|
|
Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
> I saw a story fly past one of the engineering newsgroups. An EE was
> consulting for a company, and redesigned a particular circuit that was to
> be mass-produced so that it was simpler and had fewer parts, was cheaper
> to make, and would save the company some large number of dollars over a
> production run. And the manager could hardly believe that he wanted his
> consulting fee-- there was hardly anything there!
Hell, I've had that experience: it is one of my canned gripes from
graduate school, and excuses for not accomplishing anything with my
life. ;-)
Professor A showed us some calculation in conditional probability. I
can't remember the specifics, but basically his version consumed at
least a page of calculations recursively conditioning on many things.
He challenged us to simplify it. I realized after a little thought
that the entire thing would be conditioned on _one_ variable, and that
you merely had to integrate over that variable: total space, about one
line.
I didn't quite get the reaction I might have hoped for, needless to
say: first he didn't believe me, then he was kind of shaking his head
and conceding I was right, but "it would have been nice if I'd showed
some more work", or something of the sort. Never the delighted "aha".
Second example, same reaction -- professor B gave us this question as
part of a take home exam in stochastic processes. In this case I
remember the entire set up:
On a square whose four vertices are labeled 1 - 4, you start on corner
3, while diametrically opposite from you on corner 1 is a creature
called the "wumpus". The wumpus jumps to the left or the right on each
turn with probability 1/2, whereas you have the choice of jumping to
the left or the right, or not moving. If, at the end of a turn, you
find yourself on the same square as the wumpus, you are eaten. You
cannot be eaten in mid-air. The problem is, to find the optimum
strategy to prolong your life, and to find your expected lifetime under
this strategy.
I remember at the time finding the answer anything but obvious, and I
also remember sitting in a park and suddenly delightedly seeing the
simple solution. I've already given away half the problem by saying
that there _is_ a simple solution, but I'll leave discovery to the
reader.
Jump to the chase, return of the exams. I did not quite get the grade
I initially expected, and in particular, my answer to this question was
marked wrong! I approached the bench at the end of class, in company
with one other student who it so happened had independently arrived at
the same conclusion, and repeated my previous experience: head shaking,
denial, eventual grudging acceptance, and no hint of delight that we
had discovered a simple solution to his problem. We had ruined it,
because he had intended it to be a elaborate intractable exercise in
"seeing how we thought", not the tractable trick question he had
inadvertently written.
Moral of the stories: when hiring a consultant, the consultee expects
at most a marginal or at least more complicated increment to his
previous work, one he had only missed because of lack of time and
expertise. This assuages his ego. He does not expect to be presented
with a grossly simpler solution, one which he simply missed but should
have been well within his time and expertise. This makes him feel like
a fool: well, one imagines cultural icons slapping themselves and
laughing delightedly, and shaking your hand -- but most men are not
cultural icons.
|
|