BookHuntersBlog.com: Do you have any scientific background?
Mike Green: Basically, yes. I studied sciences at university, and have bachelors and masters degrees to my name. My journalistic work also concentrates on science and technology.
Which of today’s inventors do you see as underestimated and overlooked?
I think that increasingly invention is becoming an anonymous occupation. If you look at the major innovations of a hundred years or so ago; the telephone, the light bulb, radio communication, etc, then the names of Bell, Edison, and Marconi are (rightly or wrongly) synonymous with them. However, how many people know who developed the silicon chip, which is arguably the most important invention of the twentieth century, and has affected all our lives immeasurably. Also most innovation is now done by huge teams of engineers. For example hundreds, if not thousands, of people would have been involved in the development of the Apple iPod. The days of a lone inventor working in his shed are long gone, I would say.
How much chance is involved in science and inventing?
I feel that there is a lot of chance involved. Often those who lost out in receiving the rewards of a major innovation had fallen foul of circumstance. It was not that they were lacking in the technical skills required, but that they didn’t have the right connections, or lacked the business acumen needed to market their invention properly.
Which of today’s inventions will have the biggest impact in the near future?
Well in my opinion the biggest innovation in modern times has been the cell phone – it has simply had a huge impact on the way we live our lives, and has brought about the advent of the portable electronics age (with the evolution of products like the Blackberry, the iPod, and countless others, all stemming from it). I don’t think we will see any device have such an impact again for several decades to come, just minor enhancements based on this theme.
What makes a good inventor ?
Much like I said about succeeding as an author, I think what makes a great inventor is predominantly persistence. Thomas Edison is almost certainly the most famous inventor in history – and though there were some rather unsavory aspects to his character, his work ethic was truly exemplary. As he said, “Genius is one percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.”
What is, in your opinion, the most important invention of the young 21st century?
It is hard to say exactly the big invention that defines this century will be (if I knew I would be making my way to the patent office right now). I think that increasing concerns about our health will drive a lot of innovation. Already there is a great deal of investment being made in technology for home-based personal monitoring, and expect that something huge will happen here in the not too distant future (possibly in using nanotechnology in implantable electronics).
The year 2050: What is it like?
I think all of us have different ideas as to what the future holds for our civilization, and these images of the future vary from ones of a technology-led utopia to ones of a bleak, environmentally bankrupt hell on earth. I think that as long as humankind changes the way our society is structured and we implement a more sustainable, less greed driven ethos, then we can still ensure this world will be a nice place for our children to live in – I still have some optimism.
Do you have any science or inventor heroes?
Like anyone who has read a little about him, I find Nikola Tesla a very interesting character. He was a genius, deeply driven by the need to discover the secrets of the universe, but at the same time he struggled to keep himself from madness. As well as being technically brilliant, he was a great showman who loved to amaze (and even scare) the crowds. He was involved in many of the advanced that have shaped the modern age; including alternating current electricity, radio communications, and X-ray imaging to name just a few.
What are your favorite science books?
In terms of popular science, I really like the works of John Gribbin and Michael White. Sadly there are very few authors that that can speak with authority on such matters, but at the same time write in an engaging manner. I really like Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’, as it shows how science can be tackled in a way that is still appealing to ordinary people. It is a shame that this only happens on a few occasions – a lot of writers in this genre aren’t able to relate things to their readers in an interesting form. When we are talking about science fiction, I still love the works of Douglas Adams. The Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy series and the Dirk Gently books were all great, the same goes for Terry Pratchett – but who doesn’t like his stuff.
Did you study the craft of writing or dive right into it?
I guess you would say I got into writing by accident. I started out working as an engineer, then moved my way through marketing into journalism (which I have been involved in for ten years now). Writing a book is very different from writing an article of course, but I just learnt the tricks of this particular trade as I went along. It probably means that with my first book I took the long way round, but the different practices that I have picked up will help me with my second one, which I am working on right now.
What do you think about the future of books with all the new technology coming out (like Kindle and foldable screens)?
I still have mixed feelings about all this. Technology is a great thing, but sometimes you feel ‘if something ain’t broke then don’t try to fix it’. Maybe this is a symptom of the era I grew up in. Being in my mid thirties, I still prefer the idea of being able to relax on my sofa and get stuck in to a paper based book, but younger generations are probably less likely to see the appeal of that. It is already possible to make organic displays that will roll up (just like the scrolls the Romans would have read from). These will have TCP/IP connections to the Internet, so that you can download the daily paper or monthly magazine you subscribe too, as well as buying new digital books. I’m sure that this will become very popular in the future, but I would hate to see the day when we have lost the traditional book format completely. One of my prize possessions is the small library of books that I have managed to amass over the years.
How difficult was the publishing process for you?
I wouldn’t have said that I’d had a harder time of it then anyone else. I think you have to expect that it isn’t going to be easy. I did manage to get good feedback from a couple of publishers fairly early on, and ended signing with one of them. The frustration is that even once you have got your deal and the work is completed, you still have quite a long wait before you see it in print, it’s not as fast moving a process as you would hope.
How much of your own promotion do you do?
Quite a lot really. My publishing company does a great job, but when you have spent two and a half years working on a book project, and have put your heart and soul into it, you want to make sure that the passion you have instilled in it comes over to the audience. So I always do my bit, writing articles, doing interviews, and occasionally giving presentations. Quite recently I was asked to give a speech at the Royal Society in London, which was a huge honor for me, as some of my great scientific heroes, such as Newton and Einstein, presented there in the past. It was a nerve-wracking experience, but something I will look back on with pride.
What made you decide to write The Nearly Men: A Chronicle of Scientific Failure?
The idea for ‘The Nearly Men’ came to me via my work as a journalist. I learnt from one of my colleagues about the story of Antonio Meucci, who had developed the original telephone concept some twenty years before Bell. It led me to write an article about Meucci. After that I started to look into other scientific discoveries and inventions and found similar controversies. I wrote articles on some of these, and with time I decided to produce a more detailed and extensive work on this subject.
How did you go about finding the examples in your book? It seems like a very involved process that takes a lot of digging.
Yeah it needed a lot of research – I spent a many long days at the British Library in London, the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, the Meucci Museum in New York, the Boston Science Museum, the IET library, the National History Museum in London, the Royal Society archives, and the Musee L’Histoure Naturelle in Paris. I was also able to get interviews with people involved in the more recent episodes. It was a long hard slog, but you need to have all the facts in front of you if you are going to try to make a proper analysis.
How long did the process take?
It took about two years to write, and then another six months to secure a contact.
Do you have any tips for aspiring authors?
It sounds very cliché, but just be persistent. I must have approached twenty five to thirty different publishing houses before I found any that were interested, and then all of a sudden I had two offers. There are plenty of authors that have been turned down maybe a hundred times or more, but gone on to make big names for themselves. Believe in what you are doing and stick at it.
What are your future plans?
I am just finishing work on my second book. It is due out at the end of this year. It will be called ‘Worlds in Collision’ and will look at the ongoing conflict between science and religion.
Thank you for the opportunity. We wish you the best of luck in your career.
Marius & Mary
The Nearly Men: A Chronicle of Scientific Failure
The back shelves of the annals of time are strewn with little-read tales of those destined to remain unsung heroes. A number of individuals were to find themselves deprived of their place in the who’s who of science and technology. The money, the kudos, the girls, all passed these poor, unfortunate souls by. As a result each has become part of a very exclusive club, though its membership may not be a highly-coveted one. Th name of this collection of the disgraced and discarded is the ‘Nearly Men’. Not the most respectful, or tactile of nomenclatures it must be said, but one that seems to sum up the nature of their association quite well.
The ‘Nearly Men’ include:
Antonio Meucci – Who despite developing the first telephone spent his whole life in poverty, while Alexander Graham Bell got all the glory.
Alan Turing – Whose huge strides in the conception of the first generation of computers were destined to never to be fully attributed to him, due to his untimely death.
Robert Hooke – Who postulated, amongst other things, the true nature of planetary motion, only to witness his rival Isaac Newton take all the praise for it.
Nikola Tesla – Who died almost totally penniless, while the ideas he had put forward for radio communication made Guglielmo Marconi a fortune.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck – Who correctly surmised that living things evolved, over sixty years before Charles Darwin publicised the fact, but was to die in ignominy with his ideas not appreciated.
Geoffrey Dummer - Whose musings on the development of the integrated circuit preceded those of Bob
Noyce and Jack Kilby by almost a decade, but due to lack of vision by the British Government his plans were never to make it off the drawing board.
Joseph Swan – Who despite having the technical expertise that allowed him to design the first
workable electric light bulb, was no match for the commercial machinations of adversary Thomas Edison.
There are a number of reasons why fame and fortune did not choose to look favourably upon these guys, and each of them is analysed in turn. For some it was a lack of time, resources, or business acumen. Others were hindered by a language barrier, a tendency to be too trusting, class distinction, or simply that they could not convince people that their ideas were worth listening to. One or possibly more of these proved to be fatal flaws in their character, and thus meant they would forever be assigned a second-tier rating in the chronicles of human endeavour, mere C-list celebrities.
