Some people can only picture things in their mind that they have seen. Others with a little more creative mind can picture something in their mind if it is described to them.
The most fortunate are those that can picture a complete machine or system that doesn’t exist, but would solve a particular need if it did.
From my experience, I believe that education does not necessarily give you this gift. I have worked with engineers with degrees from very good schools that could not design a machine unless it was sketched or described to them in detail. They could make improvements on an existing design, like making the next years automobile better than last years, but never come up with original ideas.
If you have this gift, please don’t let it go to waste. The only reason that we don’t still live in caves and get our food with our bare hands is due to people with creative minds. Our standard of living improves continuously because of the constant flow of new products and processes. Throughout history there have been creative people like Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison who have greatly improved our standard of living with their amazing creative minds.
You dream of coming up with a good idea and making millions. It happens, but not over night, and not without a lot of work. Maybe you already have a great idea and don’t know where to go with it.
The following chart shows how many utility patents were issued for a given year. Notice how the number has grown every decade. (Data from the U.S. Patent office.)
YEAR – PATENTS
1836 – 1
1846 – 4348
1856 – 14009
1866 – 51784
1876 – 171641
1886 – 333494
1896 – 552502
1906 – 808618
1916 – 1166419
1926 – 1568040
1936 – 2026516
1946 – 2391856
1956 – 2728913
1966 – 3226729
1976 – 3930271
1986 – 4562596
1996 – 5479658
2005 – 6836899
This shows that every year there are more opportunities for inventions.
Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others. – Marianne Williamson
A dictionary says that an invention is a product of the imagination. getting started with a new invention ideaThat’s often true, but more often it is a result of observation of a need and working out a way to fill that need. Other times it is the result of unexpected outcome of an experiment. Every day there are probably thousands of people who think they have come up with a world-shattering idea. Very few will ever do anything with it. Some will try to develop the idea but are soon discouraged or just don’t know where to start with developing the idea. Some will put a lot of energy and possibly money into the effort, just to become discouraged by a few negative results from their efforts.
Many great inventions are the result of accidents. getting started with a new invention ideaThe inventor that observes the accident has to have an open and imaginative mind. Let’s look at the invention of the microwave oven. It was reported that in 1945 an employee of Tappan Stove Co., named Percy Spencer, was standing in front of the power tube of radar called a magnetron when he felt a candy bar in his pocket start to melt. He then placed popcorn kernels in front of the tube and they exploded. Ten years later Spencer was awarded a patent for a radar range that cooks with high frequency radio waves. The Tappan Stove Co. introduced the microwave oven.