I'm not convinced that the idea/execution dichotomy works. Consider the steam engine of Thomas Newcomen. We may say that it was a triumph of execution. The earl

I'm not convinced that the idea/execution dichotomy works. Consider the steam engine of Thomas Newcomen. We may say that it was a triumph of execution. The earlier Savery engine failed commercially because it used steam pressure and early boilers and pipe work could not contain it. The idea of using atmospheric pressure to do work and leaving the steam circuit unpressurised was the key idea in the Newcomen or Atmospheric Engine. Since this idea was due to Denis Papin, who failed to exploit it, we may say that the idea was worthless and Thomas Newcomen's success was due to good execution of Papin's idea. Here is a second idea which fills out the rest of this paragraph. In 1712 high pressure steam was one hundred years ahead of its time. Pipes would leak, boilers would burst. Papin's idea of using unpressurised steam, condensing it, and letting atmospheric pressure do the work is obviously stupid, but if you don't want to wait 100 years, it is the only option, so just persevere and make it work. This is idea is the ignition key of the industrial revolution. We cannot ignore it, and yet it sits in the middle of the gray area between /idea/ and /execution/, mocking the dichotomy that Scott Adams blogs about.