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quantumaniac: The Candle Problem Given a book of matches, a box of thumbtacks, and a candle, how can you fix the candle to the wall so that its wax won’t drip onto the table below? See Answer Below Pin the box to the wall, put the candle in the box, and light it. In experiments, Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker found that most subjects instead tried to pin the candle directly to the wall or to use melted wax to affix it there (neither worked). Duncker called this “functional fixedness” — a “mental block against using an object in a new way that is required to solve a problem.” In this case, subjects had “fixated” on the box’s function as a container, which prevented them from considering it as a platform. If the box was empty at the start of the experiment, they were more likely to find the correct solution. In a 2000 study, psychologists Tim German and Margaret Defeyter found the 6- and 7-year-olds show signs of functional fixedness, but 5-year-olds appear immune to it: “Rather than taking into account only the properfunction of an object, they adopt and agents-goals view of function in which any intentional use of an object can be its function.” Read more

quantumaniac:

The Candle Problem

Given a book of matches, a box of thumbtacks, and a candle, how can you fix the candle to the wall so that its wax won’t drip onto the table below?

See Answer Below

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Genimage.jpg

Pin the box to the wall, put the candle in the box, and light it.

In experiments, Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker found that most subjects instead tried to pin the candle directly to the wall or to use melted wax to affix it there (neither worked). Duncker called this “functional fixedness” — a “mental block against using an object in a new way that is required to solve a problem.” In this case, subjects had “fixated” on the box’s function as a container, which prevented them from considering it as a platform. If the box was empty at the start of the experiment, they were more likely to find the correct solution.

In a 2000 study, psychologists Tim German and Margaret Defeyter found the 6- and 7-year-olds show signs of functional fixedness, but 5-year-olds appear immune to it: “Rather than taking into account only the properfunction of an object, they adopt and agents-goals view of function in which any intentional use of an object can be its function.”

Read more

(via fuckyeahpsychedelics)

arreter:

After the photographer Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes an article about the abandoned diamond mines in Namibia had read, he wanted to know more about the subject. On the Internet he found a few photos of a ghost town in the south of the country that was once a wealthy mining town. Fascinated by the desert, as she slowly swallowed the houses, Alvaro Sanchez-Montanes decided to go there ourselves. Locally, he came across ”the beauty in the abandoned, of the useless, of the time passing by.” From photographs of desert sand-filled interiors of the abandoned building was an impressive photo series “Desert Indoors”.

tomka:

I’m a big fan of this style of street art. I love the gritty texture and simple, quick nature of the pieces, as though the person has gone out with this character or tag or idea they’ve had and they’re travelling around and putting their thing up and keeping going. They’re always in some forgotten place, but beautiful. Also it links with the whole freight train moniker thing, I love the feel of those pieces and how they travel and it’s tied with the train system which I find fascinating and beautiful in its own way.

Image 1: Swampy

Image 2: Salts

Image 3: Other

(via fuckyeahswampdonkey)