Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

There’s an idiom in the English language dedicated to this idea: Curiosity killed the cat. Or as Russians say with far more dramatic flair, “The nose of curious Barbara was torn off at the market.”12 These idioms, according to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, are “used to warn of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation.” Curiosity, in cats or in Russian market-goers, isn’t just annoying or inconvenient. People who ask questions or pose thought experiments aren’t just pesky troublemakers who can’t be satisfied with the status quo. They’re downright dangerous. As the renowned Hollywood producer Brian Grazer and his coauthor Charles Fishman write, “The child who feels free to ask why the sky is blue grows into the adult who asks more disruptive questions: Why am I the serf and you the king? Does the sun really revolve around Earth? Why are people with dark skin slaves and people with light skin their masters?”13