Name: The most powerful idea in the world
ISBN: 9780226726342

The most powerful idea in the world

"In The Most Powerful Idea in the World, William Rosen tells the story of the men responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the machine that drove it?the steam engine. In the process he tackles the question that has obsessed historians ever since: What made eighteenth-century Britain such fertile soil for inventors? Rosen?s answer focuses on a simple notion that had become enshrined in British law the century before: that people had the right to own and profit from their ideas" --Cover, p. 2.

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fletchedxJun 2024

I tend to agree with your takeaway, but I want to pick a nit on your point about great art being made without copyright.

"The Most Powerful Idea in the World" basically makes the case that intellectual property is what enabled the Industrial Revolution. I won't try to summarize or defend the entire thing here, but I think it makes a very compelling case that the notion of "owning ideas as property" was the thing that made Britain unique (among other factors of course) and led to runaway technological explosion. It points out how in earlier times, inventors were literally killed for coming up with better methods that threatened some established system. So there is a big difference between art and technology there, and while I think debating the merits of copyright as it pertains to art is valid (and 100% agree it's overdone in our current system), I'm not convinced the current issues are serious enough to undermine the entire concept of intellectual property.

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scottlocklinOct 2019

There's a decent book on the history of steam engines called "The Most Powerful Idea in the World" which answers the question fairly convincingly.

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shooJun 2019

tangent: if anyone wants to read a good non-fiction book about the history of steam, invention, the patent system, etc -- i can recommend William Rosen's book "The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention"

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antgneApr 2018

You might be interested in the book "The most Powerful Idea in the World" by William Rosen.

It's common to point to technological advancements such as steam which gave way to the Industrial Revolution, that Britain had coal etc. And that's definitely important because steam powered factories which was a major change from household/hand/craft businesses.

In truth there were many contributing factors. But why Britain? Why was this the place where all these inventions were being made? Some historians get very creative in additional reasons for how this era came to be. Rosen makes the really interesting claim that it was the idea of intellectual property that triggered all the inventing-- that man could own an idea and make money from it!

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dharmonFeb 2017

I read The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen last year and really enjoyed it.

Ostensibly its about the steam engine, but the idea referenced in the title is really patents.

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MarkMcDec 2014

This article reminds me of Bill Gate's emphasis on measuring outcomes - here's a quote from the Gates Foundation 2013 letter [1]:

-------------- Begin Gates Quote ---------------

Over the holidays I read The Most Powerful Idea in the World, a brilliant chronicle by William Rosen of the many innovations it took to harness steam power. Among the most important were a new way to measure the energy output of engines and a micrometer dubbed the "Lord Chancellor," able to gauge tiny distances.

Such measuring tools, Rosen writes, allowed inventors to see if their incremental design changes led to the improvements-higher-quality parts, better performance, and less coal consumption-needed to build better engines. Innovations in steam power demonstrate a larger lesson: Without feedback from precise measurement, Rosen writes, invention is "doomed to be rare and erratic." With it, invention becomes "commonplace."

Starting around 1805, the “Lord Chancellor” micrometer, according to author William Rosen, was “an Excalibur of measurement, slaying the dragon of imprecision,” for inventors in the Industrial Revolution. (© Science Museum, London) Of course, the work of our foundation is a world away from the making of steam engines. But in the past year I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition. You can achieve amazing progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal-in a feedback loop similar to the one Rosen describes. This may seem pretty basic, but it is amazing to me how often it is not done and how hard it is to get right.

-------------- End Gates Quote ---------------

Nobody questions the need for measurement in engineering, but when Mr Gates tried to apply the same logic to measuring teacher effectiveness [2] he received a lot of pushback from people who say his method is flawed [3,4] or simply that teaching effectiveness cannot be reliably measured.

This is a controversial topic. Here is an interesting take on this subject from a book called Teaching as Leadership [5]:

-------------- Begin Teaching as Leadership Quote -----------

As we see modeled by these teachers, the less tangible nature of such longer term dispositions, mindsets, and skills does not mean they cannot be tracked and, in some sense, measured. In fact, if these ideas are going to be infused into a big goal, you must have a way to know that you are making progress toward them.

Mekia Love, a nationally recognized reading teacher in Washington, D.C., sets individualized, quantifiable literacy goals for each of her students but also frames them in her broader vision of "creating lifelong readers." This is a trait she believes is a key to her students opportunities and fulfillment in life. In order for both Ms. Love and her students to track their progress toward creating lifelong readers, Ms. Love developed a system of specific and objective indicators (like students self-driven requests for books, students' own explanations of their interest in reading, the time students are engaged with a book.) By setting specific quantifiable targets for and monitoring each of those indicators, she was able to demonstrate progress and success on what would otherwise be a subjective notion.

Strong teachers -- because they know that transparency and tracking progress add focus and urgency to their and their students efforts -- find a way to make aims like self-esteem, writing skills, "love of reading," or "access to high-performing high schools" specific and objective. These teachers -- like Ms. Love, Mr. Delhagen, and Ms. Jones -- ask themselves what concrete indicators of resilience or independence or "love of learning" they want to see in their students by the end of the year and work them into their big goals.

In our experience, less effective teachers may sometimes assume that because a measurement system may be imperfect or difficult, then it must be wrong or impossible. As Jim Collins reminds us in his studies of effective for profit and nonprofit organizations:

"To throw our hands up and say, But we cannot measure performance in the social sectors the way you can in a business is simply lack of discipline. All indicators are flawed, whether qualitative or quantitative. Test scores are flawed, mammograms are flawed, crime data are flawed, customer service data are flawed, patient outcome data are flawed. What matters is not finding the perfect indicator, but settling upon a consistent and intelligent method of assessing your output results, and then tracking your trajectory with rigor."

-------------- End Teaching as Leadership Quote -----------

Lastly, on a personal note I have found that I simply cannot lose weight unless I keep track of the number of calories I eat. There is something about seeing that number that has a strong influence over my behaviour.

-------------- References --------------

[1] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Medi...

[2] http://www.metproject.org/

[3] http://jaypgreene.com/2013/01/09/understanding-the-gates-fou...

[4] http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/01/09/the-50-milli...

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-As-Leadership-Effective-Achie...

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