Don't invent, evolve

“I HAVE not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” That is how Thomas Edison described his laborious attempts to perfect the incandescent light bulb. Yet an emerging technique for developing inventions knocks even Edison's exhaustive approach into a cocked hat. Evolutionary design, as it is known, enables a computer to run through tens of millions of variations on an invention until it hits on the best solution to a problem.

It is interesting to see that with this method we find designs that are the most efficient and which we would never have thought of trying.

The while article is here.