Editing Reinventing the wheel (section)

{{short description|Idiomatic expression, meaning to waste effort on something that has already been achieved}}
{{about||the album by Asleep at the Wheel|Reinventing the Wheel (album)}}
{{redirect|Inventing the wheel|a factual discussion|Wheel#History}}
{{more footnotes|date=April 2009}}

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To '''reinvent the wheel''' is to attempt to duplicate—most likely with inferior results—a basic method that has already previously been created or optimized by others. 

The inspiration for this [[idiom]]atic [[metaphor]] is that the [[wheel]] is an ancient [[archetype]] of human ingenuity (one so profound that it continues to underlie much of modern [[technology]]).  As it has already been invented and is not considered to have any inherent flaws, an attempt to reinvent it would add no value to it and be a waste of time, diverting the investigator's resources from possibly more worthy goals.