ORIGINALITY

“Originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before; it means putting old ideas together in new ways”.

Originality is not something that was never thought before. Old ideas contain something that is useful and can be brought up along with new innovation.

Originality is related to creativity in writing, art, innovation and design. However originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before.  Human civilization existed for many centuries before, it has passed three main phases i.e. hunter gathering, agricultural and technological era. This combination has showed a variety of ideas some contradicting and other overlapping.  Most of the new inventions and innovation are stimulated from the older ideas. Thus old idea acts as foundation of the new invention.

In reference to the latter half of the issue to be dissected, i.e. originality means putting old ideas together in new ways. Questioning of existed ideas has lead to many new inventions. It requires a radical and interrogative thinking process for improvement of the pre existing norms and belief. Someone has said it right; millions said the apple fell but Newton was the one to ask why.

One of the quintessential of foreseeing the future discoveries was the science fiction writers Author C.clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlei.  The doyen writer C. Clarke was a great visionary and a brilliant writer. He foresaw communication satellite, a nationwide network of computer and predicted that man will be on moon by 1970. The ideas he mentioned in his work of fiction were the prediction on the future in technological era.

The idea of flying machine was thought long back. Man was always fascinated to see birds flying. Wright brothers are known for inventing the airplanes, but the idea was not something never thought before. Leonardo da Vinci in 14^th century designed a human powered Ornithopter (i.e. a wings flapping device intend to fly). It is not known whether he tried to build it. Leonardo considered gliders and parachute also in this lifetime.  Thus it is evident from the history that the idea was thought before. Even today the aeronautical technology is still growing and the older inventions act as the foundation for the new innovation.

Conclusion; every invention starts with an idea that might be new or old but this does not make the invention less original. It only takes a bit of radical thinking to make it work.