A total of 15 delegates from Africa, Asia, America and Europe meet at an international conference. Each continent sends a different number of delegates and each is represented by at least one delegate. America and Asia send a total of 6 delegates. Asia and Europe send a total of 7 delegates. Which continent has sent 4 delegates?
When I saw the problem, my mind seemed to simultaneously consider America, Asia and Europe. And when I saw the numbers 6, 7 and 4, my mind automatically zeroed in on the number 4 and by lateral thinking I assigned the number 4 to Asia as it was the common continent in the two data. Then I just happened to try whether it would work if by the ensuing obviously logical deduction that America sends 2 and Europe sends 3. So if Asia=4, America=2 and Europe=3, evidently Africa must be 6. It seemed so simple!
Then when I looked at the answer, this is what I see:
How many delegates are from Asia? Since they make a total of 6 with those from America which has at least sent 1, they can be 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. Three would be impossible since it would yield an equal number of delegates from America. 1 would yield 5 from America, 6 from Europe and hence 3 from Africa. This would be impossible, for one continent has sent 4 delegates. Two would yield 4 from America, 5 from Europe and 4 from Africa, which is impossible because Asia and America would have the same number.
How complicated the whole thing seems! Yes, the answer is infallible. But just to be doubly sure you are right and have eliminated all the other logical possibilities, is it worth the amount of trouble? But people scarcely seem to take the trouble when it concerns the problems of life. Take my friend for instance who readily betrays without a trace of fear. In fact after reading the above answer, I felt worried whether I had not considered any of the other logical possibilities. Then I felt how foolish of me! - When I've got the right answer.
Now I realize that most of the lateral thinking is divinely inspired. I wonder whether if one sets out to cultivate lateral thinking by reading books and practicing from them, one would really be successful!
Could my dismal failure in mathematics be a divine gift? Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev talks about cooking and child rearing. He says that a commercial establishment in Coimbatore tested several formulations in various percentages of rice and urad dal and pounded rice in an effort to get delectably soft idlis when cooked. He rightly says that it sounds stupid. His grandmother prepared soft, fluffy idlis every time she tried them out and all through her life. She simply seemed to know! He says that Man knows these things if only he would trust his intuition. It is only when you logically try to deduce an answer and by analysis, proceeding carefully step by step that these problems arise. You don't seem to know anything at all.
Jaggi also talks about an experience he had in the west. He came upon a book on child rearing and as he kept browsing through he saw among other stupid and irrelevant inanities, a direction to hopeful mothers that when a baby is 3 months old, the mother has to kiss the baby a specified number of times (say 45) in a day. So as he says, if from morning to evening she has been busy and decides to go by the book, she will have to kiss the baby 45 times between 6nd 7 p.m. Before the advent of the ulta-modern age, mothers seemed to know when a baby needed a kiss and not deserved a kiss!
To conclude I put forth two common quotes:
Reason takes you from point A to point B. Imagination takes you everywhere !
I don't know why but I give another quote that rings similarly:
Good girls go to heaven! Bad girls go everywhere !
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