Michael Weber is a magician, and talked about historical "magician inventors". This was meant to inspire thoughts of innovation. I'm not sure if it did that, but it was quite interesting!
Hero of Alexander: described a number of remarkable inventions.
Robert Houdan helped to put down an uprising in Algeria. He used electromagnetism to hold a box down, so that a strong Algerian could not pick up the box.
The Mechanical Turk: it wasn't really an automaton, but it inspired Joseph Marie Jacquard's invention of the mechanical loom, and Babbage's work on the differential engine.
Rules of the Magician Inventor:
1) the impossible is preferred
2) there are many paths to a solution
3) think as wildly and freely as is possible
4) look outside of your discipline and areas of expertise
5) we must often unlearn to make way for progress
6) enduring hopefulness in the pursuit of magic
No comments:
Post a Comment