Some of Us

… some of us might dismiss the challenge …, some of us might become impatient and blow ourselves up …, and some of us might take the time to think or tinker in a careful and methodical way.

… he did know in his technological heart that his idea should work in principle …

This is from The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance by Henry Petroski (1989). All illustrations within this post are from Paul Klee’s Pedagogical Sketchbook (1968; 1925) and are not in Petroski’s text:

… The pencil, the tool of doodlers, stands for thinking and creativity, but at the same time, as the toy of children, it symbolizes spontaneity and immaturity. Yet the pencil’s graphite is also the ephemeral medium of thinkers, planners, drafters, architects, and engineers, the medium to be erased, revised, smudged, obliterated, lost — or inked over. Ink, on the other hand, whether in a book or on plans or on a contract, signifies finality and supersedes the pencil drafts and sketches. If early pencilings interest collectors, it is often because of their association with the permanent success written or drawn in ink. Unlike graphite, to which paper is like sandpaper, ink flows smoothly and fills in the nooks and crannies of creation. Ink is the cosmetic that ideas will wear when they go out in public. Graphite is their dirty truth.

…It is often said that “everything begins with a pencil,” and indeed it is the preferred medium of designers. In one recent study of the nature of the design process, engineers balked when they were asked to record their thought processes with a pen. While the directors of the study did not want the subjects to be able to erase their false starts or alter their records of creativity, the engineers did not feel comfortable or natural without a pencil in their hands when asked to comment on designing a new bridge or a better mousetrap.

… Imagine being confronted with a box full of marble-sized balls all painted mat black. Imagine that the balls are indistinguishable to the eye, but that each is made of a different material. There are balls of iron, wood, lead, stone, plastic, rubber, glass, foam, sand, graphite, and even balls of tin filled with such liquids as oil and water and nitroglycerine. Since the materials in the balls have different densities, it will be clear by hefting them that they have different contents. Since the balls will have different stiffnesses, squeezing them will further distinguish one from the other. Since the balls will have different resiliencies, bouncing them on the floor will give different rebounds. But without scratching off the uniformly black paint, it might take quite a few creative combinations of hefting, squeezing, and bouncing to determine what material is in what ball. And if we suspected, were told of, or once were shaken by the accidental discovery of a ball of nitroglycerine, we might be reluctant to be too aggressive in our hefting, squeezing, and bouncing. However, if we were adventurous and yet deliberate, and if we were to pick out one of the balls and were lucky enough to choose one that could be melted, molded, or beaten into different shapes without exploding, we might fabricate something useful.

If we were challenged to produce a writing instrument out of the box of balls, some of us might dismiss the challenge as crazy or mischievous, some of us might become impatient and blow ourselves up by hastily dumping the contents out on the concrete, and some of us might take the time to think or tinker in a careful and methodical way. While a ball of wood would not work, a ball of lead might be just the right size to be held in the hand, not too heavy to be lifted and maneuvered, strong enough to be pressed down on a piece of paper or parchment and pulled along without breaking, stiff enough so as not to change its shape under this action, soft enough so as not to tear the writing surface, and, finally, of such a nature as to leave a visible line on the paper or parchment. Having found the lead to be so surprisingly serviceable a writing implement, we might curtail our search and put the rest of the balls aside, thinking that a ball of anything else in the box could not act nearly as well as a piece of metallic lead in fulfilling the requirements.

However, we might also reason that if the ball of lead had made such a good marker, perhaps another ball of another material might be even better. Continuing our trials of the balls, we might then come across the graphite and be astounded at how much blacker a mark it made. Needless to say, it would displace the lead. On the other hand, if the box had contained no ball of graphite, then even infinite patience might not produce something superior to the lead, but we might also recognize that a better material might exist somewhere outside the box [<< groan]. In short, whether one finds or invents something as good as one hopes to when setting out on a quest, whether one is satisfied with what one does come up with, and whether one continues a quest at all really depend not only on whether a suitable material exists but also on what one believes to be possible.

… There tend to be three broad areas into which technological developments fall: new concepts, new magnitudes, new materials. Truly revolutionary innovations tend to involve extrapolations within two or three of these categories simultaneously.

… getting an idea and trying to realize it in the wrong material can be disastrous. For example, a wooden raft works fine, but a stone one would not, and even some woods work better for rafts than others. Thomas Edison certainly knew that not every material was suited for the filament of an incandescent light bulb, but he did know in his technological heart that his idea should work in principle — if he could only locate a material with the correct properties. Edison tried numerous different materials until he hit upon the right one, and when asked if the long quest ever discouraged him, he reportedly replied that it had not, for every failed filament taught him something — namely, one more material to exclude from further consideration.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/