30 Days, 30 Problems- An Introduction

I just had a thought...

Which my co-workers probably know from the smoke that just started rising out of my ears.

Based on both an idea from a TED talk- do something new for an entire month- and the fact that tonight begins the Hebrew month of Elul, I've decided that I want to write something over the month. I'd considered fiction- but then reconsidered: I'm an engineer, and I like to fix things. So, what I want to do over the next 30 days is write 30 essays about how I'd fix 30 problems. These can be small or big problems- although anyone who knows me also knows I like to take on big things. I will write an essay- which comes from the French word meaning "attempt"- which proposes a solution for a single problem each day.

"My goal is simple: every day, take a single, discrete problem, and present a workable solution for it. The problem can't be too broad- "fix everything"- nor can the solution be impossble- "unicorns." It needs to be a clearly defined problem, and the solution that I propose to said problem must be clearly defined as well.

I'm fond of saying that complicated problems have simple, easy-to-understand, wrong answers. We as Americans- and humans in general, I'd suspect- are big fans of simple, easy-to-understand answers, and don't seem to particularly care whether or not they're right. I'm an engineer- that won't do for it. As Richard Feynman said, "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." Well, a corollary to that could be "if it doesn't agree with reality, it's wrong." American politicians- of all stripes- are fond of insisting that, if their favoured theories don't work, that it's proof, not that their theory was wrong, but that their theory hadn't actually been tried. Similarly, if a theory with which you disagree seems to work, you discredit it by attributing the success to something other than the theory itself. I could go into detail, but I don't want to begin this project by laying out any ideological markers. I'll wait until the first essay to do that. 

Off we go!