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Ask HN: List of technological breakthroughs through tinkering and perseverance?

11 points by zxcvvcxz ↗ HN
I'm really interested in compiling a list of important technological breakthroughs that have come about from tinkering, trial-and-error, and in general extensive periods of iteration.

My goal is to try and inspire some younger kids that I will be speaking to regarding the importance of perseverance and not needing to have a fancy ivy league degree to make cool and important things. So any examples and accompanying stories/background info would be great! Bonus points for examples from less classically educated people =)

Here's some that immediately come to mind:

- Edison's 10,000th lightbulb ("I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work.")

- Wright Brother's first airplane

5 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 20.6 ms ] thread
antoineMoPa
The GNU/linux kernel. It was started in 1991 by Linus Torvalds and it is now so important because of its use in mobile phones & servers (and my computer/laptop/chromebook). We all rely on it indirectly in our daily lives.
devnonymous
First thing that came to mind when I read your question - I found the story of Bertha Benz pretty amazing :

https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/classic/berth...

https://medium.com/start-up-vision/a-tale-of-karl-bertha-a-r...

Of course, the history of science is full of stories of perseverance despite personal and social obstacles but I am unsure whether that's what you meant by technological breakthroughs.

Closer to the modern day, there is the story of India's sanitary pad man although not sure if that counts as technological breakthrough (although it was iterative and fueled by perseverance) :

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978

dTal
I feel it trivializes the Wright brothers' success to call it merely a result of "trial and error", in the manner of Edison's "test all the things" approach to lightbulbs. The Wright brothers did a vast amount of on-the-ground theoretical work which paid off handsomely. Their propeller design, for instance, achieved 99% of the efficiency of our best designs today. So it's more correct to call their success a result of being carefully methodical, which is worth considerably more than base persistence.

As for your question, quite honestly, I'm having more trouble coming up with a counterexample wherein progress came from a flash of brilliant insight. Iteration is the norm :) If you're looking for virtuoso performances, you could look to Konrad Zuse and his series of tabletop computers; however there's a lesson there as well, for apart from a couple guided bombs they never amounted to anything despite being years ahead of their time. You get better results with more staying power when you work with other people.