The Half Glass Paradox

 

 

I am sure you would have come across the famous paradox of whether the glass is half full or half empty and would surely have read its numerous interpretations … here are some to tickle your humor vein (received in an email forward on the 'Trainers Forum' yahoo group).

 

The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty.

 

The project manager says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

The realist says the glass contains half the required amount of liquid for it to overflow.

 

The fanatic thinks the glass is completely full, even though it isn't.

 

The entrepreneur sees the glass as undervalued by half its potential.

 

The worrier frets that the remaining half will evaporate by next morning.

 

The consultant says let's examine the question, prepare a strategy for an answer, and all for a daily rate of...

 

The school teacher says it's not about whether the glass is half empty or half full; it's whether there is something in the glass at all.

 

The professional trainer does not care if the glass is half full or half empty; he just knows that starting the discussion will give him ten minutes to figure out why his power-point presentation is not working.

 

The ground-down mother of a persistently demanding five-year old says sweetheart it's whatever you want it to be, just please let mummy have five minutes peace and quiet.

 

The computer specialist says that next year the glass capacity will double, be half the price, but cost you 50% more for me to give you the answer.

 

The logician says that where the glass is in process of being filled then it is half full; where it is in the process of being emptied then it is half empty; and where its status in terms of being filled or emptied is unknown then the glass is one in which a boundary between liquid and gas lies exactly midway between the inside bottom and the upper rim, assuming that the glass has parallel sides and rests on a level surface, and where it does not then the liquid/gas boundary lies exactly midway between the upper and lower equal halves of the available total volume of said glass.

 

The scientist says a guess based on a visual cue is inaccurate, so mark the glass at the bottom of the meniscus of the content, pour the content into a bigger glass; fill the empty glass with fresh content up to the mark; add the original content back in; if the combined content over-flows the lip, the glass was more than half full; if it doesn't reach the top, the glass was more than half empty; if it neither overflows nor fails to reach the top then it was either half-full or half-empty. Now what was the question again?

 

The grammarian says that while the terms half-full and half-empty are colloquially acceptable, the glass can technically be neither since both full and empty are absolute states and therefore are incapable of being halved or modified in any way

 

……………..

 

shoOOonya  say's …

 

Pick up the Glass and just drink the water to settle the question once and for all.

The Glass is now empty. Period.

 

AND .. the Glass has fulfilled its function (or philosophically speacking: Destiny) of holding some water for someone who needed it.