Lessons of Failure
Humans + Software Development = Always Interesting

TAG | Occam’s Razor

An experiment, posted on LessWrong.com that led to a further diatribe on rationality and rational thinking traps got me thinking too.  Here’s the problem:

Once upon a time, there was an instructor who taught physics students.  One day she called them into her class, and showed them a wide, square plate of metal, next to a hot radiator.  The students each put their hand on the plate, and found the side next to the radiator cool, and the distant side warm.  And the instructor said, Why do you think this happens? Some students guessed convection of air currents, and others guessed strange metals in the plate.  They devised many creative explanations, none stooping so low as to say “I don’t know” or “This seems impossible.

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