In 1917, Scottish biologist and mathematician D’Arcy Thompson published a book entitled On Growth and Form, which would have a profound influence on several generations of biologists, artists, architects, and engineers. In his book, D’Arcy Thompson established the limits of the forms that nature is capable of generating. Only a limited number of morphologies are possible among living organisms, as not all are viable in the long term. D’Arcy Thompson defined in his book which ones are viable and why. Thus, in the Cambrian period (between 539 and 487 million years ago), there was an explosion of living organisms, most of which did not survive and are now fossilized evidence of unadaptable life forms. They were generated, were not viable, did not adapt, and disappeared.

Something similar happens with technologies. Not all possible technologies are viable. Both living forms and technologies are subject to constraints of various kinds: structural, metabolic, thermodynamic, etc. Some survive, but most do not. In his studies of economic history, Nobel Prize winner Joel Mokyr demonstrated that the increase in economic productivity in Europe from the mid-19th century onwards, during the Industrial Revolution, was linked not only to demographic and health reasons, but also to the emergence of technologies with the capacity for diversification in various sectors (General Purpose Technologies). This is one of the main limitations that a technology must overcome in order to clearly prevail: its multi-applicability. Such was the case with steam engines and transistors: key technologies that acted as drivers for entire economic sectors. In both life and technology, the dissemination of advantages is key to consolidating success.