Better Mousetrap

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2012

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s the perennial dream: build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. We go to San Jose’s famed Tech Museum to learn what it takes to turn a good idea into a grand success. Remember the Super Soaker squirt gun? Hear how its inventor is now changing the rules for solar energy. Where do good ideas come from? A Eureka moment in the bathtub? We’ll find out that it doesn’t happen so quickly – or easily. And finally, the life cycle of society-changing technologies, from the birth of radio to the future of the Internet. Inventions, inventors and innovation: all part of the mix on “Better Mousetrap.” Guests: Steven Johnson - Author of Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation Lonnie Johnson - Inventor and former NASA engineer; CEO of Johnson Research and Development Company Tim Wu - Professor of Communication Law at Columbia University and author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Borzoi Books) Alana Connor - Vice President Content Development, The Tech Museum, San Jose Descripción en español Originally released February 7, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:07.0	Hey Molly, look at this over here. It's a gene sequencing machine.
1:09.0	Maybe we ought to sequence your genes.
1:10.0	Right, you wouldn't have been able to sequence the human genome without a machine like this.
1:14.0	Yeah, but I'm sure that this is a lot smaller than they used to be. That's impressive.
1:18.0	What else do we have here? It looks like this is a sonogram?
1:21.0	Yeah, it's an ultrasound device. you know, like if you want to look
1:23.4	inside your body, maybe if you're pregnant or something like that, you want to see
1:25.8	that the baby's okay, they use ultrasound, it's completely non-invasive, you
1:29.1	don't even hear it. Well, where we are seeing all these incredible devices is in the heart of Silicon Valley.
	...

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