The age of the heroic inventor is over - [Opinion]

EVERYONE KNOWS THE GREAT ELECTRICAL inventors of the past, such as Alexander Graham Bell of the telephone, Marconi of the radio, and Edison of the incandescent light. But few know who invented the transistor, laser, integrated circuit, optical fiber, stored-program computer, GPS, or Internet. Yet these are probably the most significant inventions of the last century, and I wonder: Why this disparity? • Perhaps it is because the world of the past was a simpler place and there was magic in the air. I remember, when I was a child, my mother telling me about the thrill she felt in first hearing a voice emanate from a radio, first speaking on a telephone, and the first time she saw an airplane fly over her farm in Virginia. They were seen as miracles, and accepted as such. In a relatively empty, largely agrarian world, these magical inventions had enormous impact, and even before they were widely adopted, it was understood almost immediately what they did and, to some degree, how they would be used. • In contrast, the world today is a busy, connected place. Magic has been replaced by science and technology. Inventions are numerous, seemingly incremental, and mostly taken for granted. My grandchildren are not going to ask me what it was like to use the first transistor. It's a meaningless question. Even engineers initially viewed the transistor as a simple replacement for the vacuum tube, while the laser was generally believed to be a glorified flashlight. No one remembers the first time they used the Internet or GPS; they just evolved. There was no initial flash of discovery.