I use the term “Lobster Math” to describe when a person learns something or can complete a task without knowing all of the intricacies or details normally required.

Good technical recruiters for example, can accurately judge a technical resume full of words they don’t understand as well or better than a technical person who deeply understands all of the words and the technologies. That’s lobster math.

Etymology: There’s a fellow named Devlin who believes that Lobsters (and other animals) must be doing complex math to go about their daily lives. He sites the way lobsters navigate as one of the examples he uses to illustrate that in order for humans to accomplish a similar feat, we would have to use complex math, therefore they may also be doing complex math at some level. Hence, Lobster Math.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 @ 8:28 pm on the category Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.