# The most non-intuitive industrial breakthrough **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 18, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089 "2016-05-18T15:03:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/21 "2016-05-19T17:54:00Z")
The sewing machine. You can’t make a sewing machine by watching how humans sew and then make the machine. The inventor had to come up with a completely new way to sew. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/22 "2016-05-19T18:02:39Z")
Except the funny thing about the sewing machine is that all the parts of it were invented independently by different people, which created a gigantic patent collision. Nobody could actually build a working sewing machine without infringing on the patents of dozens of other inventors. Imagine if one person had the patent on steering wheels, one had the patent on brakes, one had the patent on headlights, one had the patent on using glass for a windshield, and so obody could build a working car. Eventually the Singer consortium was formed that consolidated all the patents into one company that could actually legally make a machine that worked. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/23 "2016-05-19T18:38:27Z")
Anti-venoms made from actual venoms, and food preparation process to make otherwise poisonous food edible. Go figure! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/24 "2016-05-23T15:57:54Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Coca-cola was originally a medicine. Whoever had the idea to put the syrup into carbonated water and sell it as a soft drink made a heck of a breakthrough, and, at least to my modern mind, not something that I’d intuit to do with any sort of medicine I’ve ever bought. I’d bet that the notion came from the prior mutation of a lot of alcoholic bitters and drinks from being considered medicinal to merely a sort of potation. For example, the “julep” category of drinks was originally medicinal, but over time, evolved into a mixed drink. Same thing with bitters- they were originally medicinal in concept, but eventually mutated into amari and digestifs, as well as cocktail flavorings. To take a soft drink syrup and do the same thing seems like a fairly obvious progression. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/25 "2016-05-23T17:52:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’d bet that the notion came from the prior mutation of a lot of alcoholic bitters and drinks from being considered medicinal to merely a sort of potation. That and the cocaine. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/26 "2016-05-23T19:13:33Z")
[QUOTE=ftg] One college library way back when (\>20 years ago), had thin strips that were slid into the spines of books which were readable by RF scanners. (Not at all like RFID chips.) The main purpose was to prevent people walking out with books before checking them out. But that only worked against people who didn’t know about the strips. [/QUOTE] That’s actually a magnetic material called metglas. Like so many other markets, 3M has been the dominant force in library materials security, and they call the system Tattle-Tape. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/27 "2016-05-23T20:28:49Z")
Teenager [William Henry Perkin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Perkin)tried to synthesize quinine from coal tar and accidentally discovered the first synthetic dye. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2016, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/28 "2016-05-23T21:44:36Z")
The [blue LED](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2014/10/how-blue-leds-work-and-why-they-deserve-the-physics-nobel/) - everyone knew it would be a revolutionary invention, and researchers all over the world tried to invent it for decades, until one finally succeeded. That should tell you how non-intuitive the final solution was. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2016, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/29 "2016-05-23T22:07:30Z")
[George Bissell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bissell_(industrialist)) had an idea that people thought was foolhardy: To use “rock oil” to make kerosene. But it was his next idea that people thought was especially dumb, making him a target of mockery from all the experts: That you could actually _drill_ for oil. Sure of his idea, Bissell funded [Colonel Drake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Drake), who drilled the first oil well in history in Titusville, PA in 1859. ---
**Author:** ![buddy431](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@buddy431](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddy431)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/30 "2016-05-24T19:24:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I bet the most non-intuitive industrial breakthrough is something along the lines of a chemical reaction or a physical process, like the refrigeration cycle, or the Haber process. > > It’s probably some fairly simple process that underlies just about everything used in the modern world- like some organic chemistry process used in petroleum refining or something else along those lines. The Haber process and refrigeration cycles are pretty simple if you know a little bit about thermodynamics. Neither is particularly unintuitive. Engineering challenges to make them more efficient, sure, but fairly straightforward. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/31 "2016-05-24T20:51:32Z")
> [@buddy431](#): > > The Haber process and refrigeration cycles are pretty simple if you know a little bit about thermodynamics. Neither is particularly unintuitive. Engineering challenges to make them more efficient, sure, but fairly straightforward. I wasn’t claiming they are the actual breakthroughs, just that the actual unintuitive breakthrough is probably something as simple as those. FYI, I was reading “unintuitive” as meaning not obvious to the layman as a major breakthrough, not in the sense of unintuitive as would relate to the actual breakthrough itself. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/32 "2016-05-24T22:42:20Z")
I have always kind of wondered how Coffee was invented. You have the fruit of a tree that only grows in the tropics. You have to extract the seed, then roast it, then grind it up, then run hot water through it and get a bitter liquid that perks you up. That seems like a lot of guess work at every step. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/33 "2016-05-24T22:48:39Z")
First you see the goats dancing after they eat the berries. Then you eat the berries. You dance, but they taste terrible. Then you dry them out before you eat them. Better. Then you decide to just eat the seed. It’s hard to chew. Maybe mash it up? The mashed seeds are still gritty. Maybe make an extract of the seeds and drink the extract? Still tastes funky. Maybe roast the seeds before you extract them? Hey, lets add some milk and sugar. And caramel sauce and whipped cream… Lots of these convoluted treatments are a result of literally centuries of incremental improvements on the use of a particular item. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2016, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089/34 "2016-05-24T22:58:43Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > One so basic as to be forgotten: the Hollerith Code. > > Using holes in a card to represent a character. Which immediately established the idea of a “byte” - the amount of something required to represent a character. > > And then, the over-type to represent things which do not occur in nature - EOF for one. Yes, the Hollerith code was important, but I assume he already knew about the Jacquard loom, invented nearly 100 years earlier that used punch cards to control a loom automatically. I once watched a Jacquard loom operate for an hour and it was fascinating. Amazing invention. And didn’t Babbage’s engine use some kind of punch cards? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-non-intuitive-industrial-breakthrough/755089.md?page=1)