True. Scientists would like to give us a simple equation that will be an answer to existence. When they eventually find it, they’ll marvel at its simplicity.
People dislike innovation because it means change, and comfortable people are scared by change. They worry that it may take away their comforts. This is annoying, especially for inventors, since those very changes nearly always add to people’s comfort, health and safety.
To rephrase Trotsky, "You might not be interested in change, but change is interested in you."
Anyways,
Discover Magazine Interview with Newt Gingrich
Oct 2006
Q: You have predicted a fourfold to sevenfold increase in scientific discovery in the next 25 years. What does that mean?
Gingrich: I began thinking of the fact that you have more scientists alive now than in all of previous human history. You have better instrumentation and computation. The scientists are connected by email and cell phone. And they are connected by lisencing to venture capital and royalties -- and to China and India as reserve centers of production. Put all that together and it leads to dramatically more science than we have ever seen before. And if you get a breakthrough in quantum computing then you're in a totally different world. My instinct as a historian is that four is probably right. I used that figure when I spoke to the National Academy of Sciences working group in computation and information, and afterwards the head of the group said to me, "That's too small a number." He said its got to be at least seven. What it means is that if you have a planning committee looking out to 2031, and you're going to have four times as much change, that puts you in position of someone in 1880 trying to imagine 2006. If you are going to have a seven times as much change, that puts you in 1660. And nobody understands that.