How SpaceX Used Reasoning From First Principles

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Think Like a Rocket Scientist" by Ozan Varol. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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What is reasoning from first principles? How can you use this kind of thinking to achieve the impossible?

Elon Musk used reasoning from first principles to find a new way to get to space. First-principles thinking is a way to abandon the status quo and question everything until you get to the core of the matter. You, too, can use this type of thinking to reach huge goals.

Continue reading to learn how to use reasoning from first principles.

Reasoning From First Principles

To achieve the impossible, we often have to abandon the status quo and find a brand new way of approaching a problem. However, according to Varol, doing this doesn’t come naturally—when we have knowledge of how things are done, we inevitably begin to assume that’s how things should be done. Our knowledge of the status quo dims our creativity and makes us less likely to question the norm. (Shortform note: This is a form of the anchoring bias, in which we unconsciously get stuck on whatever information is first presented to us. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes anchoring in detail in Thinking, Fast and Slow.)

Varol argues that the antidote to this tendency is reasoning from first principles. In reasoning from first principles, you throw out the status quo and question everything until you’re left with only the most fundamental components. For example, if we think about education, status quo thinking would keep us focused on schools, teachers, and grades. But if we abandon the status quo and use principles-first thinking, we’re left with the core of education: information to learn and a student to learn it. This opens the door for all sorts of innovative delivery methods, like online learning and self-directed learning.

To Maximize Reasoning From First Principles, Combine It With Marginal Gains

Reasoning from first principles is related to the idea of marginal gains, which involves making tiny improvements to multiple components of something that, when combined, improve overall performance. Combining reasoning from first principles with marginal gains can produce powerful results (for example, the British cycling team completely overhauled their performance in just five years by following this approach). Here’s how to combine these techniques:

First, break the problem down into its component parts (or first principles). For example, the British cycling team broke down their bicycles (into seats, wheels, and so on) as well as their training schedules (into sleep, avoiding illness, muscle performance, and so on).

Then, brainstorm ways to improve each component by even 1%. For example, the coach of the cycling team researched mattresses and pillows that would improve the athletes’ sleep.

Finally, implement the changes. Individually, they may not make a big difference, but when combined, the overall change can be powerful.