by John H. Lienhard at the University of Houston
Today, we observe the 2nd anniversary of The Engines of Our
Ingenuity. The University of Houston's College of Engineering
presents this series about the machines that make our civiliza-
tion run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
We finished the second year of this program on January 3rd,
1990. It's time to ask what we've learned from it. I asked this
question once before -- after the first three months. By then
we'd found the real mothers of invention were freedom and sim-
plicity. But we also saw that inventors live with so much fail-
ure -- at least in worldly terms.
For two years we've watched inventors reinforcing the impor-
tance of freedom and simplicity. But the failure theme preys on
my mind. Listeners may well ask how I can take delight in any
thing that leads to failure so often. What's the counterbalance?
The counterbalance, of course, is pleasure. If seminal
invention fails at first, it only fails against the most conven-
tional measures of success. Any truly new creation of our minds
has to fight for life in a world that doesn't expect it. The
freest person among us resists ideas from outside our experience.
But we're all delighted by a surprise, once we see it for what it
is?
In another sense, an inventor cannot fail. The engines of
his mind may not yield wealth and fame, but if that's what he's
after he's cooked before he starts. He's no better off than the
lawyer or doctor who's in it for money and fame.
The reward for creating a new thing is the process itself.
There's no pleasure quite like it. Last year, two different men
said to me, "I invented the heat pipe." Neither had ever heard
of the other's work. And each really did invent the heat pipe.
One described it in rudimentary form as early as 1937. The other
created the modern form in 1962. Neither has profited from his
invention. Each planted the seed. Each added to the collective
unconscious of the technical community.
More important, each one can look at me, late in his life,
and say, "I invented an engine of my own ingenuity and now it
serves the whole world." Even more important: each has enjoyed
the exquisite pleasure of creating the device out of the blue sky
of his own mind. And each is content for having done so. When I
tell one about the other, I do not find anger or jealousy. I
only find interest.
The surest thing I learned in the first two years was that
inventors only fail to succeed when they accept useless defini-
tions of success. I learned that we absolutely rely on people
whom we usually fail to honor or pay. We're poorer for that.
But the inventor who finds the way to his creative center finds
freedom and exhileration. He gains far more from that than
anything we have to offer.
I'm John Lienhard at the University of Houston, where we're
interested in the way inventive minds work.
Schmitt, O.H., "Vapor-Cooled Electrodes," The Review of Scientif-
ic Instruments, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1937, p. 131.
Trefethen, L.M., "On the Surface Tension Pumping of Liquids, or,
A Possible Role of the Candle Wick in Space Exploration," Report
No. 61SD114, Missile and Space Vehicle Dept., General Electric
Co., Feb. 1962.