  We use a simple combinatorial model of technological change to explain the
Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was a sudden large improvement
in technology, which resulted in significant increases in human wealth and life
spans. In our model, technological change is combining or modifying earlier
goods to produce new goods. The underlying process, which has been the same for
at least 200,000 years, was sure to produce a very long period of relatively
slow change followed with probability one by a combinatorial explosion and
sudden takeoff. Thus, in our model, after many millennia of relative quiescence
in wealth and technology, a combinatorial explosion created the sudden takeoff
of the Industrial Revolution.
