Lunchtalk: TED - Why humans run the world

A TED talk by Yuval Harari, the author of The Sapiens. From the talk description:

Seventy thousand years ago, our human ancestors were insignificant animals, just minding their own business in a corner of Africa with all the other animals. But now, few would disagree that humans dominate planet Earth; we've spread to every continent, and our actions determine the fate of other animals (and possibly Earth itself). How did we get from there to here? Historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests a surprising reason for the rise of humanity.

3D Printing - the new Clay Age

Consider a recent MIT Review article about the latest 3D printing lab experiments. What is their importance to inventors and what can we use to predict evolution of this technology?

When we study history, especially, history of innovation, people conventionally mention the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. At the core of such descriptions lies a wonder material — stone, bronze, iron, steel, silicon — something that enables a huge range of applications, which power technology developments for decades or even hundreds and thousands of years.

Paradoxically, there's no Clay Age (see fig below).

This is really unfortunate because the clay turned out to be the ultimate material that served us, humans, for thousands of years and enabled us to produce an amazing range of objects and technologies: from bricks to construction and architecture, from jars to storage and shipping, from ceramics to chemistry and modern waterworks, from concrete to skyscrapers and highway transportation systems. From an inventor's perspective, I see clay-based technologies as the first example of what we call today additive manufacturing.

Let's go back few thousands of years and compare stone (Before) and clay (After) as manufacturing materials. If you live in a cave and use stone to make your tools you have to chip away, blow-by-blow, certain parts of the original piece of rock that don't fit your design.

Even when we consider "raw" rocks being cheap and disregard the waste of material itself, our ability to shape the rock or change its internal physical structure is severely limited by what we can find in nature. By contrast, clay is extremely malleable: you can shape it, add filaments, make it hollow, make it solid, make it hard, glaze it, and much more. If you are a hunter-gatherer, by combining clay and fire you can create all kinds of sharp weapons that your stone age competition can't even imagine. If you are a gatherer, you can create jars and jugs, using one of the cornerstone inventions of human civilization: the Potter's Wheel.

If you are a house builder, even a primitive one, you can use mud bricks and reinforce them with straw. As you master fire and masonry, you learn how to create bricks and construct buildings that last decades and centuries, instead of years. You can even print money tokens with appropriate clay technologies! Furthermore, with advanced firing techniques, you discover how to melt and shape metals and discover important alloys, such as Bronze. Ultimately, you develop communities of innovation and economies of scale unheard of in the Stone Age.

Why thinking about the Clay Age is important today, when we are well beyond using mud for building cities? The main goal is to gain an insight into what additive manufacturing can do for us for years to come. Just like clay, 3D printing represents a technology approach with a promising long-term potential. That is, when working with both, clay and 3D printing, instead of removing and wasting extra, we add materials and shape surfaces to achieve desired designs. Luckily, for 3D printing we can leverage the learnings from clay.

Over the thousands of years, humans learned to work with clay by combining 6 key modifying methods:
1. Shape - change the outer geometry (e.g. brick).
2. Thin or thicken - change the inner geometry (e.g. thin jar).
3. Fill - change the inner structure (e.g. reinforced concrete)
4. Fire - modify inner and/or outer hardness or other material properties (e.g. hardened stove brick)
5. Slip - modify or create an outer layer with specific properties (e.g. ceramic glazes)
6. Decorate - paint or other exterior designs to make things aesthetically appealing.

With 3D printing we are still working on items 1 and 2, barely touching 3. Some of the research labs approach item 4 on our list - firing, or its equivalents.  For example, the MIT article that I've mentioned in the beginning of the post uses the ancient sequence of a clay-based technology: shape your piece from a soft material with special additives, then fire in the kiln, to achieve desired hardness and durability. Remarkably, modern 3D printing combines the ancient material — ceramics — with modern design techniques — computer modeling and manufacturing.

In the short term, 3D printing went through a lot of hype that fizzled a bit by now. In the long term,  the age of 3D printing, just like the Clay Age, is going to create a strong foundation for a broad range of human technologies. Basically, we are in the hunter-gatherer stage of our 3D evolution curve.

tags: technology, innovation, history, invention, creativity

Lunch Talk: Machines Of Ancient China

Touching a revolution: a breakthrough 18th century medical book in Leuven, Belgium

In Scalable Innovation we mention the genius of Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771), an Italian doctor who started a revolution in healthcare, by systematically cataloguing human diseases and matching them with autopsy results. According to Encyclopedia Britannica,

In his voluminous work On the Seats and Causes of Diseases as Investigated by Anatomy (1761), he compared the symptoms and observations in some 700 patients with the anatomical findings upon examining their bodies.

Today I had a chance to work with this remarkable 18th century book at the University Library in Leuven, Belgium.

The library staff brought the 2-volume book on special pillows; you can see one of them on the first picture above. Morgagni's printed work was designed to help practicing doctors and students of medicine; its first 100+ pages comprise several indices, so that the reader can identify a disease or a body part by symptoms, patient complaints, autopsy results, anatomic details, etc. (see the third picture above).

While touring the library, I discovered a Stanford connection too. In the 1920s, President Herbert Hoover ( the very first student of Stanford University) chaired the Commission for Relief in Belgium that sponsored restoration of the library after it was burned down by German troops during the World War I. The United States provided $500,000 for the project.

tags: history, innovation, medicine, healthcare, storage

Invention of the Day: Wine

In 2007, a team of Armenian and Irish archeologists discovered a 6,100-year-old winery in the Areni cave near a small Armenian village.

The discovery meant that people started producing wines in significant volumes thousands of years ago. More importantly, our ancient ancestors had specifically selected and cultivated grapes because of their high sugar content. That is, since grapes contain up to 20% glucose by volume, when fermented, they produce a large amount of alcohol (ethanol).

Although we know that even wild animals enjoy an occasional doze of alcohol feasting on fermented fruit, wine is different.

The significance of the invention of wine thousands of year ago becomes apparent when we compare it to the invention of large scale food production, e.g. grain cultivation, domestication of animals, irrigation, etc.

It [the invention of wine] completely defies the common wisdom "Necessity is the mother of invention." The proverb implies that people invent or solve problems when they are compelled to do so. But, unlike food, water,  and shelter, wine is not a necessity; one can survive without it. Moreover, certain cultures and religions explicitly forbid alcohol consumption.

Therefore, wine is not a necessary, but, rather, an opportunistic invention; something that makes life more fun (when taken in moderation). Here's how an ancient Greek poet Eubulus (4th century BCE) describes  the effects of wine:

Three bowls do I mix for the temperate: one to health, which they empty first; the second to love and pleasure; the third to sleep. When this bowl is drunk up, wise guests go home. The fourth bowl is ours no longer, but belongs to violence; the fifth to uproar; the sixth to drunken revel; the seventh to black eyes; the eighth is the policeman's; the ninth belongs to biliousness; and the tenth to madness and the hurling of furniture.

Wine is like modern computer games: you can live without it, but life would be less enjoyable.

As human inventors, we create necessities by coming up with novel ideas and making them useful to other humans on a large scale. Based on thousands of years of ever-improving and ever-increasing wine production, I would say that "Invention is the mother of necessity."

Solving the Life vs Glory dilemma - 1

In my earlier post, I quoted Achilles' dilemma from the Iliad. He has a difficult choice between 1) a short, but glorious life of a mortal combat hero; and 2) long, but uneventful life of a provincial king. I also noted a similar choice that Neo, the main character of the Matrix, faces in the virtual world of the all-powerful Mr. Smith(s). Morpheus, another rebel hero, offers him the choice between the Blue and Red pills. Neo chooses the Red pill, which leads him to a dangerous fight with the intelligent machines that rule his world.

Here's how we can diagram the dilemma. The horizontal axis is length of Life; the vertical - Glory. The curvy line is a typical trade-off trajectory, which can take extreme positions: Red = Eternal Glory and Early Death; Blue = Long Life and No Glory.

After posting the dilemma, I went on our regular evening dog walk with Dolce, the Giant Schnauzer. As we were walking, I started to think about Achilles' choices. Neither one of them felt really attractive. Nevertheless, I was sure that the dilemma must have a solution. That is, solving trade-offs and dilemmas is the bread and butter of the TRIZ methodology, which I studied back in college and still practice in my invention work.

The key principle we need to apply here is "Think Slowly!" That is, instead of making a quick choice based on intuition, we have to carefully consider the problem situation. Luckily, a dog walk is perfect for unhurried thinking.

The first step is to get rid of simple, meaningless labels.  For example, the phrase "Blue pill or Red pill" makes the choices easy to perceive in movies, but it tells us nothing about the nature of the situation. The contrasting colors can describe a conflict between all kinds of situations: from chess, to sports teams, to countries, etc. Since we don't know the relevance of colors, when offered the Blue or Red pill, we should say "Neither" and think hard.

How to think about dilemmas? Usually, a trade-off or dilemma is a sign of a constraint that we take for granted. It acts as a box that limits our choices. To solve the dilemma, we have to think outside the box. But how? First, let's try to identify the Achilles' box.

To find the box, we need to see the situation from a different perspective. We know that Achilles is the ultimate mortal combat fighter. He achieves his eternal glory by fighting other heroes to death. In the Iliad, he challenges a famous Trojan warrior - Patroclus. Therefore, we need to add a Patroclus' perspective to the picture (above). Now, we can see the box! Achilles and Patroclus are locked in mortal combat. If one lives, another dies.

In the Iliad, Achilles kills his adversary (the red circle in the figure above). Patroclus dies, but he achieves the eternal glory because he fights valiantly. In the mortal combat dilemma, he gets the Red pill. Although the Patroclus situation is clear, Achilles appears to escape his predicament. He gets the best of both worlds: 1) eternal glory for killing the best Trojan hero; 2) long life after the combat. Achilles lives with glory!

Unfortunately, the career of a mortal combat fighter doesn't end at the last fight he wins. On the contrary, it ends when he eventually looses to the next great hero. In the Iliad, Paris (the guy who stole Helen from the Greeks) shoots and kills Achilles with an arrow. Remarkably, the arrow hits Achilles in the heel, the only unprotected part of his body (thus, the expression the Achilles' Heel).

As the result, the original prophesy is fulfilled: Achilles dies and earns eternal glory (the red circle in the figure above). Given the mortal combat box, it's easy to predict the fate of Paris too.
The Achilles dilemma strikes again: Paris dies in combat, earning for himself eternal glory and, in the process, causing the eventual destruction of Troy.

By the time Dolce and I are halfway through our walk, the original dilemma looks totally unsolvable. Nevertheless, as we continue our problem analysis, we recognize that our favorite hero Odysseus, "the man of twists and turns," manages to escape the fate of Achilles and other mortal combat heroes. That is, he earns eternal glory and lives a long, fulfilled life. Moreover, his method of problem-solving is consistent throughout the Iliad and Odyssey. In each dilemma, he finds a way to think outside the box. How? I'll try to cover his method of problem solving tomorrow. Now, it's time for a dog walk.

Lunch Talk: Inventions that shook the world (1910s) - Discovery

Featured Inventions: Parachute, Gas Mask, Toaster, Tommy Gun, Sonar

Lunch talk: Inventions that shook the world (1900) - Discovery Channel

"Inventions That Shook the World" documentaries explore where great ideas come from and the brilliant, often quirky minds that bring them to life.
Featured inventions: Radio, Airplane, Disposable Razor, Air Conditioner, Vacuum Cleaner

Invention of the Day: Taxes.

tags: invention, video, economics, history

Invention of the Day: Klystron.

Klystron was one of the first inventions that put Stanford University on the world's map of high technology.

 

On the picture above: The 40-cm. klystron used for the U.S. Army blind landing system before World War II, Stanford University, 1939. In foreground, kneeling, Russell Varian adjusts the tube. Observing, left to right, are Sig Varian, David W. Webster, head of the Physics department, William W. Hansen, and John R. Woodyard, who was responsible for building the model shown. (Sperry Gyroscope Co. Photo)

In the second half of the 1930s, motivated by the growing danger presented by German air force, Russel Varian invented a device that could generate microwaves necessary to detect a plane flying above the clouds.

At the time, Russell knew nothing about the research on pulsed radar then being carried on in secrecy by the military. He began to visualize a system that amounted to an outline of what was later known as Doppler radar. Such a system would need a practical source of short waves. He knew that the generation of short waves by conventional means was limited by the difficulty of building suitable resonant circuits attached to conventional tubes and that at the shorter wavelengths the efficiency of the resonant circuits was very low. He concluded that if practical requirements for generating microwave power were to be met, a new type of resonator would be needed. (IEEE wiki)

According to the 1937 technology licensing agreement  with Stanford, the university got half of the financial returns derived from the original klystron work.

In 1948, two years after the end of the WWII, Varian Associates - one of the first successful Silicon Valley's high-tech firms - was formed. In addition to radar applications, microwave technology was used in TV broadcasts systems,  radio, and long-distance telephone communications.

Remarkably, invention of the klystron was due to what we would call today business model, rather than technological research

In his article, "The $100 Idea," in the February 1976 issue of Spectrum, published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Dr. Edward L. Ginzton described the genesis of the klystron invention as "practically a text book demonstration of the validity of 'management of technology.' It demonstrates the wisdom of being 'coupled to the market place' and of identifying societal or market needs rather than merely advancing technology for its own sake."

tags: invention, innovation, patent, detection, packaged payload, history, 4q diagram

Lunch Talk: Steve Jobs' presentation in 1980.

This video was gifted to Computer History Museum by Regis McKenna and can be found on their online exhibit about Steve Jobs here: http://www.computerhistory.org/highlights/stevejobs/

tags: lunchtalk, computing, history, apple

Tricking people into greatness.

In preparation for The Greatest Innovations of Silicon Valley, I'm reading up on computer history in the San Francisco Bay area. The video games industry was born in the early 1970s with the emergence of Atari. In 1972, Nolan Bushnell co-founded the company in Sunnyvale, CA. Their main business was servicing coin-operated arcade game machines around the valley.

At the same time, he wanted to develop and sell his own machines. For that purpose he hired engineer Al Alcorn, who ended up designing one of the best arcade game machines ever - the PONG. The machine was a result of a ruse Bushnell played to test Alcorn's engineering abilities. Here's how "The Ultimate History of Video Games," by Steven Kent describes this accident of greatness,

Shortly after hiring Alcorn, Bushnell gave him his first project. Bushnell revealed that he had just signed a contract with General Electric to design a home electronic game based on ping-pong. The game should be very simple to play—“one ball, two paddles, and a score…. Nothing else on the screen.”

Bushnell had made up the entire story. He had not signed a contract or even entered into any discussions with General Electric. In truth, Bushnell wanted to get Alcorn familiar with the process of making games while he designed a more substantial project.
found out later this was simply an exercise that Nolan gave me because it was the simplest game that he could think of. He didn’t think it had any play value. He believed that the next winning game was going to be something more complex than Computer Space, not something simpler.

An excerpt from an interview with Alcorn in the same book,

Nolan didn’t want to tell me that because it wouldn’t motivate me to try hard. He was just going to dispose of it anyway.

Pong proved to be extremely successful and put Atari on the world-wide technology map. One of the low-ranking employees at Atari later co-founded a famous "fruit" company. The guy's name was Steve Jobs.


tags: innovation, silicon valley, stanford, luck, history

Lunch Talk: BBC - The History of Ready Meals. Part 2.

History of TV dinners (ctd).  link

Emergence of freezers; demographic changes - single working women, divorces; supermarkets; television advertisement; microwave.

The transition from frozen food to chilled food - innovation in retail distribution. Supermarket dominance of the food industry - Control.

Adaptable to social changes (lean cuisine) - Packaged Payload.

tags: packaging, payload, history, lunchtalk, distribution, control

Lunch Talk: (@TED) The Greatest Machine That Never Was.

The computer was invented in the 30s: not the 1930s, but the 1830s. British mathematician Charles Babbage designed and prototyped a fully functional mechanical computer he called the Analytical Engine, but it was never completed. Now a team in Britain plans to build the machine for display at London's Science Museum before the 2030s come around.

Link

P.S. You can find a working model of the Babage Engine, along with other fascinating computer-related innovations, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

tags: computers, history, lunchtalk

Lunch Talk: (@Google) Steve Wozniak.

Steve Wozniak talks about his career at Apple as well as his life and new book "iWoz" at Google. (Spring, 2007).

This video is a candidate background material for the Greatest Innovations of Silicon Valley course John Kelley and I are going to teach at Stanford University CSP.

tags: lunchtalk, innovation, apple, history

Lunch Talk: Tomorrow Television, 1945.

A U.S. Armed Forces report about the future of television in 1945.

tags: lunchtalk, history, system, innovation, video

Lunch Talk: (@TED) Music and emotion.

In this epic overview, Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of classical music through the development of written notation, the record, and the re-mix.

tags: entertainment, history, psychology, emotion, lunchtalk

Lunch Talk: (@TED) Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes.

How do you read a two-thousand-year-old manuscript that has been erased, cut up, written on and painted over? With a powerful particle accelerator, of course! Ancient books curator William Noel tells the fascinating story behind the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing previously-unknown original writings from ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and others.

Link

tags: history, lunchtalk, detection

Lunch Talk: (@UC Berkeley) Printing Revolution

Paul Duguid explores the origins of the printing technology and popular myths about its impact on the society.

link

tags: lunchtalk, history, technology, evolution, tool

Lunch Talk: (@Google) Leadership, Genghis Khan style.

John Man re-examines the life of Genghis Khan to discover the qualities, characteristics and strategies that made him the great leader that he was. The answers are sometimes surprising. Genghis was far from just the tyrant that history records, but rather a leader of exceptional vision and modernity. And many of the secrets of his success are as valuable and applicable in todays competitive business world as they were in rallying the Mongol hordes.

John is a historian and travel writer with a special interest in Mongolia and China. He is the author of Alpha Beta on the roots of the Roman alphabet, The Gutenberg Revolution on the origins and impact of printing, the international bestseller Genghis Khan as well as Attila the Hun, Kublai Khan, The Terracotta Army and The Great Wall.

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