Thomas Edison, the famed inventor, had 1,093 patents filed in the US by his death. His laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey became the innovation hothouse of its day. Edison wanted to recruit creative thinkers who did not bring too many pre-assumptions or rigid views of the world.

The story goes that Edison would invite job applicants to his house for lunch and serve them a bowl of soup. If they reached for the salt before tasting the soup he would invite them to the interview. Edison reasoned that if they seasoned without tasting they weren’t open to new ideas from their environment and had too many preconceived ideas to be truly creative.

In this spirit of open-minded thinking, we set about finding 5 things we all believe to be true but are in fact false.

Belief #1: The word POSH entered the language as a shortening of “Port Out, Starboard Home”.

Fact: British citizens who secured passage to India didn’t make reservations for their return trips at the time of booking the outbound leg. Sensible people would therefore not lock themselves into firm return dates, instead choosing to book return passage only when they were ready to go home. Therefore, there wouldn’t have been return tickets stamped “POSH.” As to where posh came from, in 1830 the word was sighted in print as a term for money (“He had not got the posh yet”). A reasonable assumption is that, over time, a slang term for “money” came to mean “someone who has a fair bit of money,” which then jumped to mean “something that costs a lot of money” or “something that only the highest socially can get their hands on” hence the word posh.

Belief #2: Nylon was named for a conflation of ‘New York’ and ‘London.’

Fact: Its naming committee considered 400 names, one of them Duparooh (short for Du Pont Pulls a Rabbit out of a hat). Another was No Run, a good name, except the fabric did run. The committee tinkered with No Run until it became Nylon.

Belief #3: Napoleon was short.

Fact: He was 5’7’’, which was more or less standard height in 1821. His nickname le Petit Corporal was a term of endearment, and not meant to be taken literally.

Belief #4: NASA spent millions of dollars developing an “astronaut pen” while the Soviets solved the same problem by simply using pencils.

Fact: Both U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights, but those writing instruments were not ideal. Pencil tips can flake and break off, and having such objects floating around space capsules in near-zero gravity posed a potential harm to astronauts and equipment. The “space pen” that has since become famous through its use by astronauts was developed independently by Paul C. Fisher of the Fisher Pen Co. He spent his own money on the project and, once he perfected his AG-7 “Anti-Gravity” Space Pen, offered it to NASA. After that agency tested and approved the pen’s suitability for use in space flights, they purchased a number of the instruments from Fisher for a modest price.

Belief #5: Goldfish have a 3 second memory.

Fact: Goldfish can actually recall information for up to five months. Scientists found that fish trained to respond to certain sounds in captivity still reacted months later when they heard them in the wild. 

On a more serious note making assumptions and failing to take a step back and review your business may lead you to make expensive mistakes. At Aspect we never make assumptions or arrive with preconceived ideas. What we do is explore your markets, uncover new evidence and insights that will drive your business forward.

Get in touch to find out how we can help you and your business or call 0161 831 7171

A final note: Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb he refined it for the mass market, Humphry Davey invented it back in 1800.