Invention and Innovation
A Brief History of Hype and Failure
By Vaclav Smil
Category: Technology & the Future | Reading Duration: 21 min | Rating: 4.2/5 (23 ratings)
About the Book
Invention and Innovation (2023) examines the complex history of human invention, offering a sober analysis that distinguishes between genuine innovation and overhyped promises. It explores various categories of inventions – those that failed to dominate as promised, those that turned disastrous, and those long-promised but not yet realized – along with a pragmatic wish list of inventions urgently needed to address 21st century challenges.
Who Should Read This?
- Cautious technology investors seeking realistic market assessments
- Curious historians studying technological development patterns
- Anyone interested in technology’s past and future
What’s in it for me? Understand why technological breakthroughs rarely deliver on their promises – and how to spot a false hype.
Throughout human history, invention has been our superpower – transforming how we live, work, and interact with our world. From stone tools crafted by our ancestors millions of years ago to microprocessors with billions of transistors, each major innovation has reshaped civilization. Yet the path from brilliant idea to successful technology is rarely straightforward. Behind every celebrated invention lies a complex story of trial and error, unexpected consequences, and sometimes outright failure.
We often assume technological progress moves predictably forward, with each breakthrough building seamlessly on the last. The reality is far messier – and far more interesting. Some inventions that seemed destined to revolutionize society have disappeared into obscurity. Others revealed dangerous side effects only after widespread adoption.
Meanwhile, certain technological dreams have persisted for centuries, remaining perpetually just beyond our grasp despite generations of effort. In this Blink, you’ll learn about the complex and often unpredictable journey from invention to innovation. You’ll discover why some initially promising technologies were eventually rejected due to their harmful effects, and how the consequences of seemingly brilliant solutions can reverberate across generations. You’ll also discover how innovation can – or can’t – help us address the most pressing challenges of our times.
Chapter 1: The hidden cost of leaded gasoline
In the 1920s, car engines suffered from a problem called knocking – dangerous mini-explosions that damaged engines and reduced efficiency. Researcher Thomas Midgley discovered that tiny amounts of tetraethyl lead, or TEL, could solve this problem while improving fuel economy. General Motors cleverly marketed it as ethyl gas, avoiding any mention of lead in spite of its evident toxicity, which had been well-documented even in ancient times. What’s interesting is that better alternatives already existed.
Ethanol completely prevented knocking and was even championed by Henry Ford himself. Benzene blends worked just as well. Yet TEL won out because it offered complete corporate control through patents and cost just pennies per gallon. When health concerns emerged, they were quickly brushed aside. In 1924, five workers died from acute lead exposure at a processing plant. Experts warned that no lead industry had ever successfully eliminated work hazards, but after a rushed seven-month study, production simply resumed.
The environmental impact was enormous. From 1945 to 1975, the US alone added about 4. 7 million tons of lead to the environment. This global contamination continued until 2021, when Algeria finally became the last country to ban leaded fuel. Children suffered the most. Research eventually showed that even tiny lead exposures reduced IQ scores, reading ability, attention span, and motor skills, with no safe level ever identified.
These effects hit children from poorer backgrounds hardest, denying millions an equal chance for healthy brain development. The phaseout only began in the 1970s, driven mainly by the introduction of catalytic converters, which stopped working when exposed to lead. Today, ethanol – one of those originally rejected alternatives – has become our main anti-knock additive. This story goes to show how short-term technological advantages can hide deep societal costs that span generations, especially when powerful companies influence public policy.
Chapter 2: The unexpected journey of DDT
Fighting insects has always been difficult due to their size, numbers, and mobility. That’s what makes the story of DDT all the more remarkable – a compound that initially seemed to solve the problem perfectly, only to become a cautionary tale about unintended consequences. In 1939, after testing 349 compounds, Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller discovered the extraordinary insecticidal properties of DDT. Interestingly, the substance had actually been first synthesized in 1874 but its potential went unrecognized for 65 years.
Müller’s discovery came at the right time, as World War II created an urgent need for effective pest control. In Sicily in 1943, more American soldiers were hospitalized for malaria – about 21,482, than for battle wounds – around 17,375. After DDT was deployed, malaria cases dropped by 80% in Italy. DDT’s effectiveness earned Müller the 1948 Nobel Prize in Medicine, with scientists noting it had saved hundreds of thousands of lives. By 1970, experts estimated it had prevented 500 million malaria deaths worldwide. But trouble appeared in the late 1950s, after DDT had expanded from disease control to widespread agricultural use on crops throughout the developed world.
Derek Ratcliffe of the British Nature Conservancy reported finding abnormally large numbers of broken eggs in peregrine falcon nests. That same year it was discovered that DDT concentrated in earthworms could kill robins nearly a year after their initial spraying on trees. Research confirmed that DDT was causing eggshell thinning in birds of prey, reducing thickness by 15-25%. This devastated populations – peregrines, for example, disappeared entirely from Britain and eastern North America. The EPA banned DDT in 1972, though limited use for malaria control continues in some countries today. DDT also faced another problem: evolution.
By the end of the 20th century, over 50 mosquito species had developed resistance, making it less effective where most needed. So we see how technologies can bring both tremendous benefits and unforeseen harms. Had DDT been used more selectively for disease control rather than widespread agricultural spraying, its story might have been different. Instead, it became a victim of its own early success.
Chapter 3: Airships and the path of failed promise
In 1912, writers confidently predicted that ocean liners would soon be replaced by massive airships crossing the Atlantic in mere hours, not days. This faith in lighter-than-air flight represents one of the most fascinating cases of a promising technology that seemed destined for dominance but instead became a historical footnote. The development of airships began slowly with Jules Henri Giffard’s first primitive dirigible in 1852, but truly bloomed with Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s rigid designs starting in 1899. By 1909, the world’s first passenger airline, DELAG, was operating scheduled flights in Germany.
Before World War I, over 1,500 people had flown aboard these massive craft. The Graf Zeppelin, launched in 1928, exemplified the golden age of airship travel. During its nine-year service, it flew 1. 7 million kilometers, carried over 13,000 passengers on 144 intercontinental trips, and circled the globe in just 21 days. Early airships offered clear advantages over planes – flying 10,000 kilometers without stopping compared to the 2,500-kilometer range of the 1935 piston-powered Douglas DC-3, and with spacious cabins rather than cramped fuselages. The Hindenburg disaster on May 6, 1937, is often cited as airships’ death knell.
When this massive 245-meter hydrogen-filled craft burst into flames while landing in New Jersey, the tragedy was captured by five news services, creating what’s been called “the first media event of the twentieth century. ” Yet the true demise of airships came not from this disaster but from rapid advancement in aircraft technology. Just months after the Hindenburg launched, Boeing introduced the B-314 Clipper flying boats, and by the 1950s, jets were crossing the Atlantic in 7 to 8 hours versus the Hindenburg’s 43 to 53 hours. Despite their practical obsolescence, airship dreams persist.
Modern ventures continue to propose giant helium craft for cargo transport, luxury tourism, and military surveillance. But practical limitations – including helium supply constraints, slow speeds, and economic challenges – keep these ambitious projects grounded. Airships demonstrate how technologies can appear promising yet still fail when superior alternatives emerge.
Chapter 4: Nuclear power’s unfulfilled revolution
In 1974, General Electric confidently predicted that by 1990, breeder reactors – nuclear plants designed to create more fuel than they use – would replace all fossil fuel energy generation in the United States. This remarkable claim exemplifies the grand promises that surrounded nuclear power throughout its development – promises that never materialized despite massive investment. Nuclear fission – that is, splitting the atom – progressed from theoretical concept to commercial electricity in just sixty years. After Becquerel discovered uranium radioactivity in 1896, scientific understanding advanced rapidly, culminating in confirmed nuclear fission in 1939.
The technology first emerged for military purposes before moving toward civilian applications. Political factors drove nuclear development more than economics. This included Cold War competition, Britain’s ambitious power program, and Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative, which promoted peaceful uses of nuclear technology while attempting to counter the fear of atomic weapons. The first commercial plants appeared in the Soviet Union, Britain, and the US by 1957. Nuclear power boomed when the 1973 oil crisis prompted 42 new reactor orders in a single year. Experts projected 1,000 reactors operating in the US by 2000.
They also expected breeder reactors to eventually dominate the industry. But reality proved dramatically different. Electricity demand growth slowed, construction times stretched from 5 years to 15, and public trust eroded after accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. During the 1980s, 120 US reactors were canceled. By 2020, the world had 443 nuclear reactors – just 6% more than thirty years earlier – yet they were producing roughly the same amount of electricity as in 2000, showing two decades of stagnation. Breeder reactor programs worldwide consumed nearly $100 billion before being abandoned.
Yet nuclear power could be considered a “successful failure. ” While falling short of its transformative promises, it still provides 25% of electricity in 13 affluent countries with zero carbon emissions during operation. As climate concerns grow, this complex technology is a reminder that inventions’ paths rarely follow initial expectations. In 2017, Elon Musk tweeted that he had “just received verbal government approval” to build a Hyperloop connecting New York to Washington D. C. in just 20 minutes.
Chapter 5: The long wait for revolutionary technologies
This bold announcement echoed nearly identical promises made in 1825 when the London and Edinburgh Vacuum Tunnel Company proposed transporting passengers between cities 600 kilometers apart in just five minutes. Some technological dreams persist across centuries, tantalizingly close yet perpetually beyond our grasp. The vacuum tube transportation concept has captivated inventors since British clockmaker George Medhurst first proposed it in 1810. Numerous attempts have been made along the way, including “atmospheric railways” in the 1840s – which used air pressure differentials to push carriages along tracks without locomotives – and modern test tracks that have reached modest speeds of 175 km/h.
The issue is, fundamental challenges remain. Engineers still struggle with maintaining near-vacuum conditions over long distances, managing thermal expansion, and ensuring safety against catastrophic decompression. Similarly elusive is the goal of engineered cereals that fix their own nitrogen like legumes do – a breakthrough that would greatly reduce the need for environmentally damaging synthetic fertilizers while making farming more economical. Since the 1888 discovery that leguminous plants host symbiotic bacteria in root nodules to capture nitrogen from air, scientists have pursued three strategies: inducing cereals to develop similar nodules, enhancing naturally occurring bacteria around roots, or directly transferring nitrogen-fixing genes into plants. Despite significant advances in genetic engineering since the 1970s, researchers at Cambridge University still describe the timeline as “working in the unknown. ” The same could be said about controlled nuclear fusion – that is, combining atoms together in a controlled way.
After Hans Bethe explained the sun’s fusion mechanism in 1938, physicists quickly weaponized the principle, developing hydrogen bombs by 1952. Yet peaceful energy generation has proven far more difficult. The massive international ITER project, begun in 2010 after decades of planning, aims to demonstrate fusion’s feasibility by 2025 – six years later than originally planned – but it won’t generate usable electricity. Commercial fusion power likely remains at least 30 to 40 years away, as it has been since predictions began in the 1950s.
Chapter 6: Innovation's slow march and practical priorities
In 2017, headlines proclaimed that humans would colonize Mars by 2022, with terraforming coming next to make the planet inhabitable. This fantastical claim is a perfect example of the exaggerated technological promises that now dominate public discourse – claims that distort our understanding of how innovation actually progresses. While computing power has indeed followed Moore’s Law, doubling approximately every two years since the 1970s, this rapid exponential growth is the exception, not the rule. Most crucial technologies improve at vastly slower rates.
Battery energy density has increased by merely 2% annually over fifty years. Agricultural yields in many regions grow at just 1% yearly. And electricity generation efficiency has improved only 1. 5% per year over a century. This disparity between computing’s rapid advancement and the slow progress in other domains has warped our perception. We’re bombarded with breathless reports about self-driving cars, promised for 2020, complete electric vehicle takeovers, predicted by 2025, and AI replacing medical diagnostics – none of which materialized as predicted.
A comprehensive study of innovation across American industries from 1840 to 2010 confirms this pattern. Most industrial sectors – including transportation, machinery, metals, construction, and energy – saw their breakthrough patent peaks before 1950. Only computers, electronics, agriculture and food, and medical equipment had innovation peaks after 1970. Even concentrated innovation efforts progress slowly. The “war on cancer,” which launched in 1971 and was compared to the moon-landing campaigns, has reduced mortality by 27% over twenty years – meaningful but hardly revolutionary progress. Similarly, decarbonization faces immense challenges.
Moving from 83% fossil fuel dependence to zero by 2050 would require progress fourteen times faster than the past two decades. The reality is that most significant human problems don't require revolutionary inventions – they need implementation of existing technologies. Our true wishlist should focus on addressing these basic human needs. We need more affordable water treatment systems and higher crop yields in regions where hunger persists. We need to bring electricity to the billion people who still lack it, while increasing energy supply for three billion others living at nineteenth-century consumption levels. And we need better strategies for antibiotic use and improved education that doesn't require extravagant spending.
Instead of pursuing futuristic gadgets, we should be focusing on delivering proven solutions to those living at subsistence levels. This isn't about abandoning innovation but balancing the pursuit of dramatic advances with the practical application of what we already know. Innovation will continue, but as a gradual process with inherent limitations, not as a magical solution to every problem.
Final summary
The main takeaway of this Blink to Invention and Innovation by Vaclav Smil is that innovation rarely follows a simple path from brilliant idea to successful implementation. Technologies often fail, disappoint, or reveal unexpected consequences despite initial promise. Meanwhile, some technologies like vacuum transportation, nitrogen-fixing cereals, and nuclear fusion remain perpetually just beyond our grasp despite centuries of pursuit. And while computing power advances exponentially, most critical technologies improve at just 1-2% annually, contrary to breathless headlines about revolutionary breakthroughs.
This doesn't mean we should stop pursuing ambitious goals, but rather that we might find greater success by balancing revolutionary dreams with evolutionary improvements, focusing on implementing existing solutions to address basic human needs while continuing the patient, multigenerational work of genuine innovation. Okay, that’s it for this Blink. We hope you enjoyed it. If you can, please take the time to leave us a rating – we always appreciate your feedback. See you in the next Blink.
About the Author
Vaclav Smil, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, is a renowned interdisciplinary researcher specializing in energy, environmental science, and technological change. He is widely respected for his data-driven approach to complex global challenges, and Bill Gates has repeatedly praised his work. Among his best-selling books are Energy and Civilization: A History, Numbers Don’t Lie, and How the World Really Works.