Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Go to the optimum, then back off a quarter turn on the knob. There you are.

One principle of technology and systems in general is not to operate at the extreme. Go to the extreme, but move back just a bit towards the ordinary. Odd things occur at the extremes.

This behavior leads to the sweet spot.  The sweet spot is that area in a system where you are a little less than the optimum—a little less than the extreme.

Simple enough, right?

No, it isn’t. Often systems, at least systems that are worth anything, have N dimensions. The sweet spot is a place among those N dimensions.

When N is 2, life is easy. We can draw two axes and see the sweet spot clearly.

When N is 3, life is a little more difficult, but we can draw three axes and see a 3-dimensional spot that is sweet.

When N is 4, well, too bad. We can’t see in four dimensions. Some people can create a concept in their head that works for them, but no one else.

Four is a small number, and the sweet spot breaks at that point. Real-life systems have N much larger than four. We haven’t yet understood how to find the sweet spot  in the great majority of our endeavors.

Sorry if you expected a solution from me.