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The Polymath: Lowell Wood Is America's New Top Inventor (bloomberg.com)
pacopico writes: It's taken more than 80 years, but someone has finally overtaken Thomas Edison as America's top inventor. The dude is named Lowell Wood; he was once behind the infamous 'Star Wars' space laser project, and he was a protege of Edward Teller. On July 7th, he received his 1,085th patent, breaking Edison's record. The article says he has 3,000 more inventions awaiting review at the patent office. Wood seems to be using his powers more for good these days and has become the right hand inventor for Bill Gates and his philanthropic endeavors. He's making efficient nuclear reactors, universal vaccines and anti-concussion football helmets. Quite the life.
"Wood attributes his ability to hop from subject to subject, making associations that sometimes lead to inventions, to reading—a lot. He subscribes to three dozen academic journals. 'I have a terrible deficiency of willpower once I open an electronic table of contents for Physical Review Letters or the New England Journal of Medicine,' he says. 'It's just terribly difficult to pull myself away from them. There will be these three articles that I absolutely have to read before I can turn loose of this thing. If I don't read them, I'm doomed. I'll never come back to them because there will be the next day's journals and the ones after that.'"
"Wood attributes his ability to hop from subject to subject, making associations that sometimes lead to inventions, to reading—a lot. He subscribes to three dozen academic journals. 'I have a terrible deficiency of willpower once I open an electronic table of contents for Physical Review Letters or the New England Journal of Medicine,' he says. 'It's just terribly difficult to pull myself away from them. There will be these three articles that I absolutely have to read before I can turn loose of this thing. If I don't read them, I'm doomed. I'll never come back to them because there will be the next day's journals and the ones after that.'"
...is a really BAD way to identify "top inventor". This doesn't mean the guy isn't brilliant, but - to use the old example - I'd rate Tesla as discoverer ("inventor" is such a misleading term) over Edison any day. Tesla was much more about quality and scholarship than rapacious exploitation of his own and others' talent for his own ego. Or, to quote T on E:
If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.
Overall wealth increase (as opposed to mere transfer of wealth) is about application of the mind to improve efficiency.
"Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."
- Thomas Jefferson