This paper explores the process by which radically novel technologies – ones such as radar, the turbojet, or the polymerase chain reaction – come into being. It shows that this process – “invention” – has a certain logical structure common to all cases. Invention is a process of linking some purpose or need with an effect that can be exploited to satisfy it. It may begin with a purpose or need ...

This chapter describes a novel simulation model (InventSim) of the process of product invention. Invention is conceptualized as a process of directed search on a landscape of product design possibilities, by a population of profit-seeking inventors. The simulator embeds a number of real-world search heuristics of inventors, including anchoring, election, thought experiments, fitness sharing, im...

Invention activities are Productive Failure activities in which students attempt to invent methods that capture deep properties of given data before being taught expert solutions. The current study evaluates the effect of scaffolding on the invention processes and outcomes, given that students are not expected to succeed in their inquiry and that all students receive subsequent instruction. Two...

every invention in order to be registered, should have essential conditions and the legal due process should be complied with. the novelty is a traditional qualification of any invention, which must be considered objectively; the applicant’s awareness or his ignorance in regard to it's public release, is not efficient in the maintenance or decline of invention’s novelty. the state of the a...

Invention and Productive Failure activities ask students to generate methods that capture the important properties of some given data (e.g., uncertainty) before being taught the expert solution. Invention and Productive Failure activities are a class of scientific inquiry activities in that students create, implement, and evaluate mathematical models based on data. Yet, lacking sufficient inqui...