Re:Claude Shannon: How a Genius Thinks, Works, and Lives
by mncharity on Friday July 21, 2017 @06:02PM
(#14824031)
Incremental, or low cost/risk? A more general concept. Because sometimes what seems non-incremental, is just a change in economics.
At a history of biology colloquium, a sociology of science person, was trying to fit a narrative of new perspectives unlocking previously unconsidered questions. And the pushback was, no, the dominant effect was the cost of various tools dropping by multiple orders of magnitude. Which changed previously intractably (and thus uninteresting) questions, into potentially fruitful ones (worth pursuing).
One of the many problems with patents, is non-obviousness being incorrectly assumed time-invariant. Granting multi-decade monopolies for "you did it this year, that's cute - everyone else was waiting until next year, when it would be easy", which doesn't promote the progress of science and useful arts.
At a history of biology colloquium, a sociology of science person, was trying to fit a narrative of new perspectives unlocking previously unconsidered questions. And the pushback was, no, the dominant effect was the cost of various tools dropping by multiple orders of magnitude. Which changed previously intractably (and thus uninteresting) questions, into potentially fruitful ones (worth pursuing).
One of the many problems with patents, is non-obviousness being incorrectly assumed time-invariant. Granting multi-decade monopolies for "you did it this year, that's cute - everyone else was waiting until next year, when it would be easy", which doesn't promote the progress of science and useful arts.