Signals and Noise:
The Importance of
Looking Closely and Listening Carefully
This iconic Sherlock Holmes illustration by Sidney Paget (1860-1908) first appeared in the December 1892 Strand Magazine. Captioned in the magazine as "Holmes gave me a sketch of the events," it shows the duo riding in a train on their way to investigate the disappearance of the race horse Silver Blaze and the "curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Padget established the classic images of Holmes and Watson in the public imagination and was responsible for introducing the deerstalker cap as an icon for Holmes.
“When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning, I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”
“Quite so,” he answered, leaning forward intently. “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to our rooms.”
“Frequently.”
“How often?”
“Well, some hundreds of times.”
“Then how many are there?”
“How many? I don't know.”
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
--Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892
In the excitement and rush to solve Breakout challenges, teams often follow a mistaken idea or miss a clue and have to come back to the objects and artifacts to begin again.
Taking note of instructions and guidance at the beginning of the Breakout session and examining each card, artifact, note, webpage, video clip, animation, or puzzle with care can often yield important clues and shortcuts. Thinking like a detective makes you a detective, able to notice and draw inferences about the meaning of what you have observed.
The placement of images and text in a certain form or order may create subtle signals to help show the way to a solution. While these are not codes, ciphers, or secret writing, the way words, letters, numbers, colors, or objects in images are arranged are a form of communication you can tune in to by looking closely and listening carefully.
Taking note of instructions and guidance at the beginning of the Breakout session and examining each card, artifact, note, webpage, video clip, animation, or puzzle with care can often yield important clues and shortcuts. Thinking like a detective makes you a detective, able to notice and draw inferences about the meaning of what you have observed.
The placement of images and text in a certain form or order may create subtle signals to help show the way to a solution. While these are not codes, ciphers, or secret writing, the way words, letters, numbers, colors, or objects in images are arranged are a form of communication you can tune in to by looking closely and listening carefully.
illustrations by Sidney Paget (1860-1908)