December 2008
Achieving The Breakthrough Perspective
by Philip
Callaghan
Are you looking for a breakthrough? Where are you
looking for that?
The answer is probably not where you expect it, as
most breakthroughs are counter-intuitive. Why? I’ll answer that in a
minute, but first think about “common practice” and intuition.
There are unwritten rules in consciousness, in
social groups and in businesses - processes that we rarely notice, or
think to alter because “that’s how we do things around here” or it just
“feels right”.
It’s good to shake things up every once in a
while, though not just for the hell of it. You need to defocus your
processes and awareness to see something new. It’s now widely accepted
that we see what we expect to see and tend to filter out information
that doesn’t fit those expectations.
We also tend to filter out additional information
if we are consciously focusing on something else. That’s why most of
the world’s greatest discoveries were made by accident. Here are just a
few examples:
- Gunpowder
Legend has it that gunpowder was accidentally invented by a cook who
mixed together charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre - all common
kitchen items in ancient China. The mixture exploded when compressed in
a bamboo tube.
- Gelignite
Alfred Nobel discovered gelignite when he accidentally mixed collodium
(gun cotton) with nitro-glycerine, forming 'safe' dynamite.
- Penicillin
Alexander Fleming failed to disinfect cultures of bacteria when leaving
for his vacation, only to find them contaminated with Penicillium
moulds, which killed the bacteria.
- Vaccination
English physician Edward Jenner discovered vaccination after he
observed that milkmaids did not catch smallpox after exposure to (the
more benign) cowpox.
- Electromagnetism
While Hans Christian Oersted was setting up his materials for a
lecture, he noticed a compass needle deflecting from magnetic north
when the electric current from a nearby battery was switched on and off.
Also...
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©2008
Philip Callaghan
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