I’ve been thinking of innovation these days, and how it’s being given as a password, and passport, to sustain economies, especially in the Old and New Worlds—that is, us. And how—and why—we are given rules to innovate. It’s odd to me that anyone should be told how to create.

I’m aware that consultants and their ilk are easily tempted to promote anything that might return a profit. A former boss of mine, as just one example, was greatly valued because he invented a lucrative slogan so compelling it could be used to sell freezers to the Inuit. (Frank Schatzing made these entrepreneurs famous with his 912-page novel, The Swarm.)

In Great Ideas in Modern Science (Bantam, 1967), Robert W. Marks wondered, “Is a diamond hard when we don’t touch it?” Similarly, our metrology colleagues are always asking themselves whether the measurement device they use is reliably measurable.

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