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Better Mousetrap
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
View all episodes
By Big Picture Science
4.5
912912 ratings
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
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