Thomas Edison once said, “Originality is the art of concealing your source.” Many of the greatest inventors and thinkers of our time did not create their famed inventions, but rather expanded upon what another innovator had already created.
Humphrey Davy designed the first light bulb – not Thomas Edison. Davy had the first patent on the bulb, but his design was not particularly popular because it was too bright. Davy’s basic technology is actually used today in search lights.
Edison’s first innovation was really the industrial research lab built in Menlo Park, New Jersey. What many people don’t realize is that while many of the inventions created at Menlo Park are legally attributed to Edison, his team was actually responsible for the majority of the research and development. Edison took hundreds of people from different industries and then mixed them into a huge cross reference of disciplines and fields. His team - not him - was responsible expanding on Davy’s design to create the first indoor light bulb.
John Forbes Nash was an American mathematician who received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in game theory. Nash stumbled upon his prize-winning idea as a graduate student at Princeton chasing girls in a bar.
Robert Fulton, a U.S. engineer and inventor who is credited as the creator of the steamboat, also got his idea from other sources. Fulton took two things that already existed: the sailboat and the steam engine, and created the steamboat.
Albert Einstein, another widely recognized innovator and inventor, won his Nobel Prize for his theory of photoelectric effect; however, he did not come up with the idea. Max Plank, another scientist, was the first person to discover photoelectric effect.
Einstein publicly asked Plank, “Can I borrow this idea and keep developing it?” Plank allowed Einstein to develop his theory further, and Einstein was ultimately awarded the Nobel Prize for his work.
Another little known Einstein fact involves his first wife, Mileva Maric. Albert and Mileva, who was also a physicist, were separated for most of their married lives. The couple’s love letters have recently been unveiled and in the letters, the couple writes back and forth about the Theory of Relativity. The letters reveal that Mileva wrote many of the equations leading up to the Theory of Relativity, but she is not credited for her contributions in any formal public record.
Einstein once said, “Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.” His words take on a new meaning when one considers the contributors to Einstein’s most-recognized inventions and theories.
Although Einstein, Fulton, Nash, and Edison did receive inspiration and contributions from outside sources, I am not disputing their genius. The fact remains that these brilliant individuals took something that already existed and built and expanded upon it to create something entirely new. Combination creativity is innovation.
I’m curious as to what percentage of Nobel Prize winners got their inspiration from somewhere else. I don’t have a conclusive answer, but I estimate that up to 90% of award winners got their idea from an outside source. These great men and women were recognized for taking an innovation to the next level, not on the basis of how they created the idea.
After all, there is no such thing as a truly unique idea. If you think you’ve got one, you’re kidding yourself. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do something fantastic with it.
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