Come on, true to my habits I open a new debate that will make you react I hope!
I have just read an interesting article which criticizes the great scientific schools for training scientific and technical specialists who no longer show creativity, especially once in professional activity.
They are accused of restoring their scientific knowledge, certainly of a high level, but as they have learned it, and of not seeking to go further. Clearly, not to seek to innovate, to exceed their knowledge, to analyze them under other aspects to make them evolve, as if the limits of science of which they have a good control were the limit of their creativity, and by way consequently the limit of progress.
Incidentally, and there it is a drift of the current system, we also criticize them for being at the disposal of the trade today: we are going to ask an engineer to make basic and fragile to make economic and renewable quickly: the famous planned obsoloscence that is so much talked about now.
This article appealed to me because it reminded me of the relationships I was able to have with the professors and students of the engineering school that I had requested for the hybrid carriage project: there is had no technical innovation on their part on the project, and the few technical remarks and proposals that I was able to make were dismissed unceremoniously and with disdain under the pretext that I was not an engineer ...
Besides, the dissertation of the engineering student, which I was able to obtain with difficulty (I am not from the seraglio), and with which however I had good relations, begins with "Relations with Mr X (therefore myself) were difficult because the client, not being an engineer, had his truncated vision of the work to be done as well as a great enthusiasm which often made his thoughts escape the main problematic of the project. In fact, he was very often distracted and attached himself to details that were difficult to achieve and that were optional. After negotiations we arrived at the following specifications ... "
However, none of the new materials that have been created, however simple, have been designed by teachers and students who have "simply" assembled existing industrial materials, some of which, in my opinion, are too complex and unsuitable. to the project.
Today, following an appointment with the INPI, some of the materials I had proposed are the subject of a study by a specialized firm with a view to filing a patent! (I hope it will succeed ... and I am sure that if this is the case, the teachers and the student will remind me of their good memories
).
Okay, I'm going astray and I'm getting away from the subject!
To come back to it, I wonder if the Science, discipline taught, and Intuition, a quality neglected in high-level education, are not the 2 essential motors for Progress.
There are, moreover, great phrases on this subject by Albert Einstein, who moreover had been denied by the scientific community of his time:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge".
"Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited, while imagination encompasses the whole world."
"The impression of knowing is the most perfect obstacle to knowledge and progress".
Here, I add a last one that I have just invented:
"In terms of progress, science is the bicycle, innovation is the cyclist". (copyright and copyright: Grelinette of course!
)
(I wanted to replace Bike by Horse and Cyclist by Rider, but that devalues the horse too much which often shows intuition!).
).
