Posted by The Cricinfo headline reads: “Tendulkar not thinking of 100th ton”.
Now we haven’t got time to actually click the link and read the article, but we have got time to sit here with a beer or two, spending hours thinking about that headline.
How can Cricinfo know that Tendulkar isn’t thinking of his 100th ton? They state it with some certainty, but how can they actually know it to be true?
Option one: Cricinfo have spoken to Sachin Tendulkar
This can’t be true. Even if it were true, you can’t ask someone what they’re NOT thinking about. Is it possible to know? Surely if you mention a thing, you must be thinking about it in some small way.
If you aren’t thinking about a particular thing even slightly, you’re not cognisant of the true meaning of the words that describe that thing and therefore cannot state with certainty that you aren’t thinking about it.
You have to understand the question in order to answer and in so doing, you have to think about the thing you’re not thinking of.
Conclusion: Cricinfo have not spoken to Sachin Tendulkar.
Option two: Cricinfo have developed some sort of mind-reading device
This must be true. Furthermore, the device in question must be scanning Sachin Tendulkar’s brain for every hour of every day. How else could Cricinfo state with certainty that the diminutive batsman isn’t thinking about his 100th ton?
This is slightly unsettling, because we had until now considered Cricinfo to be a peaceful organisation that did not possess sinister futuristic technology that could potentially be used to enslave mankind.
We’re also interested to know what will happen should Sachin read this Cricinfo headline. Surely, if this were to happen, the 100th ton will be thought about, if only for a split second.
As a footnote to this update, just before we clicked ‘publish’ we noted that we had another tab open in our browser.
Generally when we’re writing King Cricket updates, additional tabs will be part of our ‘research’.
This particular tab was the Wikipedia page for Viennetta.
We have no idea what point we were going to make where Viennetta would somehow be relevant, but no doubt it was a valid point that required great insight.
They did the exact same thing with Angelo Mathews a couple of years ago:
http://cricketcrazyy.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/cricinfo-can-read-angelo-mathews-like-a-book/
They definitely have a mind-reading device in place – currently works with batting milestones but once they figure out Afridi’s batting strategy it’s the beginning of the end.
That’s my blog that I started, by the way. Blossomed like Rohan Gavaskar’s international career.
That’s pretty impressive Dhruv. Did you feel you had said everything that needed to be said?
Its quite clear if you start thinking quantum mechanically. Sachin Tendulkar isn’t thinking about his 100th ton, and neither is he thinking about making a zero. The simple truth is that Sachin Tendulkar has not yet made a measurement (in this case, ask himself a question) as to what Sachin Tendulkar is thinking. As a result, Sachin Tendulkar unambiguously stated that he is not thinking about it, meaning that his state is a linear superposition of all possible scores he can achieve. Its hardly Sachin Tendulkar’s fault cricinfo thinks he has collapsed into a definite eigenstate by questioning his own intentions.
Mistakes like this should be avoided in journalism, really.
First the phone hacking, now this.
You do research for your articles?
I am disappointed in you.
We open tabs about Viennetta and then close them afterwards, unread.
If that’s research, then guilty as charged.
Why on earth did you consider Cricinfo to be a peaceful organisation that did not possess sinister futuristic technology that could potentially be used to enslave mankind?
I was expecting a history of the Viennetta brand but it was a wonderful surprise to find a description of how the ice cream is made with an informative video on the subject as well. Thanks KC
Maybe you were unaware that you were thinking of viennetta.
Sachin should soon start thinking about this. He hasn.t scored even a fifty at lords and has a great chance to get the 100th 100 at the home of cricket.
My husband does oen a lot of tabs
*open
Perhaps Sachin is thinking of Vienetta rather than his 100th 100.
That would make sense.
I wonder what else Sachin is not thinking of. A Venn diagram what be helpful here, I miss those.
Didn’t Vienetta tour England with the Aussies in 1989?