How do people discover things?
I don’t mean things like the combustion engine or the secret of flight. Things like that come about because someone sees something obvious like an explosion and then goes “how can I harness that power”; or they watch a bird and say, “Hm, that looks like fun, let’s try it.”
I mean things like coffee, and steamed milk. And pasta. Things like copper, and glass — stuff that’s not obvious.
Who was it that saw a coffee bush and thought, “I’ve just had the best idea, I’m going to open up those red fruit, get the seed, roast it, grind it, put it hot water, and then drink it.” How do people arrive at these conclusions?
Who decided to push steam down a small metal tube into some cold milk? Who decided to grind up wheat and mix it with eggs and things to make spaghetti? (Incidentally, it’s generally considered that pasta was discovered independently in every culture. Just like bread, and alcohol.)
Actually, to use some very poor style I’m going to refer to something outside of parantheses that I just wrote in parentheses: who discovered alcohol? Who thought that it would be a good idea to let fruit go bad and then drink the fluid? I do believe I remember reading a Björk interview where she said that she’d seen a video of elephants hiding apples and waiting for them to go bad and then getting drunk on them. That’s quite funny.
Anyway, I have no idea how these things came about, but I’m glad that they did.
Mysteries solved.*
* Check it out, no mysteries have been been solved at all!
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I liked your story about who discovered what it takes a certain type of person to think that away . They start out with I need something not sure what it is then they start looking at what they need . You have to know quiet a few different related fields to be able to do this . Henry Ford and Thomas Edison did this a lot of people today don’t even have enough self confidence to know how to try to do this .
I reckon a lot of stuff gets invented out of pure laziness. How can I heat up that milk quickly in a way that will not involve it boiling over all over the stove so I have to spend 20 minutes cleaning it all up? Ah yes, I know, jet hot steam though it very quickly…
I can believe that about the elephants, apparently a lot of animals have discovered things which make them high, cats eat cat mint for this reason… I wish I could think of some others, apart from the Koalas that is, but I can’t!
Cheers
Bc
I think elephants are clever. Although sometimes they slip on grass and fall into pits that let out poisonous gas and then they die.
I love you.
Good article, makes one think. Just today I was watching Good Eats on FoodTv and they were covering the history of the tortilla and how it became the basic food for many years ago.