An article in New scientist caught my eye recently. Entitled “The sneaky trick for solving problems without answering them”, Jacob Aron describes a mathematical approach to solving a publem without actually doing anything about it. All you have to do is see that it can be solved.
Thinking about non-constructive writing, by Terry Freedman
I have to say, I could have done with knowing about this when I was at school, where we had to answer questions like, Sam is five years older than Freda who is twice as old as Jan. How old is John? Or something like that. Anyway, the not-actually-doing-anything approach sis known as “non-constructive proof”, and is best exemplified by a joke.
A person walks into a room and sees that it is on fire. She looks around and spots a fire extinguisher in the corner. Realising that the fire is able to be tackled, she goes out of the room and carries on with her day.
I have to say, it reminds me of the old joke about economists and their unrealistic assumptions. An economist, a physicist and a chemist are stranded on a desert island. They have plenty of tinned food but no tin opener. The physicist cuts down a few branches of a palm tree and constructs a makeshift catapult, which he uses to hurt the tins against some rocks. The ruse fails. Then the chemist tries to dissolve the metal by soaking the tins in salt water taken from the sea. To no avail. All this time, the economist has been sitting there with a smug look on his face. “You’re looking quite pleased with yourself” says the physicist. “what’s your solution then?”
“Let’s assume we have a tin opener” he replies.
I realised that I’ve been doing this for years, I often construct an article in my head, perhaps working out how to express certain ideas. Once I’ve identified how I might do so, I do not always see the need - or have the desire - to actually write it. That sounds like the same sort of thing to me as this non-constructive business.
