I had an Idea that wasn't as impressive as I thought it was, Comments?

[phoenix95]

While doing homework about a week ago, I had an idea to solve a problem that was arguably better than the conventional method. It involved a slightly different look at math objects, resulting in a much simpler calculation. As far as I know, I haven't seen any textbook or paper that uses this method. I was playing with these objects and went on a goose chase. I thought I had "some implications that change the way we see the world" . But it obviously wasn't.

This is probably my first experience of having a not so impressive idea. But I want to ask you veterans out there. Is this common? Did this ever happen to you? How to respond when an idea fails?

 

[Orodruin]

Generally in research, you will have many many many ideas that do not pan out.

 

[berkeman]

This is probably my first experience of having a not so impressive idea. But I want to ask you veterans out there. Is this common? Did this ever happen to you? How to respond when an idea fails?

You did the right things. You were keeping creative thoughts in mind even when doing your daily work, and you were able to quickly eliminate the incorrect idea before it became a big distraction or an obsession.

When working on each of my patents, I've literally had more than a dozen ideas for each that I explored, and some took longer to eliminate than the others. The good thing is to learn from each false start what the basic problem was, so that you can avoid that issue when you have your next idea on the problem. Eventually, you get to the aha! moment, when all of your previous objections are eliminated, and you have a viable solution/patent/paper. One of my best patent ideas came to me in a Jacuzzi early in a morning after a swimming workout, but only because I'd been working on it for months and had rejected a dozen other ideas as incorrect. That patent made good money for my employer at the time.

Hang in there and stay creative!

 

[Jody]

I'm definitely no veteran, but I like to try a lot of things; a lot of times it doesn't work out although the scarce few times it does work are golden.

 

[jrmichler]

Many people can come up with a new idea. Successful inventors and researchers quickly learn that the very first thing to do is to try to shoot it down. Check against the laws of physics, do a patent and prior art search, triple check against the requirements, estimate cost, establish that it can be manufactured, etc. The majority of new ideas get shot down before getting very far. Certainly, most of my ideas were shot down. By me, sometimes by others.

You have shown that you are a creative thinker. Keep it up. Sooner or later, one of your ideas will succeed.