Invention and Innovation

Resumen del libro

From the New York Timesbestselling author, a new volume on the history of human ingenuityx{0026}mdashand its attendant breakthroughs and busts.Included in BILL GATES's 2023 Holiday Reading List Included in Lit Hubx{0026}rsquos Most Anticipated Books of 2023 Included in The Next Big Idea Clubx{0026}rsquos February 2023 MustRead Books"Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception. Even when I disagree with him, I learn a lot from him...he always strengthens my thinking."x{0026}mdashBill Gates, Gates NotesThe world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific authorx{0026}mdasha favorite of Bill Gatesx{0026}mdashpens an insightful and factfilled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a cleareyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the inventiondevelopmentapplication trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm.Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation. He then looks at three different types of inventions.Inventions that failed to dominate as promised:ulliAirshipsliliNuclear fissionliliSupersonic flightliulInventions that turned disastrous:ulliLeaded gasoline liliDDTliliChlorofluorocarbonsliulInventions we have long been promised (and that would be highly beneficial):ulliTravel in vacuum (hyperloop)liliNitrogenfixing cerealsliliNuclear fusionliulFinally, he offers a x{0026}ldquowish listx{0026}rdquo of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twentyfirst century.Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuityx{0026}mdashand how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.

Biografía del autor

Vaclav Smil (Pilsen, 1943) es profesor emérito de Ciencias Ambientales de la Universidad de Manitoba, en el sur de Canadá. Sus investigaciones abarcan temas como la energía, el cambio climático y poblacional, la producción de alimentos, la evaluación de riesgos y las políticas públicas. Ha publicado más de cuarenta libros y quinientos artículos relacionados con estos temas. Entre sus publicaciones destacan ¿Cómo funciona el mundo? (2023), Energía y civilización. Una historia (2021) y Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made (2020). En 2010 fue nombrado por la revista estadounidense Foreign Policy como uno de los 100 mejores pensadores del mundo. Es miembro de la Royal Society de Canadá y de la Orden de Canadá. En la actualidad, su trabajo sobre las transiciones energéticas está recibiendo más atención que nunca debido al enorme desafío de eliminar los combustibles fósiles para frenar el cambio climático.