Thomas Edison: Success and Innovation through Failure (Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Book 52)

This book develops a systematic approach to the role of failure in innovation, using the laboratory notebooks of America's most successful inventor, Thomas Edison. It argues that Edison's active pursuit of failure and innovative uses of failure as a tool were crucial to his success. From this the author argues that not only should we expect innovations to fail but that there are good reasons to want them to fail. Using Edison's laboratory notebooks, written as he worked and before he knew the outcome we see the many false starts, wrong directions and failures that he worked through on his way to producing revolutionary inventions. While Edison's strengths in exploiting failure made him the icon of American inventors, they could also be liabilities when he moved from one field to another. Not only is this book of value to readers with an interest in the history of technology and American invention, its insights are important to those who seek to innovate and to those who employ and finance them. Front Matter ....Pages i-vii Introduction (Ian Wills)....Pages 1-8 Front Matter ....Pages 9-9 Success, Failure and Innovation: The Carbon Microphone (Ian Wills)....Pages 11-47 Failure and Success (Ian Wills)....Pages 49-59 Innovation and Systems (Ian Wills)....Pages 61-79 Innovation Must Fail (Ian Wills)....Pages 81-96 Catastrophic Failure (Ian Wills)....Pages 97-102 Front Matter ....Pages 103-103 Inventive Success: The Phonograph (Ian Wills)....Pages 105-140 Scientific Failure: Etheric Force (Ian Wills)....Pages 141-168 Front Matter ....Pages 169-169 Thomas Edison and Patents (Ian Wills)....Pages 171-201 The Edisonian Method: Trial and Error (Ian Wills)....Pages 203-222 Front Matter ....Pages 223-223 Reverse Engineering (Ian Wills)....Pages 225-242 Epilogue (Ian Wills)....Pages 243-247 Back Matter ....Pages 249-257