Hospital statistics regarding people who go to the emergency room after roller skating accidents indicate the need for more protective equipment Within that group of people 75 percent of those who had accidents in streets or parking lots had not been wear

Passion is clearly necessary for a truly great
idea to take hold among a people—passion either
on the part of the original thinker, the audience,
or ideally both. The claim that the most lucrative
subject matter for inspiring great ideas is
“commonplace things” may seem initially to be
counterintuitive. After all, aren’t great ideas
usually marked by their extraordinary character?
While this is true, their extraordinary character is as often as not directly derived from their insight
into things that had theretofore gone
unquestioned. While great ideas certainly can arise
through seemingly pure innovation... say, for
example, Big Bang cosmology, which developed
nearly all of its own scientific and philosophical
precepts through its own process of formation,
it is nevertheless equally true that such
groundbreaking thought was, and is, still largely
a reevaluation of previous assumptions to a radical
degree... after all, the question of the ultimate
nature of the universe, and man’s place in it,
has been central to human thought since the dawn
of time. Commonplace things are, additionally,
necessary as material for the generation of
“the best ideas” since certainly the success among
an audience must be considered in evaluating the
significance and quality of an idea.

The advent of Big Bang cosmology, which
occured in rudimentary form almost immediately
upon Edwin Hubble’s first observations at the
Hooker telescope in California during the early
20th century, was the most significant advance in mankind’s understanding of the universe in
over 400 years. The seemingly simple fact that
everything in the universe, on the very large
scale, is moving away from everything else in fact
betrays nearly all of our scientific knowledge of
the origins and mechanics of the universe. This
slight, one might even say commonplace,
distortion of tint on a handful of photographic
plates carried with it the greatest challenge
to Man’s general, often religiously reinforced,
conception of the nature of the world to an extent
not seen since the days of Galileo. Not even
Charles Darwin’s theory, though it created more
of a stir than Big Bang cosmology, had such
shattering implications for our conceptions of
the nature of our reality. Yet it is not significant
because it introduced the question of the nature
of what lies beyond Man’s grasp. A tremendous
number of megalithic ruins, including the Pyramids
both of Mexico and Egypt, Stonehenge, and others,
indicate that this question has been foremost on
humankind’s collective mind since time
immemorial. Big Bang cosmology is so incredibly
significant in this line of reasoning exactly because
of the degree to which it changed the direction of
this generally held, constantly pondered, and very
ancient train of thought.

Additionally, there is a diachronic significance
to the advent of Big Bang cosmology, which is
that, disregarding limitations such as the quality
of optical devices available and the state of
theoretical math, it could have happened at any
point in time. That is to say, all evidence points
to roughly the same raw intellectual capacity for
homo sapiens throughout our history, our progress
has merely depended upon the degree of it that
a person happens to inherit, a pace that has been
increasing rapidly since the industrial revolution.
Yet this discovery had to happen at a certain point
in time or another—it cannot have been happening
constantly or have never happened yet still be
present—and this point in time does have its own
significance. That significance is precisely the fact
that the aforementioned advent must have
occurred at precisely the point in time at which it
truly could have occured—that is to say, it marks the point in our history when we had progressed
sufficiently to begin examining, with remarkable
substantiated acuity, the workings of the universe
across distances that would take millions of human
lifetimes to reach or to traverse. The point for the
success of this advent must necessarily have been,
additionally, the point at which the audience
concerned was capable and prepared to accept
such a radical line of reasoning.

Both factors, a radical, passionate
interpretation of the commonplace and the
preparedness to accept such an interpretation,
are necessary for the formulation of a truly great
idea. If the passion is absent from an inquiry by
the thinker or by the bulk of an audience, the idea
will die out if it comes to fruition at all. If the
material is not sufficiently commonplace to be
considered by an informed audience of sufficient
size, the same two hazards exist. Given these
two factors, the idea must still be found palatable
and interesting by the audience if it is to hope to
gain a foothold and eventually establish itself in
a significant fashion.