Page 154 - Deep Learning

Creative Insight Writ Large 137

For example, James Hillier, the inventor of the electron microscope, worked
on the device between 1937 and 1945, almost eight years. However, progress
was not smooth during that period. In his autobiographical account, Hillier
pinpoints three insight-like breakthroughs. The first came about because the
11
prototype microscope did not at first provide a sharp enough focus to make
the instrument useful. In the inventor’s own words:

We began to realize that the [trouble with the focus] was due to the
relative coarseness of the grain structure of the iron and, frequently, to
nonmagnetic inclusions in the iron, probably close to the lens open-
ing. We then went through the exercise of searching for better iron and
better annealing processes. This led only to frustration. Then came the
“eureka.” Late one night, my subconscious suddenly made me aware of
what immediately became obvious: If crystal structure and impurities
were responsible for the distortions of the lens field, why not deliberately
introduce a controllable distortion that could be adjusted to counteract
the existing distortion? … within eighteen hours from the time the idea
germinated, we were getting consistent results that were better than the
average for the days before by a factor of 10.…

The impasse was unwarranted because once the crucial idea – let the user
adjust the focus each time he uses the instrument – had come to mind, its imple-
mentation posed no serious obstacles, although fine-tuning continued for some
time. Why was Hillier operating in the wrong solution space to begin with?
When a device is not working properly, the natural tendency is to improve it by
removing the cause of the problem. It is likely that he had encountered the idea
remove the cause of the problem more often than the idea let the problem persist
and adjust to it while using the device. In this case, searching the original space for
better, that is, magnetically more uniform, iron did not work, and the solution
was instead to live with the problem. That is, to accept that imperfections in the
iron would continue to interfere with the focus and give the user a tool for adapt-
ing to the problem in the course of using the device, a nonstandard approach
to fixing an unsatisfactory device. It is difficult to know with any certainty how
the moment of insight came about, but there was obviously negative feedback
produced by the persistent lack of success in replacing the iron (“This led only to
frustration.”). It is plausible that the feedback eventually suppressed the remove
the cause strategy to the point where other ideas could come to mind.
The invention of the telephone provides a second example of an expert
12
searching the wrong possibility space. Edison and Alexander Graham Bell
are generally credited with bringing out the first workable telephones. In
Germany, someone else worked on the problem before them: Philipp Reis,