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The Pink Unicorn | #Math
Nov. 7th, 2012 12:00 pmSince we're all chatting about math in the wake of the success of Nate Silver's model, I'd like to share an analogy that I use to explain the primacy of math to certain managers.
Every once in a while, I get a manager or business representative asking me for something that just isn't going to happen, for example, a program that predicts whether another program will halt. This is when I use the analogy of the pink unicorn.
For example: "To be blunt, I'd actually prefer it if you added a pink unicorn to the requirements."
After the puzzled look: "Well, here's the situation. What you're asking for, X, is just not possible. It's not that we can't do it on the resources we have, it's that X is mathematically impossible. The fundamentals of computing are that it cannot be done. On the other hand, a pink unicorn doesn't violate the laws of mathematics. As far as I know, it doesn't violate any natural laws, either. And while I've never seen one, and I'm pretty sure that no such thing exists, the fact that it's at least theoretically possible to deliver a pink unicorn makes it much more likely that I will deliver a pink unicorn than that I will deliver X."
This is usually an analogy that should be delivered with some honey.
Every once in a while, I get a manager or business representative asking me for something that just isn't going to happen, for example, a program that predicts whether another program will halt. This is when I use the analogy of the pink unicorn.
For example: "To be blunt, I'd actually prefer it if you added a pink unicorn to the requirements."
After the puzzled look: "Well, here's the situation. What you're asking for, X, is just not possible. It's not that we can't do it on the resources we have, it's that X is mathematically impossible. The fundamentals of computing are that it cannot be done. On the other hand, a pink unicorn doesn't violate the laws of mathematics. As far as I know, it doesn't violate any natural laws, either. And while I've never seen one, and I'm pretty sure that no such thing exists, the fact that it's at least theoretically possible to deliver a pink unicorn makes it much more likely that I will deliver a pink unicorn than that I will deliver X."
This is usually an analogy that should be delivered with some honey.
