An international conference was being held where various specialists of their respective fields were called upon. The invitation list ranged from engineers, physicists, sociologists to philosophers and logicians. They were all gathered to answer a crucial and groundbreaking complex scientific question.
The mediator poses the complex scientific question, “What is two times two?” to start the conference. Upon posing the question, the entire hall was disrupted in tiny pockets of discussion among peers of their own specialized communities. Sociologists brainstorming with sociologists, engineers with engineers, and others with their kin.
After a long shuffle, an engineer abruptly stood up with a ruler on his hand drumming over his palm and answered confidently that the answer is 3.99!
Immediately, a mathematician took it upon himself to represent his peers and answered, “I don’t exactly know the answer to the question, but I can say with absolute certainty that an absolute answer exists.”
While these two were announcing their answers, a physicist was computing the solution for the complex problem and came up with a solution that he presented in front of everyone, saying, “The answer lies somewhere between 3.98 and 4.02.”
Soon after, other scholars started providing their own answers beginning with a logician requesting, “Could you define 2 times 2 more clearly?”.
A philosopher soon followed, while seated with his legs crossed on the desk in front of him, by asking back at the conference, “What do you actually mean by 2 times 2”?
A cheery sociologist who was having the loudest discussion in the entire hall made an honest outroar to the conference proclaiming, “I don’t know the answer to your question, but I can say that it made for an excellent conversation, and we all loved it.”
With his usual smug confidence, a behavioral ecologist approached the crowd and said, “This whole conundrum felt like a polygamous mating system.”
Finally, when everyone was done providing their opinions, a medical student stood up among the crowd and said, “4!”
The entire auditorium was suddenly filled with a stunned silence with hundreds of eyes gazing at the young student. Then, curious, the geniuses gathered there asked the medico, “How did you know that”?
The medical student said, “I memorized it.”