And he became one of the leaders in microwave spectroscopy; wrote a classic book with his brother-in-law, Arthur Schawlow, and then invented an idea of stimulating the emission of microwaves called the maser.
As the Bloomsbury set is small-screened for some generations and introduced to others in the BBC's beguiling Life in Squares, it is salient – honouring, almost – to remember that they invented an idea.
You can invent an idea that's not based in physics, or anything we know about the laws of nature, but you could invent an idea [that is] sort of like fixed points in the future.
For every human who invents an idea or product, there can be millions of people who use or elaborate the idea.
"You see," he said, laughing delightedly, "I'm inventing an image of a classical idea for African America, a kind of root for the future".
"He was going around telling everybody that that old fuddy-duddy Gibson hadn't invented a new idea in years.
The United States may be the only nation in the world that was invented from an idea, lacking any foundation in a defined territory, a religious authority, a common culture or a single people.
In a comedy scene from Englishkaran (2005), Theeppori Thirumugam (Vadivelu) invents an idea to frighten Thamizharasu (Sathyaraj) but the ruse backfires on him as he witnesses Thamizharasu in the garb similar to Chandramukhi.
Here Nathan Myhrvold, a former chief technology officer at Microsoft, and his company, Intellectual Ventures, pursue an eclectic array of speculative and potentially world-changing ideas — inventing a new battery, taming hurricanes, defeating disease.
But Michael Boge, the City Council president, seemed to complain of exactly that, telling me he didn't understand why the group had to cheapen a good idea by "inventing a new word for it and wrapping themselves in that catchphrase".
MacDonald had the bright idea of inventing a genuine intellectual to be McGee's Watson, the Keynesian economist Meyer, and their back-and-forth about changing manners and morals got so dense that, in the later novels, MacDonald had to more or less slap himself awake to write the action scenes.
