Carl J Schramm, Books on Inventors and Innovators . Wall Street Journal, Mar 29, 2025, at page C8 (every Saturday, section C is 'Review'/ in the column 'Five Best [books]') https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture ... innovators-79fc3227
Note:
(a)
(i) In print, the introduction at the top (as is the practice if this column; not bottom) of the column is: 'The author, most recently, of ‘Burn the Business Plan: What Great Entrepreneurs Really Do.'
(ii) The essay seems to be free.
(b) Mayo Clinic "opened its doors in 1889 in Rochester, Minn."
(i) Mayo Clinic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_Clinic
(table: Founded 1864/ In "1864, [William Worrall] Mayo advertised in the Rochester City Post the opening of a private medical practice ;over the Union Drug Store on Third Street' with 'all calls answered by day or night.' [In 1883, a tornado struck then Town of Rochester. The Sisters of St Francis of Rochester, Minnesota (1877- ; whose nuns doubled as nurses) raised funds to build a hospital. In] 1889, Saint Mary's Hospital was opened by the Sisters with the three Mayo physicians [WW and his two sons, both physicians] on staff")
(A) Minnesota was admitted to the United States in 1858 (Before that it was Minnesota Territory).
(B) Sisters of St Francis owned, and served as administrators of, the hospital, whose early buildings were named after various nuns and the (religious) order. See
Dan Beckham, Faith-Hope-Science -- Mayo Clinic. American Hospital Association, Sept 20, 2018 (news on PBS Sept 25, 2018 documentary titled 'Faith – Hope – Science' about Mayo Cinic) https://www.aha.org/news/insight ... science-mayo-clinic
(After the tornado, "Mother Alfred [of Sisters of St Francis of Rochester, Minnesota] received a vision from God: she should build a hospital and have the Mayos serve as its medical staff. It was a vision only reluctantly embraced by W.W. But Mother Alfred was resolved to do what most felt to be impossible, raise money and build a hospital in a small, remote farm town on the edges of what was still a wilderness. In fulfillment of Mother Alfred's vision, St Mary's Hospital opened in 1889. The Mayos became its physicians and the teaching nuns of St Francis became its nurses")
(ii) What was so special about Mayo Clinic, according to this essay?
Babu Krishnakumar, Group Practice – A Concept Doctors Are Shifting To. Kerala Journal of Ophthalmology, 33: 249 (Sept-Dec 2021; this article is about all medical doctors, not just ophthalmologists or physicians) https://journals.lww.com/kjop/fu ... _shifting_to.3.aspx
("Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA, founded group practice in the late 1800s and is regarded as the father of group practice in medicine. Around 1932, there were 125 group practices. By 1980, group practice became a preferred model of practice in the USA")
, whose table 1 (heading: "Distribution of physicians by ownership status and type of practice (2021)" ) shows
(A) Ownership status : owner 53.2%, Employee 41.8%, Independent contractor [like Doordash food deliverer] 5.0%;
(B) Type of practice: Solo practice 18.4%, Single specialty group 45.5%, Multi-specialty group 22.1%, Direct hospital employee 5.6%, Faculty practice plan 2.7%, Other 5.7%.
(ii) The present-day City of Rochester is abut 75 miles southeast of Minneapolis.
(c) longitude: "As the 18th century began, shipwrecks bedeviled European explorers. In 1707 sailors of the British fleet 'misgauged their longitude' and sunk four warships off southern England near the Scilly Isles, making the isles 'unmarked tombstones for almost two thousand' men. After that wreck and others that followed, [in Longitude Act of 1714] Parliament established a £20,000 prize (over $4 million today) for anyone who could devise a method to measure longitude at sea accurately. Latitude can be easily determined by referring to the stars. Longitude, however, requires reference to the difference in time between the ship's position and the port from which it left. The solution lay in inventing a device to measure time accurately—a sea-going clock."
(i) Isles of Scilly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isles_of_Scilly
(before the introduction: "For the region of Italy, see Sicily")
section 1 History: "During the night of 22 October 1707, the isles were the scene of one of the worst maritime disasters in British history [when clicking it, first look for the map whose caption reads: 'The dashed blue line shows * * * '], when out of a fleet of 21 Royal Navy ships headed from Gibraltar to Portsmouth, six were driven onto the cliffs. Four of the ships sank or capsized, with at least 1,450 dead, including the commanding admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell.[17]
(ii) "Latitude can be easily determined by referring to the stars."
(A) marine chronometer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer
section 1 History: "Navigators could determine their latitude by measuring the sun's angle at noon (ie, when it reached its highest point in the sky, or culmination) or, in the Northern Hemisphere, by measuring the angle of Polaris (the North Star) from the horizon (usually during twilight). * * *the time difference between the chronometer and the ship's local time can be used to calculate the longitude of the ship relative to the Prime Meridian (defined as 0°)" )
• To determine latitude, polaris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris
("Because Polaris lies nearly in a direct line with the Earth's rotational axis 'above' the North Pole—the north celestial pole—Polaris stands almost motionless in the sky, and all the stars of the northern sky appear to rotate around it. Therefore, it makes an excellent fixed point from which to draw measurements for celestial navigation and for astrometry. The elevation of the star above the horizon gives the approximate latitude of the observer")
is straightforward. See the next bullet point right below.
While we are on this Wiki page, I want to explore more.
The introduction (in the Wiki) says at paragraph 1: "The position of the star lies less than 1° away from the north celestial pole, making it the current northern pole star." What does this mean?
Thomas "Tom" E Harrison (presently retired), Astronomy 105 Homework #1; Due February 1st, 2008. Department of Astronomy, New Mexico State University, 2008 http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast110/ast105hm01.html
(homework:
"1) Can someone at the South Pole (or anywhere in the southern hemisphere) see Polaris? (2 pts)
2) What is the elevation angle of Polaris if you a) lived on the equator, b) lived at the north pole, and c) lived at a latitude of 45° north. (6 pts)"
The answer for 1) is no; for 2) are 0 degree (right on the horizon), 90 degrees (right over observer's head), and 45 degrees.
The illustration shows that Polaris is not exactly "above" the North Pole (which academically is called north celestial pole (and equator, celestial equator).
Also in this Wiki page (of Polaris):
section 2 Observation, section 2.2 Role as pole star: "In 2018 Polaris was 0.66° * * * away from the pole of rotation * * * It will be closest to the pole (about 0.45 degrees * * *) soon after the year 2100. * * * The apparent motion of Polaris towards and, in the future, away from the celestial pole, is due to the precession of the equinoxes."
English dictionary:
* precession (n; from Latin meaning "act of preceding") https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precession
Section 3 Name: "The modern name Polaris[40] is shortened from the Neo-Latin stella polaris ('polar star'), coined in the Renaissance when the star had approached the celestial pole to within a few degrees."
Latin-English dictionary:
* polaris (adjective masculine and feminine; from noun masculine polus pole + [suffix] -āris used to form an adjective, usually from a noun): "(Late Latin) Of or pertaining to the poles (northern and southern)" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polaris
• Latitude of Polaris. Javalab, undated. https://javalab.org/en/latitude_of_polaris_en/
Apparently to obtain one's latitude this way, the observer need not know that earth is round.
geographic coordinate system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_coordinate_system
(GCS; "The invention of a geographic coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who composed his now-lost Geography at the Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC")
China is not mentioned throughout this Wiki page. And Chinese maps did not have GCS or indicate roundness of the earth until Jesuits arrived.
history of geodesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geodesy
(section 6 Early modern period quoted Shen Kuo 沈括 (北宋) deduced that both sun and moon were spherical (but said nothing about shape of earth).
geodesy (n; from Ancient Greek geōdaisia, from [noun feminine γῆ (romanization: gê earth] + [verb δαίω (romanization: daíō] to divide: etymology is from Wiktionary):
"a branch of applied mathematics concerned with the determination of the size and shape of the earth and the exact positions of points on its surface and with the description of variations of its gravity field" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/geodesy
• To decide latitude, from Polaris to sun (or any other star) is also straightforward. See
The Sun in the Sky at Different Times of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere. Solar Physics Group, Montana State University, undated https://solar.physics.montana.ed ... ndials/skydome.html
("The North Celestial Pole is the point in the sky about which all the stars seen from the Northern Hemisphere rotate. The North Star, also called Polaris, is located almost exactly at this point in the sky. If you go out at night and find the north star you will notice that it does not move during the course of the night, while all the other stars do move, they rotate from east to west around the north star. * * * The Sun is also a star, so the Sun also rotates around the North Celestial Pole * * * We need to know where the North Celestial Pole is to use our sundials, but during the day, it is too bright to see the north star. How else can we know where to find this special place in the northern sky? No matter where you live in the Northern Hemisphere there is an easy way to find the north star. As you might have guessed it is located due north, but how high in the sky is it? The north star is up from the horizon exactly an angle equal to your latitude. So if you live at 50 degrees latitude, the north star will be due north, up 50 degrees. * * * The arrow you see pointing toward the North Celestial Pole in the diagram above is close to the axis about which the Sun rotates")
The last sentence is the key. The sun path (an arc in the sky) is perpendicular to the line between observer and Polaris. HOWEVER, the observer need not take several measurements of sun locations in the sky at daytime to determine the arc; he can make just one measurement at solar noon (ie, 12 o'clock local time) which is defined ub noon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noon
(section 1 Solar noon: "(informally high noon),[3] is the moment when the Sun contacts the observer's meridian (culmination * * *), reaching its highest position above the horizon on that day and casting the shortest shadow")
I live in homeless shelters, in Boston, Mass. One shelter is located away from downtown. We have to leave shelters in the morning. Waiting for bus to go toward city center, I observed long ago that the sun rose in different points in the east and traversed the sky in arc that is longer in summer and shorter in winter but never went directly above my head (as would in Taiwan -- on summer solstice). I concluded that winter has shorter daylight time, because its arc is shorter (and that sum moves at the same pace om all seasons).
• For longitude, one on a ship would have Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on the ship chronometer AND needs to know local time also (somehow; eg, shortest shadow to ascertain "solar noon").
(B) John Harrison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
("Harrison set out to solve the problem directly, by producing a reliable clock that could keep the time of the reference place [GMT] * * * The difficulty was in producing a clock that was not affected by variations in temperature, pressure, or humidity, resisted corrosion in salt air, and was able to function on board a constantly moving ship. Many scientists, including Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens, doubted that such a clock could ever be built and favoured other methods for reckoning longitude")
(C) How did Harrison accomplish it? See Longitude Found: the Story of Harrison's Clocks. Royal Museums Greenwich, undated https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/to ... s-longitude-problem
("No one in the 1750s thought of the pocket watch as a serious precision timekeeper. While H4 initially looked like a large pocket watch, the instrument was in fact quite different. The secret can be heard in its rapid ticking. H4 ticks five times a second, since its large balance beats more quickly and with larger oscillations than a typical watch")
For balance, see balance wheel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_wheel
, whose caption of a photo on the right margin states, "Modern balance wheel in a watch movement." The balance wheel there is of copper color and looks like a driving wheel of a car.
(d) "Gothic cathedrals emerged, along with eyeglasses, the weight-driven mechanical clock and the science of crop rotation. * * * The heavy-wheeled plow, another marvel of the era, exemplifies such thinking. Its deep furrows brought more fertile soil to the surface, yielding larger harvests.* * * Dutch settlers brought the windmill to New Amsterdam; now this triumph of innovation is memorialized in the seal of New York City."
(i) Gothic cathedrals and churches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_cathedrals_and_churches
("Cathedrals were by definition churches where a bishop presided. Abbeys were the churches attached to monasteries. * * * The Gothic style first appeared in France at the Abbey of Saint Denis, near Paris, with the rebuilding of the ambulatory and west façade [only the new parts were Gothic, not entire building] of the abbey church by the Abbot Suger (1135–40). The first Gothic cathedral in France, Sens Cathedral [in then town and presently city, of Sens], was begun between 1135 and 1140 and consecrated in 1164."/ section 1 Name: why "Gothic")
(ii)
(A) For "weight-driven mechanical clock," see clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock
("A major advance occurred with the invention of the verge escapement [you need not actually read it, because Note (d)(ii)(D) below is much better, plainer; you need only know there is such a term, whose mechanism ] which made possible the first mechanical clocks around 1300 in Europe, which kept time with oscillating timekeepers like balance wheels.[1][2][3][4]" )
The term "weight-driven mechanical clock" can not mean weights dangled under the clock, which this Wiki page says Archimedes did.
(B) Modern English dictionary:
* verge ("earlier" [ie, in Middle English, per merriam-webster.com] meaning rod) https://www.etymonline.com/word/verge
* escapement: "a device in a timepiece which controls the motion of the train of wheelwork and through which the energy of the power source is delivered to the pendulum or balance by means of impulses that permit a tooth to escape from a pallet at regular intervals" (This verb "escape" is of ordinary meaning. So though "escapement" is used in timepieces, the word itself does not have a mythic meaning.) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/escapement
(C) Middle English - Modern English dictionary:
* fōliōt (n): "OF foliot [Old French of the same spelling] a snare (for catching birds)"
Middle English Compendium, University of Michigan Library, undated https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mid ... dictionary/MED16575
(D) Now, a picture is worth a thousand words.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer
*section 2 Characteristics: "The crucial problem was to find a resonator that remained unaffected by the changing conditions met by a ship at sea. The balance wheel, harnessed to a spring, solved most of the problems associated with the ship's motion. Unfortunately, the elasticity of most balance spring materials changes relative to temperature. * * * The balance spring problem was solved with a nickel-steel alloy named Elinvar for its invariable elasticity at normal temperatures. The inventor was [Swiss physicist] Charles Édouard Guillaume, who won the 1920 Nobel Prize for physics in recognition for his metallurgical work")
John Harrusin could not solve the spring problem, and did not use ba;amce wheel in his chronometers.
(F) "The pendulum clock was invented [in] 1656 by Dutch scientist and inventor Christiaan Huygens" en.wikipedia.org for "pendulum clock."
(iii) heavy-wheeled plow
(A) The English noun carruca is borrowed from Latin noun feminine of the same spelling, meaning chariot, which in turn is from noun masculine carrus, a two-wheeled cart.
(B) plough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough
, where one can see from pictures that wheels were not present in ancient tilling of the world -- not in Taiwan in modern times.
The wheel(s) in "heavy-wheeled plow" are noy part of plough (but part of carruca), but makes it easy for both draft animals and farmer alike.
(C) Dr Christipher Brooks (Professor of History, Portland Community College), An Historical Overview of the Medieval Agricultural Revolution, Nov 9, 2022 https://brewminate.com/an-histor ... ultural-revolution/
displays a carruca.
(D) But I doubt the necessity of tilling. See
• no-till farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming
• cover crop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop
, whose tet gives no example, but its photo shows "tillage radish," which is daikon 大根. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikon
("In some locations, daikon is planted for its ability to break up compacted soils and recover nutrients and is not harvested")
As cover crop, daikon (which is leafy and hinders weed from taking root) is annual, winterkill and left unharvested to nourish the soil (the last is due to its deep tap root that brings nutrients and moisture from deep earth).
(iv) seal of New York City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_New_York_City
(1686- ; table: Shield including "the sails of a windmill"/ "On the shield, the four windmill sails recall the city's Dutch history as New Amsterdam * * * Bolting Act of 1674 [enacted by New York City] * * * gave the city an exclusive monopoly to mill and export flour.
(e) "In the War of 1812, the United States and England clashed in naval battles for control of Lake Ontario. The new nation prevailed, thanks in part to massive, ocean-worthy warships built deep in the North American wilderness. Charles R Morris enlists this history in 'The Dawn of Innovation' * * * thinking about problems differently, or, as the British historian Herbert Butterfield [1900 –1979; professor of University of Cambridge] put it: 'picking up the opposite end of the stick.' Innovation dawned in the 19th century because America had invented a new economy—the world's first 'mass-consumption society,' as Morris calls it. * * * Bicycles in turn inspired Henry Ford and the Wright brothers"
(i) This description is not my impression about the 1812 war which was indecisive. And I am right. See engagements on Lake Ontario https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagements_on_Lake_Ontario
In downtown Boston, there is a Chauncey Street of a couple blocks long.
(ii) enlist (vt): "to secure the support and aid of : employ in advancing an interest <enlist all the available resources> <enlisted our help>" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enlist
(iii) "picking up the opposite end of the stick"
(A) James Lothian reviewed on the book (book title serves as review title in this journal) is the "Michael Bentley, The Life and Thought of Herbert Butterfield: History, Science and God. Cambridge University Press, 2011." Journal of British Studies (by Cambridge University Press), 51: 755 (2012) https://www.cambridge.org/core/j ... F61D50F6071C0DB13C6
("As a young Peterhouse, Cambridge, tutor, Herbert Butterfield termed his tactic in undergraduate supervision 'picking up the other end of the stick.' By this he meant invariably arguing 'the diametrical opposite' to what a student had said (97).* * * In his exvepyionally illuminating new biography of Butterfield, there are numerous instances in which Michael Bentley has picked up the other end of that Butterfieldian stick to challenge previous understanding")
• For tutor, see tutorial system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutorial_system
• One may call Butterfield's methodology revisionist.
(B) Robert J Delahunty, Herbert Butterfield, Christianity, and International Law. 86 University of Detroit Mercy Law Review _, _ (2009) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1293005
("Yet despite Butterfield’s emphasis on sinfulness, he was not a determinist. Rather, he repeatedly underscored the importance of human freedom. * * * see also Epp, supra, at 12 ('The dimension of sin, cupidity or egoism, however, does not comprise the whole of what * * * Butterfield [called] personality. As [he] often said, it mattered which 'end of the stick' one picks up; at the upper end is . . . .human freedom')" )
This paper is no longer in the website of University of Detroit Mercy Law Review. Rather, another college stored it in the pre-print format (without page number).
(iv) consumer revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_revolution
("refers to the period from approximately 1600 to 1750 in England in which there was a marked increase in the consumption and variety of luxury goods and products by individuals from different economic and social backgrounds. The consumer revolution marked a departure from the traditional mode of life that was dominated by frugality and scarcity to one of increasingly mass consumption in society")
(v) "Bicycles in turn inspired Henry Ford and the Wright brothers"
bicycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle
(section 7 Economic implications: "Bicycle manufacturing proved to be a training ground for other industries")
(f)
(i) Willis Carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Carrier
("In Buffalo, New York, on July 17, 1902 * * * Willis Carrier submitted drawings for what became recognized as the world's first modern air conditioning system")
(ii) refrigeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigeration
("The history of artificial refrigeration began when Scottish professor William Cullen designed a small refrigerating machine in 1755")
"The history of artificial refrigeration began when Scottish professor William Cullen designed a small refrigerating machine in 1755": from the Web. (Cullen did experiments, but did not put it to use.)
(iii) Air conduction (including cold room AND heating by heat pump but not any other means) and artificial refrigeration (the latter including freezer) share the same foundation: refrigeration cycle. See heat pump and refrigeration cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump_and_refrigeration_cycle 作者: choi 时间: 3-31-2025 11:58
----------------------WSJ
The Doctors Mayo
By Helen Clapesattle (1941)
1. Geography played a part in spurring innovation at the Mayo Clinic, which opened its doors in 1889 in Rochester, Minn. Out of the shadow of the leading medical centers in Baltimore, Boston and New York, the brothers and surgeons William and Charles Mayo developed a revolutionary organizational model for treatment. As Helen Clapesattle writes in “The Doctors Mayo,” every patient at the Mayo brothers’ multispecialty facility was a patient of the entire clinic and not of any individual doctor. Charles believed that in order for the sick to “have the benefit of advancing knowledge, union of forces is necessary.” A network of pneumatic tubes was built to deliver patient records to physicians across the facility in minutes. This same system supported another innovation: pausing surgeries while biopsied tissue was dispatched to the clinic’s pathology laboratory for immediate analysis. Yet another Mayo innovation, dating to 1907, was to keep uniform patient histories. The clinic’s extensive archive—initially preserved on paper and now digitally—continues to serve researchers today.
Longitude
By Dava Sobel (1995)
2. The ranks of innovators are crowded with obsessive heroes. Dava Sobel’s “Longitude” tracks John Harrison’s 43-year quest to give sailors a crucial tool for navigating the seas. As the 18th century began, shipwrecks bedeviled European explorers. In 1707 sailors of the British fleet “misgauged their longitude” and sunk four warships off southern England near the Scilly Isles, making the isles “unmarked tombstones for almost two thousand” men. After that wreck and others that followed, Parliament established a £20,000 prize (over $4 million today) for anyone who could devise a method to measure longitude at sea accurately. Latitude can be easily determined by referring to the stars. Longitude, however, requires reference to the difference in time between the ship’s position and the port from which it left. The solution lay in inventing a device to measure time accurately—a sea-going clock. At the time, the most sophisticated clocks required pendulums, a mechanical solution incompatible with a rolling ship at sea. Harrison, a carpenter and clockmaker, crafted three ingenious clocks without pendulums. “His every success, however, was parried by members of the scientific elite,” Ms. Sobel writes. Harrison’s fourth attempt, a sea chronometer produced in 1759, resembled a large pocket watch and won Parliament’s prize. A 1783 update of his invention ruled the waves until GPS technology became available in 1983.
The Medieval Machine
By Jean Gimpel (1976)
3. “Between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries, Western Europe experienced a technological boom,” the French historian Jean Gimpel writes in “The Medieval Machine.” Gothic cathedrals emerged, along with eyeglasses, the weight-driven mechanical clock and the science of crop rotation. “The ambition of inventors was unlimited, their imagination boundless,” according to Gimpel, who defines innovation as nonstop experimenting to increase productivity. The heavy-wheeled plow, another marvel of the era, exemplifies such thinking. Its deep furrows brought more fertile soil to the surface, yielding larger harvests. European innovators harnessed water and wind to save human and animal energy. Gimpel documents how dams and water wheels were built, transmitting power to the millstones, grinding wheels, carding machines, and hammers that beat linen and cotton rags into the slurry that would become paper. Dutch settlers brought the windmill to New Amsterdam; now this triumph of innovation is memorialized in the seal of New York City.
The Dawn of Innovation
By Charles R. Morris (2012)
4. In the War of 1812, the United States and England clashed in naval battles for control of Lake Ontario. The new nation prevailed, thanks in part to massive, ocean-worthy warships built deep in the North American wilderness. Charles R. Morris enlists this history in “The Dawn of Innovation” to illustrate two habits of innovators. The first is tinkering, or testing big ideas on a small scale; the second is thinking about problems differently, or, as the British historian Herbert Butterfield put it: “picking up the opposite end of the stick.” Innovation dawned in the 19th century because America had invented a new economy—the world’s first “mass-consumption society,” as Morris calls it. “Machinery-intensive methods of manufacturing guns” for the U.S. Army fostered progress in precision measurement, advanced machining and parts production. Gun makers including E. Remington & Sons diversified into producing typewriters, locomotive parts and gears for the nascent bicycle market. Bicycles in turn inspired Henry Ford and the Wright brothers, whose inventions changed history.
Where Good Ideas Come From
By Steven Johnson (2010)
5. “Chance favors the connected mind,” Steven Johnson writes in “Where Good Ideas Come From,” and innovation thrives when good ideas connect. Innovators embrace chaos as a habit of mind, firm in their belief that this is how new ideas are born. Among the innovators—and connected minds—Mr. Johnson cites is an engineer named Willis Carrier. In 1902 Carrier was tasked with solving a problem at a Brooklyn, N.Y., plant that printed magazines, catalogs and other publications. A recent innovation in printing—colored ink—proved unstable on humid summer days, causing pages to wrinkle and delaying production. Carrier focused not on the ink but the high humidity levels inside the printing plant. To dry the air, he figured, the building’s interior temperature had to be lowered. Air conditioning was born. “Carrier’s narrative fits the classic mold of the genius entrepreneur,” Mr. Johnson writes. “After experimenting with a handful of failed schemes suggested by his colleagues, Carrier followed his own instincts” in building prototypes to cool the air. Early adopters of his invention included food-processing plants, theaters and hospitals. By the second half of the 20th century, air conditioning, Mr. Johnson writes, “went from a curiosity to a luxury item to a middle-class necessity.”