Could this ‘bottomless handbag’ material change the world?
At the Nobel Prize festivities in Stockholm a few months ago, chemistry laureate Omar Yaghi got
talking to his economics counterpart Philippe Aghion. The French economist’s work had shown
how big incumbent businesses often lacked incentives to embrace disruptive technological change.
“He was really getting a Nobel Prize for something I’ve already experienced!” Yaghi joked when we spoke this week. The scientist has faced a long struggle to get industry to exploit his breakthroughs in materials science. Can a new generation of start-ups do so at serious scale? And will the benefits for humanity be as great as Yaghi claims? (…)
