Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World - Rilegato

Kennedy, Pagan

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0544324005 ISBN 13: 9780544324008

Casa editrice: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016

Riassunto

Find out where great ideas come from.

A father cleans up after his toddler and imagines a cup that won't spill. An engineer watches people using walkie-talkies and has an idea. A doctor figures out how to deliver patients to the operating room before they die.

By studying inventions like these — the sippy cup, the cell phone, and an ingenious hospital bed — we can learn how people imagine their way around "impossible" problems to discover groundbreaking answers. Pagan Kennedy reports on how these enduring methods can be adapted to the twenty-first century, as millions of us deploy tools like crowdfunding, big data, and 3-D printing to find hidden opportunities.   
 
Inventology uses the stories of inventors and surprising research to reveal the steps that produce innovation. As Kennedy argues, 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. Inventology is a must-read for designers, artists, makers—and anyone else who is curious about creativity. By identifying the steps of the invention process, Kennedy reveals the imaginative tools required to solve our most challenging problems.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"[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

"Complicated, cool, and vulnerable at the same time ... You can't help falling for Pagan Kennedy's characters." — New York Times on The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories "A page-turner that illuminates as it breaks the heart." — Philadelphia Inquirer on Black Livingstone, a New York Times Notable Book, Boston Phoenix top-ten nonfiction book of the year, and winner of the Massachusetts Book Award in nonfiction "Pagan Kennedy, queen of the zines, writes with a sweet, trenchant wit and the delicacy of a modern-day Chekhov." — San Francisco Chronicle on Brain-o-matic "It's absolutely wonderful. What it makes me want to do is to go back to Ireland today and get writing again, you know?" — Roddy Doyle, in an interview with The Literary Review, on Spinsters, a Barnes & Noble Discover pick

Dalla quarta di copertina:

“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

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Data di pubblicazione: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0544324005
• ISBN 13: 9780544324008
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 270