Bohr and Einstein turned to each other to stress-test their opinions because the men were too close to their perspectives to see their own blind spots. “One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination,” Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling once observed, “is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.” This is why in Contact, Arroway yells “Make me a liar, Fish,” asking her colleague to prove her wrong.
