Engineering begins with the axiom that there is nothing we can’t figure out.  I used to call this roof top engineering because it requires a shift in the way we view challenges.  Viewing a challenge from different perspective gives us a 3D perspective of it.

Here is an example of this shift in thinking:

When we see the numbers below, we intuitively understand what they mean, but why these shapes? I believe that it is important to know the origins of things.

Our number shapes come from the Hindu-Arabic number characters.  Remember that these characters were used as a universal way to count for commerce.  One need not intuitively know the name of the character, just how it represented a quantity.

Can you figure it out? (Hint: Count the angles on each character)