许多新思想和发明实际上来自一些旧的办法。你不用总是从头开始发明,问题是如何利用已有的知识和材料,去解决问题并创造新东西。当一些发明人正努力工作、思考和发掘新思想去解决实际问题时,另一些发明却是从偶然事故中创造出来的。象牙牌香皂就是因为一个操作工人离开香皂混合机时间过长而产生的。当时他把这批“坏的”肥皂扔到水沟里,只见肥皂不但 Many new ideas and inventions actually come from some old ways. You don’t have to start from scratch. The problem is how to use existing knowledge and materials to solve problems and create new things. While some inventors are hard at work, thinking about and discovering new ideas to solve practical problems, other inventions are created from accidental accidents. Ivory soaps are produced because an operator has left the soap mixer for too long. At that time, he threw these “bad” soaps into the ditch. He only saw soap.