Invention - Wikipedia Jump to content Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 History 2 Types 3 Process Toggle Process subsection 3.1 Practical means 3.2 Conceptual means 3.2.1 Play 3.2.2 Re-envisioning 3.2.3 Insight 3.2.4 Exploration 3.2.5 Improvement 3.3 Implementation 4 Comparison with innovation 5 As defined by patent law 6 In the arts 7 Gender gap in inventions 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links Toggle the table of contents Invention 90 languages Afrikaans Aragonés अंगिका العربية مصرى Asturianu अवधी Azərbaycanca تۆرکجه Беларуская Български Banjar বাংলা Català کوردی Čeština Чӑвашла Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Esperanto Español Eesti Euskara فارسی Suomi Français Galego עברית हिन्दी Hrvatski Magyar Հայերեն Interlingua Bahasa Indonesia Ido Íslenska Italiano 日本語 Қазақша ಕನ್ನಡ 한국어 Kurdî Кыргызча Latina Lingua Franca Nova Limburgs Lietuvių Latviešu Монгол मराठी Bahasa Melayu မြန်မာဘာသာ नेपाली नेपाल भाषा Nederlands Norsk nynorsk Norsk bokmål ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Polski پنجابی پښتو Português Runa Simi Română Русский Scots سنڌي Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Shqip Српски / srpski Svenska தமிழ் తెలుగు ไทย Tagalog Türkçe Татарча / tatarça Українська اردو Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча Tiếng Việt Winaray 吴语 Vahcuengh 粵語 中文 Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Switch to legacy parser Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikivoyage Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Novel device, material or technical process "Invented" and "Inventor" redirect here. For other uses, see Invention (disambiguation) and Inventor (disambiguation). 'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an idea is unique enough either as a stand-alone invention or as a significant improvement over the work of others, it can be patented. A patent, if granted, gives the inventor a proprietary interest in the patent over a specific period of time, which can be licensed for financial gain. An inventor creates or discovers an invention. The word inventor comes from the Latin verb invenire, invent-, to find.[1][2] Although inventing is closely associated with science and engineering, inventors are not necessarily engineers or scientists.[3] Due to advances in artificial intelligence, the term "inventor" no longer exclusively applies to an occupation.[4] Some inventions can be patented. The system of patents was established to encourage inventors by granting limited-term, limited monopoly on inventions determined to be sufficiently novel, non-obvious, and useful or with industrial applicability. A patent is jurisdictional, meaning that a patent only provides rights to the patent owner within the jurisdiction (Country or Countries) in which the patent was obtained. A patent provides the patent owner (who may or may not be an inventor) the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling an invention or importing it into the jurisdiction. The rules and requirements for patenting an invention vary by country and the process of obtaining a patent is often expensive. Another meaning of invention is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social behaviours adopted by people and passed on to others.[5] The Institute for Social Inventions collected many such ideas in magazines and books.[6] Invention is also an important component of artistic and design creativity. Inventions often extend the boundaries of human knowledge, experience or capability. History [edit] The earliest inventions pre-date anatomically modern humans. Crude stone tools, such as the Oldowan tools, date back around 2.9 million years. Other inventions of the Lower Paleolithic era are rafts[7] and cooking (which dates back to Homo habilis). Some of the first human inventions were bedding,[8] clothing,[9] and hafting.[10] Other notable pre-historic inventions were agriculture, fish hooks, pottery (including bricks), bread, flutes, and tally sticks. The 21st century has seen several notable machine-generated inventions. For example, the 2006 evolved antenna from NASA. Genetic algorithms are widely studied in computer science to develop software and the same approach has been with hardware since at least the 1990s.[11] Types [edit] Inventions are of three kinds: scientific-technological (including medicine), sociopolitical (including economics and law), and humanistic, or cultural. Scientific-technological inventions include railroads, aviation, vaccination, hybridization, antibiotics [such as calpol], astronautics, holography, the atomic bomb, computing, the Internet, and the smartphone. Sociopolitical inventions comprise new laws, institutions, and procedures that change modes of social behavior and establish new forms of human interaction and organization. Examples include the British Parliament, the US Constitution, the Manchester (UK) General Union of Trades, the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the Olympic Games, the United Nations, the European Union, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as movements such as socialism, Zionism, suffragism, feminism, and animal-rights veganism. Another example of an invention is the Walkman. Humanistic inventions encompass culture in its entirety and are as transformative and important as any in the sciences, although people tend to take them for granted. In the domain of linguistics, for example, Hunminjeongeum[12] or many alphabets have been inventions, as are all neologisms (Shakespeare invented about 1,700 words). Literary inventions include the epic, tragedy, comedy, the novel, the sonnet, the Renaissance, neoclassicism, Romanticism, Symbolism, Aestheticism, Socialist Realism, Surrealism, postmodernism, and (according to Freud) psychoanalysis. Among the inventions of artists and musicians are oil painting, printmaking, photography, cinema, musical tonality, atonality, jazz, rock, opera, and the symphony orchestra. Philosophers have invented logic (several times), dialectics, idealism, materialism, utopia, anarchism, semiotics, phenomenology, behaviorism, positivism, pragmatism, and deconstruction. Religious thinkers are responsible for such inventions as monotheism, pantheism, Methodism, Mormonism, iconoclasm, puritanism, deism, secularism, ecumenism, and the Baháʼí Faith. Some of these disciplines, genres, and trends may seem to have existed eternally or to have emerged spontaneously of their own accord, but most of them have had inventors.[13] Process [edit] Practical means [edit] Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. Ideas for an invention may be developed on paper or on a computer, by writing or drawing, by trial and error, by making models, by experimenting, by testing and/or by making the invention in its whole form. Brainstorming also can spark new ideas for an invention. Collaborative creative processes are frequently used by engineers, designers, architects and scientists. Co-inventors are frequently named on patents. In addition, many inventors keep records of their working process – notebooks, photos, etc., including Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Evangelista Torricelli, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.[14][15][16][17] In the process of developing an invention, the initial idea may change. The invention may become simpler, more practical, it may expand, or it may even morph into something totally different. Working on one invention can lead to others too.[18] History shows that turning the concept of an invention into a working device is not always swift or direct. Inventions may also become more useful after time passes and other changes occur. For example, the parachute became more useful once powered flight was a reality.[19] Conceptual means [edit] Thomas Edison with phonograph. Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents in his name. Invention is often a creative process. An open and curious mind allows an inventor to see beyond what is known. Seeing a new possibility, connection or relationship can spark an invention. Inventive thinking frequently involves combining concepts or elements from different realms that would not normally be put together. Sometimes inventors disregard the boundaries between distinctly separate territories or fields.[citation needed] Several concepts may be considered when thinking about invention. Play [edit] Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was voted the most important invention of the second millennium.[20] Play may lead to invention. Childhood curiosity, experimentation, and imagination can develop one's play instinct. Inventors feel the need to play with things that interest them, and to explore, and this internal drive brings about novel creations.[21][22] Sometimes inventions and ideas may seem to arise spontaneously while daydreaming, especially when the mind is free from its usual concerns.[23] For example, both J. K. Rowling (the creator of Harry Potter)[24] and Frank Hornby (the inventor of Meccano)[25] first had their ideas while on train journeys. In contrast, the successful aerospace engineer Max Munk advocated "aimful thinking".[26] Re-envisioning [edit] To invent is to see anew. Inventors often envision a new idea, seeing it in their mind's eye. New ideas can arise when the conscious mind turns away from the subject or problem when the inventor's focus is on something else, or while relaxing or sleeping. A novel idea may come in a flash—a Eureka! moment. For example, after years of working to figure out the general theory of relativity, the solution came to Einstein suddenly in a dream "like a giant die making an indelible impress, a huge map of the universe outlined itself in one clear vision".[27] Inventions can also be accidental, such as in the case of polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon). Insight [edit] Insight can also be a vital element of invention. Such inventive insights may begin with questions, doubt or a hunch. It may begin by recognizing that something unusual or accidental may be useful or that it could open a new avenue for exploration. For example, the odd metallic color of plastic made by accidentally adding a thousand times too much catalyst led scientists to explore its metal-like properties, inventing electrically conductive plastic and light emitting plastic—an invention that won the Nobel Prize in 2000 and has led to innovative lighting, display screens, wallpaper and much more (see conductive polymer, and organic light-emitting diode or OLED).[28] Exploration [edit] A rare 1884 photo showing the experimental recording of voice patterns by a photographic process at the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Many of their experimental designs panned out in failure. Eric M. C. Tig…