The Proximity To Genius Effect

submited by

Style Pass

2021-06-30 14:30:04

The student approached the master. "Master!" The student wailed, "My code always crashes when I reach this point!" The master was deep in thought. "Show me," she muttered. The student ran the code once more. Lo! It did not crash. "Thus," whispered the master, "is the proximity to genius effect demonstrated." And the student became enlightened.

For years, I've been talking about the "proximity to genius effect." It turns out, according to Google, I'm the only one who has heard of this term! (Or, at least, I'm the only one to have mentioned it on the Internet before.)

The effect is simple to explain - it's a form of Rubber Duck Debugging. When demonstrating a problem to a person, the issue resolves itself.

How many times has this happened to you? Just today I had a colleague ask me to find out why an HDMI cable wasn't working in a new monitor, I watched him open the Windows' config panel, click a few buttons and - lo! - the second monitor came to life.

A little latter, our top-notch designer couldn't get a site to load. "Have you tried it without the https?" I asked. "Yes! Look..."