wever, any decision taken has to obey the fundamental laws of physics. Our understanding of those laws changes over time. A present example is the science of the very small, how the behaviour of materials change when constructed at molecular scale. The ability to understand the potential usefulness of a physical property is a skill that can transform the world. Newcomen's observation of steam and Edison's observation of the behaviour of a carbon filament in a vacuum are two prior examples. Paul Dirac's work on quantum mechanics is a near contemporary example and the work of Stephen Hawking on string and particle theory a contemporary example. The study of 'prior art' is often today the Making Telecoms Work: From Technical Innovation to Commercial Success, First Edition. Geoff Varrall. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Making Telecoms Work job of the patent attorney, but would be more beneficially encompassed as an engineering rather than legalistic discipline. The discipline of economics has always been the fundamental tool of analysis used to quantify and qualify business risk and opportunity. Our argument is that technology economics and engineering economics are a discrete subset of economic analysis, individually deserving of independent analysis and often overlooked or underappreciated. Frustratingly, technology and engineering are often considered as interchangeable terms. Although closely coupled they are in practice distinct and separate entities. The word 'tech- nology' is derived from the Greek word 'techne' meaning craft, which the ancient Greeks considered represented the mechanical arts. 'Engineering' comes from the Latin word 'inge- niare', from which modern English derives the word 'ingenious'. The difference in practical terms can be illustrated by considering how Archimedes fortified his adopted home town in the Siege of Syracuse in 214 to 212 BC. Under attack from the Romans, Archimedes had a number of enabling technologies available to him including ropes 