More Gun powder?

Several years ago, an engineer at a large chemical company asked the following question:

“What if we put gunpowder in our house paint?”

The people around him were somewhat taken aback, but the engineer continued...

“Have you ever noticed what happens to paint after it’s been on a house for five or six years? It chips and cracks and is very difficult to remove. There has to be a better way to get it off. If we put gunpowder in our house paint, we could blow it off the house.”

The engineer had an interesting idea, but it had one drawback — it wasn’t very practical.

The people who were listening to this man, however, did something very much to their credit. They didn’t evaluate his idea on the basis of its practical merits.

On the contrary,?they approached it as a stepping stone which might lead them to a practical, creative solution.

They thought, “What other ways are there to create a chemical reaction that would remove the old house paint?”

This question opened up their thinking and eventually led to the idea of putting additives in their house paint.

These additives would be inert until another solution containing other additives was applied to the old paint at a later date. At this point, a reaction would take place that would cause the paint to strip right off.

That company went on to make such a process a reality.