Think Out of the Box: Understanding + Examples + Experiences

[EngTechno]

How do you understand the word " Think out of the Box " ? give me some examples and your experience.

 

[derekmohammed]

This is a poor example but:
One day in one of my physics labs the prof came in and made everyone sit down in testing rows and told us we had a to take a very important test. This came to a shock to all of us since it was the beginning of the semester. Anyway when he finally handed out the tests they were acually two sheets of papers with horses on them. The objective of the test was to put the two horses together to make one horse. At first everyone thought it would be redicuously easy but we soon found out this was not the case.

ANYWAY! What I am trying to say is that we had to look at the papers much diffrently then we would ever imagine to get the image. I think that thinking outside of the box is looking at probems in a manner that most people don't see. This was the case with the horses...

 

[omicron]

How do you understand the word " Think out of the Box " ? give me some examples and your experience.

Lateral thinking?
For example, you need to think out of the box for this.
A man went to a party and drank some punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?
Hope I answered your question.

 

[russ_watters]

How do you understand the word " Think out of the Box " ? give me some examples and your experience.

Thinking outside the box is thinking in ways not normal for your line of work - its pattern breaking. Most jobs become repetitive very quickly, and your thinking regarding how to accomplish tasks quickly gets a well-defined envelope or box.

My job is a perfect example. I design air conditioning systems. If you've designed one office air conditioning system, you've designed them all. They're all the same. Or are they...? My boss prides himself on thinking outside the box (frankly, he's a bit of a kook): a significant fraction of our business is comes from fixing the mistakes of others who didn't think outside the box when the situation warranted it. One such job involves a typical office air conditioning system designed by an otherwise competent engineer who designs every system the same way (there is another engineer who we practically follow around in this way). The humidity in the building is upwards of 80% in the summer, curling papers, jamming copiers, and pissing off lawyers in wool suits. Why? The office is a title law office (people come into close on their houses), with unusually low and variable load. As a result, the system runs at partial capacity and the first thing to suffer when you run at partial capacity is humidity control.

Lateral thinking?
For example, you need to think out of the box for this.
A man went to a party and drank some punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?

That's easy: it was the shrimp cocktail, not the punch.

 

[omicron]

That's easy: it was the shrimp cocktail, not the punch.

That could be one. The question came with this answer: The poison in the punch came from the the ice cubes. When the men drank the punch, the ice was fully frozen. Gradually it melted, poisoning the punch.

 

[the_truth]

"Lateral thinking?
For example, you need to think out of the box for this.
A man went to a party and drank some punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?
Hope I answered your question."

The man could have poisonned the punch or they could have been poisonned by something else at the party, or something before the party
or by gas poisonning.

There are so many answers. You need to think out of the box omicron. You uncreative repeater of pithy phrases.


Thinking out of the box is indeed pattern breaking. Basically thinking in ways which others do not, it is the foudnations of genius. Every thought is concievably insane, it is just in which situation and which subsequent action your thought provokes which determines whether it is lunacy or genius. Thinking out of the box may also encompass your ability to choose which is the best method of thinking.

Is it better to stand and watch cars driving on a road to determine what speed limit is best for the road or better to use statistics and a map.





































or both ?

 

[omicron]

There are so many answers. You need to think out of the box omicron. You uncreative repeater of pithy phrases.

Maybe YOU need to think out of the box too! Did you consider that maybe I had limited time on the net. Anyway I never said it was wrong! I didn't even type " NO THAT'S WRONG"! Although I said it in a very vague way (and I apologise for that), what I meant was that it wasn't the "most satisfying answer" that you can get. I know that there are many possiblities which fit the initial conditions of the question, but only the canonical answer is truly satisfying! If people think of these questions for you to get boring answers (like poisoned by gas poisonning), then wheres the fun in it? HELLO? It is a lateral thinking question! For example. This one is a classic, some of you might know it.
There was a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave for work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half way up in the lift and has to walk the rest of the way unless it's raining. Why?
Answer: The man is very, very short and can reach only halfway up the elevator buttons. However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons with it.
Yes, there are many solutions to this. For example, the elevator doesn't operate on higher floors when it isn't raining (i know, that was dumb) and etc...etc... But the answer in white is much more "satisfying"!

 

[FZ+]

How do you understand the word " Think out of the Box " ?

The analogue of mutation in the evolution of knowledge.

 

[the_truth]

Oh noez!

And I wasn't looking for the most likely answer.. I am very impractical...


this means I am not a genius BUT A LUNATIC

 

[Rybo]

Outside a set of parameters that define the box concerned

How do you understand the word " Think out of the Box " ? give me some examples and your experience.

ENG, Similar to Russ pattern breaking the norm, I would say that very often times in my jack of all trades work that I artificially or superfially set my own parameters based on my past experiences and sometimes narrow set-of-ways of doing things.

Many times when confronted with some problems it is often a co-worker who is outside of my pattern of doing things or solving a problem this way or that way who has a totally differrent way of solving or approcahing the same problem.

I think it outside the box can often mean just a viewpoint from another angle, from a larger viewpoint, or smaller viewpoint i.e. the parameter or pattern defined box can, and often does, limit our thinking or viewpoint.

Rybo

 

[Moonbear]

When I hear the phrase, "think outside the box," the first thing that comes to mind is the person giving those instructions is an empty-headed administrator type who loves to use buzzwords/phrases. I'm pretty sure it has always meant, "Nobody else has been able to come up with a good solution, so whoever does come up with a good solution must be thinking differently."

Okay, okay, okay, if the instructions are issued by someone other than a beaurocratic (sp?) bubble-head, I think it means to think creatively. Don't come up with the same old answers everyone has already tried and failed with, find a new answer that might actually work. The reason I think it's an instruction only given by bubble-heads is that just telling someone to think outside the box, or to think creatively, etc, isn't going to make it happen. To continuously come up with new solutions to old problems is quite a talent, and to ocassionally come up with such solutions is probably more luck, part inspiration, a bit of hunch, and some unique background experience thrown in. I don't know if you can learn it or not.

 

[Moonbear]

My job is a perfect example. I design air conditioning systems. If you've designed one office air conditioning system, you've designed them all. They're all the same.

:rofl: I'm glad someone is thinking differently about that! I've decided that every HVAC system in every university building is the same. Never mind how many numbers are on the thermostat or whether they let you think you can change it or not; there are precisely two temperature settings: sauna and arctic. Today seems to be a sauna day, everything is hot and steamy inside. Yesterday it was arctic, dry and freezing. And every HVAC person you talk to says they have solved those problems with their design...they should be forced to live for a month in each building in which they've designed a system! But, I'm better off than most. At least if I fiddle with the dials on my thermostat enough, I can switch between arctic and sauna settings and achieve momentary comfort during the transitions, and haven't created an indoor thunderstorm yet; much better than when you're completely at the mercy of the building mechanics who decide what the temperature for the entire building will be and when to turn on boilers for the winter. :tongue:

 

[Andre]

I would say that thinking out the box is thinking outside the toolbox

 

[motai]

Thinking outside of the box, it reminds me of our calculus section on natural logarithmic integration. Kinda scary when the book tells us to "be creative" by messing up the integrand through addition and subtraction of random integers.

$$\int \frac {2x}{(x-1)^2}$$ and they turned it into:

$$\int \frac {2x - 2 + 2}{(x-1)^2}$$

What crazy randomness! Of course now I know what to look for *sometimes*, but when I first saw this problem I ended up staring at it for a long while. Definitely outside of the box. :grumpy:


Another outside-of-the-box situation is the entire "nailing jello to a tree" ordeal that is quite controversial around these parts.

 

[Moonbear]

Another outside-of-the-box situation is the entire "nailing jello to a tree" ordeal that is quite controversial around these parts.

I don't know about that. I'm pretty sure the easiest way to nail jello to a tree is to leave it in the box.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Thinking outside the box = you had better be right!

 

[Alkatran]

I loved designing the system that will be used in the estimation program I am working on for my job. When I started, the whole thing was limited to the houses in the catalog and all the 'items' in a house were stored on a HUGE spreadsheet (HUGE).

Well, one year later and the progress is amazing. The spreadsheet is still there but it's tottering on the edge of a very very deep cliff.

(The whole idea is to simply give an item a class (IE: Nail). It's a very simple concept but it wasn't in the program before and I had never heard of it before so...)


Also, I always love how I hear about some new idea and marvel at how it was thought up. I really wonder what the first guy to use a wheel, or a spear, was thinking. I also love how 'second order creating' as I call it is so simple.
You hear about a scooter modified for snow use and you think of modifying something else for snow use. Are you creative?

 

[brewnog]

I really wonder what the first guy to use a wheel, or a spear, was thinking.

Sack that, I want to know what the guy who discovered milk was thinking! There was definitely some serious outside-the-box thinking going on there.

 

[Alkatran]

Sack that, I want to know what the guy who discovered milk was thinking! There was definitely some serious outside-the-box thinking going on there.

Actually, I think it was a woman who figured that one out. duh

 

[Artman]

Thinking outside the box = you had better be right!

This is very true. Real T.O.T.B. can place you in areas that are unexplored and untested. This can be nerve-racking especially where other people's money is involved.

I too work with HVAC design, and I am currently working on a project that has me simultaneously excited and worried. I did a study on a site to remove a humidity problem. I arrived at several common solutions that were terribly energy wasteful, some that were efficient, but expensive. Then there was one that was eloquent, low first cost, solved multiple problems at once and has no equal that I can find currently in use! My client decided to go with that one, the experimental solution!

It's safe inside the box. Outside the box you have to check everything because you are hanging out there alone.

 

[Humbucker]

The electric guitar was invented in Waukesha,Wisconsin USA by a man named Lester Polfus.He was playing guitar at a burger joint for tips and not making enough money because of the volume of the patrons.
He went to his home and rigged a stylus from his family record player,attached it to his acoustic guitar to be heard above the din of the restaurant patrons.Les Paul is still around,kicking big ass.

Picture from his 90th birthday...

OUTSIDE IS A GOOD THING!

 

[scarecrow]

How do you understand the word " Think out of the Box " ? give me some examples and your experience.

Look at something in a different perspective.

 

[Peter Pan]

Lateral thinking?
For example, you need to think out of the box for this.
A man went to a party and drank some punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?
Hope I answered your question.

the poison was in the ice and the ice had not yet melted.

 

[DaveC426913]

By far, the best "think outside the box" visual metaphor is this very popular one:

Join these nine dots using only four straight lines, without lifting your pencil off the paper (it's normally done with pencil and paper. And no, there are no "tricks", no mangling of the wording or meaning).


.......
.......
.......



What makes it so great is that it's not a metaphor at all!

 

[Integral]

I firmly believe that the first, and key, step to thinking outside the box, is through understanding of where the box is. Without that knowledge you are simply guessing.

True innovation and "outside box" thinking occurs when someone is able to throughly understand the boundaries of what appear to be completely different boxes. Then, through this understanding, is able to see the not so obvious intersection of the boxes, thus apparently extending both boxes into previously unknown territory.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I firmly believe that the first, and key, step to thinking outside the box, is through understanding of where the box is. Without that knowledge you are simply guessing.

True innovation and "outside box" thinking occurs when someone is able to throughly understand the boundaries of what appear to be completely different boxes. Then, through this understanding, is able to see the not so obvious intersection of the boxes, thus apparently extending both boxes into previously unknown territory.

I agree completely. Nonsense is often assumed to be outside of the box thinking by those not well versed in box theory. Also a favorite of pseudo-outside-of-the-boxers is oversimplification.

 

[reasonmclucus]

In Galileo's day, scholars viewed the sun and stars going around the Earth because went they looked up those bodies appeared to go around the earth. Galileo literally looked at the situation from outside the box by watching the different heavenly bodies and calculating what they were doing from a different perspective.

Thinking outside the box means looking at something from a different persective or different assumptions. One of the problems in physics is a tendency to view reality as a Euclidian box with the three dimensions of length, width and height and maybe time. Physicists need to look at dimensions more as characteristics.

We tend to view reality as being of three dimensions because our eyes seem to see three dimensions. However, if you think about it we actually see more characteristics. We can see motion. We can see color and texture. We cannot see gravity, but we can feel it if we jump off a diving board.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Here are some of my favorite boxes: http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/15/4/2/1

 

[owl3951]

By far, the best "think outside the box" visual metaphor is this very popular one:

Join these nine dots using only four straight lines, without lifting your pencil off the paper (it's normally done with pencil and paper. And no, there are no "tricks", no mangling of the wording or meaning).


.......
.......
.......



What makes it so great is that it's not a metaphor at all!

Actually, this puzzle is THE origin of the phrase, "think outside the box." The reason is, in order to solve this puzzle, you must extend the lines of your solution past the perimeter of the "rectangle" that you may make in your mind out of the dots on the outside boundaries.

You will note that the instructions do not say stay inside the "lines." But that is what most people do in almost all of their thinking. They create artificial barriers for themselves, based upon assuming limitating factors that do not exist. Many people also assume, although the instructions do not so specify, that they may not cross over a line once they have drawn it. This assumption further highlights the manner in which people view their world.

The solution is attached, if I have managed to work out attachments correctly.

People who think outside the box tend to ask, "Why not?" instead of, "Why?" They see solutions when others cannot be bothered to see a problem or an opportunity.

Furthermore, if you are truly an out-of-the-box thinker, then you suffer ostracism most of the time. People do not want to know, nor do they want to see. It takes courage to keep proclaiming, "See? See!" to a world that mostly just wants to pass the time until they can get back to the bar. To most people, you are a misfit and troublemaker.

As for the comments in this thread some have made about creativity, there is one outstanding finding from those who have studied creativity.

Research has shown that the more diverse the backgrounds of the creative team (such as you might get with a salesperson, an engineer and a biologist),
the more productively creative they will be. The same principle applies to an individual. The more s/he knows about more areas (such as logic, Scripture, physics, chemistry and the behavioral sciences, for example), the more creative that physicist could be. Note: I chose these "areas" at random. True knowledge across any set of seemingly unconnected areas of knowledge would help the person be creative.

 

[courtrigrad]

is it just me or do you guys see white dots also?

 

[xJuggleboy]

is it just me or do you guys see white dots also?

The white dots are not part of the puzzle... They were probably put there for spacing.

THe box should be a equally spaced 3x3 grid of dots. Or if you prefer a visual... The numbers 1-9 on a calculator =-)