L04 Adjacent Possible

LECTURE L04ADJECENT POSSIBLE

Exponential World

Local and linear

Global and Exponential

The S-curve

Improvements in performance varies throughout the life of the

technology

Number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double

in about 18-24 months

Moore’s Law

The Law of Accelerating ReturnsEvolution applies positive feedback in that the more

capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to

create the next stage

As a result, the rate of progress of an evolutionary process increases exponentially over time

Complexity of Technology

Local and linear

Global and Exponential

Combinatorial

Ideas build upon Ideas

Every generation of technology becomes a source for new

innovations

Web of Technology

Products are made using different parts using many technologies -

confection of ideas

Gall’s Law

All complex systems that work, evolved from simpler system that worked

“I, Pencil” by Leonard E. Read

Toaster

Thomas Thwaits: The Toaster Project

"Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich

and that was it." Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992

“And that was something that reoccurred throughout the project, was, the smaller the scale you want to work on, the further back

in time you have to go” - Thomas Thwaites

Layers of Technology

Technologies evolves layer by layer, from simple to complex

technologies

Combinatory Process

New technology is created by combining other existing

technology in new ways

The Law of Disappearing Technology

When some technique is mastered, it will “disappear” as

something obvious and trivial, and other more useful things that are

built on top of it

The Resistance Corollary

Even outdated things thatshould “disappear” don’t

due to supposed importance

Adjacent Possible

Adjacent Possible

...a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of

things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself

Steven Johnson

Ideas usually come at similar timeWho invented the telephone?

Enabling Technology

Existing technology that can be used to build new technologies

Why was the computer invented in the 1940s and not in the 1840s?

Think about this!

Charles Babbage worked on his difference engine and later analytical engine In 1822-1871

Ada Lovelace influenced or even conceived the concept ot programmable computer

Adjacent Possible

The inventor must use the components that exist in

his environmentSteven  Johnson

Image  source:  http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/HistoryPt4.htm

Vacuum tubes were used to build computers

The Second Industrial Revolution

The period 1870-1914 shaw innovations in the chemical, electric, petroleum and steel industries

Nikolai Kondratiev

Kondratiev waves are supposedly cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy

Source:  Wikipedia,  Kondratiev  Wave

Kontrativ Wave

Source:  Wikipedia,  Kondratiev  Wave

Wave Years

1 First Industrial Revolution 1787–1842

2 Railroad and Steam Engine Era 1842–1897

3 Age of steel, electricity and internal combustion 1897–1939

4 War and Post-war Boom: Suburbia 1939–1982

5 Post Industrial Era: Information Technology 1982? – ??

Kontrativ Wave

The Prevailing Technology Trap

Current  and  dominant  technology  will  highly  influence  and  restrict  new  innovations

Technology Cramming

Technology Cramming

Two Waves of Products Development

In the first wave the product is restricted by the

prevailing technology, but in the second, there is

something new

Timeline

Each wave creates number of new inventions

Timeline

Let’s play a game

Timeline when?

Submarine Navigation The Safe Cork Rubber eraser The brick

-10.000 TODAY

The brick -7000

Navigation -4000

Cork 1695

The Safe 1844

Submarine 1775

Rubber eraser 1770

1000

The brick

The safe

Submarine

Rubber eraser

Navigation

Cork

slide rule 1624

Telescope

Ceramics

hourglass

Violin

Typewriter

Barbed wire

Telescope 1668

Violin 1548

Typewriter 1873

Barbed wire 1874

Hourglass 900

Ceramics -6000

Next

L05 Innovation