Time to Think

Wright brothers and the dilemma of invention

Last week was the centennial celebration of Wright brother’s flight as a turning point in the history of human journey toward the heavens. Wright brothers, who owned a bicycle repair shop, were able to invent powered flight while working in a small garage with very little help from some friends. To me, the magnitude and importance of this invention 100 years ago is comparable to building a space ship that can travel to the moon in less than an hour at the present time! Is it possible to build such thing today in a garage with small amount of money and help from some friend scientists? Of course not. The science and technology has advanced so much that it is impossible to have a big contribution in any part of it that can be recognized by ordinary people the way it happened to Wright brothers’ invention.

Today, all we can do in science and technology is to add bits and pieces to the existing knowledge. Look at the recently filed patents in the US patent office for example. How many big and revolutionary invention you see? Most of them are very small modifications of some previous works (and I do not say they are bad). This is natural. The breath of science and knowledge has become so vast that it is impossible to make big observable contributions any more. It seems that the easy inventions have been made by our ancestors and the difficult ones are left for us!