This is a short story from the 50s or 60s. A scientist or inventor has invented either teleportation or a space drive and has disappeared - leaving no documentation or clues except his extensive home library. The government gathers all types of scientists to attempt to duplicate his research. Several months later, as they are about to launch the first space drive space ship, the officer in charge reveals that there was no 'disappeared inventor'. The greatest step toward a new impossible concept is knowing that it has already been done.
Answer
The story is "Noise Level" by Raymond F. Jones. Many of the country's top physicists are gathered together and are shown film of the inventor hovering using some sort of small anti-gravity device. They are told that, unfortunately, he shortly after died in a crash and is unit was completely destroyed. The government scientists can't make sense of the records he left behind, so they are asked to figure out what he did.
His lab is filled with odd stuff -- some high tech, some assorted, plus books on physics as well as the occult. A real mishmash.
The scientists persevere and, knowing the antigravity is possible, eventually come up with a huge, clumsy device that nevertheless hovers. They are then introduced to the (live) inventor -- who turns out to be an actor. They are told that this was an experiment to see if they could achieve more if they were forced to think outside the box.
It was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, December 1952 and has been widely reprinted: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?55972
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