Where Good Ideas Come From

The Introduction begins with Johnson exploring Charles Darwin’s observations of coral reefs during his voyage on the Beagle. The author describes Darwin’s fascination with the abundant biodiversity found in coral reef ecosystems, contrasting it with the relative scarcity of life on nearby islands. This phenomenon, later termed “Darwin’s Paradox,” highlights the remarkable concentration of diverse species in nutrient-poor waters.

Johnson then transitions to discussing the work of Max Kleiber, a Swiss scientist who discovered a consistent mathematical relationship between an organism’s size and its metabolic rate. This relationship, known as Kleiber’s Law, applies across a wide range of species and follows a negative quarter-power scaling. The author explains how this principle was later extended to cities by physicist Jeffrey West, who found that while energy use in cities follows Kleiber’s Law, innovation in cities displays a positive quarter-power scaling: Larger cities are disproportionately more innovative than smaller ones.

The narrative then shifts to the development of color television and high-definition TV (HDTV). Johnson uses these examples to introduce the concept of the “10/10 rule,” the observation that many significant technological innovations take about a decade to develop and another decade to achieve widespread adoption.