Holmes and Reasoning Maths!

 

Sherlock Holmes and Reasoning Math!

Welcome literature-math detectives,

 

Trust me, I will make it least boring regardless of your connection to the two disciplines within discussion today. This day I would like to present a comparative spot between literature and competitive mathematics.

 

How many of us love Sherlock Holmes series?

How many of us have heard of Sherlock and Dr. Watson?

 

Almost all of us, yeah. Thanks to the genius, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! One among the Sherlock Holmes novels is ‘A Study in Scarlet’. I have extracted a few lines for us from the conclusion of that novel. Let’s take a look at that.

Images and Quotations are both available. This conversation happens between Sherlock and Dr. Watson. (The following lines do not contain spoilers of the novel).

 

“I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.” “I confess,” said I, “that I do not quite follow you.” “I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.” “I understand,” said I. “Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find everything else for yourself.”(138)

 

Now as you have read and seen, you might probably be wondering about how this drop is going to gel with mathematics. Let me break it down for you. The paragraph above talks about the significance of reasoning backwards. Most of us, many times stumble in our heads because we fail to understand the ethics of analytics. Do you know that ancient Chinese literature was mostly written backwards? One contemporary example, Author Dan Brown admitted in one of his earlier interviews that he spins the tale from climax to beginning to make it more compulsive and interesting. (Dan’s father is a great mathematician. Just mentioning…)

As a college student until a few months ago, one example that I can practically illustrate here is as follows. Most of my fellow students solved problems with huge numbers but hated verbal and logical reasoning, especially blood relations. Their major threat claim was that the whole sentence confused them. The confusion is actually a guide rather than the hindrance. The element of confusion is the purpose of difficulty set by the examiner. This is where reasoning backwards helps. Let me explain with a question.

Read the question? Happy if you found the answer. For the ones scratching your heads yet, read it backwards. Not literally, just break the clues into smaller phrases.

Let the question wait.

1)   The last phrase we have is ‘wife of my husband’. Put yourself into Veena’s shoes. ‘Who is the wife of my husband?’ ME! Yes, that’s what Veena would say too. So, Veena is the answer.

2)   The last second phrase we have is ‘the son of the wife’. If Veena is the wife then the son mentioned here is? Yes! It is Veena’s son.

3)   The last third phrase we have is ‘the sister of the son’. If the son is Veena’s son and he has a sister, who is that sister to Veena? (My son’s got a sister. That sister is my daughter!) The sister here is Veena’s daughter.

4)   Very first phrase, ‘She (Niranjana) is the sister’. The sister is Veena’s daughter. Niranjana is Veena’s daughter. NO! Don’t tick option D in the question yet. Wait!

5)   Now the question! Where verbal reasoning crucially cuts in. The question is, ‘How is Veena related to Niranjana?’ We found that Niranjana is Veena’s daughter. Putting it the other way, Veena is Niranjana’s????

6)   MOTHER!!! That is the answer.

I accept that it was way too a deeply explained example. Still, we have muggles who wish the apple tree fell on Newton’s head instead of the apple so as to escape learning about gravity. To the same muggles, who ask why we should interpret that Veena is Niranjana’s mother after six points it is just to boost the reasoning part of your mind. The reason why blood relation as a part of verbal and logical reasoning is important is because, well who knows? You might be the next beloved detective who solves corrupted crimes of today’s world. You need the reasoning exercise to enhance your skills.

Gracias!