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).