The invention of the wheel was a miraculous invention, along with the airplane,
and the telephone. All the inventions that have ever been created weren’t just
something that was already drawn out on a piece of paper for the inventors. They
had to think. They had to imagine the masterpiece before it was even a physical
object. These people weren’t just thinkers or inventors. These people
“Thought Outside the Box.” The writer Sarah Susanka, the author of “The
Not So Big House,” once said that “The ability to think creatively,
responding to needs and wishes, not to preconceived ideas of what something
should look like, then the problem will be solved.” [SIC] What I think she
means by this is if you are going to make something or do something for the
people of the world, don’t assume or pretend you know what they want. Go out,
ask them, figure it out and then when you have completed the finished product it
will be successful. Many people who try to invent something are not successful
because they are afraid to break the confines of the outline. What I mean by
this is that the people are so accustomed to thinking like everybody else, they
are afraid to explore the possibilities of their mind. They can’t picture
something that already isn’t there. Often a person will see something that was
invented and wonder why they never thought of something so simple. The answer is
very uncomplicated... they didn’t break the confines of the out line.
Normally, when people do a puzzle, they will have to think about the answers,
sort of like a maze. If what they first try doesn’t work then they have to try
another direction to see if something else will work. Those people, even though
they don’t know it have just thought outside the box. They have decided that
rather than quitting, they are going to keep trying, and see if they can find
another way to do it. Even though the answer was right in front of them, they
still had to think and look for it. One great thinker is Werner Heisenberg. He
invented “Matrix mechanics.” It was the first version of quantum mechanics.
He didn’t invent the concepts of matrix algebra; however, focused attention on
a set of quantised probability amplitudes. The “matrix” mechanics was
further developed in a three-author paper by Heisenberg, Born and Jordan,
published in 1926. Heisenberg published The Physical Principles of Quantum
Theory in 1928. In 1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for this work.
Although he was awarded the Nobel for his matrix mechanics, he was much better
known for his Uncertainty Principle that he discovered in 1927. Heisenberg was
quoted in 1969 as saying the following about the Slovay Conference in Brussels
that he attended in 1927 : “To those of us who participated in the development
of atomic theory, the five years following the Slovay Conference in Brussels in
1927 looked so wonderful that we often spoke of them as the golden of age of
atomic physics. The great obstacles that had occupied all our efforts in the
preceding years had been cleared out of the way; the gate to an entirely new
field, the quantum mechanics of the atomic shells stood wide open, and fresh
fruits seemed ready for the picking.” Around the year 1925 Heisenberg was
working on a new description of matter. His ruminations led him to assert a new
principle that has become a “Hallmark” of quantum theory. This description
of matter is now known as matrix mechanics. It is the complete mathematical
theory of the behaviour of atoms and their constituents. It is a very difficult
field to study, but with the help of Born and Jordan, the study was a success.
The matrix mechanics is a part of mathematics known as the quantum mechanics. So
the quantum ideas work. They are developed from the concept that matter is
wave-like in its behaviour. The quantum mechanics remained mysterious until
1927, when Heisenberg -following conversations with Bohr and Einstein –
discovered the uncertainty principle. Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle”
said that it is impossible to find out exactly where an object is and how fast
it is moving at the same time. If you were to try that process then you would
have to stop the object to see where it is at that speed, or at that point in
time. This is fine but as soon as you stop it you no longer have to speed and
momentum to the object. There is no guarantee that you can just say that because
the object was moving a certain speed that obviously it still will have the same
results. This is because there are many things that can effect your result. If
you were to try to find out both of them at the same time all your information
would become impossible to understand. Because of figuring out such an
informative theory Heisenberg has been awarded many time. He received the
following awards: The Nobel Prize in 1932, and the Follow of the Royal Society
in 1955. Another of Heisenberg’s great moments in life was during the Second
World War. Here he headed the “unsuccessful” German nuclear weapons project.
He worked with Otto Hahn, one of the discoverers of nuclear fission, on the
development of a nuclear reactor but failed to develop an effective program for
nuclear weapons. Whether this was because of lack of resources or a lack of a
desire to put nuclear weapons in the hands of the Nazis is unclear. After the
war he was interned in Britain with other leading German scientists. However, he
returned to Germany in 1946 when he was appointed director of the Max Planck
institute for physics and Astrophysics at Göttingen. In 1958 the Institute
moved to Munich and Heisenberg continued as its director. This man was very
talented and had many other interests. Such as in the philosophy of physics, and
because of this great interest he wrote “Physics and Philosophy” in 1962 and
“Physics and Beyond”’ in 1971. Virtually every person has “Thought
Outside the Box” at one point in their lives or another . . . I can remember,
about four years ago when my parents were re-modelling the upstairs, where my
bedroom was located. My father was trying to figure out some way to convert
three bedrooms into two, while keeping a nice square landing that is right
outside the doors. Well with the way that the upstairs was shaped there was much
difficulty. Finally one day, I was sick of seeing my father stressing out over
something like that. So I took a pencil and a piece of paper and I drew the
outline of the upstairs. Then rather than drawing a straight line right across
the middle of where the bedrooms would be I drew a diagonal like that still left
space for closets and when it angled down back towards the stairs (the wall).
This allowed my dad to have the nice even square landing right out side the
bedroom doors… I was very proud of myself, and I now have the honour of saying
that I designed my bedroom… can you guess who’s room was larger? I guess
what I am trying to say is that all a person has to do is apply themselves and
they will have the ability to “Think Outside the Box.” It isn’t something
that is extremely easy to do. It is like most things in a person’s life, they
must practice and learn. Some people don’t even realize it when they are doing
it, which is great. But if only they could recognise this ability, apply it to
something, and improve life for all!