Where do we get the new ideas that we come up with? Maybe the most important source is suggestion from our surroundings. Seeing logs rolling leads to the invention of the wheel. Seeing birds flying leads to the invention of aircraft.
But those are direct examples of coopting ideas from nature. There are more indirect ways of getting ideas from our surroundings, by using the patterns.
THE COMPASS RULER
I wonder if I might have subconsciously gotten the idea for the measurement tool, for use in building and construction, that I described in the posting on the Progress Blog "A Very Useful Tool" June 2009, from the chapati that a friend makes, pictured below served in a basket. Chapati is a flat, circular unleavened bread.
Notice how closely it resembles a serving of chapati. I made the prototype of the tool by cutting a circular piece of plywood, with a jigsaw, so that it had a circumference of exactly one meter. Next I put the numbers, from zero to 360 degrees, around the edge and drew the lines from the numbers to the center. Then I bought an ordinary magnetic hiking compass, broke the casing off it, and glued it in the center of the plywood with the zero point of the compass aligned with the zero / 360 point on the dial.
To "zero" a compass means simply to rotate it until the needle, which is magnetic so that it always points to magnetic north, so that the needle points to the zero / 360, which is magnetic north, point on the dial. We could call this the "zero point" of the compass.
The outer numbers go around the circle from zero to 360 degrees. The inner numbers are only used when the Compass Ruler is used to measure either the curvature of a wall or the circumference of a large circular structure.
This simple device, which can be homemade, can accomplish an incredible number of measurement tasks that are otherwise difficult to do. I did extensive patent checking and no one had thought of it before. The closest thing to this is the surveyors compass, but that was a mounted stationary device while the Compass Ruler is used for measurement by putting the edge in contact with a structure such as a wall or fence.
This device is extremely useful. Every time I use it or think of it I realize there is more that I can do that I had not thought of before. The device operates on the same principle as a plumb, which uses a suspended weight to measure vertical angles with gravity on the plumb indicating straight vertical, except that this device uses the earth's magnetic field to measure lateral angles.
The edge of the device is placed against a structure, such as a wall or fence or sign, as shown below represented by the board, with the device rotated so that the needle is zeroed at the zero / 360 point, or magnetic north. Note the number on the outside edge, between zero and 360 degrees, that is immediately against the structure.
That same number is then placed against another structure, such as another wall. If the second wall is parallel to the first there will be a difference in angular reading on the compass of either zero or 180 degrees. If the two walls are perfectly perpendicular there will be a difference in reading of 90 degrees.
This is only the beginning of what this device can do and I wonder if it was chapati that planted the seed of the idea in my mind.
THE COSMOLOGY THEORY
In Gloucester UK, the nearest city to where I was born, on the side of the building where the store named Debenham's used to be located, the side of the building facing King's Square, there was a pattern of rows of four small square windows alternating with rows of three.
( Image photographed from Google Street View ).
This resembles the way, in my cosmology theory "The Theory Of Stationary Space", first, how the matter in the universe began with a two-dimensional sheet of space that was within, but not contiguous with, the multi-dimensional background space although both blocs of space had formed in the same way, by the mutual induction of opposite electric charges.
Second, how strings of matter formed of like electric charges, either negative or positive charges held together against their mutual repulsion by energy. The lines of windows display the same pattern as the lines of electric charges in the strings of matter.
Third, the alternating of three and four window rows may have been the source of the idea that while we live in three spatial dimensions my cosmology theory has another spatial dimension, a fourth dimension, that we perceive as time because the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains are aligned primarily in that dimension.
THE ALTERNATING ELECTRIC CHARGES IN THE COSMOLOGY THEORY
Maybe I subconsciously got the idea for the nature of space in my cosmology theory from the checkered pattern on this stack. Everything, in that theory, consists of negative and positive electric charges. The basic rule of electric charges is that opposite charges attract, while like charges repel.
Empty space, in my cosmology theory, is a perfectly alternating checkerboard pattern of the two opposite charges, in multiple dimensions. Matter is a concentration of like charges, held together against their mutual repulsion by energy.
JUXTAPOSED NAMES
I remember learning the word "Juxtapose" when I was age 16 in high school. Now I have finally found something to use it for.
Have you ever wondered about word combinations in names that do not seem to make sense? Consider, just for example, some of the names of pubs, and other places, in Britain.
There is the "Red Lion", except that lions are not usually red.
There is the "Crown and Anchor", but what do crowns and anchors have to do with each other? They go in opposite directions. A crown goes up, to the top of the head, while an anchor drops down, to the bottom of the sea.
The "Elephant and Castle" was originally the name of an inn. It has become the name of a section of London, as well as it's Underground station. But, as with crowns and anchors, elephants and castles usually do not have much to do with each other.
Part of the reason for such naming is so that the pub would have a name that could also be displayed as it's logo. But, as I see it, there is also another beneficial effect. It prompts the coming up with new ideas.
Seeing a word combination that apparently doesn't make sense helps to break us out of grooved-in thinking. A lot of new ideas are the putting together of things or their patterns that would otherwise not have been put together, and these juxtaposed names help to provide the mindset to move in that direction.
THE IDEA GENERATOR
The internet is the ultimate source of information. But it still has it's limits, it cannot think up new ideas for us, beyond what already exists. I once came up with an "idea generator", but today it could be done with an app.
Write down a lot of things that might be involved in generating ideas on slips of paper, and put the slips in a jar. Every day take out four slips, although it could be a number other than four, and write down the four things that are on the slips, then put the slips back in the jar.
The four things that you take out of the jar might be "top", "sheet", "metal" and, "diamond". During the day run those four things through your mind and see if you can think of some new process or device that will incorporate the four things.
By the end of the day what you probably will have come up with is nothing. But you will be getting yourself in the mindset to come up with new ideas. Try it again, with four different words, the next day. You might come up with a new idea, an invention or process, involving words that had been chosen on a previous day.
READING ABOUT OTHER IDEAS
One of the most effective ways to get into the mindset for coming up with new ideas is to read about other new ideas. It not only brings about the mindset, it might also offer parts of some ideas. That is why I wrote the Progress Blog.
Here is a link to the posting, "A Very Useful Tool", on the Progress Blog:
Here is a link to the entire Progress Blog:
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