What do we mean by innovation? We mean the creation of something new. Because of conservation of matter (and energy), new does not mean creating something out of nothing. As used here innovation means a new combination of elements and connections that has positive value to a human being. Combinations of elements and connections that are new but have no value to any human being are generally noise. However, in the case of failed attempts to solve a problem the new combination may have value in what does not work. For instance, Edison considered his attempts to create a light bulb as having negative value. He told a reporter, “I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work.”
Every innovation can be described as a combination of elements and connections. For instance, music is a series of notes connected by timing. A food dish is a combination of food elements connected by ways of preparing each element and the time at which the elements are combined. Methods of investing are the elements of stocks and financial parameters or technical parameters connected together by a purchase or sale. The connections can be as important as the elements. For instance, stereoisomers are chemical compounds that have exactly the same elements and bonds between the elements, but are mirror images of each other. The two chemical compounds of a stereoisomer are commonly characterizes as being right handed or left handed. They are often readily distinguished by biological systems, however, and may have different pharmacokinetic properties (absorption;
This leads to the first law of innovation:
Conservation Law of Innovation:
All innovations are combinations of existing/known elements.
For more information on the other laws of innovation see http://hallingblog.com/
