The owl and the centipede

Today we reach number eight in my designer’s list. This position is held by Nikolai Nikolaievich Policarpov (1892 – 1944) another prominent Russian. Policarpov was part of the design team of many aircrafts during the 20’s and 30’s, but his name is well remembered for the I-16 design, the first low wing cantilever monoplane with retractable landing gear. This man’s life was an epic story; after failing in the design of the I-6, a program that had been weirdly managed by a Soviet ‘’genius’’, he was condemned to death by the Stalin’s regime, along with more than 400 of his team engineers. I’m glad that things have changed (at least I hope so).

Therefore in my top ten ranking, position 8 goes to Policarpov.

In this week’s entry we will change course and deal with something completely different, although it is, in a certain way, related to the engineering groups that keep alive, what I called last week, the dynamic knowledge of big companies.

The language is a very diverse and subtle thing, but in our daily use we tend to liken concepts that are actually different. We will discuss today about the genius and the brilliance.

When we are born, nature gives us all a series of abilities that are randomly distributed. These abilities are given to us and one of these is the ability of being brilliant (of course, this is referred to any aspect of an individual’s personality, but I will focus on the professional area).

This ability is something that everybody has, but like many others, has to be polished and build up with a daily effort. A person will be, or not, brilliant at his activities as a result of his ability, but essentially because of his efforts, his dedication, his success and, even more important, his experience acquired from the failures.

On the other hand, the genius is something that’s given. It is a gift, over which we have no control at all. You have it or you don’t. People gifted with the spark of the genius are probably the ones that determine the course of mankind, but they certainly do not keep the world moving.

A genius is a lonely person. His mind wanders from one point to other and his ideas or thoughts do not have to be demonstrable. But it is assumed that the “exposition” to them can enlighten the other’s way.

I will give you an example. I, personally, feel bothered when somebody says that Leonardo da Vinci is the original father of the aircraft or the helicopter.

Leonardo, and at this point I believe that everybody will agree, is the archetype of the genius, but the real fathers of the aircraft were two brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, modest bicycle builders of Ohio, while the rotary wing aircrafts authorship is held, after long efforts and a lot of creativity, by Juan de la Cierva (a Spanish civil engineer) and Igor Sikorsky a Russian immigrant in the USA that in 1908, when he heard of the Wright brothers, said “in the last twenty four hours I have decided to change my life’s work. I will do aviation for my living”.

And this is the important difference. The last mentioned people had an aim and they invested their time, their efforts and their money in carrying out their ideas and realize them into something tangible.

Being a genius does not require any effort. It is something that flows out in a spontaneous way. On the contrary, being brilliant is a hard way, full of uncertainties that doesn’t always lead you to the expected destination.

The genius is a tormented person, who aware of his own geniality, looks to the rest of the world disdainfully because he doesn’t find equals around. Brilliant people look after equals and find others that like them who need to share these short ecstasy moments that occur when the result of their work is finally visible.

This has even more consequences. If you let two geniuses work together, you will obtain the same result as if they would be working separately. Opposite, if you do the same with two brilliant people, the results will be considerably better than if they would work separately. This is due to the fact that people like this are able to feed back their ideas, their knowledge and their experiences in a natural way. Let’s say that they vibrate in resonance.

This is the reason why, when we talk about genial ideas or persons, we have to be very careful, because we could experience something similar to the tale of the centipede and the owl.

A centipede was walking in the forest, limping hardly when he met his old friend, the rabbit. He asked:

What is wrong with you, you look bad and you limp a lot

The centipede answered

You know, I suffer from arthritis and with a hundred legs, you can figure out yourself how painful this is

The rabbit thought a while and then told his friend:

I think you should go and talk to the owl that lives in the tree over there. He is the wisest animal in the forest and for sure he will be able to give you a solution

The centipede accepted the rabbit’s advice and he went to the tree where the owl lived. After the polite introduction, the centipede told the owl his problem. The owl kept silent for a while and finally answered the centipede:

The subject you bring up is very interesting and has a difficult solution. I need to go through it tonight. Come back tomorrow and I will be able to give you an answer

The centipede went away very happy looking forward for the next day, with the hope that the wise owl could finally cure his illness.

The next day the centipede returned to the owl’s tree as they had agreed the day before.

Could you find an answer to my problem? He asked

The owl happily answered:

Of course I did. After thinking about the problem the whole night and considering all possible options, I solved your problem. The fact is that you cannot walk, so what you should do is to fly

The centipede was completely puzzled and asked the owl:

And how could I fly?

The owl, without feeling perturbed, answered:

My friend, I gave you the solution, the way how you implement it, is up to you

So, there are we again.

As this week anybody has tried to give us a possible solution to last week's engineering challenge, we are going to give you one more week to try. In any case next week we will post the solution we gave.
The link still is:

http://engineers-corner.dip-solutions.com/Problem_2.pdf

A thought:
Anything is possible if you have no idea of what you are talking about.

Short version:
Paper can support anything.

See you!

Be brave

Visit www.dip-solutions.com  for more information of what we do.