OUT OF THE BOX

In Std IX, we encountered Professor JAM (short for J.A. Menezes) who threw us a mental challenge. If three points were to be placed at an equal distance from each other, they would have to be the nodes of an equilateral triangle. The professor’s query was: what geometric figure would make possible for four points to be at an equal distance from each other?

The solution was immediately blurted out – a square! The professor had a merry chuckle while pointing out that although the square had equal sides, the diagonals were not the same length. Hence, all the nodal points would not be at equal distance to each other! We kept on churning alternative answers: a circle, a rhombus, a parallelogram… the professor kept exposing the flaws in the answers. Just as we chose to give up, the professor taught us the lesson that I never forgot.

He said, “You are still moving around the two-dimensional plane of thought. Move out of the plane… think out of the box… Since X and Y-axis are not enough to solve the problem, use the Z-axis… go to the third dimension.” The riddle was unravelled easily, now… the four nodal points of a pyramid (with equilateral triangles as its sides) are at equal distance to each other.

Too often, we give up on finding solutions because we do not think out of the box. We live in a multi dimensional world and need to approach it in a multi dimensional way. We must “develop new dimensions” in terms of our beliefs, attitudes and approaches so that we can better adapt to new challenges.

Thinking out of the box will scale every obstacle
“Develop new dimensions” to solve every puzzle!

Regards
Pravin
08 January 2007, Goa.