It has been inspiring to read the tributes paid to Sir Clive Sinclair, the quixotic British inventor of the ZX Spectrum personal home computer, who died last week. For countless users, the launch of Sinclair’s cheap and clunky machine in 1982 was their first encounter with the magical possibilities of computers. “An absolute genius with just the right amount of barminess to be a proper British boffin,” one commenter wrote on The Register’s memorial page.

Sinclair was as famous for his failures as for his successes. But that only seemed to feed the admiration of his followers. To be kind, his C5 electric tricycle and portable television were both ahead of their times. To be less kind, they were both terrible products. Still, the inventor’s fascination for technology and his rustproof optimism enthused so many others to experiment and to dream.

Although we love nothing more than a colourful personal story and to trumpet the role of outstanding individuals in innovation, a growing body of research suggests that they are largely incidental to the process. If John Smith had not invented this bit of kit today then Jane Smith would probably do so tomorrow. From this perspective, technological improvements result from an almost mechanistic process, the accumulation of small, incremental, collective gains rather than from a sudden flash of individual inspiration.