Abstract
A gedanken (from the German) is a thought experiment, a hypothesis that is evaluated in the mind. There can be many reasons to perform a gedanken. One is that the actual experiment is too difficult or even impossible to perform. Many great discoveries are made with or start from a gedanken. Albert Einstein wondered how a light beam would look if he could travel right beside it, and this led to the development of special relativity. In 300 B.C., Euclid proved that there was infinitude of primes just by thinking and wondering, which is perhaps the most impressive gedanken of all. Euclid simply wondered, “What if there was a highest prime number?”
He who thinks little errs much.
– Leonardo da Vinci
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© 2014 Springer-Verlag London
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Meyer, E.F., Falkner, N., Sooriamurthi, R., Michalewicz, Z. (2014). Perform a Gedanken: “What If?” and “So What?”. In: Guide to Teaching Puzzle-based Learning. Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6476-0_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6476-0_10
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