Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies for Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

Consider Clever Hans the horse.48 Hans was the closest thing a horse could come to a rocket scientist. He became a worldwide sensation for his ability to perform basic math. Its owner, Wilhelm von Osten, would ask the audience for a math problem. Someone would shout out, “What is six plus four?” and Hans would tap his hoof ten times. His ability went beyond addition. He could subtract, multiply, and even divide. People suspected fraud, but independent investigators found no foul play. It was a young psychology student named Oskar Pfungst who figured out what was really going on. Hans could find the right answer only if he could see the human questioner. His mathematical genius disappeared if he was wearing blinders or otherwise couldn’t see the human intermediary. In the end, it was the human questioners who were unwittingly providing cues to the horse. As Stuart Firestein writes, “People would tense the muscles of their body and face at the beginning of Hans’s answer and release the tension when he arrived at the correct hoof tap.” Remarkably, even after Pfungst discovered Hans’s secret, he couldn’t prevent himself from unconsciously giving cues to the horse. As long as he knew the answer, Pfungst’s demeanor would involuntarily shift when Hans arrived at the correct hoof tap.