ABSTRACT
Genrich S. Altshuller and recently Larry Smith identified the necessity of inventiveness when they recognized that engineers often come to weak, obvious solutions. Using the definition of problem difficulty D, one can conclude that any strong solution can be found as easily as any weak solution. Let me show that this conclusion can be incorrect. The probability of finding a strong solution is
Ps = Cs/(Cs+Cw)
and the probability of finding a weak solution is
Pw = Cw/(Cs+Cw)
. Often
Pw
is larger than
Ps
because concentration
Cw
of weak solutions is usually higher than the concentration
Cs
of strong solutions. On the other hand, because of the psychological inertia, the barrier
Bs
that separates a new strong solution from the known solution is higher than the barrier
Bw
that separates a new weak solution from the known solution. Hence, we obtain
Ps/Pw ~ exp(Bw – Bs/Ef)
, where exp ~ 2.72 and
Ef
is the effort to find a new solution (it is assumed that B and E have the same dimension). As a result, we will have the simple equation
Ps/Pw = Cs/Cw
∗
exp(Bw – Bs/Ef)
that explains the mentioned observation. That is why Altshuller decided that the Creative Imagination Development Course
should be useful for engineers and TRIZniks. Such a course must increase the problem solver’s inventiveness, the ability to create new real and imaginary objects (systems, processes, concepts). Psychologists have counted only 16 main characters of people and there are many more intermediate characters. Such great variety means it is impossible to propose one common course for stimulating inventiveness and creativity for all people. Different methods and exercises developed in Western countries for stimulating creativity have already been reviewed (see references for Chapters 1 and 8).
