In 2011, Allan MacDonald, a theoretical physicist at the University of Texas in Austin, had a stunning idea.

He calculated that if you took two very thin layers of a special material called Graphene, and you twist them just a little bit against each other – the material would gain some never before seen capabilities. One of them being a superpower that scientists call superconductivity at room temperature. Which basicly means nothing else than electrons can travel through a material with literally no resistance.

Nobody believed MacDonald. In fact, several highly ranked scientific journals rejected his paper. It was published later, but it was still a theoretical idea that many doubted.

Until 2017, when the research group of Pablo Jarillo-Herrerro, physicist at M.I.T. showed: not only was it possible to produce the material MacDonald had suggested. But that in fact just by twisting the two layers only 1.1 degrees – it changed it’s electical properties and gained the superpower of superconductivity.

1.1 degrees is not much. If you drew two lines with a 1.1 degree angle in between, after 1000 meters the ends are only 19m apart. If you extend the lines to the moon, which is 380 thousand kilometers away, the ends of the lines are almost 7300 km apart.

Now, why is this important? The message of this story is not only, that there are properties in materials which we don’t know yet – and that they might change our whole electronics world in the future. No.

The message is, that 1.1 degrees is not much. If you manage to see things just a little bit from another angle, the insight might be completely different.

So remember all the creative processes at your workplace. Usually all people approach the problem to solve from the same angle. And then there are the ones who say: we have to do it completely different! We have to think out of the box, from 30.000 feet, let someone else look at it who knows nothing about it … you know all the slogans.

While sometimes all that might help, being just slightly off can work with less effort, bring the crucial detail to the surface and all that without the histeria of „the creatives“, who – by the way – often charge a lot of money to get „out of the box“.

Be slightly off – it helps to create, it helps to calm down, it helps to make you smile.

Categories: Uncategorized

Stefan G.R.