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John Poco of Lawrence
Livermore Labs in Livermore, California, works with the lightest solid
material ever made—silica
aerogel. About as heavy as the air over San Francisco on a foggy day,
the substance has been nicknamed "frozen smoke," because that's what it
looks like. Poco and his Livermore scientists have reduced the density of
aerogel and improved its composition and clarity.
It already has practical
scientific uses, but in the process of discovering it, John Poco was told it
couldn't be done. And that seems to be what
inspired
him. "I have no idea where the outer limits are," he said. "I mean, can we
go faster than the speed of light?
Einstein
would say, no. But we watch Star Trek and they go faster than the speed of
light.
"It's interesting to look back in retrospect in my life and see
things like
Star Trek now and how Star Trek has changed, and a lot of things as a
younger person growing up tend to feel the model says that this is the way
things work. I have two
kids. They
grew up with some of those models, but they also have a view of the future
that says, no, this is possible. And they're not restricted by old thinking
patterns. And that's a lot of what holds us back, is old thinking patterns."
Outer limits? Star Trek? Well, if you're serious about
innovation,
if you want to arrive at the future before your competitors realize you've
left, it's going to take a real commitment to defying conventional wisdom.
Because as John Poco observes, convention is not necessarily wisdom.
"If someone tells you this can't be done, this defies the laws of physics,
it makes you question, what do the laws of physics really know?"
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