Top Ten Inventions

Inventions have a strong impact on the way societies are structured and function.  Inventions on living essentials expanded our capabilities and are the driving force for civilization. For example, electric light extended human activities beyond sunset, making it possible to read and work at night.  Inventions on transportations impact on our work habits and leisure activities. They allow people to work miles away from residence, expanding labor supply; they also made the transportation of products between different places faster, stimulating export and import. Communication inventions made it possible for us to communicate to the whole world from any point of globe. The top ten inventions that I have selected are important because they are the Lego basis of our everyday life.

My top ten inventions are listed below and they are selected based on two factors:

First, I looked at the inventions that are essential to the safety and convenience of daily life. Among many, I narrowed to the items that would apply to the largest number of people. I selected Magnifying Glass, Electric Light, and X-rays.

Second, I look at the difference between pre-modern and modern life and asked myself what contributed to the difference. To me, the most significant difference between the two is the increased level of awareness, communication, and interaction, which all contribute to urbanization. This urbanization will not be possible without Wheel, Compass, Steam Engine, Automobiles, airplane, mobile phone, and Internet.

Bits and Pieces

Hi, my name is Yi. I was born in China and raised in Vancouver, a rain city in the west coast of a country with plenty of maple syrup and beavers. To get away from the rain, I moved to Berkeley for my undergraduate studies. Currently, I am a senior studying Operations Research and Management Science with a concentration in Law and Technology. This coming fall, I will be applying to Law Schools to further pursue my academic interest in patent laws and its social and economic implications.

I find patent law important because they can generate huge opportunities and, at same time, problems for a society. On one hand, tightening of the patent laws encourages inventions by allowing the inventors to recoup their investment of the money and time spent developing the ideas. On the other hand, too much patents stagnate technological progress by making secondary inventions that require the previous inventions more expensive. Important new experimental results once led scientists to rush down the publishers and share excitements with the whole world. When instead the rush is to patent lawyers and venture capitalists, I worry about the long-term future of scientific discovery. This paradox of whether we should have more or less patents is what I am interested in exploring.

Despite my interest in patent laws and my supposedly "technical" major, I am very old school and, sadly, not very technologically savvy.  By taking IEOR 190G, I hope to get more exposure to new technologies, and broaden my perspective on how patent laws or perhaps the lack of them, will benefit the growth of more technologies.