The big question is how Huebner selected those innovation events that he uses to measure the number of innovations per year. One might expect that there would be a certain ex-post bias... innovations that have proven successful over a few decades, let's say the lightbulb, would have a bigger chance of appearing in the list than recent innovations that haven't had much time to prove themselves yet. As a consequence, all the great innovations would have been made a few decades ago. This would neatly explain his innovation peak around 1900.
ChL | 07.02.05 - 11:11 am | #

Using Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery (1994) and world population the "per capita rate of innovation" shows two peaks; one at 200 AD and the other at 1900 AD (supporting the per capita patent result of Huebner).
Bruce Gary | Homepage | 07.05.05 - 11:34 pm | #