He and his team at the University of Texas at Austin filed a patent application on a new kind of battery that, if it works as promised, would be so cheap, lightweight and safe
that it would revolutionize electric cars and kill off petroleum-fueled vehicles.
Similarly, professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Hitotsubashi University in Japan, who studied data about patent holders, found that, in the United States, the average inventor sends in his or her application to the patent office at age 47, and
that the highest-value patents often come from the oldest inventors — those over the age of 55.
John P. Walsh, one of the professors, joked that the Patent Office should give a “senior discount” because “there’s clear evidence
that people with seniority are making important contributions to invention.”
A study of Nobel physics laureates found that, since the 1980s, they have made their discoveries, on average, at age 50.
“One of the things that’s important in the society is to wean ourselves from our dependence on fossil fuels, and if we could make an electric car
that would be as convenient and as cheap as an internal-combustion engine, we’d get CO2 emissions off the road,” he said.
He believes the glass battery was just another example of the happy accidents
that have come his way: “At just the right moment, when I was looking for something, it walked in the door.”
Last but not least, he credited old age with bringing him a new kind of intellectual freedom.