This is an extract from the OPIP book. Previously, A(lice) and B(obby) discussed why fundamentally new approaches might be needed to achieve breakthroughs in physics.
A: Let me say something nice for a change. You convinced me, we need to let go of our old ideas, and find new approaches. Only this way we can find solutions to our current problems.
B: I’m happy to hear that. However, the challenge may run even deeper than that. When you say “solutions to our current problems,” you assume that the problems we identified are the correct ones. Often in physics, the real problems are quite different from the ones originally thought. Challenges such as “How to test the ether?” (in fact there is no ether), “How can the force of gravity be described in extreme conditions?” (gravity isn’t a force), “How can the electron’s orbits be tweaked so that don’t quickly spiral into the nucleus?” (electrons are not in orbits like in classical mechanics), were all cases where the premise was wrong. Similarly, often when there are intense and controversial discussions about whether something is like X or Y (such as light being a wave or a particle), the unexpected answer turns out to be that it’s neither.[1]
A: How can we know if the premise is wrong?
B: That’s the master question. There isn’t a clear, general answer to it. A possible indicator could be that if it turns out very difficult to find an answer, it could be that the question is wrong.
A: So we should constantly question the questions themselves.
B: Yes, and seek to find the real problems. They may not be obvious. In business, progress is often achieved by finding solutions to what people didn’t know was a problem. Before the microwave was introduced, most people probably wouldn’t have seen much use for it. Now, many can’t imagine living without it. It’s similar to Henry Ford’s statement, “If I had asked what people want, they would have said a faster horse!” There’s also a significant practical benefit to working on problems that others haven’t recognized yet: you don’t have any competition.
A: Could that also be a reason for why outsiders may have an edge sometimes? While the experts are putting their heads down and work on it with vigor, they get the tap on the shoulder from the outsiders who say “Ehh, you’re working on the wrong thing”?
B: That could be so, yes. For sure, if you don’t understand deeply that the challenge lies in identifying the right problems, you won’t. Spending time on this is worth it. I like Richard Hamming’s suggestion to set aside dedicated time every week to only think about which problems to work on.[2] Don’t be the person who is becoming increasingly efficient at doing things that don’t need to be done at all. Ultimately, it’s the effectiveness that counts. It’s so easy to get so obsessed with a specific problem that we forget the world around us and oversee that we may not work on the right problems. Psychologically, it’s not easy to prevent falling into that trap because it feels good—and you may get commended for it too—to find the right answers, even if they are for the wrong problems.
A: Makes sense. To find the relevant solutions, we need to identify the relevant problems first.
B: Yes. As Charles Kettering, the American inventor, said, “A problem well-stated is half-solved.” At least.
A: What do you mean with “at least”?
B: I mean at least. It could be more. Einstein is reported to have said, “If I only had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only 5 minutes solving it.”
A: It can be that extreme?
B: Let’s take some everyday world examples. Your TV remote doesn’t work, so you press the buttons harder or repeatedly, only to find out that the batteries are dead, making the solution obvious.[3] If your computer runs out of memory, the most obvious solution is to add more RAM[4] (not CPU[5]), but more often than not, that’s not addressing the real problem, which might be a memory-consuming program running in the background. A popular story: employees in a skyscraper complained about the long waiting times at the elevators. Building another elevator shaft is expensive, so a consultant suggested to install mirrors in the elevator lobbies. This way, people could spend their time looking at themselves and other people. That made them happy. The real problem was the boredom that came with the waiting.
A: Nice examples. But hand-picked to fit your story. It isn’t always like that.
B: You know what, let me make a provocative and extreme statement, just to make things crisper and easier to discuss. I postulate, “If you don’t have the solution, you haven’t understood the problem yet.”
A: You’d better back that up with some good arguments.
B: Let’s take an example: state a problem you recently had.
A: Alright. What about this:
“My problem is that I cannot open the jam jar because I don’t have enough strength.”
B: Okay. There’s a lot going on in this statement. It’s teeming with assumptions that may point to a lack of understanding of the real problems. Once you understand those problems, the solutions may just pop out.
A: Show me.
B: Let’s break the statement down, step by step. It all starts with “My problem is that.” Is it really? What are you ultimately trying to achieve with it?
A: I was a little down, so I needed some quick happiness.
B: There are plenty of other solutions for that too. It also raises the question why you were sad, and what the real problems are.
A: Please, don’t try to be my shrink. Your point is that there might be other underlying, fundamental problems that I’m trying to fix with it?
B: Yes. Most problems are just assumed solutions.
A: Actually, by looking at it like this, I do remember that I shouldn’t open the jar at all, as I’m on a diet.
B: Great. In any case, always be aware of the problem hierarchy. Ultimately, our goal is to be happy. All other goals or problems are just derived from that.
A: I don’t think it’s always only happiness. There are many other values too.
B: I think it’s always happiness. In case I haven’t mentioned it, there’s a good free book about that. You can find it on IncreasingHappiness.org.
A: Okay. Let’s continue with my problem about the jar. Anything wrong with the “I” in my problem definition?
B: Who says that you have to do it? Ask your big brother to open the jar for you.
A: That may cause new issues, such as my big brother wanting some of the jam.
B: Let’s not make things too complex and let’s focus on the problem at hand. Next, it says “cannot.” Who says you cannot do it? Watch some motivational videos, and try again.
A: You’re serious?
B: An adrenaline rush and heightened motivation can temporarily boost physical performance. The “home advantage” seen in many sports is, in part, due to the motivation derived from playing in front of supportive fans. So imagine fans cheering for you when trying to open the jar. Go Alice, go!
A: Thanks. Next is “open.” It surely needs to be open to get the jam, right?
B: Two approaches here. One is the lawyery, semantic way. You smash the jar into pieces, and technically it’s not opened because it’s broken. Another approach is to insert a knife along the inside edge of the jar and try to scoop out some jam without actually opening the lid. Drilling a hole, using straws or similar approaches may also get you to the jam inside when it’s not really open.
A: Alright… then let me watch you do something with the “the” in my problem definition.
B: That’s a subtle one. Let’s think about it… What do you mean by “the jam jar”? Probably you mean “this jam jar,” right? That makes the solution obvious: try it with another jam jar. There’s always the risk that we use abstract and vague language, and thereby make problems fuzzy. As mentioned before, nature isn’t abstract, it’s always concrete. Abstractions are just models we use to manage the complexity of the world. They are useful in many situations, but we must never forget that they are simplifications that don’t reflect the world as it really is. The map is not the territory.[6]
A: What about “jam jar”? Where’s the assumption here?
B: I’m sorry to inform you, but you’ve been trying to open the jar of Sauerkraut. The jam jar is the one on the left.
A: Oops. Now to the last part, the “because I don’t have enough strength.” I can already sense there are some assumptions in there.
B: You sensed right. It’s another case of where a problem is based on an assumed solution, as “I don’t have enough strength” can be seen as its own problem. First, even if you use force, your strength may be easily sufficient. Lever-action jar openers enable you to apply your strength in a smarter way. Hold the jar at a different angle where your muscles can exert more force. Or, wrap a rubber band around the lid to increase friction for better grip, and better distribution of the force.
A: So also little force may do it, if you know how to use it.
B: Right, and sometimes hardly any force is needed at all. Any problem you tackle with excessive force often indicates the need for a different solution, similar to the discussed approach of merely throwing more money at an issue [Here Bobby refers back to a previous discussion in the book, which questioned whether merely spending more money—like investing in even larger particle colliders—is the appropriate strategy for achieving the next major breakthroughs in physics.] Applying force just means “more of the same.” Instead, try to understand the problem better to find solutions. Why is it hard to open the jar? Did the jar manufacturing company close it so tightly to make sure it won’t leak? No. The reason is that the jam was hot when it got filled into the jar, and later cooled down and contracted, creating a vacuum. Hence, anything that releases that vacuum could help. Tap the lid gently around its edges with the back of a spoon to break the vacuum seal. Use a pointed tool to poke a small hole in the lid. Put the jar under hot water, which may cause the metal lid to expand faster than the glass[7], potentially breaking the seal. There are many similar solutions.
A: We talked so much about jam that I’m really hungry now. But what’s the takeaway from it all? That understanding the problem makes the solution pop out?
B: Right. In this example, it literally makes “pop,” but it also applies figuratively to other problems too.
A: I agree that understanding a problem is important, but I doubt that your claim “If you don’t have the solution, you haven’t understood the problem yet” is always true. For example, let’s say I have the problem that I cannot travel faster than light. No matter how well I understand the problem, it won’t help me to find a solution.
B: Why do you want to travel faster than light?
A: It would be really cool.
B: Alright, so you think it will make you happy. Take this happiness pill instead; that’ll fix it. A VR headset may do the same.
A: That’s just distracting from my original problem, not fixing it.
B: I think it’s actually fixing the underlying problem. The person who says, “I still wet my bed, but now I don’t care about it anymore” may have actually found his solution. In any case, let’s assume you’re right, and my claim isn’t always correct. It could still make sense in practice to assume it is.
A: Assume something as true even when it isn’t?
B: Yes. Let me explain with an analogy. In business, it’s sometimes said “The customer is always right.” This can be a very useful mindset, because it makes you think harder how you can improve the customer experience. For instance, we recently encountered an issue where our software[8] didn’t work on our client’s server. We investigated, and discovered that their server was misconfigured. The client insisted that it was our software’s fault, and we insisted the issue was on the client side. Technically, we were absolutely right. However, we then thought a bit harder and managed to adapt our software to function even with such server misconfigurations.
A: Your point is that the customer is always right?
B: No, not at all. Quite the opposite, clients can be unreasonable, aggressive, and dumb as bricks. But the mindset “The customer is always right” pushes you to think further. A less extreme way to phrase it, and one that is strictly speaking correct, would be, “Let’s assume the customer is right, even though sometimes they aren’t.” However, that would have given us the excuse to not think further and we would have put this case undoubtedly into the “the client is wrong”-category.[9] Again, it’s all psychology.
A: And in a similar vein, even if it’s not always correct, we should assume that the reason for why we don’t have the solution is because we haven’t understood the problem yet?
B: Right. By the way, this paradigm—that even something incorrect can be useful—is at the heart of physics. As statistician George Box said, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”[10] Every law we find will probably turn out to be wrong, but it can still be valuable. Newton’s laws, with respect to their understanding of space and time, turned out to be incorrect. But they were sufficient to send a man to the Moon.[11]
A: Ok. What else can we learn from what we just discussed? Maybe that my problem definition was wrong?
B: Actually, the way you phrased it was great. Even though it may not have been the real problem, and contained a lot of assumptions, you paved the way for finding the solutions. It would have been much harder to come up with suggestions if you had just said “Jar closed. Dammit.” By elaborating on what you consider the problem is, you made your thinking more transparent, which is the first step to identify thinking mistakes. Apparently the psychologists are right, “just talking about it” can help.
A: Any other learnings?
B: The way we just identified solutions didn’t require much thinking or “creativity.” Creativity is sometimes a bit mystical. It sounds as if we must rely on our subconsciousness that we don’t fully understand, hoping to get lucky. Instead, we need to bring these thought processes to the surface, as we can only improve what we can see. What we just discussed is a first attempt into that direction. I’ll elaborate more on the creative process later.
In a later section of the book, the creative process is broken down, assisting idea generation in physics and beyond. To read it, get the OPIP book now.
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[1] Or “both,” although that fundamentally also means “neither,” as the combination of two concepts is a new concept in itself. [As elaborated elsewhere in the book]
[2] Richard Hamming was a well-known figure in computer science. He not only made significant contributions to the field but also pondered deeply about the structure of progress in physics. This book has drawn inspiration from several of his profound ideas. For a deeper dive into Hamming’s thoughts, it is highly recommended to watch his lectures “You and Your Research” and “Experts”.
[3] The solution is to replace the batteries. Sorry for mentioning this, but I’m trying to follow a “no (wo)man left behind” approach here.
[4] Random Access Memory (RAM) is a type of computer memory that is used to store data that the computer’s processor can access. Again, no (wo)man left behind.
[5] No explanation this time. You got to draw the line somewhere.
[6] “The map is not the territory” is a term coined by Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski. It expressed the idea that people often confuse models of reality with reality itself.
[7] Heat causes most solids to expand and cold makes them contract. To remember which does which, use the memory aid from my school days: summer holidays are 6 weeks long, winter holidays just 2. (There doesn’t seem to be an English word specifically for such silly but effective mnemonic devices. Why not call them “donkey bridges”? That’s the term in German.)
[8] Find all of our products on Inisev.com. God bless good surreptitious advertising.
[9] This mindset also found use in this book. You may have noticed that some of the stated URLs appear at the end of a sentence, for example “…read more about it on Opip.lol/whatever.” I’m sure that some readers will copy the URL along with the full stop, then paste it into their browser’s address bar and wonder why it doesn’t work. (For the record—and not to offend anyone—I wouldn’t call those readers “dumb as bricks”; it’s more like sandstone.) While technically an error on the reader’s part, I asked a developer to ensure those URLs automatically redirect to their counterparts without the full stop. That solution took an astonishing 3 hours to code (or so the developer claims—sometimes it feels like everyone just wants my money).
[10] See Opip.lol/box.
[11] Newton’s laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation are fundamentally enough to describe the principles needed to send a man to the Moon. However, the actual achievement required many technologies that go far beyond Newton (e.g., quantum mechanics for the transistors and semiconductors in modern electronics).
