OBVIOUS WAYS OF LOOKING AT PROBLEMS

THE SECOND LESSON ON LATERAL THINKING - NON OBVIOUS OUTLOOK

Since we have seen the basic aspects of Lateral thinking; the obvious way of looking into things would matter a lot in lateral thinking. The major hitch would be looking at things OBVIOUSLY.

Hence to become a lateral thinker (CREATOR) one should think about the less obvious, there is an old illustration for this;

There are two glasses of equal size one filled up with wine and the other with water,now one spoonfull of wine is taken from the wine glass and stirred into the water glass. Next another spoon full of this mixed wine and water glass is taken and stirred into the wine glass. This operation in repeated again and then stopped.

The question is

IS THERE MORE WATER IN THE WINE GLASS THAN THERE IS WINE IN THE WATER GLASS ?

IS THERE MORE WINE IN THE WATER GLASS THAN THERE IS WATER IN THE WINE GLASS?

Quite confusing........

This problem is a very tedious one if we take a pen and paper to calculate the initial volume to the final volume by assigning values to each of the spoonfull with x,y,.....thereby obtaining the concentration of wine and water at each stage.

If the point of view is shifted to a terminal situation (end scenario) instead of the development, the solution is simple. Since each glass had 2 spoonfulls taken out and also 2 returned the volume at the end must be the same as that of the beginning. Hence any wine in the water glass should have displaced exactly equal amount of water and this should be in the wine glass.

The shift in attention from the obvious one to the non obvious ones leads to solutions.