Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World

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Review "[Inventology] offers a new perspective into the process of invention that will inform and illuminate." —Publishers Weekly "'Inventology'" may be a real science; researchers are beginning to study it, and teachers are teaching it. Some 21st-century creations (crowdfunding, 3D printing) are breaking down barriers (money, time) between new ideas and a useful product, so a golden age of innovation seems in the offing. A delightful account of how inventors do what they do." —Kirkus, Starred Read more From the Inside Flap Find out where great ideas come from. A doctor realizes that an innocent-looking tube is killing his patients. A father cleans up after his toddler and builds a “sippy” cup that won’t spill. An engineer dreams of a different world and pioneers the cell phone. By studying breakthroughs like these, we can learn how people imagine their way around ”impossible” problems to discover groundbreaking answers. Pagan Kennedy reports on how enduring methods of invention can be adapted to the twenty-first century, as millions of us deploy tools like crowdfunding, big data, and 3-D printing to address our needs or realize our dreams.      Inventology draws on fresh research and the surprising stories behind many inventions old and new to reveal the steps that most reliably produce discovery. As Kennedy shows, recent advances in technology and communication have placed us at the cusp of a golden age; it’s now more possible than ever before to transform ideas into actuality. This myth-shattering book is a must-read for anyone who is eager to understand how the most amazing, important new things come into the world. Read more From the Back Cover “A delightful account of how inventors do what they do.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review   People often become convinced they have to make a tradeoff between two desirable qualities that are “impossible” to achieve at the same time. Imagine you’re building an electric car; you will require a lot of battery power so that the car can travel for hundreds of miles before it has to charge up again. But as soon as you begin adding batteries, you also add weight, making the car so heavy that it won’t go very far. The obvious solution (add more batteries) seems to cancel itself out. Faced with this paradox, your imagination may shut down, and you may find you can’t seem to generate any ideas. When we believe that we must pick between A and B, our mind fails—because we forget to search for a third or fourth or fifth possibility that skirts the seeming conundrum. For instance, what if you could transform the entire car into a giant battery and use its structural parts—like the hood and the door—to store energy? Indeed, several groups of researchers are now investigating this ingenious work-around; they’re developing carbon-fiber material that would transform the car’s body into a power-storage system. This approach involves a whole new way of thinking about batteries—no longer would the power-storage devices be considered a “burden” on the car. Instead, the batteries would become the car (or the laptop, or the phone). —from INVENTOLOGY Read more About the Author PAGAN KENNEDY was the New York Times Magazine’s “Who Made That?” columnist, and is the author of the New York Times Notable Book Black Livingstone, the Barnes & Noble Discover pick Spinsters, and other books. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Dwell, The Nation, and elsewhere. Read more