Innovation in a Young Nation

Abstract

Historians and economists often consider that the spark of America’s economic engines was ignited during the second half of the twentieth century. Prodigious inventions and discoveries resulted from the post-World War II economic boom and fears of second-class world status in technology after the Soviet Union’s successful Sputnik launch. The entire world economy is still benefiting from the innovation which poured from the corporate research laboratories of America’s blue-chip companies and the fast-growing populations of America’s research universities.

This article was adapted from a book review of Morris’s book by H. Frederick Dylla that was previously published in Physics Today 67, 5, 51 (2014).