Coincidence

 

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, baby blue

Coincidence is God’s sense of humor

I have been musing on Pythagoras’ Theorem.  The Transportation Modeling Improvement Program included a post from someone who wanted to know whether he should get a Professional Engineering, PE, license.  In responding I was going to quote from the movie the Wizard of Oz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCOxU2rKLas. When given a diploma, e.g. a PE, the Scarecrow  quotes Pythagoras’ Theorem, and to me that is the coincidence.  

The Scarecrow had to already know that Theorem.  The Wizard's diploma only said that he could be trusted to know it.  Getting a PE does not add to your wisdom.  It does serve as a shorthand that others have tested your wisdom and it can be trusted.    The reality is that you had to already know Pythagoras’ Theorem BEFORE you get your “Doctor of Thinkology, Th.D.”,…. or a PE.  A PE says that your judgement has been judged by others.  It may be that you will someday be in a position where you are not known, and your opinion may have to be quickly judged.  In that case a PE may serve as that proof. Getting a PE to me is like giving Chicken Soup to a dead man.  Will it help?  It couldn’t hurt!