Some days ago, I found out about the square tomato.
In short, the “cultivar VF-145” was developed at UC Davis to get to a more sturdy kind of tomato that wouldn’t squish so easily and wouldn’t roll of conveyor belts. It is not really square, but just “less round” than a more round tomato.
Anyway, many different ways to look at, and solve, a single problem (and all the subsequent problems that arise because of that). Less manpower – Get in a machine to do it. The tomatoes roll off and get crushed by machines – Change the tomatoes.
Or perhaps it depends on the person you bring the problem to. Changing the tomato would probably be the first thing that comes to the mind of a plant breeder – but not necessarily to the mind of a solar cell researcher (not that solar cell researchers are the best people to solve tomato problems… It’s probably a good idea to leave them to tomato experts). But it does make one wonder: would the solution be still the same had someone else been on this task? Someone with a slightly different background and technical expertise?
I have had times in research when I was stumped by a mundane, and most of the times non-scientific, problem (which is, of course, mundane only in retrospect – no problem is too stupid, too mundane, or too small when it is in the phase of being a problem). I only had to move around, sometimes up and down some stairs, throwing the question at people I knew – and one of them would reply with an obvious solution that would leave you in a speechless why-didn’t-I-think-of-this state.
Times like these are when you find out who your real friends are – They are the ones who will not hesitate to break you out of your tunnel vision and bring you play-doh to seal your glassware airtight when you need it.
However, my biggest concern is completely unrelated to this now: Have I been eating square tomatoes all my life, thinking they were round when there were probably rounder tomatoes out there? Have I even seen a truly round tomato ever?