People Don't Change: Invention Doesn't Equal Replication

Murdoch Mysteries brings home a point made in Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. Although humans tend to compartmentalize history to make it easier to learn, it doesn't unwind that way. Although Thomas More "belongs" to the Tudors, he was in fact approximately 7 when Henry VII was crowned. 

Likewise, Murdoch Mysteries makes clear how many inventors--from Edison and Tesla to the Wrights and Graham Bell overlapped. 

Again and again, usually when Pendrick shows up, the point is made that ideas or technology that we take for granted existed before now. The workability of these creations is often exaggerated but--as with Murdoch's "headset phones"--two points are underscored: 

The invention can't go anywhere without (1) smaller sizes; (2) replicability. 

People have come up with ideas, lots of ideas, before those ideas became commonplace. Probably humans from the earliest times were saying, "Wouldn't it be easier if I could call you with something more than my cupped hands? Hey, how about you invent that?!" 

Human inventiveness doesn't change. The actual available technology and the ability to easily use/handle that technology does. 

Which is the same point that Mike Rowe makes in his TedTalk!  (See minute 16:27: "Innovation without imitation is a complete waste of time.")