HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI

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HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI?

• Presented by LEE Sung Hwan
• Due Date 2003/11/10

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Introduction

• Book Name How would you move Mount Fuji?
• Authors
• William Poundstone - is a self proclaimed visual
  artist who writes books as a "day job." He has
  authored nine books--two of them, The Recursive
  Universe, and Labyrinths of Reason, were
  nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
• Quick summary
• In this book, Poundstone reveals for the first
  time more than 35 of the puzzles and riddles,
  that Microsoft poses to prospective employees,
  including Why does a mirror reverse right and
  left but not up and down? If you could eliminate
  one U.S. state, which would it be? How would you
  make an MM? How many piano tuners are there in
  the world? Anyone in business, and everyone who
  wants to be, will find here a valuable new
  approach to hiring, identifying talent in an
  organization, and getting the job of a lifetime.
• Ref http//weatherhead.cwru.edu/boldthinkers/p
  oundstone.htm

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The Impossible Question(1/2)

• Chance to survive the Russian roulette..
• How many piano tuners are there in the world?
• You have eight balls. One of them is defective,
  meaning that it weighs more than the others. How
  do you tell, using a balance, which ball is
  defective in two weighings?
• Does the sun always rise in the east?
• How long would it take to move Mount Fuji?
• etc

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The Impossible Question(2/2)

• Do these questions have the right answer? NO.
  Sometimes it does, but in many cases, you are
  asked to think logically, step-by-step and to
  express your solution in correct words.
• The purpose of these interviews to hire the most
  creative and intelligent people it could, so they
  use puzzles to see into the thought processes of
  their prospective hires.

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Conclusion

• The Problem Solving method is similar to the
  system engineering in a way that both have their
  goals to optimize the total system definition and
  design.
• Problem Solving is indispensable for System
  Engineering its method or approach to an element
  is also imperative to System Engineering.
• Both are very practical studies it applies
  directly to human, for human.
• (from the first reading presentation on Problem
  Solving, 2003/10/8)
• Relationship between the Problem Solving and this
  book?
• Everything. To me, what the recruiter expects to
  the interviewee is the same as the purpose of
  Problem Solving. It implies logics, intelligence
  and creativity, three facts that are essential
  these days in Engineering. (and everywhere)

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END OF PRESENTATION