How Invention Begins: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines by John H. Lienhard

From Barnes & Noble

University of Houston professor Dr. John Lienhard doesn't want us to think of telephones, light bulbs, or railroad engines as inventions. The popular NPR host of The Engines of Our Ingenuity conceives of these modern wonders as end rewards of vast aggregates of invention. How Invention Begins presents the history of new machines as the incremental orchestration of individual genius and the triumph of the zeitgeist. Lienhard's keen sense of scientific marvels is balanced by his engineer's love of telling details. An exploration of scientific breakthroughs unlike any other.

From the Publisher

Invention—that single leap of a human mind that gives us all we create. Yet we make a mistake when we call a telephone or a light bulb an invention, says John Lienhard. In truth, light bulbs, airplanes, steam engines—these objects are the end results, the fruits, of vast aggregates of invention. They are not invention itself.

In How Invention Begins, Lienhard reconciles the ends of invention with the individual leaps upon which they are built, illuminating the vast web of individual inspirations that lie behind whole technologies. He traces, for instance, the way in which thousands of people applied their combined inventive genius to airplanes, railroad engines, and automobiles. As he does so, it becomes clear that a collective desire, an upwelling of fascination, a spirit of the times—a Zeitgeist—laid its hold upon inventors. The thing they all sought to create was speed itself.

Likewise, Lienhard shows that when we trace the astonishingly complex technology of printing books, we come at last to that which we desire from books—the knowledge, the learning, that they provide. Can we speak of speed or education as inventions? To do so, he concludes, is certainly no greater a stretch than it is to call radio or the telephone an "invention."

Throughout this marvelous volume, Lienhard illuminates these processes, these webs of insight or inspiration, by weaving a fabric of anecdote, history, and technical detail—all of which come together to provide a full and satisfying portrait of the true nature of invention.

Publishers Weekly

Lienhard is enthralled with invention, how it happens and how inventions both shape and are shaped by culture. He posits that the quest for a single canonical inventor of a new technology is illusory, because all inventions are the sum of many contributors. To make his point, Lienhard (professor emeritus of mechanical engineering and history at the University of Houston and host of public radio's The Engines of Our Ingenuity) traces the development of airplanes and steam engines, among other technologies, in a lucid style filled with interesting forays into origins and biography. But the author is also fascinated by what is best described as the invention of the spread of knowledge. The second half of the book is an examination of how Gutenburg's printing press began a worldwide explosion of knowledge that traces its roots to the incunabula, books written between 1455 and 1500, and ends with the mass production of books for popular consumption. Lienhard also pays tribute to the development of the public library, museums, correspondence courses and universities as means of education. The author's personality permeates his writing, and it's impossible not to admire his optimism, his far-reaching knowledge and his enthusiasm for learning. 120 illus. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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