Organic Chemistry Seminar

It has long been assumed that either you are innovative or you are not. This is not the case - all homo sapiens are neurologically capable of problem solving and reasoning. Whether they demonstrate and practice the skills which are commonly referred to as innovation or creativity is a function of their knowledge base and the institutional encouragement or discouragement for using what they know. The preponderance of the literature on innovation is historical reflection on the results but makes little mention of the cognitive processes for problem definition, refinement and the implementation of solutions. An analysis of a number of innovations which changed the course of civilization show that there are consistent intellectual trajectories which yield better outcomes.

Innovation comes from just three sources - needs, dissatisfactions, and curiosities. A formal request from the Department of Defense will be the backdrop on which the pieces of the process will be hung. Their request was to raise the melting point of Nylon by a "mere" 400F while keeping all the other properties intact. What made it a "need" was that when an IED detonated, nearby soldiers were injured by the explosion and the subsequent fireball melted the Nylon into their wounds. The lucky ones died, the unlucky ones suffered severe disfigurement and a lifetime of suffering. The solution depended on careful examination of the characteristics of the need, not the specific solution that was requested. Eight new companies have been launched, all sprouting from the knowledge base that was constructed to solve the original problem. They address needs ranging from civil engineering to reproductive medicine to art conservation to global warming.

All these ventures are based on science which is at least 20 years old and problems which are even older. We will show that innovation is either finding a new solution to an old problem or an old solution to a new problem or somewhere in-between. Therein lies the big challenge - teaching our students more than how to think outside the box, but to reject the very existence of a box and come up with ideas that we could have had long ago, but didn't.