【英语生活】什么是创新之母？

A brief history of innovation: In the beginning, there were lone inventors who changed the world. John Harrison was one of the most prominent – the clock-maker became famous and (eventually) rich in the 18th century by building a clock so accurate and so resilient in the face of changing temperatures and constant rocking that it could be taken on board a ship and used to calculate the ship's longitude. In doing so, Harrison pitted himself against the might of the Royal Observatory, which had been established in 1675 by King Charles II in order to solve the longitude problem with an astronomical method. The loner got there first.

As science and technology progressed, innovation became more and more industrialised. Thomas Edison set up perhaps the world's first industrial research laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1876. Edison set the tone for the 20th century, with expensive research projects carried out on a colossal scale. Among the most famous were government efforts such as the Manhattan Project, to create the first atomic bomb, and the Apollo moon landings.

And then, towards the end of the last century, the tide seemed to turn in favour of the innovation minnows once again. Companies such as Microsoft and Google were set up in spare rooms and garages. Large companies seemed to be abandoning in-house research and buying start-ups. Powerful computers became cheap enough for most pockets.

The culmination of this process is the likes of Facebook, whipped up in a few days by a Harvard student. Soon after Facebook's launch, Mark Zuckerberg said: “I think it's kind of silly that it would take the university a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week.”

But are Facebook and Google symbolic of a new trend towards micro-innovation by individuals or small teams? Or are they exceptions to the implacable march of technology towards ever larger and more expensive research efforts, requiring multi-billion-dollar tools such as the Large Hadron Collider?

An economist at the Kellogg School of Management, Benjamin F. Jones, has been trying to look beyond the eye-catching denizens of Silicon Valley to test this question with some meaningful numbers, based on patent citations. Jones is worried about what he calls “the burden of knowledge”. Facebook may have been easy for a young, talented creator to produce, but Jones fears the general trend is in the other direction. If he is right, scientists will have to master an ever greater body of knowledge before they can make a contribution – or specialise earlier and join teams of other specialists. Technological progress will become ever harder.

The evidence suggests that Jones is right to be concerned. The trend away from the lone inventor has continued, with the size of teams listed in patent citations increasing steadily since Jones's records began in 1975. The age at which inventors first produce a patent has also been rising, and specialisation seems sharper; lone inventors have become less likely to produce multiple patents in different technical fields. “Deeper” fields of knowledge, whose patents cite many other patents, attract larger teams. Compare a modern patent to one from the 1970s and you'll find a larger team filled with older and more specialised researchers.

All this suggests that innovation is, broadly, a more complex and expensive process than it used to be. Isaac Newton once told his rival Robert Hooke, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The climb up the giants' backs appears to be becoming more and more arduous.

Tim Harford's new book, ‘Dear Undercover Economist' (Little, Brown), is out now

以下是一部“创新简史”：首先登场的是那些孤军奋战、并改变了世界的发明家，其中最杰出的一位是约翰•哈里森(John Harrison)。这位钟表匠在18世纪名声大噪，并且（最终）变得非常富有，原因是他制造了一台时钟，其走时是如此精确，在气温变化和长期摇晃的情况下是如此不受干扰，以至于人们可把它装配在轮船上，用以计算船所在的经度。哈里森也由此与有权有势的英国皇家天文台(Royal Observatory)展开了竞争。皇家天文台是由查理二世(King Charles II)于1675年建立的，目的是用天文学方法解决经度问题。孤军奋战的发明家率先拿出了答案。

随着科学技术不断进步，创新变得越来越工业化。1876年，托马斯•爱迪生(Thomas Edison)在新泽西州的门罗帕克(Menlo Park)设立了工业化研究实验室，这或许是全球首个此类实验室。爱迪生为20世纪定下了基调，即大规模开展成本高昂的研究项目。20世纪最著名的项目包括一些政府计划，比如旨在研制首颗原子弹的曼哈顿计划，以及阿波罗登月计划。

随后，在上世纪接近尾声时，潮流似乎再次转到有利于创新“小作坊”的方向。在闲置的房间和车库里，诞生了微软(Microsoft)和谷歌(Google)等公司。大公司似乎摒弃了内部研究，转而收购初创企业。功能强大的电脑变得颇为廉价，以至于大多数人都有能力购买。

在这一过程的鼎盛期，出现了像Facebook这样由一个哈佛(Harvard)学生在寥寥数天之内“赶制”出来的公司。Facebook推出后不久，马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)表示：“一所大学需要花上两三年时间来做这件事，这在我看来有点可笑。我可以做得比他们更好，而且我可以在一周内完成。”

但Facebook和谷歌是否象征着由个人或小团队进行微观创新的崭新趋势？抑或者他们只是例外，无法阻挡技术创新来自更大、更昂贵研究项目——这些项目需要造价数十亿美元的设备，例如大型强子对撞机(LHC)——的趋势？

凯洛格管理学院(Kellogg School of Management)经济学家本杰明•F•琼斯(Benjamin F. Jones)一直试图把视线放到硅谷的明星企业之外，通过一些基于专利引文的、有意义的数据来考察这一问题。令琼斯感到担忧的是他称之为“知识负担”的现象。对于一位年轻且才华横溢的创新者而言，创建Facebook或许本来就是件轻而易举的事情。但琼斯担心，总体趋势是相反的。如果他是对的，那就意味着，科学家在作出贡献前，必须首先驾驭一个越来越庞大的知识体系，或者更早从事专门研究，并加入由其他专家组成的团队。技术进步将变得越来越举步维艰。

证据表明，琼斯有理由感到担忧。远离个体发明的趋势并未中断——琼斯的记录始自1975年，自那时起，专利引文中所列团队的规模一直在稳步扩大。发明家创造首项专利的年龄也在增长，专业化程度似乎有所加剧。孤军奋战的发明家已不太可能在不同技术领域创造多项专利。“更为深奥”的知识领域——这些领域的专利会引用许多其它专利——吸引了更大规模的研究团队。如果把一项现代专利与一项上世纪70年代的专利相比较，你会发现前者背后的团队规模更大，其中遍是更年长、也更专业化的研究人员。

所有这一切都表明，广泛而言，创新过程已变得比以往更复杂、也更昂贵。艾萨克•牛顿(Isaac Newton)曾对竞争对手罗伯特•胡克（Robert Hooke）说：“如果说我看得比别人更远些，那仅仅是因为我站在了巨人的肩膀上。”沿着巨人的脊背向上攀登，似乎正变得越来越艰难。

本文作者的新书《亲爱的卧底经济学家》(Dear Undercover Economist)现已由利特尔-布朗公司(Little, Brown)出版面市

译者/章晴