What Makes the Difference?

Abstract

I have been always interested on the inner mechanisms that generate new innovative ideas. In reality, we have two kinds of innovative results: the valuable one generated by applying and refining ideas already formulated by others, and the one, which is not ahead the state-of-the-art simply because it opens new avenues to the human knowledge. Both categories are relevant especially the first one because it produces astonishing numbers. For that category the essence of innovation is advancing the state-of-the-art by an extent that is measured with solid and well-defined parameters (or figures of merit). The other category is fuzzy: the new avenues are not well defined and, in some cases, they are dead-end roads. However, the second type of scientific activity fascinates me much more than the first one because it corresponds to the road marked by creative people. Obviously, in our discipline it not possible to invent something by totally groping in the dark; in some sense we don't have basic research; it is necessary to create new things by having in mind problems and necessities valuable for the scientific progress. However, these kinds of creative contributions, even if incremental, do not follow a step-by-step approach but look ahead of any logic, linear and engineering flow.