Logic & Magic E-Book

Bertil Hök

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 211

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This book explores the pattern of logic and magic evolving from studies of truly exceptional innovations. The logic always looks simple in retrospect, but innovators start out in the dark with an intimidating series of obstacles ahead. The magic is to enter unknown territory, to expand the horizons, and to create new value from something that looks impossible to most people. Great innovators take advantage of this double nature. Paradoxically, the chance of success may increase with the magnitude of the challenge. The impact of great innovations like the World Wide Web and the smart phones is beyond comprehension and grossly underestimated by most people, including decision makers. The world needs innovation more than ever. The low hanging fruit has already been picked, and now is the time to reach higher. Our existence depends on it. The logic and the magic are sources of hope and inspiration.

Leseprobe

This book explores the pattern of logic and magic evolving from studies of truly exceptional innovations.

The logic always looks simple in retrospect, but innovators start out in the dark with an intimidating series of obstacles ahead. The magic is to enter unknown territory, to expand the horizons, and to create new value from something that looks impossible to most people.

Great innovators take advantage of this double nature. Paradoxically, the chance of success may increase with the magnitude of the challenge. The impact of great innovations like the World Wide Web and the smart phones is beyond comprehension and grossly underestimated by most people, including decision makers.

The world needs innovation more than ever. The low hanging fruit has already been picked, and now is the time to reach higher. Our existence depends on it. The logic and the magic are sources of hope and inspiration to innovators.

Bertil Hök

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

HOW THIS BOOK WORKS

1 AN IDEA IS A GOOD START

1.1 The utopian sieve

1.2 Step by step

1.3 The eureka myth

1.4 Creativity, serendipity and intuition

1.5 The human factor

2 THE PROBLEMATIC VIEW

2.1 Doubt - the precursor of problem definition

2.2 Imagine

2.3 Out of the loop

2.4 Gaps, traps, catches and clashes

2.5 Perfect is not good enough

2.6 Believe me, I’m a liar

2.7 On the watch

2.8 Marginal notes becoming significant

2.9 A long and winding road

3 NOT INVENTED HERE

3.1 The inventor’s paradox

3.2 The innovator’s thinking tools

3.3 Association and selection

3.4 Transformation

3.5 Balance

3.6 Validation

3.7 All together now

4 ‘IT HAS NOT ESCAPED OUR NOTICE …’

4.1 Survival of the fittest

4.2 Emergent phenomena

4.3 Knowns and unknowns

5 NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

5.1 Expecting the unexpected

5.2 Laws of nature

5.3 The luckiest thought

5.4 The logic of science

5.5 Estimations and probabilities

5.6 A simple rule goes berserk

5.7 The investor’s headache

5.8 Business as unusual

6 VALUES AT STAKE

6.1 The boxer

6.2 The prisoner

6.3 The peace-maker

6.4 On purpose

6.5 Human nature

6.6 The value-chain

7 IN CHARGE

7.1 A piece of soap

7.2 Conclusions from the case studies

7.3 The logic and the magic

EPILOGUE

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

APPENDIX A: RAMANUJAN’S SOLUTION

APPENDIX B: BAYESIAN CALCULATIONS

APPENDIX C: CASE STUDY TIMINGS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

PROLOGUE

To master innovation, we need to understand its nature. This is what this book is about. What is innovation? To me, innovations are simply new solutions, demanded by a significant and growing number of users. This definition may sound harmless and plain, but it deserves some further elaboration.

The innocent-looking word ‘new’ has important consequences. The novelty requirement means that unknown territory needs to be entered. ‘Business as usual’ is no longer valid.

The word ‘solution’ suggests that a problem has been solved. It may be argued that some innovations do not solve problems. They are simply the result of a great idea being materialised. But if the effect is a growing and significant number of users, these users obviously find the new solution beneficial and advantageous compared to the alternatives. Could it be that the innovators identified a problem and solved it before most users had even noticed there was a problem? That the problem was implicit, unarticulated and only became obvious when there was a better solution? What did the innovators see that others did not? These are examples of follow-up questions from the seemingly harmless definition.

There is a logical link between problems and solutions. They are each other’s opposite but they co-exist. The link is causal, and the solution is the result of a defined cause, the problem. Does this mean that innovation is always a logical consequence of improvements, a result of rational thinking? Is it predictable? Somewhat surprisingly, these questions seem to divide leading analysts into two camps and their arguments need to be examined.

The logic of innovation has another dimension. New and improved solutions will generally replace old and inferior ones, at least in open economies. As a corollary, the driving force and the cash flow of an innovation process will switch at a critical juncture, from investors to consumers. The underlying mechanisms need to be understood both to explain the past and to learn for future challenges.

Innovation is sometimes described as an irreversible race towards a super-human existence. This description is at least partly based on the exponential growth of digital computational capacity going on for several decades, and resulting in machine intelligence being comparable to, and in some respects, even exceeding human intelligence. The inevitable question arises: is innovation serving mankind, or is it the other way around? Are there aspects beyond intelligence that need to be considered?

How can scientific methods be used? Innovation needs to be anchored in scientific methodology and research. If the connection to reality is lost, the effort is doomed to fail. Its relation to common knowledge within the disciplines of mathematics, natural sciences, technology, business, economy, human behaviour etc., needs to be clarified. The logic of innovation deserves to be viewed from many different perspectives. And it must be faced: logic alone does not provide a full picture.

How on earth …? This question is an expression of amazement, a sign of magic. The object of excitement could be new technology, inventions, discoveries, tools, toys … Yes, innovation has a touch of magic. The question also expresses curiosity and an urge to understand the underlying principles.

How can innovation be both logical and magical? Superficially, these attributes may seem contradictory, but after a closer look, a consistent pattern will emerge. The kind of magic referred to in this book occurs at the intersection between the known and the unknown, but is still firmly anchored in reality by always testing against it. This kind of magic does not lend itself to supernatural speculations.

The magic of innovation is a token of human creativity, willpower, and decisiveness. Without them, innovation would not exist. Although well-known, these abilities are still mysterious. We do not understand how they emerge or how they are maintained. The magic of innovation becomes a reality whenever it expands our horizons, when bits of the unknown are incorporated with our previous knowledge.

OK, innovation is double-natured. So what? What difference does it make? Well, let’s be patient and put the facts, opinions, and controversies on the table before answering. In this book, we examine some of the most important discoveries, inventions and accomplishments of our time, not only in a search for explanations, but also for white spots in our present understanding. These are our case studies, a test bench for the logic and the magic of innovation.

The history of innovation extends as far back as mankind itself. Creativity is an innate human ability, and our ancestors must have used it – just as we do - to make life easier. That includes communicating with one another: ‘I’ll show you how …’ Their knowledge distribution channels may have been less efficient than ours, and many innovations must have fallen into oblivion. Others evolved at separate locations in somewhat different forms, like the spoken and written languages.

HOW THIS BOOK WORKS

This book was built on the basic idea of seeking common patterns from well documented innovations with great impact to society. An imperative selection criterion was the availability of documentation from more than a single source. From the selection processes among many candidate cases, a few exceptional innovations remained, all representing specific and important aspects.

Below is the complete list of selected case studies, and the key aspects (in bold italics) they represent.

The smart phone (iPhone) innovation – the materialisation of a brilliant

idea

.

Fermat’s Last Theorem – the solution to a well-defined

problem

having eluded mathematicians for centuries.

The World Wide Web – an

invention

with unprecedented impact on our civilisation.

Disclosure of the DNA molecular structure – the

discovery

of the hereditary mechanism of almost all life on earth.

The general theory of relativity - explaining why our previous conceptions of space, time and matter were not

true

.

The abolition of apartheid – expanding the black and white horizon and restoring the human

value

of equal rights.

Each aspect is the theme of one chapter in the book. The themes are highlighted in the figure below. The six chapters are followed by a seventh one, wrapping it all up.

The first chapter deals with ideas. They are fundamental to all innovations. The iPhone was built on the idea of finger-tip movements across a touch screen, and its materialisation revolutionised the telecom industry. In hindsight, the idea looks simple, but at the time it was conceived, most people - even experts – thought it would be impossible. The impossibility criterion is the first step of the ‘utopian sieve’ which should be a mandatory test for all great innovative ideas.

The path from idea to innovation is far from straight. It helps to divide it into distinct phases to adapt the strategy to the current situation. The initial phase of trying to create awareness of a viable principle is the most vulnerable one. The development of a testable concept or prototype to achieve acceptance from peers also includes many stumble blocks and need for creative action, whereas the final development phase of refinement should, in the best of worlds, be much more straightforward. The result is demand for change, and the dissemination process follows another logical path starting from early adapters and continuing with a majority of users. These groups and subgroups may have different preferences.

Ideas are the result of creative processes which are largely unknown, but chapter 1 includes a short review of past and present research aiming at improved understanding of creativity, intuition and serendipity. Human mistakes and failures are equally important to understand and mitigate if possible.

The second chapter deals with problems which are inevitable in any innovation process. Like ideas, problems are conceived within our minds, often starting with doubt that things are not what they are supposed to be. Persisting doubts are turned into problems by notions that there is a solution down the line. Heuristic reasoning, like thinking backwards from an ideal problem-free situation, may be helpful in the initial problem-solving process.

The four problem categories of gaps, traps, catches, and clashes require somewhat different strategies. Gaps are quantifiable and approachable once they have been properly defined. Catches, paradoxes or inconsistencies require a shift of perspectives to be resolved. Traps and catches need to be transferred into one of the two other categories.

The case study of the second chapter is the famous mathematical problem defined by Pierre de Fermat in the 17th century and solved by Andrew Wiles in 1994, more than three hundred years later. Despite the deceitfully simple problem definition, generations of mathematicians had approached it in all possible ways, but only with partial success. Wiles’ approach was a combination of classical induction, group theory and the application of recent results within the fields of modular forms and elliptic equations. Being very close to a solution, Wiles fell deeply into an unforeseen trap, until he could finally restructure the problem and solve it.

The third chapter describes the invention of the World Wide Web which, after a slow initial phase, quickly spread to the growing community of internet users and later made an impact beyond comprehension, and encompassing all levels of society. As modestly described by the inventor Tim Berners-Lee, his job was to take two crucial elements - the internet and hypertext - and marry them together. The key to materialise his far-reaching vision of anything being connected to anything was to transform some basic principles into a viable concept including the uniform resource locator (url), the hypertext transfer protocol (http), and the hypertext mark-up language (html).

The invention of the World Wide Web is a good example of the inventor’s paradox proclaimed by George Pólya half a century earlier: ‘the more ambitious plan may have more chances of success.’ It also illustrates five thinking tools available to innovators: association, selection, transformation, balance and validation. These tools represent a combination of analytical and creative thinking which are necessary elements of the innovation process – logic and magic in combination.

The fourth chapter describes the discovery of the DNA molecular structure. A British team used X-ray diffraction analysis in combination with macroscopic modelling and molecular bonding theory to disclose the double helix molecular structure. The discovery had profound impact on our understanding of the hereditary mechanism of almost all life forms on earth.

Scientific discoveries are door openers to innovation, and analogies of biological evolution – survival of the fittest – are used in everyday conversations to explain why some innovative attempts succeed where others fail. Although sometimes useful, such analogies should be used with care. For example, the topic of emergent phenomena occurring at the intersections between domains of various kinds is controversial even among philosophers. Paradoxically, while we are almost drowned by the flood of information, the unknown is untouchable, endless and persistent. The magic resides at the intersection between the known and the unknown.

The fifth chapter is concerned with truth. As shown with concrete examples, there is a declining scale starting from mathematical reality, logical theorems, laws of nature, hypotheses, and ending up in rules of thumb. The logic of science is quite like the logic of innovation. Both have to deal with uncertainties and orderly behaviour suddenly turning chaotic.

The general theory of relativity is used to illustrate the human quest towards a deeper understanding of basic elements, like space, time, and matter. The theory developed by Albert Einstein clearly demonstrated that the previous view was a misconception. These elements are not independent but closely tied together by a set of equations. Observational evidence was slowly building up as positive test reports for the theory. Gravitational waves were discovered in 2015, one hundred years after Einstein had predicted their existence.

The sixth chapter describes how human value and equal rights were restored in South Africa in the late 20th century. The fight for freedom was personalised by Nelson Mandela who started off as a boxer and a militant leader, then spent 27 years in prison and isolation, and finally came out as the president of his country and a world icon for all freedom fighters.

The uncompromising dedication to the purpose of equal rights was the driving force of Nelson Mandela. His dedication was contagious and resulted in a persisting uproar against the ruling white minority. More than two thousand and four hundred years earlier, Socrates had set an immortal example by sacrificing his life for the freedom of expressing opinion.

Some values are quantifiable, and some are not. Some values can be traded and linked into a chain starting with raw material and ending with users. Artificial intelligence is increasingly important in most innovations, especially at the top of the value chain. For specific tasks, artificial intelligence is superior to human, and there is a vivid discussion of its eventual take-over of command. But other human traits of importance, like benevolence and wisdom, need to be considered. Our knowledge of the conscious mind is still scanty.

The seventh and final chapter is devoted to three subtopics. One is the current literature related to innovation. It is dominated by aspects of business and economy, science, technology, and psychology, with little mutual interaction between these aspects. There are controversies regarding research methodology and even of such basic issues as predictability. Innovation still seems to be like a piece of soap in the hands of many analysts and decision makers.

The second subtopic is to make conclusions from the case studies of exceptional innovations. All of them extended over an appreciable time span, more like decades than years, and the pre-conceptional phase seemed to dominate in most cases. Their impact seemed to correlate reasonably well with the ‘wow’-factor. The World Wide Web is an outlier. Its impact to mankind is grossly underestimated by most people, including decision makers. The conclusions from the study motivate the inventor’s paradox to be generalised, encompassing all innovators: the chance of success may increase with the magnitude of the challenge. If accepted and adequately managed, this paradox may have significant influence.

The third subtopic coincides with the book topic, the double nature of innovation. The logic is brutal to innovators. There are plenty of necessary conditions, laws, rules, advice to follow or neglect, but none of them is sufficient. The hindsight logic is always simple: With all facts on hand, it is easy to find logical explanations. The magic of innovation resides at the intersection between the known and the unknown. The innovator’s paradox has a touch of magic about it, and so does the power of great innovations. The logic and the magic of innovation are truly complimentary aspects. They are sources of hope and inspiration to innovators.

1 AN IDEA IS A GOOD START

Grandparents always find excuses for showing pictures of their grandchildren, and I’m no exception. Figure 1.1 shows my grand-daughter Alva at the age of 1½, having grabbed her dad’s iPhone. But this picture isn’t simply indulgence on my part, but also illustrates something else. Look at the concentration on her face; the way her hands are holding the device with a firm but gentle grip, while performing a sweeping movement of her thumb to swap pictures on the screen. Alva learned to use the iPhone long before she could talk.

Was the smart phone designed for 1½-year-olds? Of course not. It was not designed for any particular age. It was designed for all ages.

There is another side of this innovation. It caused many of us to restyle our living rooms, removing most of our favourite accessories: the TV set, stereo equipment, disc collections, encyclopaedia, dictionaries, novels, maps, newspapers, magazines, play-stations, cameras, photo albums, compasses, notebooks, calendars, and diaries. And let’s not forget: telephones. Someone integrated and miniaturised all these items to fit into any-one’s pocket. And, as it turned out – almost everyone’s pocket.

Figure 1.1. Alva, 1½, enchanted by the iPhone1.

Truly, the 1½-year-old and the living room aspects of this innovation both have a touch of magic about them. The smart phone innovation turned a slab into a magic shrine of endless opportunities.

The effect of downscaling living-room accessories to pocket size, corresponds to a volume reduction by five orders of magnitude. If the same trick could be repeated for automotive fuel consumption, the fuel tank of cars could be reduced to half a pint 2 and would need no refuelling at all during the lifetime of the car.

How on earth did the smart phone idea emerge and how was it materialised? The magic is there all right, but where is the logic? Is it possible to logically explain how it came about? Now, let’s try to do just that, feature by feature.

The downscaling of the living room gadgets can be explained by referring to Moore’s ‘law’ 3. It predicts that the packing density of electronic circuit elements will double approximately every 18-24 months. As shown in figure 1.2, the downscaling by five orders of magnitude takes forty years.

Speaking of ‘law’ is a bit of an exaggeration. Truly, the exponential growth of packing density over time is an observation that has been valid over several decades. But it did not arise by itself and no one knows what will happen in the future. The innovators of the internet, the World Wide Web etc. were in no position to predict that the exponential growth would persist.

Figure 1.2. Moore’s ‘law’ indicating an exponential increase in the packing density of integrated circuits versus time has been valid for almost half a century.

Technology is frequently described as a locomotive of innovation. The last few decades have been dominated by the rapid development of microelectronics and related technologies. The digital revolution is rooted in the integration of electronic circuit elements on single pieces of silicon or other semiconductors. Increasing packing density of these elements is enabling more and more complex functions to be embedded in products and services. Automatic management, communication and storage of digital information is easily, reliably and inexpensively operated by electronic devices.

As to the continuing validity of Moore’s ‘law’ there are arguments pointing in both directions. New materials are introduced, more efficient devices are being invented, and there is continuing technological improvement driven by the microelectronics industry. These arguments indicate that the development will continue at least for some time. On the other hand, fundamental limitations are expected when the size of a single element comes close to atomic dimensions. Moreover, the cost of production development seems to be increasing faster than the gain in performance.

If downscaling was easy to explain, it is somewhat more difficult to explain how a 1½-year-old can learn to use a smartphone and be enchanted by it.

The secret is the human-machine interface (HMI) of the device, one of the parade branches of Steve Jobs (1955-2011) and Apple Inc., the innovators behind the iPhone and all smart phones. User friendliness was already synonymous with the Macintosh computers and other Apple products since the 1980’s. Steve Jobs and his team trusted their experience and their intuition in this field.

The basic idea emerged from anger and frustration when Apple and Motorola failed to combine the Apple iPod – a portable music player - with a Motorola mobile phone equipped with a camera chip. ‘Design by committee’ was abandoned, and the Apple team took the bold decision to introduce an untested HMI principle for their new family of pocket-sized products, later to be known as the iPhone family. The idea was to base most human-machine interactions on the touching and sweeping movements of fingertips.

A multi-touch screen, a combined high-resolution graphical display and a fingertip sensor matrix, replaced the electromechanical keyboard used in conventional mobile phones. Invented already in the 1960s 4, the touch screen technology had been steadily evolving, but there were several critical challenges for the Apple team to resolve before sufficient performance could be reached.

HMI is basically defined by intelligent software operating between the machine inputs and outputs. A graphical screen can be programmed to display any kind of picture or text, depending on the digital 1’s and 0’s sent to its picture elements, pixels. When it receives a command from Alva’s thumb to swap pictures, it does so. The touch part of the screen can sense the position and movement of a touching finger, or even two of them, if Alva chooses to zoom into or out of the picture. The HMI software is performing the transformation of machine input into output.

The new feature of the iPhone HMI was that a multitude of graphical pictures and texts could be managed by very simple and intuitive finger commands, understandable even for a 1½-year-old. This feature was the result of advanced software to manage the coordinated action of millions of 1’s and 0’s in either direction between the machine input and output. The versatility of the touchscreen made it convertible from operating as a camera, to working as a keyboard, or displaying motion pictures, or book pages. Icons on the screen enabled the user to choose any of these functionalities.

The iPhone’s ease of use contrasts with its internal complexity. Besides its complex electronic circuitry with multiple processors operating simultaneously, there are multiple sensors for position and movement (GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer), proximity and illumination, all miniaturised to be confined within the thin and compact iPhone enclosure 5. The enabling MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) technology has evolved from microelectronics.

The system architecture marks a clear distinction between the interior, proprietary parts on the one hand, and the exterior user/customer parts on the other. The iPhone protection layers are schematically depicted in figure 1.3. Metal and scratch-resistant glass constitute a first physical barrier of protection. A second hardware barrier is created by the microelectronic circuitry, including sensing and actuating elements providing a well-defined window through which the device communicates with the external world. The device software defines a third barrier between its internal processes, including the inaccessible operating system (the iOS) and application-oriented software (apps), which may be open to customers and users to be developed and brought to the marketplace after approval from Apple. The fourth and final barrier is the protection of intellectual property. This may include patents, know-how, rules, codes, or other solutions to tricky engineering problems.

The first iPhone was introduced on the market in June 2007. Somewhat reluctantly, Apple introduced the App Store, a marketplace for application-oriented software packages to be freely commercialised. Ten years after their introduction, annual sales exceeded two hundred million devices, and the total number in active use exceeded one billion. Apple enjoyed a head start of approximately three years to build up their market position until serious competition was established. Apple was the first US company to exceed a value of 700 billion dollars, mostly attributed to the iPhone product family.

Figure 1.3. The iPhone system includes several layers of protection against plagiarism or attacks.

How on earth