer). IBM's personal computer was developed only when they set up an entirely different division and hid it in Florida.

c) Medical advances. The story of developing the cure for TB. The man who discovered the cause of many/most ulcers (Fortune magazine cover story).

6. General conclusion.
Technology advances come from often unexpected sources. Government tends to be defensive with money spend and lacks courage to invest in individuals that may be geniuses, but look like crackpots. Government, like many big corporations, and major universities, seek to hire the top experts to lead technology projects. But the experts of today often block the advances proposed by the unknown young geniuses of tomorrow (who propose advances that might undermine past accomplishments).

7. However, in the private sector these young geniuses can much more quickly gain access to venture capital, to investors who have no stake in yesterday's successes.

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