Tips for Smart Thinking

31.10.2023

Kim Han-Soo
Lessons from Lighting Fire

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Analogy of lighting fire for you
• Sunlight, Cloudy, Moonlight, Candle light:
School, Teacher, Learning material
• Focused lens: your Attitude(Concentration/
Attention)
• Dried material: your Aptitude/Talent
Flow state
• You must have had an experience of losing
sense of time, self-consciousness and any-
thing that doesn’t have to do with your task
at hand, don’t you?
• The flow state is the experience of being so
absorbed by an enjoyable, engaging task
that your attention is completely held by it.
When and how do we enter into flow
state?
• Aim
• Love the process itself (sometimes, the
outcome itself is not the real concern)
• Within your personal capability
Correlation of task difficulty and your
capability
Small successes lead you to big success
Importance of Pattern Recognition
• Pattern recognition forms the basis of learning
and action for all living things in nature.
• Patterns are all around us - from human finger-
prints, zebra crossings, warm current flows in
oceans to the beautiful arrangement of a rose
bud.
• Pattern recognition is about the ability to make
connections between different pieces of informa-
tion. It is an essential skill that helps you in mak-
ing decisions in ambiguous situations.
• Pattern recognition skills strengthen our ability to
understand shapes, sequences, and systems
which kindles our imagination into the develop-
ment of innovative ways of thinking.
Patterns in our everyday life

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Patterns in animals’ behavior

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Patterns in Sport

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Patterns in Numbers
• 11 X 11 = 121
• 111 X 111 = 12321
• then 1111 X 1111 = ?
• 11111 X 11111 = ?
• There are 10 numbers of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 10.
• Make pairs of that sum has same amount.
• Then, can you calculate the sum of 1 to 10
easily?
• (1, 9), (2, 8), (3, 7), (4, 6) and 5 and 10.
• The sum of 1 to 10 is five 10s and 5 = 55
• Then, there are numbers from 1 to 100.
Can you find out the sum of 1 to 100
without calculator?
• How about the sum of 1 to 1000?
• The sum of 1 to 100 = fifty 100s and 50 =
5,050
• The sum of 1 to 1000 = five hundred
1000s and 500 = 500,500
Pattern in nature (Fractal)
• Fractal means any of various extremely ir-
regular curves or shapes for which any
suitably chosen part is similar in shape to
a given larger or smaller part when magni-
fied or reduced to the same size.
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Break your unconscious bias or bias
from stereotype
Unconscious bias from big numbers
• Circumference of the earth is around 40,075
km and radius of the earth is around 6,317
km.
• We have a string as long as 40,075 km to
enwrap the earth.
• If we want to enwrap with a string above 1
km of the earth, how long string do we need
additionally?
• What is your intuitive answer?
a) more than 10,000 km
b) less than10,000 km but more than
1,000 km
c) less than 1,000 km but more than 10
km
d) less than 10 km
• Recall that circumference of the circle is
• Then, how much do we need the addi-
tional length of string?
Unconscious bias toward linear correlation
but the real world is not so much linear
• How about the growth of your coding
skill?
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Lanchester strategy
• In order to vanquish an enemy that has es-
tablished a defensive position, you must
have 3 times as many troops.
• If the number of your aircrafts are 5 while
that of your enemy are 3 and the qualities of
you two are same, then the combative differ-
ence is not 2 but 4 (root 5 square minus 3
square).
Magic of Compound Interest Rates
(Power of Exponential Growth)
• The distance between the sun and the earth
is around 149,597,871 km. If we have a big
paper with the thickness of 0.1 centi meter,
how many times do we need to fold the
paper to half so as the height of paper get
to reach the sun?
a) 50 times b)5,000 times c) 5 million
times d) 5 billion times
• 2 power 2 = 4
•2 “ 3=8
•2 “ 10 = 1,024
•2 “ 20 = 1,048,576
•2 “ 30 = 1,073,741,824
•2 “ 50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
• Researchers discovered that covered area of
lotus expanded two-times day by day. They
found out that the pond is fully covered by
lotus in 48 days.

• Then, how many days are needed for half of

the pond is covered by lotus?
• simple interest Final value A = P(1 + rt)
• compound interest Final value A = P [ (1 +
r)n]
Bad is stronger than good
• Bad things produce larger, more consistent,
more multi-faceted, or more lasting effects
than good things.
• For example, psychologist found out that
the unhappiness of losing money is 4
times higher than joy of earning same
amount.
• First impression is very important in your
job career even if such judgments occur
very quickly and are based on the immedi-
ate, limited information that is available.
• If your boss happened to have negative
first impression on you, you have to work
5 times higher to reverse the impression.