When I entered the natural sciences I could not get the thought out of my head: How many amazing, perhaps revolutionary, inventions continuously are lost due to habits and rules of society, and why?
To give a little introduction, I would like to give an example of such an invention.
When I was 19 years old a local Danish TV program showed a short documentary on Erik Skaarups wave energy converter, he named “Bølgehøvlen” (now named WavePlane). The program planted the first seed of doubt in me whether truly innovative achievements are getting a place in our time.
Erik Skaarup explanation how he as a home inventor came up with the idea of harvesting wave energy in his bathtub made me smile, but it was the opposition his idea met at the most obvious investors (like the Danish government) that dazzled me! The depressing story of how he went from door to door of the investors was long, even with self financed test proofs of pilot models. The potential investor I remember the best was the Danish Ministry of the Environment who argued they did not find it necessary to invest in wave technology since they had wind power technology well developed. A paradoxal statement considering Danish politic has preached green energy and innovative solutions as part of up-keeping the national welfare and work places for decades. The story have not changed over the last 13 years from what I can read from the company website (www.WavePlane.com) who now has most investors in Norway and bases in Australia, Japan and USA. Time will tell if Danish investors made fools of themselves.
Now I have found that hundreds of incredible inventions and inventors, through news but also first hand, who never get to change the world for the better. And why? Is it the patent laws? Eccentric behavior? Lack of scientific proof? Lack of economic understanding from the inventor? Lack of understanding of the impact of the invention of the investor? Or is it because we, as civilization, just can not handle more than one revolution at a time (currently being the IT era)? I think it is all of the above. And in this blog I will try to give examples of these points of view.
To make myself understand this paradox, I created two groups of inventors: the Alchemist and the Scientist. I may be a son to a father of the first category, but am officially working as (and by the rules of) the latter. An Alchemist is a term I use in lack of better because it best fits the personal approach of discovery (home inventors, but more) in lack of better, not to mix up with the medieval magician. It is my opinion that these two groups approach inventions from opposite angles. The Scientist has to skeptically build all his discoveries on theories already established. Theories that are our best bet at describing reality, but far from do so.
An Alchemist plays around, discovers something works, believes in the invention, but then meets the modern age demand of nearly anal demands for documentation. Often this creates a catch-22, that few normal people have time or temper to satisfy. The result is that the invention dies with the owner, in the patent office or in the drawer.
If innovation and miracles are what we need to solve the 21st Century’s challenges, maybe we need to reevaluate our approach to discovery and the space we allow true originality. Welcome to my blog!
To give a little introduction, I would like to give an example of such an invention.
When I was 19 years old a local Danish TV program showed a short documentary on Erik Skaarups wave energy converter, he named “Bølgehøvlen” (now named WavePlane). The program planted the first seed of doubt in me whether truly innovative achievements are getting a place in our time.
Erik Skaarup explanation how he as a home inventor came up with the idea of harvesting wave energy in his bathtub made me smile, but it was the opposition his idea met at the most obvious investors (like the Danish government) that dazzled me! The depressing story of how he went from door to door of the investors was long, even with self financed test proofs of pilot models. The potential investor I remember the best was the Danish Ministry of the Environment who argued they did not find it necessary to invest in wave technology since they had wind power technology well developed. A paradoxal statement considering Danish politic has preached green energy and innovative solutions as part of up-keeping the national welfare and work places for decades. The story have not changed over the last 13 years from what I can read from the company website (www.WavePlane.com) who now has most investors in Norway and bases in Australia, Japan and USA. Time will tell if Danish investors made fools of themselves.
Now I have found that hundreds of incredible inventions and inventors, through news but also first hand, who never get to change the world for the better. And why? Is it the patent laws? Eccentric behavior? Lack of scientific proof? Lack of economic understanding from the inventor? Lack of understanding of the impact of the invention of the investor? Or is it because we, as civilization, just can not handle more than one revolution at a time (currently being the IT era)? I think it is all of the above. And in this blog I will try to give examples of these points of view.
To make myself understand this paradox, I created two groups of inventors: the Alchemist and the Scientist. I may be a son to a father of the first category, but am officially working as (and by the rules of) the latter. An Alchemist is a term I use in lack of better because it best fits the personal approach of discovery (home inventors, but more) in lack of better, not to mix up with the medieval magician. It is my opinion that these two groups approach inventions from opposite angles. The Scientist has to skeptically build all his discoveries on theories already established. Theories that are our best bet at describing reality, but far from do so.
An Alchemist plays around, discovers something works, believes in the invention, but then meets the modern age demand of nearly anal demands for documentation. Often this creates a catch-22, that few normal people have time or temper to satisfy. The result is that the invention dies with the owner, in the patent office or in the drawer.
If innovation and miracles are what we need to solve the 21st Century’s challenges, maybe we need to reevaluate our approach to discovery and the space we allow true originality. Welcome to my blog!
2 comments:
Dear Brian,
Thank you for your interesting blog.
We need both kinds of inventors -Th. A. Edison and Niels Bohr
(Alchemist and scientist). Edison had a crowd of experimentators occupied but they didn`t work scientifically in opposition to Bohr and his crew. Both made, as we know, brillant inventions. The synthesis of the, apparently, two antithesises might be the answer to our times demand for a entrepreneurial model.
The obstacles to entrepreneurship are, of course, different from culture to culture. In Denmark where I am situated a lot of newcomers are buzzing around with words like "creativity" and "innovation". But we don´t need more of that stuff. The easiest thing in the world is to be creative and to create innovations. What we need terribly bad is project management!! Nobody in DK yet made that highly needed bottle neck analysis which would have shown that fx the tax system is the worst obstacle of all to entrepreneurs: As no considerable risk compensation is in sight they prefer to be wage-earners instead.
Another bad obstacle is the social accept of entrepreneurs.
A new cathegory of especially young people believe that they can build "aeroplanes in the air". They don´t like the hard work developing a business plan. Business plans are momentarily not ”in” but believe me they will be back again, soon, as the aeroplanes crash!
Perhaps our future entrepreneurial model is more a model of communication. While things are getting more and more complex the ”Tower of Babel” stops growing!
Thank you for your comment Henrik.
I agree that there is no lack of creativity and original thoughts, but rather a political block in the outlet. The reasons why the airships of innovation crash like Zeppeliners are probably many. And fankly I think I can understand some of the reasons why the different sides collide. Some work on tight time schedules, like politicians. Investors are governed by satisfying share holders. And many inventors probably could not care less where money come from if their discoveries could reach the world. I will try in the blog to give some ideas for how to approach this, theoretically, and the trends that seems to develop these years.
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