Never mind the idiotic title, this is a classic story about invention. His breakthrough was accidentally figuring out that a mouthpiece filter was more importan

Never mind the idiotic title, this is a classic story about invention. His breakthrough was accidentally figuring out that a mouthpiece filter was more important than the entire rest of his complicated machine, and it invalidated the design he had been working on for 15 years. Can you imagine? Most people would never allow themselves to notice something like that: the cognitive dissonance would be way too intense. "I felt so stupid because the answer was so simple" is a deeply creative, even heroic statement.