Nó là đáng ngạc nhiên những điều đã bung ra, những điều đáng ngạc nhiên mà tôi đã học được. Tôi luôn luôn tò mò, luôn luôn hy vọng. Tôi vẫn thường vịt của một cuộc họp văn phòng để xem những gì khách truy cập một số trông giống như và để tìm hiểu những gì ông muốn. | 12 Test your assumptions If a man begins with certainties he shall end in doubts but if he will be content to begin with doubts he will end with certainties. Francis Bacon Einstein is famous for making one assumption and thinking out its implications. Let me assume he said to himself that I am riding on the back of a sunbeam travelling though the universe with the speed of light. How would things look to me The eventual result was the General Theory of Relativity. By it Einstein led us to the knowledge that planets and stars move not because they are influenced by forces 61 The Art of Creative Thinking coming from other bodies in the universe but because of the special nature of the world of space and time in the neighbourhood of matter. Light-rays may travel straight for example in the vast interstellar spaces but they are deflected or bent when they come within the field of influence of a star or other massive body. Making conscious assumptions like that one is a key tool in the tool chest of a creative thinker. You are deliberately and temporarily making a supposition that something is true. It is like making a move in a game of chess but still keeping your hand on the piece so that you can replace it if you do not like the implications of the half-made move. No great discovery is made without a bold guess said Isaac Newton. I have emphasized the words above in italics because this kind of exploratory thinking does need to be sharply distinguished from thinking based upon unconscious assumptions or preconceptions. We have all had the experience of taking something for granted as the basis for opinion or action and then subsequently finding that we had made an assumption -probably an unconscious one - that was unwarranted. Watch out for these preconceptions They are like hidden sandbanks outside the harbour mouth. Preconceived ideas are the ones you entertain before actual knowledge. The really dangerous ones are those below your level of awareness. For we take .
