Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond

10.8. Lesson 97: Another Problem, Another Solution

During his doomed effort in the late 1880s and 1890s to perfect a commercially practical system for electromagnetically extracting iron from low-grade ore, Edison encountered a host of problems, many of which he succeeded in solving brilliantly. Among these was a difficulty with keeping grinding machinery lubricated in a very dusty environment. Edison studied the problem carefully, quickly coming to the conclusion that it was impossible to get rid of dust in an operation dedicated to grinding ore on a vast scale. The production of a great deal of dust was simply inevitable and unavoidable. Since he could not rid himself of the problem, the inventor set about doing what he had often done in the ...