An urban legend from 1958 features the 1922 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Niels Bohr, with another 1908 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Ernest Rutherford, who is said to have mediated with Bohr’s physics teacher. But the dates do not coincide, so this story could not have existed.
Whatever, beyond this fable what is interesting to remember is its fall and therefore its moral: don’t limit yourself to a single solution, don’t be where you are expected to be, have several strings to your bow to answer the same problem.
What does this anecdote say?
At the beginning of the last century, around 1905, when Niels Bohr, the future Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1922 for his work in Quantum Physics, was still a university student, his physics teacher submitted the following subject to his students: “Give yourself a barometer and stand at the foot of a building, and use the barometer to measure the height of the building.”
However, this teacher, on reading the answer to Niels Bohr’s paper, decided to give him a mark of…0. Niels Bohr categorically refused this mark and told his teacher that he deserved a 20/20 mark because his answer was scientifically correct. In order to resolve this conflict, the professor submitted the problem to Sir Ernest Rutherford – himself a 1908 Nobel Prize winner in Physics for his work on the atomic nucleus – and asked him to mediate between the student and his professor. Rutherford agreed and summoned Niels Bohr to investigate further.
When asked “what did you say about this subject that you thought deserved a 20/20 mark? “Niels Bohr replied: “I go up to the roof of the building, attach the barometer to a rope, having taken care to measure it and including its length in the rope, lower the rope until the barometer touches the ground, once the ground of the building is reached I mark the height, all that remains is to measure the rope and I have the height of the building!”
In physics, the answer is absolutely correct but logically teachers expected a more…scientific answer to this statement. So, Ernest Rutherford proposed to Niels Bohr to isolate himself for 10 minutes and to give him the answer expected by the teachers in order to demonstrate his real skills in physics. Niels Bohr agreed and did so. We can see him silently focusing on finding the best possible answer.
Before the 10 minutes were up, Niels Bohr returned to submit his result. His answer became: “I stand at the top of the building and drop the barometer into the void, I time the time of its fall and I apply the formula of the fall of bodies to determine the distance covered in the time of its fall – namely, for information, the formula that we owe to Galileo for several centuries: h = 1/2 . g.t² , where h = height, g = gravitation (or more precisely the acceleration of the earth’s gravitational field) and t = time in seconds, and considering also that only the weight of the barometer is considered without any air resistance – and thus measure the size of the building. In the physical sciences this is undoubtedly an excellent answer. It is therefore natural that Niels Bohr should get a 20/20.
However, this was still not the answer the professors had expected. Ernest Rutherford was more curious and asked Niels Bohr if he had another answer to give. And Niels Bohr declared that he even had several! For example: “Having measured the height of the barometer, I place it next to the building in the sun and measure the height of the shadow of the barometer as well as that of the building and by applying Thales’ theorem this time (h =b.si/sb, with b = height of the barometer, si = height of the shadow of the building and sb = height of the shadow of the barometer), we obtain the height of the building”.
Niels Bohr then provides other answers, each more incongruous and funny than the last: “We repeat the first experiment, still attaching the barometer to the end of the rope, and lower it until it touches the ground. There, we swing the rope exactly like a pendulum and by measuring the period of oscillation – the time it takes the barometer to go back and forth – we use the pendulum formula to determine the length of the rope (h =t².g / 4π² )! Or, “I measure the height of the barometer and then stand at the foot of the steps of the building from the ground floor. There I stack the height of the barometer one on top of the other and carry this over to the roof of the building and there I find the height of the building, just add up this height to the top by taking the stairs! Or finally, to prove his humour: “I’ll knock on the concierge’s door and tell him that if he gives me the exact height of the building according to the architect’s plans, I’ll give him this magnificent barometer! ”
At the end of all these answers, and after having laughed at them at times, Ernest Rutherford said to him: “That’s all very well, but unfortunately it’s not the answer we were expecting…”. So Niels Bohr replied: “I know very well the answer you are waiting for, you want me to measure with the barometer the atmospheric pressure at the bottom of the building, I measure the atmospheric pressure at the top of the building, I calculate the difference in pressure and I use a formula which allows me to measure the height of the building according to the difference in pressure. And I know this formula obviously but I’m just tired of being told how I should think! ”
What does this story tell us? How can we put it in the context we are interested in?
Although false, this anecdote is told in science universities, in physical science books or in scientific journals. In general, it is put forward to explain the approach we need to have in quantum mechanics, of which Niels Bohr was one of the fathers. It is likely that Niels Bohr, given his real personality, was not one to be dictated to.
Just like him, don’t let your solution be dictated, be inventive! In negotiation, as in management, there are always several possible answers, several solutions to put forward for the benefit of your interlocutor and yourself.
Be where you are not expected, use your imagination. The interest of negotiation, sales or management is that the context is always changing. Whatever new data is added to the situation, there are always several solutions available to you and you can anticipate them. That’s what makes these subjects so interesting, no two situations are alike. Even when things go wrong, you can always bounce back and turn the situation around to your advantage.
What we need to remember is that we always have to be armed, to have a proposal, a plan A but if possible a plan B, C or even D in order to be able to bounce back and take advantage of new elements and find, where we saw little commitment, a solution that will bring us an unexpected gain. As the saying goes, “every cloud has a silver lining”.
So be like Niels Bohr, where you are not necessarily expected and do not let your way of thinking, your relationship with the person you are talking to and, above all, the solution you put forward, dictate. Yours is always the best!
