When I spoke with John Poco of Lawrence Livermore Labs in Livermore, California, he was working with the lightest solid material ever made—silica aerogel. About as heavy as the air over San Francisco on a foggy day, the substance has been nicknamed “frozen smoke,” because that’s what it looks like. Poco and his Livermore scientists had reduced the density of aerogel and improved its composition and clarity.

At that point, frozen smoke already had practical scientific applications, but in the process of making silica aerogel, John Poco was told it couldn’t be done. And that seems to be what motivated him. “I have no idea where the outer limits are," he said. “I mean, can we go faster than the speed of light? Einstein would say, no. But we watch Star Trek and they go faster than the speed of light.

“It’s interesting to look back in retrospect in my life and see things like Star Trek now and how Star Trek has changed, and a lot of things as a younger person growing up tend to feel the model says that this is the way things work. I have two kids. They grew up with some of those models, but they also have a view of the future that says, no, this is possible. And they’re not restricted by old thinking patterns. And that’s a lot of what holds us back, is old thinking patterns.”

Outer limits? Star Trek? Well, if you’re serious about innovation, if you want to arrive at the future before your competitors realize you’ve left, it’s going to take a real commitment to defying conventional wisdom. Because as John Poco observes, convention is not necessarily wisdom.

“If someone tells you this can’t be done, this defies the laws of physics, it makes you question, what do the laws of physics really know?”

Update: New “frozen smoke” material: One ounce could carpet three football fields

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