Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Carl Sagan

This quote from Carl Sagan really hits home.  Without Imagination, we go nowhere.  Whether that is imagined worlds that live in a book or real “new worlds” that live across the ocean.  What can we do without imagination? Would primitive man even have survived? How does a spear or a wheel get created without imagination?

Every innovation that was ever developed came about because someone used their imagination to create something that would make a task easier or to accomplish something that’s never been done before.

The wheel is still considered one of the greatest inventions of man. It changed the world. But interestingly, it wasn’t the first major invention. Boats came before wheels, as did needles, and basket weaving. And, it looks like the first wheels were potter wheels, not cartwheels. Here’s an interesting article from Smithsonian Magazine about the history of the wheel.

Since then, people have created better versions of the wheel, applied it to more ideas like a wheelbarrow, and a chariot, and a wagon, and a car. Don’t forget roulette wheels or movie reels or even a pizza cutter. But the basic wheel was created around 2500 BC and you can’t change the shape of it and have it work the same. And it took imagination and innovation to envision that first wheel.

Below is an interesting video about perpetual motion using a wheel.

So the next time you hear yourself saying, “I’ve got no imagination.”  Check yourself.  Of course, you do.  Even if you’re stuck in a rut of work, eat, sleep, and repeat, you’re using your imagination to work out problems that you come across each day.  (You might even be using it to daydream yourself out of your rut!)

And on a fun note. Talk Like a Pirate Day is Saturday, September 19th. It’s such a fun day that I can’t let it go by without a little Arrgh and this year maybe a little education. The Children’s Museum in Indianapolis shared this article on why Pirates wore eye patches. And they included a link to the Mythbusters Pirate episode that determined that the “why” was plausible.