27 Wonderful Inventions That Solve Those Annoying Little Problems

Some computer science problems lend themselves perfectly to gradual improvement, or incrementalism – a step-by-step process of making something a little better each time. Very-large-scale integration is an example: scientists have succeeded in placing finer and finer lines on silicon. CPUs get consistently faster for the same price, in more or less the same-sized package. Incrementalism works in this case, but as a function of local refinements, not big new ideas.