How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

Steven Johnson’s book argues that six innovations shaped the modern world: glass, cold, sound, clean, time, and light. The post says small ideas can have large effects, and that many everyday technologies emerged in surprising and unexpected ways.

Reading notes

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• The book links the history of six central inventions to the current world: glass, cold, sound, clean, time, and light.
• The central idea is that small innovations can produce large and unexpected effects.
• Glass made possible glasses, microscopes and, later, fiber optics and the internet.
• Cold brought refrigeration, ice shipping, food and medicine preservation, as well as air conditioning.
• Sound includes the phonograph, radio, telephone, and sonar, with an impact on music, communication, and digital transmission.
• Clean appears as a result of sanitation, sewage, drinking water, and indoor plumbing, with a reduction in diseases.
• Exact time depended on the mechanical clock and later the atomic clock, with use in trains, navigation, GPS, and the internet.
• Light went from candles and lanterns to the light bulb, photography, flash, and laser, with uses in surgery, data storage, and nuclear fusion.