Calculus, the electrical ...

Calculus, the electrical battery, the telephone, the steam engine, the radio - all these groundbreaking innovations were hit upon by multiple inventors working in parallel with no knowledge of one another.
Calculus, the electrical battery, the telephone, the steam engine, the radio - all these groundbreaking innovations were hit upon by multiple inventors working in parallel with no knowledge of one another.
 Steven Johnson

More phrases

Many sports, not just football, have kind of the macho meathead mentality where innovation is almost frowned upon.
 Lawrence Jackson
This is ideological colonization. They colonize people with ideas that try to change mentalities or structures, but this is not new. This was done by the dictatorships of the last century.
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has.
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
 Henri Bergson

Quotes from the same author

One of the founding moments of public health in the 19th century effectively poisoned the water supply of London much more effectively than any modern day bioterrorist could have ever dreamed of doing.
 Steven Johnson
Chance favors the connected mind.
 Steven Johnson
Most new movements start this way: hundreds or thousands of individuals and groups, working in different fields and different locations, start thinking about change using a common language, without necessarily recognizing those shared values. You just start following your own vector, propelled along by people in your immediate vicinity. And then one day, you look up and realize that all those individual trajectories have turned into a wave.
 Steven Johnson
It is extraordinary how safe flying has become. You are now statistically more likely to be elected president of the United States in your lifetime than you are to die in a plane crash. What an amazing achievement as a society! But what we end up focusing on are the catastrophic failures that are incredibly rare but happen every now and then.
 Steven Johnson
Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualities—a certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosity—but they also share one other defining attribute. They have a lot of hobbies.
 Steven Johnson