How a 3 year old helped invent the Polaroid camera
“Don’t do anything that someone else can do.
”
When it comes to solving problems or making creative breakthroughs, it can be helpful to think with a childlike mindset. Children aren’t bound by convention or “the way things have always been done.” They ask questions adults might dismiss, and in doing so, they open doors to entirely new possibilities.
Few stories illustrate this better than that of Edwin Land, the scientist, inventor, and co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation.
The scientist and inventor Edwin Land was born on 7th May 1909, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
He is best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation.
The technology he developed in their labs found use in sunglasses, night-vision goggles, and the development of the U-2 spy plane.
Like other inventors, Land was known to work extremely hard and to spend many hours researching and developing potential new applications.
His most commercially successful product, however, resulted from his 3-year-old daughter’s inquisitiveness.
Watching her father as he took photos of her, one sunny afternoon in Santa Fe, she asked:
“Daddy, why can’t I see the photos right now?”
He paused for a moment before the brilliance of her question sank in.
Land promptly set about seeking a satisfactory answer to his child’s line of inquiry.
Four years later, in 1947, the result of that investigation was launched: the Polaroid camera.
It was a runaway success and remains a strong seller 70 years later
