Why so little innovation?
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The university as an institution has approached irrelevance several times in its history. Most of the new learning of the Renaissance, the great revival of classical studies, took place amongst small groups of learned men and leisured aristocrats outside the universities. They formed "academies" and learned societies in which they could discuss the literature and philosophy that had been rediscovered, not in the universities, but by men of letters like Petrarch and by wealthy collectors of manuscripts like Cosimo di Medici. After a century or so, the classics were finally co-opted by the universities, where they soon ceased to be the province of readers for whom they contained living wisdom, and fell into the hands of the gerund-grinders.
Early natural science was burgeoning at about the time the classics started to be sapped of life by the university, and for a couple of blessed centuries the sciences flourished in similar learned cenacles, like the Accademia dei Lincei or the Royal Society, while the inmates of the colleges considered such mere mechanical activities unworthy to soil their dainty fingers. Galileo, Boyle, Huyghens, etc., were not university men; Newton's university appointment was in mathematics, not the natural sciences. As late as the early nineteenth century, most scientists were not of the university, but operated outside it, e.g., Rumford, Davy, or Faraday. While there are isolated examples here and there of university instruction in the sciences as early as the late 17th century (e.g., Barchusen at Utrecht, Boerhaave at Leyden), Iaboratory education in physics and chemistry at universities did not really gain acceptance until after 1850. Independent scientist-inventors, e.g., Lammot du Pont, the Maxim brothers, Edison, or Tesla, continued to be dominant in this country until World War I gave the first government funding to institutionalized research. (source: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/07/my-navr...)
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You can also add to the list above Darwin, the Wright Brothers, and Einstein.
Wholesale government funding of research worked well at first, as it essentially put the independent thinkers of old on steroids. But overtime, grant money started going to a new generation of scientists whose main ability was to work the government grant system. By the present, the modern university has essentially become a government bureaucracy where top scientists spend most of their time hunting for grants and doing paperwork. Worse, because of high taxes and the high costs of living in high IQ cities, the gentleman scientist is going extinct, thus cutting off the flow of new innovation.
What do people think of this argument? There are thousands of professors researching computer science, and tens of millions in grant money going into the field. But does anyone know what they are working on? Has anything useful come out of the computer science departments in the past twenty years? ( I'm asking seriously - not rhetorically). Will modern independent scientists like Trevor Blackwell and Jeff Hawkins by themselves out produce all the computer science professors in the country combined?
You can't really compare effectiveness against a university. The real product of university research programs is researchers who then go on to build real things in industry. So while in the short term I'm more likely to produce useful robots than academia, they will have more long-term effect by graduating hundreds of smart people who go on to build useful things in industry. The real measure of universities isn't how many things are invented within their walls but how many things are invented by people who were shaped by their university experience. Most people in my company did graduate research, so their respective universities deserve some of the credit for whatever we invent.
Not all leisured aristocrats did creative work - but the system of aristocracy facilitated it. The giant monopoly of Bell System created a similar space within it - Bells labs - and we got C and unix. Another monopoly enabled space in the form of Xerox PARC - more innovations.
If universities can create some space within them, not controlled by grants, then individuals can do creative work.
Another view is that today, we are as rich as those leisured aristocrats of old (if we don't care to keep up consumption with the Joneses). We can become pg-style independently wealthy, or just live frugally, and (groups of) individuals are free to create.
However, the main substantial reasons for doing research in universities (that I can think of) is to get access to high powered equipment and excellent information stores (top profs, libraries, journals, other data, etc.). I don't know of another good way to have such access without being part of the system, so unless my field of research is entirely outside of the province of today's academic disciplines, or I'm quite wealthy, it seems like membership is a necessity.
Imagine a person living in a city row house. Perhaps this person would be willing to pay $1,000 a year extra to live in the suburbs. But the price of a car, gas, and tolls would add up to $1,500, so he decides at that price he'd rather spend his money on a yearly family vacation.
Now government comes in, and taxes him $750 to pay for roads. Tolls are now nearly free compared to before. Thus moving to the suburbs now would only cost an extra $750. The $750 in taxes is a sunk cost that will be spent anyway. So under his calculations now, he decides that spending $750 to move the suburbs would make him happier than spending $1,500 on a vacation. Thus he moves.
The government's tactics has made this person worse off. This person decided for himself that moving to the suburbs was not worth the expense - he'd rather spend his money in another way. But the government overrode his decision and forced him to spend a money in a way he did not original prefer.
Typically, government spending is only justified for public goods - goods that benefit everyone but are non-excludable. Basic science falls into that category. But end products - such as planes, roads, space programs, etc., do not.
In mobile, take Nokia for example: Until the 80s Nokia's major activity was rubber-related products (seriously). That changed when they bought a state-owned telecom company, and that's when Nokia really focused on mobile telephony and made it popular. In other words, the government invested in the technology and removed the risk, enough so a private company could take it to the next level.
Just what kinds of innovation are people looking for that they're not getting? And further, what innovations from decades ago are we still relying on today and not innovating through?
In so many areas, from medicine to biotech to clean energy to nanotechnology to space exploration to the web, we are seeing new waves of progress and research. Is our pace as fast as it could be? Probably not. But let's call it what it is, instead of predicting gloom and doom.
- Data storage: Ways for people, companies to store data for perpetuity
- Power: cheap, pollution free way to generate personal power
- Water: cheap, pollution free way to clean water for drinking
The list can go on.
"... And further, what innovations from decades ago are we still relying on today and not innovating through? ..."
Lets see: operating systems (Linux, Max OSX, Windows), GUI's (Windows), keyboards and other input hardware. These are the tools we use each day and would be recognisable to people who programmed at the cutting edge in say '76, 77. Transportation is another. Inefficient engines that emit noxious gasses. Another practical example would be food storage around the world. In India for example where a percentage say 5-10% is wasted simply because it cannot be stored properly (a combination of cost & lack of expertise) and eaten by rats.
"... But let's call it what it is, instead of predicting gloom and doom. ..."
I'd agree with this. So many negative stories come from angry middle-age white-guys. Innovation comes in spurts which is never really acknowledged. From what I see coming up things are looking up wrt Power generation, water and recycling technologies.
Let's take an old joke, which from what I understand is based on fiction, however it illustrates the point well enough. It goes something like
NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pressurised pen that Astronauts can use to write in space. The Russians use a pencil
Innovation can also blatantly pointless. Take the fashion industry, at some point the necktie was introduced into fashion for men, however it serves no actual purpose - yet it is one of the cornerstones of formal attire.
EDIT - There was one last variation I guess I missed, sometimes people do innovate and at those times, sometimes ideas just don't stick for whatever reason.
Take the old phrase:
"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door"
Well I've definitely seen better mousetraps, yet whenever I notice them at the supermarket, they always seem to be the old fashioned, crappy wood types - sometimes the Market is just happy with subpar equipment? coughMicrosoftcough
Point taken.
"... NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pressurised pen that Astronauts can use to write in space. The Russians use a pencil ..."
Love that one, as old as the hills. Fisher with the AG7's offered to replace pencils due to fire & graphite inhalation before Apollo 11. I remember back in the dim past when /. was civil in the late '90's, early 2000's. I answered this one but can't find my original post. It went something like this one ~ http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=11747662&sid=140282
Sharpening a pencil is inadvisable in microgravity. Little wood shavings go everywhere, they get inhaled, must be vacuumed up, et cetera.
And mechanical pencils require gravity to feed the lead; a mechanical pencil that would work in micro-g is just as hard to develop as a ballpoint pen that will.
I originally was writing about a triangular shaped wheel on a car prototype I saw about 15 years ago on an Aussie TV show called Beyond 2000. The premise of that show was essentially they showed off a lot of bleeding edge technologies (for it's time), prototypes and just plain new ideas - Fascinating stuff, especially for a 12 yr old kid.
Essentially the "wheel" was triangular prism with a track that ran around the perimeter to provide motion. It was also able to walk up stairs/curbs by rotating the "wheel". I remember it was an odd sight to see a car trying to walk up a group of stairs.
We still use good, old fashioned, round wheels though.
So I opted for the pencil joke, as the other was too obscure a reference.
No, mechanical pencils with springs have no problems. All sorts of pencils/pens where used in the space program but the Fisher AG7 and patent # 3,285,228 ~ http://spacepen.com/about-us.aspx proved to be a good solution to the problems of FOD (foreign object damage), cost, availability, usability and fire. Fisher also invented the "Universal refill" for pens.
This is a serious question by the way, I'd be keen to know what the answer is.
From what I can tell from reading through fisher pens the only further innovation is styling not the basic design ~ http://spacepen.com/about-us.aspx The Space race really kicked innovation along for lots of things even the simple pen. The engineering is pretty extreme. Imagine building a pen that will work in high PT environments from -35 to 120 degrees C and life of about 100yrs for USD$6. ~ http://history.nasa.gov/spacepen.html & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen This is the kind of advances great challenges produce. It's still happening now in the US and the one area I know basic research and innovation can be seen is the X-Prize. Think Bert Rutan ~ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3676312.stm and Carmac ~ http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?ne...
Sometimes innovating for the sake of innovating can be an exercise in futility if current solutions are adequate.
It's a shame that I can't get those pen's shipped to Australia.. I'd be keen to get my hands on a couple. Must find another supplier.
Yes, many companies take and don't give a lot back. But some big names definitely contribute (Google, Yahoo, Apple to an extent...).
There is also plenty of innovation done by people in their spare time. So much so, that software patents are a hot issue: who wants to be sued for making something cool, only to find out that Microsoft claimed it a year ago?
It's also funny they don't mention Microsoft or other companies whose actions alone were enough to freeze innovation in several areas. If your goal is to make money, you can't compete with the establishment...you have to move on.
- Alan Kay
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=301
Her point is that too much focus on short-term / "this quarter" type of mentality, associated with the declining of education and the lack of national leadership is killing innovation in Silicon Valley.
This is not the first time that I hear this argument. The author of "Silicon Dragon" says that the Valley is in a state of denial:
http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/03/silicon-valley-if-we-ignor...
Speak for yourself.
As to why? Supply and demand, the truly innovative stuff has a very limited use. The social network that tracks Britney Spears has a use to millions of people.
Why bother coding something complicated, when you can copy paste some open source code and make millions
Why climb a mountain when you could ride to the top in a helicopter? Because it makes us better.
Open source is actually the proof that innovation lives completely outside the bounds of corporate influence. It may very well be human nature.
Innovation can have roots in corporations as well as outside, but many corporations do as much to stifle innovation as to further it. Also, in the case of things like Linux and MySQL, don't confuse "clone" with "another path to the same goal" which can be highly innovative and often clears a roadblock to innovation forced by a monopoly.