The interesting number paradox is a simple way to reinforce that sometimes the best way to prove something is to actually prove its contrary. My curiosity about interesting numbers stemmed from a variety of online chatter about how the year 2025 was mathematically interesting: The concept of interestingness is not actually defined mathematically but is…
The parable of the Zen farmer reminds us to avoid hasty generalizations. In both life and in business, when an unexpected good or bad event happens, it’s common to quickly assess the situation and then jump to a conclusion. When things go well, we’re overjoyed. But when things don’t turn out as we’d hoped, we’re…
People drink more wine when larger wineglasses are used. In fact, research finds wine sales increase almost 10% with larger glasses. It’s well known larger plates increase food consumption. Plate sizes have nearly doubled over the past 100 years, likely contributing to the prevalence of obesity. An even more pronounced effect has happened to stemware:…
Since it’s so easy to fall prey to them, it’s no surprise cognitive biases are rampant in politics. The most common bias in politics is the confirmation basis. The confirmation bias is the tendency to look for or interpret information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs or assumptions. We not only don’t look for…
Ever feel like time speeds up as you get older? In the book “Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies” Professor Adrian Bejan makes the case there is good reason we feel this way. Perceived time, sometimes called mind time, is different from clock time. Our perception of time changes as we age. For example,…
Fictitious promotions work because people love to feel like they got a deal. In one common type of fictitious promotions, a retailer raises the price of an item just before a sale and then “promotes” the product by claiming the original price is now the sales price. The Wall Street Journal article entitled “The Dirty…
Travel changes you in multiple ways: from how you interact with others to the way you think and make decisions. Travel might even make you healthier or more successful in business. Let’s examine the evidence… A 2013 research study compared the personalities of college students who studied abroad for at least one semester with those…
Have you ever written a common word and momentarily questioned whether you spelled it correctly? If so, you might have experienced jamais vu. You’ll notice I wrote jamais vu, not the more common expression déjà vu. Déjà vu (French for “already seen”) is the feeling we’ve experienced something before when it’s actually new to us….
Despite the common saying, the early bird may not get the worm. The phrase ‘the early bird gets the worm’ suggests there is an advantage for doing something before anyone else. It’s so familiar that it’s often shortened to early bird; a term which can be used in the sense of getting up early (She’s…
It might be time to debunk the Dunning-Kruger effect. For those who may not be familiar, in the 1990s Cornell University professors David Dunning and Justin Kruger conducted a now-famous experiment to test whether incompetent people were unaware of their incompetence. In the study, the lowest-scoring participants estimated they did better than 62% of everyone else, while the highest-scoring…