Application of Ideality and Science to Underwater Rescue
Editor | On 16, Sep 2002
Application of Ideality and Science to Underwater Rescue
By Roni Horowitz, Roni.Horowitz@start2think.com
(Editor’s note: This was issue 81 of Roni Horowitz’s newsletter on ASIT. It is a great TRIZ story, and one with personal meaning for editor Ellen Domb, who has used the technique! See the notes at the end of the story.)
Hi everyone,
Here’s the quote for this week:
“The ideal system is when there is no system.”
– Genrich Altshuller
Today’s story is very much related to this week’s quote.
In issue 79 of this newsletter I mentioned an interesting book that I was reading about innovation called “Weird Ideas That Work”. Today’s story is taken from there.
The following paragraph was taken from Page 77 of the book:
“Charles Momsen was a submarine commander in the United States Navy in the 1920s. He stood by while sailors died in a sunken submarine, with no way to help. The pain and frustration prompted Momsen to develop ideas about ways that sailors could escape from sunken submarines…”
The story goes on to describe the system Momsen developed called “Momsen Lungs” (which looked something like a life jacket with a nose plug hanging from it) and the difficulties faced in convincing his superiors to fund the project.
Finally Momsen was given the Distinguished Service Medal, and the navy ordered 7000 Momsen Lungs for all active navy submarines.
So far, this is a rather common story about someone having a hard time trying to convince a stagnant “system” to innovate.
But then I got to page 116 of the book, where I surprisingly found the following paragraph:
“The hazards of failing to identify and then test ‘dumb’ or ‘obvious’ assumptions are illustrated by the technology ultimately found to be superior to the Momsen Lungs for escaping from sunken submarines – no technology at all! …Research ultimately showed that free ascent – filling one’s lungs with air and slowly exhaling on the way to the surface – is the most effective way to escape from a submarine at any depth up to 300 feet.”
Well this is something I have known for a long time: when facing a problem in a system, people tend to mindlessly assume that something has to be *added* to the system in order to solve the problem.
I believe this is an automatic response that is deeply engraved in our nervous system. But we ASITers are of course immune to this phenomenon because we have the Closed World condition to guide us!
Take the on-line ASIT class, or the free preview here:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?ellendomb/star2think/
To subscribe to the newsletter, see the ASIT website, http://www.start2think.com
More Editor’s notes: ASIT calls the ‘Closed World condition’ what TRIZ calls ‘use of resources.’ Here, the knowledge of science (expansion of gases when pressure is reduced) is also applied.
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