📘 Part 3: Inventions

This episode's vocabulary

Inventive (adj.) - very good at thinking of new and original ideas.

Curiosity (noun) - an eager wish to know or learn about something.

Thrilled (adj.) - extremely happy about something.

To patent (verb) - to get the official legal right to make or sell an invention.

On the whole (idiom) - generally.

To articulate (verb) - able to express thoughts and feelings easily and clearly, or showing this quality.

Eccentric (adj.) - strange or unusual, sometimes in a humorous way.

Rigidity (noun) - the quality of being stiff, fixed, or impossible to bend.

Rare earth (noun) - one of a group of metal chemical elements that are difficult to find in large quantities, and are important for technology and manufacturing.

Beneficiary (noun) - a person or group who receives money, advantages, etc. as a result of something else.

Proliferation (noun) - the fact of something increasing a lot and suddenly in number or amount.

Breakthrough (noun) - an important discovery or event that helps to improve a situation or provide an answer to a problem.

Phenomenon (noun) - something that exists and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc., especially something unusual or interesting.

Nanotechnology (noun) - an area of science that deals with developing and producing extremely small tools and machines by controlling the arrangement of separate atoms.

Nanobot (noun) - an extremely small robot (= a machine controlled by a computer that can do things automatically).

Questions and Answers

M: What qualities do inventors have?

R: Well, not having met any, I really couldn't say for sure. However, it seems they definitely have to be creative, or at least sympathetic in terms of their imaginations in order to come up with their ideas and combine different ones to make a whole new device.

M: What about scientists?

R: Well, I'm not sure scientists would be as creative as inventors since it's their job to discover things which are already there. Maybe they would have to get inventive about how they make the discovery. But a sense of curiosity to find out seems more appropriate.

M: Do all inventions bring benefits to our world?

R: Well, that depends who you ask, doesn't it? I mean, people mining for cobalt for smartphones in inhumane conditions probably aren't too thrilled about it. But billionaires who patented things probably are. On the whole, however, most people seem thankful for their various gadgets, since they allow them to get on with the things they'd like to be doing.

M: Do you think people who haven't been educated in school can invent things?

R: Well, I don't see why not. It might be more difficult for them to articulate the finer details, but that's what you pay engineers to do. Actually, the kind of eccentric character that rejects the rigidity of mainstream education seems like just the kind of person to invent things. Just look at Mark Zuckerberg, I think he dropped out of university, didn't he?

M: What inventions do you think should be improved?

R: Well, they probably all could to some extent. I mean, the extraction of rare earth minerals for phones is quite destructive to people and the environment. So anything to make that happen less often would be beneficial. Something like a cheap and easily accessible replacement, or an improved recycling process would be good for that.

M: What have been some of the most important inventions in the past 100 years?

R: Oh, wow. I mean, again, that depends on the beneficiaries. If we mean the population as a whole, then things like antibiotics have prevented mass deaths from infection. And the Internet has allowed a huge expansion of many economies and industries, as well as the proliferation of all kinds of information. So I would pick those two if I had to choose.

M: What inventions will we have in 20 years?

R: I think if I knew that, that I would be much richer than I am right now. At a guess, it seems like AI will lead to some major breakthroughs, or more of them since it already has done so in medicine. And so I would expect to see more of that.

M: What invention do you think has had the greatest impact on people's lives in your country?

R: In Scotland? That's a good question, to be honest, since I'm not sure there's anything that separates us from the rest of the world in that regard. I would say the internet. I know, it's a pretty international phenomenon. But it's definitely connected people from all corners of the country like never before. I mean, there are isolated islands that can talk to the rest of the world now.

M: And what invention would you like to see in the future?

R: Not really sure. It would be cool to have some sort of nanotechnology, as long as it was carefully controlled since you could achieve a lot with that. But you could also do a lot of damage.

M: Why?

R: Well, I mean, nanotechnology allows you to reformat things at a molecular level. So you could create some really like super strong material, or you completely break apart something or someone. That's quite dangerous.

M: And why would you like to see in nanotechnology?

R: Because I would like to find a way of making myself thin without going to the gym all the time. So if I could just program some nanobots to just filter out all of the stuff in my body that I didn't need to... That I didn't need to use without going to the gym, that would be great.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers!

R: No worries!