On life, knowledge, aspirations and more.

This time I have tried to use some examples from net, to add volume to topic and also accumulating examples which will be useful in other essays.

"It is always an individual who is the impetus for innovation; the details may be worked out by a team, but true innovation results from the enterprise and unique perception of an individual."

Innovation is defined as the act of introducing something new or something which has been newly introduced. Innovation needn't necessarily be invention. While invention is attributed as an impetus in individual I believe innovations are more likely to occur when individuals work together. By brainstorming and organizing thoughts from individuals with specialized knowledge a unique innovation can be foreseen.

For example concept of internet in Bell Labs as a ARPANET project, has been contributions of several people. The packet-switched technology was first conceived by Leonard Kleinrock, while the ARPANET project was successfully being developed at MIT's Lab. Other important contributors for this project were Dennis Ritchie and Kenneth Thompson for developing UNIX operating system at Bell Labs. All this innovation and many more put together formed the internet as visioned by Licklider. He articulated the vision of a "galactic" computer network as a globally interconnected set of processing nodes through which anyone anywhere can access data and programs.

With growing complexity in fields, most of the the innovations are results of improvement in an existing product. These improvements will relay on the expertise of a members in a team. Let's take an example when a manufacturer wants to modify an existing cereal with healthier ingredients. He will need a team which shows expertise at all the fields. He will need a person, who justifies the healthier ingredients in the cereal, like a nutritionist. He needs a expert like a data analyst, who will justify the perception of new cereal based on the survey or existing data of consumers. He will also need expert advice from his Marketing personnel, who will illustrate the process of launching this product, a financial advisor for feasibility of plan. And with several people like them he can make a informed decision.

Individuals specializing in a niche area, working as a team is the most productive way to lead to a new innovation. However when we need that revolutionary idea like "Electric Bulb" we will definitely need a Thomas Edison.

I am amidst GRE preparation and working on few sample essay topics. I find few tips handy from Kaplan's GRE preparation book. It mentions a stepped approach towards tackling essay topics.
The topic i worked on was this-
"Originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before; it means putting old ideas together in new ways."

Here's the steps

Step 1: taking the issue apart
topic: originality of ideas
scope: is originality thinking something new or putting old ideas
conclusion: yes, ideas need to be co-related in different fields
assumptions: there are old ideas to be put together
originality means uniqueness

Step 2: Selecting the points you will make
quickly thinking the pros and cons
Argument for: ideas work together better by inter-related them
there is more to originality in terms of applications
scientific world thrives on implementation of ideas in fields of science and mathematics
Argument against: originality means a unique idea
if the new ideas only evolve from old ones, how will new ideas be invented


Step 3: Organize your argument
New ideas need to be developed by putting old ideas together because:
theoretical research is more time consuming
there is a application of known ideas in different fields which needs to be utlized
there will be more collaboration among different fields
originality doesn't come thinking in isolation but assimilating various inter-related ideas
whole of the scientific world uses principles developed by others

Based on the above steps, which needs to be quickly assimilated before writing the topic, this was the essay i worked on:

Originality is related to a unique new invention or a discovery. Most of the world's best inventions have been based on an original idea. However, with increased saturation of technologies and so many inter-related fields propping up, it becomes more important to find co-relations between them and enabling sharing of ideas. Originality is good, but application of existing ideas is important to fully realize a theory.

Let's consider an example of internet and communications. Internet works by connecting several disparate networks together which works eventually as a complicated mesh. This mesh is so effective that communication can occur from one sub-network to any other sub-network. The technologies behind internet have found wide-spread application and are exploited in other fields. This has enabled utilization of the technologies already known to the scientific community. An excellent example can be found in "Vehicular networks". These networks use small sensors to connect themselves forming sub-networks. These networks eventually can communicate seamlessly with other networks. Communication like this becomes critical in case of emergencies like avoiding collision and warning other vehicles of any blockages ahead. This illustrates an effective example of how communication between disparate networks being modelled on internet is finding applications in other fields.

Theoretical research and inventing new principles have always been time consuming and the task burgeoning for most of the scientific community. Even if a theory is developed most of them donot find their way beyond journals and publications which are left leafing in those pages. However, times are changing and it becomes more and more evident that the future will thrive on using these break-through formulas which has been discovered earlier. For example Mathematics finds applications in almost all fields, the same Fourier theory is being utilized to develop new ways of signal processing and also being used to analyse a economics equation. These ideas are surely unique in their respective field which wouldn't have been possible without creatively thinking of ways to use these theories in a new way.

With increasing communication being rendered necessary among disparate subjects, finding new ways to work on old ideas is increasingly becoming important. Problems can be solved better while thinking about the co-relation between different fields rather than working in isolation in one particular field. This is the best way to harness the available knowledge source at our disposal and work in the most efficient way.