Ira Brodsky.com

This post is the first in a series based on my book, The History of Wireless: How Creative Minds Produced Technology for the Masses, published in 2008. Each week I’ll present the most interesting and surprising facts about the history and future of wireless from one of fourteen chapters.



Most encyclopedias credit Italian professor Alessandro Volta with inventing the electric battery. That’s true, but it almost entirely misses the point.

What Volta really invented was the first source of continuous current. Up until then, natural philosophers (now called “scientists”) could only generate and store static charges. Static electricity is good for producing sparks and shocking people and animals, but that’s about it. Using Volta’s continuous current apparatus, investigators across Europe found they could create light and heat, drive chemical reactions, and perform a wider range of experiments. That, in turn, led to the telegraph, telephone, and wireless.

Volta laid the foundation for electronics; demand for AA batteries came much later.


There are two other interesting facets to Volta’s story. Volta did not set out to invent a device producing continuous current. He was merely trying to win a debate with the Italian physiologist Luigi Galvani. Galvani made a frog’s leg muscle contract just by touching the attached nerve with his scalpel; he theorized that touching the nerve disturbed the creature’s “animal electricity.” Volta knew that a tiny amount of electricity can trigger muscle contractions. He also knew that tiny amounts of electricity can be generated just by bringing certain materials (such as dissimilar metals and moist tissue) into contact with each other.


To wit, the electric battery issued from a clash of ideas.

The electric battery was actually Volta’s second invention exploiting the production of electricity through simple contact. His first was the celebrated electrophorus. Prior to the electrophorus, the only way to generate electric charges was to rub certain materials together. Rubbed once, the electrophorus could produce electric charges multiple times. Like many great scientists and inventors, Volta found new ways to milk a single good idea. Had he lived to see Faraday’s dynamo--which converted motion into electricity—he might have dismissed it as a throwback to persistent rubbing.

Next time: How a Blacksmith’s Son Discovered Force Fields

The current debate about how to reform the U.S. health care system revolves around two issues: access and affordability. We are reminded almost daily that approximately 46 million Americans are uninsured. And we are warned that at the rate costs are rising health care will consume one-third of our GDP within a few decades.

Missing from the debate is how to ensure the flow of innovation that made the U.S. health care system the envy of the world. Are we so obsessed with financial security that we are willing to risk future medical advances?

I’m sure some will dismiss what I just said as a mixture of false pride and alarmism. But I’ve done my homework. (My book on the history and future of medical technology will be published later this year.) Many of the medical miracles that we now consider a birthright could not have been brought to market under today’s regulatory regime. Read on, and I’ll explain why the proposed reforms could bring medical technology innovation to a screeching halt.

First, we need to get a key fact straight. No one in the U.S. is being denied life-saving treatment. There is not a single emergency room in the U.S. that would turn away someone in urgent need of medical care just because they lack health insurance or are unable to pay. The pundits who keep harping on the 46 million uninsured Americans are the alarmists. Many of the uninsured are young and healthy. Some are between jobs. Others choose to pay for their own health care. Simple math says that there must be over 250 million Americans who do have some form of health insurance—so 46 million uninsured is hardly a national calamity.

That’s not to say everything is hunky-dory. Health care costs in the U.S. have soared. But it’s not because advanced technology has driven costs through the roof. It’s because of the bureaucracy associated with filing and tracking claims. It’s because the third-party payer system prevents prices from guiding supply and demand. It’s because the FDA has made bringing new drugs to market horribly expensive. And it’s because of huge malpractice awards.

So how would proposed health care reform endanger innovation?

A major goal of health care reform is to rein in costs. Unfortunately, new technology is always more expensive than mature technology. It takes time to recoup the cost of developing new technology. It takes time to reduce the cost of manufacturing it. And it takes time and money to build the market; volume production is the ultimate source of low prices. In a nutshell, reforms that curb costs will discourage the introduction of new technologies because new technologies are inherently more expensive.

The Obama administration believes that we can drive down the cost of health care by mandating the use of electronic medical records (EMRs). Going to a paperless system will squeeze out some costs and EMRs offer other benefits. However, forced adoption is often more expensive and time consuming than natural adoption. EMRs could divert resources from other worthy and perhaps more timely technologies. Plus, the government has been pushing EMRs for 15 years without success, and industry giants such as Microsoft and Google now think that Internet-based personal health records (PHRs) are a better bet. Who would want government-mandated EMRs when they can have patient-controlled PHRs?

Despite the overwhelming historical evidence, we no longer believe in the system that has brought prosperity to the greatest number. We continue to harbor the illusion that a centralized, planned system is more efficient and fair. But it’s the self-organized system that is more conducive to innovation.

Health care reform does not have to be the end of medical technology innovation. In order to get what they want, the proponents of a national health system may agree to a compromise that permits an alternative private health care system for those who are willing and able to pay extra. The private system could become a test bed for new technologies. Heck, a dual health care system could end up being more competitive than what we have today.

But a dual system is not a sure bet. It may take several years of rationing and bureaucratic indifference to spur another round of reforms. And that is not a pleasant prospect.

Speaking to the annual gathering of the National Academy of Science, President Obama announced the goal of spending more than 3% of the United States’ gross domestic product on research and development. The President believes that increased R&D spending will spur innovation.

No one can deny that government-funded research has produced some spectacular successes—particularly in national defense and space exploration. But its record in other spheres is not nearly as good. Worse, government tends to politicize everything it touches, and for science that can be the kiss of death.

Most great inventions come from the private sector. This is an indisputable fact. The telegraph, telephone, trains, automobiles, airplanes, radio, and television were all developed by the private sector. And it is no accident. Businesses, if only to survive, must create products people want, in forms they can use, and at prices they can afford.

Proponents of government-funded research counter that while most inventions come from the private sector, most of the fundamental science behind those inventions does not. We need government to ensure enough “pure research” is being conducted now to fuel commercial innovation later.

That sounds reasonable, but it does not comport with the facts. The charge that the private sector eschews basic research isn’t true. In the past, Bell Laboratories and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research were leaders in both basic and applied research. Large corporations such as IBM and private universities continue to conduct basic research. Granted, the private sector may be conducting less pure research today, but that’s largely due to high corporate taxes and absurd reporting rules for publicly-traded companies.

I discussed John D. Rockefeller’s contributions to medical research in a previous post. My purpose at the time was to show that Rockefeller—accused of being a 19th century robber baron—has been maligned. But there is another point that needs to be emphasized. As a private philanthropist, Rockefeller was able to apply his business skills and connections to achieve very ambitious goals. He consciously avoided one of the pitfalls of government-funded research: the creation of a class of researchers who exist merely to feed at the public trough. To wit, Rockefeller obtained a bigger bang for his research buck than government has ever achieved or is ever likely to achieve.

But that’s not all. Government funding of scientific research is fraught with danger. Government often favors specific technologies or scientists for political reasons. For example, government has proved highly susceptible to political pressure from environmentalists. (Consequently, a great deal of research these days targets unreliable and uneconomical "alternative energy sources.") Government officials are sometimes tempted to use procurement and regulations to help their friends. The point is not that business people are inherently more ethical than government employees. The point is that business people are ultimately judged according to an external standard (the marketplace), while government employees are mainly judged by other government employees.

The biggest problem with President Obama’s research policy, however, is that it could end up thwarting innovation. Politicians like to manage and control things. Naturally, they are reluctant to admit that innovation often occurs spontaneously and comes from unexpected sources. There’s nothing wrong with a modest amount of government-driven research. But when government dominates the business of research as President Obama intends, there is real danger that genuine innovators will be crowded out.

Is there anything government can do to promote science and technology innovation? The answer is “No and yes.” For starters, politicians must realize that you can’t stimulate innovation as much as they pretend, and you certainly can’t plan it. Above all, innovation requires freedom. It’s all about doing what others think can’t be done or shouldn’t be done or isn’t worth doing.

There is one other thing that politicians can do to promote science and technology innovation. They can reverse Western Civilization’s slide towards mediocrity. I’m talking about the phenomenon that is best exemplified by the popular education slogan “Let no child be left behind.” It is a noble sentiment that in practice translates to “Let no child get too far ahead.” We have to choose: do we want everyone to be equally unsuccessful or are we willing to let a few excel? Innovation requires accepting and even embracing unequal outcomes.

What will wireless look like in 5 or 10 years? For over 25 years the wireless industry has repeatedly trounced every subscriber forecast. There are now more than 4.1 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide. Mobile phone markets in China and India are still growing by tens of millions of users each month.

There is a huge market for replacement handsets. Operators push handset upgrades to reduce churn (subscribers switching to other service providers) and drive premium services (such as mobile TV). Smartphone shipments are increasing while standard phones are becoming smarter. Inside the industry, mobile applications (and application stores) are hot.

As consultant Chetan Sharma puts it, “the mobile phone will become the remote control of our lives.” The number and variety of applications is overwhelming. With more than 4 billion potential customers, even applications that seem esoteric or silly could make developers rich. Major categories include mobile entertainment, mobile health, social networking, location-based services, and mobile commerce.

So what will mobile devices and services look like in 5 or 10 years? I suspect that will be largely determined locally. It will also depend on who is first to grab mind share. There are way too many choices; the average subscriber will let early adopters and power users sort them out.

I find turn-by-turn driving directions to be compelling. But it may not be compelling to people who live in small towns or depend on public transportation. Mobile health is also powerful, but it won’t take off until hospitals, physician groups, and pharmacies buy in.

I suspect that more “things” will become connected to wireless networks. Hospitals are already equipping wheelchairs and IV pumps with wireless transmitters so they can be located when needed. Amazon’s Kindle downloads titles via a mobile phone network; the user does not need an individual subscription. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 5 or 10 years most automobiles, portable computers, and air conditioners follow Kindle’s lead.

The flipside is that most mobile phones will support Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi to communicate with local devices. Near field communications (NFC) makes sense for secure and quick transactions. Together, these technologies permit mobile operators to offload certain types of communications while making subscribers even more dependent on their existing service providers. When it’s time for a handset upgrade, guess who can ensure seamless transfer of your personal data and settings?

A century ago, William Ayrton predicted a future in which people are always in contact via wireless technology. To paraphrase Ayrton, "If you try to reach someone and they don’t respond, then it can only mean they are dead." When I first read that I was impressed, but now I’m not so sure. In the future your wireless phone may just keep responding without you.

-- I discuss these and other cool wireless technologies in my book The History of Wireless.

Malcolm Gladwell's best selling book Outliers is masterfully written, thought provoking, and an entertaining read.

It also offers bad advice based on dubious conclusions.

Relying mainly on anecdotal evidence, Gladwell sets out to convince us that success is not just the result of intelligence, ambition and hard work. The surprising truth, according to Gladwell, is that success actually has more to do with the opportunities provided by one's family, local community, and society-at-large.

Gladwell revisits the familiar "nature versus nurture" debate and comes down squarely on the side of nurture. Outliers is a cleverly repackaged version of the "It's not what you know but who you know" message.

What makes this book exceptional is Gladwell's argument that even ambition and hard work are more the product of upbringing than some unexplainable inner drive. And I will grant there is some truth to what he says. But I'm not ready to abandon the often overriding influence of individual initiative.

The problem with anecdotes is that it's easy to pick the ones that support your position and ignore the ones that don't. Gladwell tells us that a key success factor in professional hockey, soccer and baseball is birth date. He explains that cutoff birth dates in each age group favor the oldest kids. For example, in Canada the cutoff date for junior hockey is January 1, which means that a kid who just turned ten competes with kids who won't turn ten for another 10, 11, or 12 months. He offers as proof the fact that 17 out of 25 players on the Medicine Hat Tigers' roster were born in January, February, March or April.

I won't dispute Gladwell's conclusion that success in Canadian hockey is skewed by birth date. But towards the end of the book he slips in this little gem "If Canada had a second hockey league for those children born in the last half of the year, it would today have twice as many adult hockey stars." Sorry, but that does not follow. A second hockey league might reduce the skew, but it would not necessarily double (or even increase) the demand for professional hockey players.

Gladwell suggests that success in any field requires about 10,000 hours of work. But it's not just about working hard. Bill Gates had access to a computer terminal at the tender age of 13 and that allowed him to acquire 10,000 hours of programming experience. Likewise, the Beatles obtained a gig in Hamburg, Germany which gave them 10,000 hours of experience performing live. It's all about the opportunity, you see.

I'm not sure Gladwell's math is accurate, but that's not the issue. Bill Gates succeeded as a businessman--not as a programmer. The Beatles got the gig in Hamburg because they were good from the start and were willing to invest long hours playing in seedy clubs.

There is one distinction that seems to escape Gladwell entirely: the distinction between modest success and extraordinary success. Certainly the factors discussed by Gladwell contribute to modest success. Children raised with high expectations will generally do better than those raised with low expectations. But extraordinary success often transcends factors such as birth date, economic class, ethnic group, and education. To wit, there is no place in Gladwell's scheme for someone like Michael Faraday, who became one of the greatest scientists in history despite an impoverished childhood and limited education.

Gladwell tells us that successful people really aren't outliers at all. They are the beneficiaries of opportunities provided to them by others. But he cherry-picks his examples. I can cherry-pick many more counterexamples.

Letting yourself become consumed by priority disputes is one of the biggest mistakes that a scientist or inventor can make. While creators and discoverers should seek proper credit for their achievements, it’s important to recognize the most effective ways of securing credit, and to avoid getting caught up in prolonged public spats.

Many disputes arise when a scientist or inventor suggests an idea to someone who then builds on it, acquiring wealth and fame as a result. A good example is the 17th century argument between Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. Hooke protested that he was first to describe the forces that determine the orbital motion of planets and that Newton failed to recognize his contribution in his great book, Principia.

There is compelling evidence that Hooke was first to suggest the ideas, because Newton acknowledged the fact in private correspondence. However, it was Newton who produced and published a comprehensive theory, and Hooke freely admitted that Newton took the ideas much further than he had considered.

Hooke’s position was weak. The best he could have hoped for was an acknowledgment from Newton. However, Hooke was in some ways his own worst enemy, publicly and aggressively challenging some of Newton's other ideas. It’s understandable that Newton lost whatever sympathy he had for Hooke’s claim based on Hooke’s subsequent behavior.

The lesson of history is that it is not enough to be first to propose an idea. The greatest credit goes to those who conduct a thorough study and either publish their findings or produce an invention based on those findings. To wit, history rightly favors those who do something with ideas.

Hooke only made matters worse by continuing to argue his case. His lobbying efforts must have made colleagues uncomfortable—given that most probably wanted to maintain friendly relations with both men. Hooke was a prolific scientist; what he should have done was be sure to follow through the next time he had a good idea. (In fact, Hooke made a habit of jumping from one line of inquiry to another, and rarely carried any through to completion.)

There have been many similar cases throughout history. There comes a time when the plaintiff needs to let go. Being first is not the only determining factor. When Marcel Gley publicly protested that he and not Frederick Banting was first to discover insulin, Oscar Minkowski replied “I know just how you feel. I could also have kicked myself for not having discovered insulin, when I realize how close I came to it.”

People are excited about the Obama administration’s science and technology initiatives. That’s not surprising: the new administration appears fervently pro-science, believes in the efficacy of government spending, and promises to give research and advanced technology massive boosts.

Expect few, if any, technology innovations.

Both Democrats and Republicans seem to think government can drive innovation. Democrats tend to see government leading innovation while Republicans usually see government playing a supporting role.

Neither party has ever conducted a thorough and objective study of government’s record driving innovation. If they had, then they would know that innovation is not something you can plan. It’s something that almost always happens independently and spontaneously—usually in the face of indifference, skepticism or even hardened resistance.

Unfortunately, it’s easy for politicians to fool the public into believing that they can just order a series of breakthroughs. And it’s even easier to fool scientists who will be on the receiving end of the money spigot.

I’m not saying this is a purely black and white issue. Sometimes government can spur innovation. But for every top-down success there are hundreds of top-down failures. And when government does spur innovation, it often isn’t anything like what was ordered.

Al Gore’s claim that he helped create the Internet is not baseless. He was a long-time proponent of government funding for high-speed data networks interconnecting computer centers at major universities. The internet protocol suite was invented at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as was the word “Internet.”

But politicians often ignore crucial details. Technology policymakers tend to back large, committee-based efforts to develop national or international standards. Yet the internet protocol suite was the result of a (low budget) skunkworks effort, and it completely undermined the International Standards Organization’s program to establish an open systems interconnection standard. And while Gore envisioned an information superhighway interconnecting public institutions, the Internet took off because it interconnected individual microcomputer users.

You might reply: “So what if only one out of hundreds of government-funded projects pay off? Venture capitalists don’t expect every investment to pay off."

The difference is that government involvement skews the playing field. Permitting government officials to decide which technologies get an extra push is an invitation to corruption. It often results in those same officials throwing obstacles in the paths of competing technologies. In contrast, there are many VCs funding competing technologies, and VCs don’t have powers they can abuse to block rival technologies.

Government spending in areas such as defense and space exploration sometimes leads to important innovations. However, government tends to exaggerate its role while downplaying that of private industry. The claim that government drives innovation is often accompanied by warnings that the failure to increase funding will result in the U.S. falling further behind other countries. When a business makes false claims it is subject to outside investigation and prosecution; when the government makes false claims it has the advantage of also being judge and jury.

Some government initiatives are simply ill-advised. Government routinely claims regulation is needed to protect consumers against unfair business practices, but regulation has often been used to establish and protect monopolies. And when government talks about preserving neutrality, ensuring diversity, and protecting children you can almost count on the exact opposite.

I don’t know about you, but my house is filled with innovative products invented and produced by the private—not the public—sector.

Late 19th century American industrialists were latter day robber barons, amassing great wealth through unfair and anti-competitive business practices.

At least, that’s how they are routinely portrayed by radicals, opportunists, and sore losers.

Consider the case of John D. Rockefeller, Senior. Rockefeller made a fortune producing and distributing kerosene for household lighting in the 1870s. Rockefeller was a devoted member of his church, vowed to give away 10% of his earnings from the time he landed his first job, and was always looking for ways to cut costs. Though some believe he was the richest man in history, he and his wife Cettie lived relatively simple lives. Rockefeller was a great philanthropist—as skilled in donating money for the benefit of mankind as he was at earning it.


Rockefeller had a hugely positive impact on education, medical research, and the welfare of disadvantaged Americans. He transformed a small college into a world-class university (the University of Chicago). He founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University). Growing up in the 1850s, he found slavery repugnant, and educating African Americans became a life-long cause. Rockefeller started an organization that eradicated hookworm disease in the southern U.S. He gave generously to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Peking Union Medical College in China.

Rockefeller is accused of being a monopolist who conspired to crush competitors in order to drive up prices. That is simply not true. Rockefeller did leave competitors in the dust—by developing more efficient means of drilling oil, refining it, and distributing kerosene and other products. Though he dominated the market for many years, he had substantial competition. By the time efforts to break up Standard Oil got into gear, the company was losing share in a changing market. Ironically, the breakup drove up the value of Rockefeller’s stock holdings, making him richer than before.

Rockefeller’s detractors were motivated by more than just a sense of fairness. His first vocal critic, Henry Demarest Lloyd, once referred to himself as a “socialist-anarchist-communist-individualist-collectivist-cooperative-aristocratic-democrat.” Rockefeller’s most effective critic, Ida Tarbell, was hardly in a position to be objective: her father entered the oil production and refining business just as Rockefeller’s business was taking off. Though Tarbell did not paint Rockefeller as all bad, she accused him of cheating the widow of a small lubricant manufacturer when he purchased her husband’s business. Actually, out of charity Rockefeller knowingly paid more than the business was worth. After receiving an accusatory letter from the widow, Rockefeller offered to return the business for a refund. She did not accept his offer.


The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (RIMR) was founded in 1901 to conduct biomedical research. Though Rockefeller favored homeopathic remedies for himself, he was convinced by Frederick T. Gates of the need for a scientific institute along the lines of the Pasteur Institute in France and Koch Institute in Germany. RIMR went on to become the home of more than 20 Nobel Prize winners. One of the Prize recipients was Alexis Carrel, who developed a standard technique for suturing blood vessels and collaborated with Charles Lindbergh on research that led to open heart surgery and organ transplants.

Was Rockefeller a business cheat? Certainly he was a tough businessman and some of his tactics are now considered anti-competitive. However, there were few rules at the time, and it’s hard to see how teaming up with others to drive down prices paid by consumers was such a bad thing. Perhaps Rockefeller’s biggest mistake was delegating authority to less fastidious employees.

Rockefeller did not give away money just to deflect criticism. He devoted tremendous time and energy to ensure his philanthropic enterprises met their goals. Yes, he built an oil empire and became extremely wealthy. But he gave back to society even more.

What makes a scientific experiment beautiful? A few years ago Physics World asked readers to nominate the “most beautiful experiment in physics.” The results were not terribly surprising. Readers picked Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment demonstrating that light interferes with itself as the most beautiful. My favorite—Rutherford’s experiment discovering the atomic nucleus—came in ninth place.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then I have no reason to complain. However, Physics World also asked readers the reasons behind their selections. Their answers show that readers do not consider this type of beauty purely subjective. Robert P. Crease summarized their reasons as “transformative,” “economy,” and “deep play.”

Those reasons strike me as partly right and partly wrong. What makes an experiment beautiful is that it is cleverly designed, dramatic, and reveals something fascinating about nature. Everything else is fluff. For example, when someone calls an experiment “transformative” it tells us more about modern conceit than the experiment's merit. Like "disruptive" and "path breaking," it's pure cliché.

Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment was beautiful. Unfortunately, it was also somewhat misleading. One purpose of science experiments is to resolve controversies. Thomas Young’s experiment showed the wave nature of light. Other experiments demonstrated the particle nature of light. It wasn’t until much later that a modified double-slit experiment demonstrated wave-particle duality.

I have reservations about some of the other top ten choices. Newton’s “decomposition of sunlight with a prism” illustrated a fundamental concept, but it was hardly very clever. Similarly, the only thing original about Galileo’s “experiment on falling bodies” was his explanation. And Eratosthenes’ “measurement of the Earth’s circumference” relied on a combination of observation and theory—not experimentation.

Rutherford’s experiment showed that while atoms consist mostly of empty space they contain a tiny and relatively massive core he dubbed the “nucleus.” In this experiment, a beam of alpha particles was used to bombard a very thin gold foil. Studying scattering of the alpha particles, Rutherford found most traveled straight through, some were modestly deflected, and one in 8,000 bounced straight back. (He verified that the bounce backs were not just a surface phenomenon.) Rutherford famously stated “It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.”

Rutherford followed that up with another beautiful experiment. He wanted to prove that alpha particles are helium nuclei. He directed an assistant to make a glass cylinder and place another, slightly smaller glass cylinder inside. The wall of the smaller glass cylinder was extremely thin: 1/100th of a millimeter thick. This allowed alpha particles emanating from inside the inner cylinder to enter the space between the two cylinders (after the air had been removed) but not escape through the outer cylinder’s wall. After collecting alpha particles in the space, he zapped them with electricity and examined them with a spectroscope. They showed the spectrum of helium as expected.

A beautiful experiment doesn’t have to be perfect, but it must significantly increase our knowledge of the natural world in a way that is repeatable and verifiable. With all of the distractions that surround modern science, researchers would do well to revisit beautiful experiments from time to time.

Future historians will likely commemorate the current era as The Technological Revolution. The 20th century gave birth to electronics, computers, telecommunications, space exploration, medical technology, and materials engineering. The 21st century appears destined to extend the benefits of technology to almost all of the world’s people.

Sadly, not many people are interested in the history of technology. That's not surprising considering the Education Establishment's attitude towards history in general. History has been depicted by many educators, since the 1960s, as an irrelevant collection of names and dates (requiring only "rote memory"). This is what leads some people to assert that the Constitution of the United States (developed through intensive study of all known forms of government) is a "living, breathing" document. Well, I say history is about as relevant as anything could be—it is after all the human race's life story—and there are only two reasons to avoid it: intellectual laziness and the desire to prop up failed ideologies.

The history of technology teaches us how creative people acquire knowledge about the world and apply it to serve human needs. As technology advances, the easiest way for newcomers to learn about a technology will be to trace its historical development. The history of technology also tells us much about the workings of the natural world—often bringing new mysteries to our attention.

It’s crucial that we record the history of technology while the events are fresh, many of the leading actors are living, and fact can still be separated from myth.

Most children are taught in school that there is a single scientific method. It goes something like this: form a hypothesis, design an experiment to test the hypothesis, perform the experiment, and record and analyze the data. This is great if the only goal is to churn out laboratory technicians, but history shows that science owes much of its success to inspiration, theory, and serendipity.

Many people believe that we must either enforce “the scientific method” or return to the Dark Ages. This narrow view of science can only impede discovery and innovation. Charles Townes developed the laser in theory first. By the time he finally constructed a laser he wasn’t performing an experiment—he was already quite certain it would work. The laboratory bench may produce incremental advances, but technological breakthroughs come from the imagination.

History provides ample evidence that you do not need to be thoroughly scientific to be a great technologist. Raymond Damadian, inventor of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), is a young earth creationist. Damadian's unscientific views (re: creation) didn’t stop him from developing the first whole body MRI machine, but many believe those views kept him from winning a Nobel Prize.

Can history help people understand advanced technologies? Imagine that you know little or nothing about electronics but want to learn how mobile phones operate. An engineer can describe the essential components that comprise a mobile phone system and explain how each component does its job. Unfortunately, you will soon find yourself swimming in a sea of acronyms and jargon.

Alternatively, you can trace the mobile phone’s historical development. This approach starts with basic principles (e.g., the discovery of electromagnetic waves), shows how those principles were first put into practice, and continues to describe each incremental advance. The student’s understanding of advanced technology is slowly built layer upon layer, with everything presented in its natural context.

The history of technology, when properly told, includes essential elements that are often otherwise missing. Advanced technology is as much the result of business and market development as scientific progress. The typical mobile phone is what it is today not merely because it was possible, but because it was desirable. Douglas Ring invented cellular radio because the rapid growth of landline telephones suggested—at least to him and some of his colleagues at Bell Labs—a large future market for mobile telephones.

The history of technology also reminds us of the limits of our knowledge. There are advances we expected that haven’t come about such as videophones, household robots, and artificial intelligence. Videophones are technically and economically feasible; people simply aren’t ready for them. Robots are easy to build in theory, but not so easy to design and maintain in practice. Artificial intelligence has not advanced as rapidly as computing overall because AI proponents grossly underestimated what it would take to emulate human intelligence.

Technology is often defined as the application of knowledge. If that’s so, then the history of technology is not just a timeline of key events, but a window into human progress.