I recently ripped through Stephen Johnson's How We Got to Now, where he coined a wonderful phrase: the Hummingbird Effect. That's where a breakthrough in one area of life leads to unexpected progress in seemingly unrelated domains. One of the best examples from the book is how the invention of the printing press led to a surge in people realizing they were farsighted, which led to a surge in eyeglass manufacturing tech, which led to an eyeglass maker creating the microscope after watching his children play with two lens, which lead to the microbial theory of disease, which led to dramatic improvements in medicine and human longevity.
The Hummingbird and the Poison Tree
The Hummingbird and the Poison Tree
The Hummingbird and the Poison Tree
I recently ripped through Stephen Johnson's How We Got to Now, where he coined a wonderful phrase: the Hummingbird Effect. That's where a breakthrough in one area of life leads to unexpected progress in seemingly unrelated domains. One of the best examples from the book is how the invention of the printing press led to a surge in people realizing they were farsighted, which led to a surge in eyeglass manufacturing tech, which led to an eyeglass maker creating the microscope after watching his children play with two lens, which lead to the microbial theory of disease, which led to dramatic improvements in medicine and human longevity.