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.
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.
Anti-venoms made from actual venoms, and food preparation process to make otherwise poisonous food edible. Go figure!
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.
That and the cocaine.
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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.
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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.
Teenager William Henry Perkintried to synthesize quinine from coal tar and accidentally discovered the first synthetic dye.
The blue LED - 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.
George Bissell 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, who drilled the first oil well in history in Titusville, PA in 1859.
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.
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.
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.
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?