Dynamics of technological evolution: Random walk model for the research enterprise

Abstract

Technological evolution is a consequence of a sequence of replacements. The development of a new technology generally follows from model testing of the basic ideas on a small scale. Traditional technologies such as aerodynamics and naval architecture involved feasibility experiments on systems characterized by only one or two dimensionless constants. Technologies of the "future" such as magnetically confined fusion depend upon many coupled dimensionless constants. Research and development is modeled and analyzed in terms of random walks in appropriate dimensionless constant space.