10.7. Lesson 96: Analogy Again
Analogy was the catalyst of Edison's creativity as an innovator. At its most basic, analogy served him as the currency of understanding. In his diary, Edison noted that he generally recommended "only those books that are written by men who actually try to describe things ... by analogy with things everybody knows."
For Edison, understanding the unknown required analogy with the known. By the same token, invention and innovation did not call for creation of something entirely new so much as the creation of an analogue to what already exists. Take motion pictures. Edison repeatedly explained that the concept of a motion picture camera was suggested to him by analogy to one of his earlier inventions, the phonograph. ...
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