how to judge creative ideas (was: barometer parable)

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Michael Edmiston wrote in part:
>
...
> In the barometer legend the overall lesson might be allowing people to think
> outside the box, but notice all the given examples are examples that will
> work; and they all work within constraints of physics, money, time.  The
> triage has already been applied.

Ah, if only that were true.  But it's not.  IMHO:
  1) The physics is highly questionable, and
  2) The laws of physics are not, by themselves, sufficient for
judging the merit of the ideas.  Some sort of cost/benefit
analysis is required.

This is a very important topic.  It is woefully neglected in
the usual educational process, up to and including the physics
PhD level.  I wrote up some notes on how to evaluate research
projects and other creative, risky-but-worthwhile endeavors.
Please see:
  http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/physics/projectology.htm

Section titles include:
  1   Choose a Great Project
  2   Creativity vs. Focus
  3   Risks Must Pay Off
  4   Long-Term Research

The barometer parable is discussed at the end of this section:
  http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/physics/projectology.htm#sec-npv