flâneur

Google X and the Science of Radical Creativity

theatlantic.com · 7,118 words · saved by 1 readers

How the secretive Silicon Valley lab is trying to resurrect the lost art of invention

I. The Question A snake-robot designer , a balloon scientist, a liquid-crystals technologist, an extradimensional physicist, a psychology geek, an electronic-materials wrangler, and a journalist walk into a room. The journalist turns to the assembled crowd and asks: Should we build houses on the ocean? To hear more feature stories, see our full list or get the Audm iPhone app. The setting is X, the so-called moonshot factory at Alphabet, the parent company of Google. And the scene is not the beginning of some elaborate joke. The people in this room have a particular talent: They dream up far-o

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