Cycles of Invention and Discovery: Rethinking the Endless Frontier - Hardcover

Venkatesh Narayanamurti; Toluwalogo Odumosu

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674967968 ISBN 13: 9780674967960

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Cycles of Invention and Discovery offers an in-depth look at the real-world practice of science and engineering. It shows how the standard categories of basic and applied have become a hindrance to the organisation of the U.S. science and technology enterprise. Tracing the history of these problematic categories, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Toluwalogo Odumosu document how historical views of policy makers and scientists have led to the construction of science as a pure ideal on the one hand and of engineering as a practical (and inherently less prestigious) activity on the other. Even today, this erroneous but still widespread distinction forces these two endeavors into separate silos, misdirects billions of dollars, and thwarts progress in science and engineering research.

The authors contrast this outmoded perspective with the lived experiences of researchers at major research laboratories. Using such Nobel Prize winning examples as magnetic resonance imaging, the transistor, and the laser, they explore the daily micro-practices of research, showing how distinctions between the search for knowledge and creative problem solving break down when one pays attention to the ways in which pathbreaking research actually happens. By studying key contemporary research institutions, the authors highlight the importance of integrated research practices, contrasting these with models of research in the classic but still-influential report Science the Endless Frontier. Narayanamurti and Odumosu s new model of the research ecosystem underscores that discovery and invention are often two sides of the same coin that propels innovation forward.

About this title

About the Author

Venky Narayanamurti is the Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy and Professor of Physics at Harvard University. He has previously served as director of the Solid State Electronics Research Laboratory at Bell Labs; Vice President for Research and Exploratory Technology at Sandia National Laboratories; Dean of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and founding dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He has been elected to memberships in the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He has served on numerous advisory boards for the federal government, research universities, national laboratories, and industry. These have included chair of the Inertial Confinement Fusion Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Energy; chair of the Committee of Visitors of the Division of Materials Research, National Science Foundation; member of the President's Council for the University of California Managed National Laboratories; member of the Governing Board of Brookhaven National Laboratory; and the Brains Trust of ARPA-E of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Toluwalogo Odumosu is Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society and Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674967968
• ISBN 13: 9780674967960
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 144