The Man Who Saw Tomorrow: The Life and Inventions of Stanford R. Ovshinsky

by Lillian Hoddeson, Peter Garrett

The first full-length biography of a brilliant, self-taught inventor whose innovations in information and energy technology continue to shape our world. The Economist called Stanford R. Ovshinsky (1922–2012) “the Edison of our age,” but this apt comparison doesn't capture the full range of his achievements. As an independent, self-educated inventor, Ovshinsky not only created many important devices but also made fundamental discoveries in materials science. This book offers the first full-length biography of a visionary whose energy and information innovations continue to fuel our post-industrial economy. In The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, Lillian Hoddeson and Peter Garrett tell the story of an unconventional genius with no formal education beyond high school who invented, among other things, the rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries that have powered everything from portable electronics to hybrid cars, a system for mass-producing affordable thin-film solar panels, and rewritable CDs and DVDs.  His most important discovery, the Ovshinsky effect, led to a paradigm shift in condensed matter physics and yielded phase-change memory, which is now enabling new advances in microelectronics. A son of the working class who began as a machinist and toolmaker, Ovshinsky focused his work on finding solutions to urgent social problems, and to pursue those goals, he founded Energy Conversion Devices, a unique research and development lab. At the end of his life, battered by personal and professional losses, Ovshinsky nevertheless kept working to combat global warming by making solar energy “cheaper than coal”—another of his many visions of a better tomorrow.

Genres: Science

400 pages, Hardcover

Published April 20, 2018

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Call this a real-life "Horatio Alger" story, as Lillian Hoddeson provides the reader with a chronicle of Stanford Ovshinsky, a man who went from being a mechanic from a working-class Jewish family in Akron (OH), to being a leader in materials science, despite having relatively little formal education.

The secret to the man was that between a natural talent for applied analogous thinking that seemed almost synergistic, an endless thirst for knowledge, and very good social skills, Ovshinsky created a whole series of breakthroughs based on the properties of non-crystal amalgams of chemicals; most notably in the composition of the batteries of current-day electrical cars.

Had he wanted to Ovshinsky could have been a wealthier man, and possibly enjoyed the public acclaim of a Steve Jobs or a Buckminster Fuller, but he was more interested in being his own man, doing interesting things, and trying to make a difference to the human condition.

As for the downside of the man's life, Hoddeson does note Ovshinsky's experiences of antisemitism and classism, his frustration with the issues involved in making scientists and engineers understand what came to him intuitively (not having the math to explain it), and how the iron skin the man developed sometimes crushed the people closest to him.

Actual rating: 3.5.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy reading the story of an unconventional genius, his root, his transform from a machinistto an inventor and ambitious entrepreneur, his passion, his love and his regretful fate of not fulfill his biggest dream while working to the last days of his life into his nineties.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading if you are interested in the engineering of switches and such.

[Marc Puckett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Great guy! Very good research project, might want to look up her other books.