Sherlock Holmes (was Re: VMs: Operators)

[Bruce Grant <bgrant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Graham Waddingham wrote:
> Ok so its not a great example, but as Holmes might
> say, when you've
> ruled everything out, whatever's left, however improbable, must be
> the
> solution.
Off-topic aside: I would guess that this is the most widely cited piece
of technique from the Holmes bag of tricks, but I always wonder when I
hear it if anyone has ever successfully figured something out in this way,
for a couple of reasons:

1.    It seems like it would be impossible of come up with _every_ possible solution in order to rule all but one of them out (you only have to miss one for the whole thing to fall apart.).

2.    The other explanations don't always _stay_ ruled out - for example, two theories which were considered ridiculous 50 years ago - that the continents were contiguous and moved apart, and that the Moon was formed by a collision of the Earth with another planet-like body - are now the accepted scientific explanations.

Bruce Grant