I've killed about 200 ideas.
Thirty-two years of inventing, and most of what I built died. I kept the bodies labeled — because anyone can generate an idea now, and almost nobody can tell which ones are real.
The Three Gates
Every idea, before it gets a dollar or a day.
Is it real?
Does it survive a test designed to kill it — not one designed to confirm it? Feed it something that cannot contain the structure you're claiming. See if it still shows up.
Is it new?
Or are you following someone else's path in your own notation? If a tool has already been used to attack this problem, you are not leading. Find out before you spend the year.
Does it have a foundation?
Is there a mechanism, or only a resemblance? A beautiful analogy between two domains is not a bridge between them. Most ideas die here, and most people never check.
Pinned to −0.333333… stable to about seven digits across all four scales. Beautiful — and meaningless. A list of random numbers reproduces it. From the Kill File, entry no. 1
The Record
Why any of the above should carry weight.
Sole inventor on every patent since 1994. No co-inventors, no institution. See the full record