<aside> 🚩 Given an existent concept or product that uses one physical phenomenon, a new, creative design may arise by trying to use a different phenomenon. This involves the study of alternative embodiments.
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This Creativity Method involves searching for alternative embodiments by changing the nature of the physical phenomenon on which the original embodiment is based. That is, it involves finding a radically different behaviour for an embodiment that nonetheless provides the same function as the original embodiment.
The successful result of this method will result in a new embodiment, which will lead to new Design Concepts.
The obvious way of seeking new physical phenomena is to change the state of matter being used. There are more states of matter than you probably think there are, but only five matter to engineers: solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, and energy (because $E = mc^{2}$). If you have an embodiment that depends on solid materials to behave in such a way to provide the required function, try to find another behaviour that uses liquids or one of the other states.
Alternatively, one can also look for alternative, qualitatively different types of the same state of matter. See the examples below.
Conventional SONAR systems use a microphone that turns pressure waves in water into an electrical signal. In a recent patent, however, fibre optics are used to replace the microphone. A standing light wave is established in the optical fibre; any variation in the length of fibre will change the characteristic of the standing wave in a measurable way. Underwater pressure waves make the cable vibrate, which causes detectable changes in the standing wave pattern of the light in the fibre.
Whereas a regular microphone turns sound into an electrical signal, this new method turns sound into a light signal.
Two undergraduate electrical engineering students at George Mason University have figured out how to put fires out with sound. They found that at certain frequencies, air vibrates in a way that prevents oxygen from staying in contact with a combusting material, thus starving the fire and putting it out.
There's a YouTube clip of the device in action.
Desalinating water is important to provide drinking water. Conventionally, one boils and then condenses salt water - the salt is left behind from the boiling process. It's easy, but energy intensive. Another method is reverse osmosis, where salt is basically filtered out of water by passing it through a special membrane that traps salt. This uses a little less energy, but is more “high-tech” and therefore complex, unreliable, and expensive.
Researchers at MIT have come up with another way: generating a shockwave in a flow of water that literally separates the salt out of the flow. This method, though still complex, uses a lot less energy. In this case, the original phenomenon was a change of state (liquid to vapour). The osmosis method is strictly physical. The shockwave method, on the other hand, uses vibration (physical energy transmission) to achieve the same goal more efficiently. (The research has been published in the scientific literature.)
<aside> 💡 EXERCISE FOR THE READER. Consider a conventional toothbrush with solid bristles. This embodiment uses friction between two solids (the bristles and your teeth) to remove dirt. Can you think of ways to clean your teeth using each of the other states of matter? Do those other embodiments exist?
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The method is simple to describe, but challenging to apply.