I was reading an interview with Matthew E. May, one of the authors of this book where he said that “Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful”. Also he explained that while trying to catch an Elegance, we shall consider that “less is best” and there is “no best, only better” which means that improvement has to be continuous.
While reading I remembered an anecdote “The Russians used a pencil”: when NASA started to send their astronauts to space they discovered that usual ballpoint pens were not working in zero gravity. To solve this problem NASA engineers spent many years and billions of dollars to create a pen which could write “in zero gravity upside down underwater on almost any surface and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius”.
The Russians used a pencil instead: simple and elegant solution with insignificantly low cost.
Just give it a try,
Just give it a try,
Tatiana
It is a common mistake to miss good & useful things for us while seeking the best ones in private and business life as well.In my opinion, it is one of the strange characteristics of human being.In business life,most of us are always focused on finding,creating better &better things and are never satisfied with the things we find due to high and tough competition in every field of life and this leads us not to see some good things which in fact may bring solutions to our problems and thus make us happy.In private life, the situation is not so different.Many people put very high targets for themselves and are usually unhappy as they can not reach them and they think that they will be happy when everything goes well in life.In other words,always seeking high satisfaction and absolute happiness which very rarely happen in real life.
YanıtlaSilI heard the story about the pencil when I was in Russia and I have always told it to people in Turkey and Albania as one of the best witty jokes I have ever heard. Yes, it is right to say “Something is elegant if it is two things (even more if possible) at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful”. As I have written in my post 'perfection is in simplicity'. But if it is unusually simple and surprisingly powerful, it is even better.
YanıtlaSili found it interesting ,the story of the pencil.
YanıtlaSilThank you Tatiana,