Lateral thinking

Lateral thinking is a term coined by writer/psychologist Edward de Bono, who first used it in his 1967 book, The Use of Lateral Thinking, to describe creative and perceptual thinking – the kind computers can’t do. For example:

• Some are groaners: How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it? Easily. Concrete floors are really hard to crack.


• Others require us to imagine possibilities. A group of early explorers came to a wide, deep river. There was no bridge, and they did not have boats or material for making boats. Nor could any of them swim. How did they get across? We are often given problems like this in which we fail to ask all the questions that might give us pertinent information. They walked across because the river was frozen.
  

You can order the book these examples are from, Paul Sloane’s Improve Your Lateral Thinking, Puzzles to Challenge Your Mind, by clicking here.

The amazing Scott Kim
Brain Aerobics Weekly has also featured the amazing work of creative thinker Scott Kim whose website is http://www.scottkim.com/ and who first wrote Inversions – a book of names (like “dance” above) that read the same right side up, in the mirror and upside down – more than a dozen years ago. To order, Inversions, click here. His most recent project is Brainteasers, Mind Benders, Puzzlers, Mazes & More Page-A-Day Calendar 2009. To order, click here.