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The Creative Muse: Stories of Creativity & Innovation

Madhukar Shukla


  • Preface
  • Introduction

    STORIES:

  • Discoveries about Creativity
  • Laws Of Planetary Motion
  • Electricity From Clouds
  • Band-Aid
  • Pneumatic Tyres
  • Gummed Paper
  • The Trap Of Paradigm
  • Invention Of Sewing Machine
  • Just-In-Time System
  • Transmission of Nerve Impulses
  • Printing Press
  • Dangers Of Locomotives
  • Flashlight
  • Lawn Mower
  • Phonograph
  • Rubber Heels
  • The Periodic Table
  • Discovery Of Electromagnetic Fields
  • The Tao Of Physics
  • Congenital Impact of Rubella
  • Typewriter
  • The Theory Of Evolution
  • The Benzene Ring
  • The Wreck Of Titanic
  • Wagner's Rheingold
  • Underwater Construction
  • Search For The "Hidden Likeness"
  • Fermi & Nuclear Fission
  • Cash Register
  • Discovery Of Current Electricity
  • Cure Of Diabetes
  • Boolean Algebra
  • Principle Of Photosynthesis
  • Ball Point Pen
  • The X-Ray
  • The Fuschian Functions
  • Safety Glass
  • The Creative Triggers
  • Why Aeroplanes Cannot Fly
  • The "Brownies" Of Stevenson
  • The Blunder That Founded 3M
  • Invention Of AC Motor
  • Discovery Of Teflon
  • Toynbee's The Study Of History
  • Inventors' Blindness
  • The Excitement Of Creativity
  • Electric Fan
  • How Typhus Gets Transmitted
  • Proof Of The Big Bang
  • Mathematical Theory Of Chance
  • Coleridge's Kubla Khan
  • Vulcanisation Process
  • Structure Of The Crystals
  • The Compulsion To Create
  • 3M's Post-It Note Pads
  • Ice Cream Cones
  • The Structural Theory Of Atom
  • IBM And Computers
  • Helicopter
  • How Experts Resist Ideas
  • Creative Reveries Of Enid Blyton
  • Predictions In Gulliver's Travels
  • Float Glass Technology
  • Principle Of Immunisation
  • Journey Into Unknown
  • The Genius Of Karl Fredrich Gauss
  • Jean Coceteau's The Knights Of The Round Table
  • Neon Light
  • Transistor Radios
  • Precocious Minds?
  • The Masterpiece Of Sir Walter Scott
  • The "Fraud" That Changed The World
  • The "99% Perspiration"
  • Xeroxing
  • The Poem Of Stephen Spender
  • The Anatomy Of Inspiration
  • Travellers' Cheques
  • Edison's Fraud
  • Awe, Wonder And Alienation
  • The Logic Of Irrational

  • Epilogue: Themes & Patterns

    • 3M's Post-It Note Pads


    The invention of the Post-It Note pads, a 3M product which accounts for over $300 million business, has a long and interesting history. In 1964, one of the 3M chemist, Spencer Silver, was working to improve the adhesiveness of the existing products. Stronger adhesives were obviously more sought after. In the course of his work, Silver also fooled around by mixing chemicals "just to see what would happen".

    The Post-It adhesive is a product of just one such crazy experiments which Silver liked to perform. As he wrote later:

        "The key to the Post-It adhesive was doing the experiment. If I had sat down and factored it beforehand, and thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. If I had really seriously cracked the book and gone through the literature, I would have stopped. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do it."

    And so Silver, in one of those 'Eureka' moments discovered that he had developed an adhesive which created impermanent bond.

    But now the problem was how to use this discovery. The company climate permitted Silver to continue with his efforts to realise the potential of his discovery (no one told him to shelve the idea or that it was useless), but no one could also develop it into a useful product.

    The breakthrough came in 1973, when another 3Mer, Arthur Fry, got his inspiration. Art Fry was a member of the church choir and used to use paper slips as book marks to identify the songs to be sung. Sometimes when the paper would fly off, it created problems. The idea of using Silver's adhesive to make "better bookmarks" came to him while singing in the choir.

    The success of using the adhesive encouraged Fry to start thinking of developing a product out of the adhesive. He assembled a small-scale basic machine in his own basement, which was successful in applying the adhesive on a continuous role of paper. The whole process of bringing the product to the manufacturing stage took another two years. And that is how 3M added another profitable product to its list.


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