Simple solutions usually the best

The lightweight rigid material has a wide range of uses including thermal insulation and screening electromagnetic waves, one of its most common industrial applications. But making carbon foam had been an expensive, complex process until the Chinese breakthrough. Their solution is a simple dough of flour, yeast, water and salt, baked in an argon-filled furnace at 80 degrees Celsius for 18 hours. The inert gas and lack of oxygen enabled the dough to carbonise without burning.
The end product is less flammable than carbon foam produced using other methods, making it even more suitable as a structural material. The size of the holes in its honeycomb structure can be easily modified by adjusting the proportions of yeast and salt. The fact that the manufacturing process is only slightly more advanced than making pizza dough also means the size and thickness of foam panels are almost infinitely variable.
It took a lot of research and experimentation to get the desired result, but the scientists’ biggest achievement was finding a solution so straightforward that everyone else had overlooked it.
This is a lesson Thai inventors should take to heart. We currently punch under our weight in terms of innovation and research and development – inadequate funding from both government and the private sector have a lot to answer for here. But we do have a few success stories, which follow the quest for the simplest solution.
Phanawatnan Kaimart’s life-changing experience of being caught up in a deadly hotel fire in Pattaya in 1997 led him to invent the Elide Fire Ball. He witnessed firsthand how ineffective traditional fire extinguishers could be in such situations.
His innovation was a football-like device, which can simply be thrown into the flames to automatically disperse its fire-retarding materials into the heart of the inferno. It is lightweight and simple enough for a child to use and, since it can be deployed from a greater distance than a typical extinguisher, is safer to use.
Therdchai Jivacate changed the lives of tens of thousands of people (as well as elephants) in Southeast Asia with an idea to manufacture low-cost artificial limbs from recycled yoghurt pots. His brilliant idea also reduced production costs from an average of $10,000 (Bt400,000) per leg to less than $100.
Whatever they are currently working on, I implore innovators in Thailand, China and beyond to test their ideas against some age-old wisdom.
As William of Ockham, an English monk from the 14th century, observed: “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.”