Can two white bishops be on the same diagonal? Dogmatism in Chess, Science, and Business

Richard Feynman was a quantum physicist who won the Nobel prize for his discoveries in the field. In the following video, the laureate wants us to imagine our universe to be a board of chess in which we learn and derive rules by experience as we play.

So, can two white bishops be on the same diagonal? The intuitive answer for this exemplar question is “No, as they start on squares on different colors and only move diagonally”. But what about promoting a pawn to a bishop? Our experience teaches us that pawns reaching the last rank of the board promote themselves to a queen (the most powerful piece in chess). However, basing our knowledge only on experience may blind us from the actual “Rule of Nature” according to which pawns may also promote themselves to the inferior bishops. Actually, in some cases “under-promoting” the pawn to a Bishop rather to the more forceful Queen may be the right way for a win. In his bishops thought experiment, Feynman (who passed away a while ago, but has a highly inspirational Twitter account led by his successors) reminds us of the importance of staying open-minded and looking for evidence falsifying our former beliefs. The bishops theory is an example of a rule we formulated based on inductive reasoning but can be falsified in extreme circumstances such as in the following picture.

The way to checkmate is by under-promoting the pawn to another light-squared bishop, promoting a queen results in a stalemate

So what can we learn from all of that? I believe the most important lesson is leaving room for doubt. Our degree of belief in some rule may tend to 100%, but we better stay at 99.999% certainty. This asymptotic thinking is what saves us from dogmatism leading to stagnation in the scientific process. Embracing those levels of uncertainty leaves room for “Unknown Unknowns”. Adopting this mindset in business may mitigate the inherent risk involved in it.

Never reach the limit

Finally, if you do not want to be struck with amazement the first time you see two black bishops or swans moving on the same diagonal - leave room for doubt. It will allow you to adapt your degree of belief more rapidly and stay in the game.

Hope you enjoyed reading. I would be glad to hear your comments.

One of the readers asked “why can’t we promote the pawn to a queen?” in the example given above — more on that in the comments.