Page:Culture.vs.Copyright 01.pdf/70

 Going after Examples Gamma: By the way, sometimes they coincide literally.

Delta: What do you mean?

Gamma: Invention. . . . Say, an inventor tries to create a new engine. He has to assemble some known things in a new form.

Kappa: Don’t you think that the idea of a new engine has to come to his mind first?

Gamma: For example?

Kappa: Well,. . . I don’t think I have any specific knowledge. ..

Delta: Jets! My dad says it was a revolutionary change in aviation!

Alpha: Ah. The Chinese invented gun powder rockets lo-o-ong ago. And aircraft were invented too. All it took was just to join the two ideas.

Kappa: Just to join? That easy?

Gamma: “Join”! See?

Alpha: What?

Gamma: What “what”? You take two different things: aircraft and rocket, and arrange them into one idea—a jet! See?

Alpha: What I’m trying to say is that it was not so horribly new.

Kappa: What is “horribly new” for you? Something born out of nothing?

How New Content Emerges Beta: Wait, wait. I’ve got an interesting assumption! A new idea equals the new form! The one you arrange known things in!

Alpha: Is that not what we’ve been discussing for the last half an hour?

Delta: Five minutes at most. . . after Gamma gave her last definition.

Alpha: All right, let it be five minutes! What’s Beta’s discovery, anyway?

Delta: It isn’t clear for me either, to be frank. . . . Beta, can you elaborate?

Beta: I realized that a new idea is totally equal to a new form. ..

Gamma: Totally?

Beta: Yes.