3210: Eliminating the Impossible

Eliminating the Impossible

|< < Prev #3210 (February 20, 2026)

Title text: 'If you've eliminated a few possibilities and you can't think of any others, your weird theory is proven right' isn't quite as rhetorically compelling.

|< < Prev Random Explanation

Transcript

This is one of 46 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[White Hat and Cueball are standing together and talking. White Hat has one hand slightly raised.]

White Hat: As Sherlock Holmes said,

White Hat: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

[Close-up of Cueball's head.]

Cueball: What about the possibility that you forgot to eliminate a possibility?

Cueball: Or that you eliminated one incorrectly?

Cueball: Both of those remain, too.

[Zoom back out to show both parties. Cueball is holding his arms out.]

White Hat: You're being pedantic.

White Hat: It's just a general rule for deduction.

Cueball: But it's a bad rule.

[Cueball is now holding up one finger.]

Cueball: How often have you thought, "I can't find this thing, and I've searched the whole house. The only place I haven't looked is the car, so it must be there."

White Hat: ...And then it's never in the car.

Cueball: It's never in the car!

  Add comment        Create topic (use sparingly)       Refresh 

Discussion

I’ve found that when looking for an item, I’ll search harder and more thoroughly in the places where the item is supposed to be, which is just frustrating and usually unsuccessful. Then I realized that if the item isn’t where it’s supposed to be, then it’s somewhere it isn’t supposed to be - so I start looking in those places. 170.64.111.76 20:51, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

It also assumes exclusion of the middle. MithicSpirit (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

These guys sure are some professors of logic (I'm not sure if they own any doghouses, is what I mean). Fephisto (talk) 21:07, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
        Add comment