I found this book, six chapters about six different inventions or discoveries that changed the world in massive ways, to be utterly fascinating. I did, however, also enjoy a 400 page book about salt, so I understand that your mileage may vary. Then again, y’all are a bunch of nerds like me so you should probably go ahead and read this one.
Steven Johnson, who also wrote a really cool book about cholera, examines six innovations that had worldwide implications. Each chapter starts with a small idea and blows it up into a huge one. The connections amazed me. For instance, before the printing press was invented and reading became widespread, people never realized they were far-sighted. Once they did, glass (formerly a neat trinket) turned into spectacles, which allowed lead to the technology to see very far away things (stars through a telescope) as well as very small things (germs under a microscope). Another neat series of events — the sewer systems in Chicago (one of the flattest big cities, therefore full of waste that could not drain naturally) lead to the discoveries of microbes in water that were killing people lead to some crazy dude pouring chlorine into the New Jersey reservoirs, therefore reducing child mortality by 74 freaking percent, as well as popularizing swimming pools — leading to women wearing smaller and smaller bathing suits over the next several decades. Cool, right?
Johnson talks a lot about the adjacent possible, the idea that you can’t invent idea #2 without first discovering idea #1. How can anyone invent the iPod without first inventing microprocessors, or speakers that can play back sound? He uses this idea to explain why oftentimes, several people will create the same or similar innovations independently, simply because someone else discovered the base for it.
It’s a fascinating book. Johnson’s enthusiasm (I love enthusiastic nerds) infuses every word, and he keeps things moving with interesting facts. It’s definitely not a dry textbook, but rather the celebration of innovation and science.
Owned or library?
Library audiobook. Overdrive has it
I am the right kind of nerd for this book!