Chapter 2 — Mull and the Sitting With the Puzzle

Mull was a careful kid. He moved slowly, like a sloth. He often stood in a thinking pose, just like a cartoon character. Mull wore a chunky lab-vest. He carried a small hypothesis-card. He also had a little sit-tracker.

Mull was small and slow. He loved to sit with a puzzle. His fur was a cool, dusty lavender. Soft cream stripes ran across it. Mull paid close attention to the time. He watched the moments between a surprise and a guess. He often said, “Sit with the puzzle first. Let the guess form.” His special tools were his hypothesis-card and sit-tracker. He used them to write down his first slow guess. This always happened after he sat with the puzzle for at least 30 seconds. No one ever jumped in to help him too soon.

This was a very important idea. Mull showed everyone the hypothesis-from-surprise primitive. This big lesson meant that guesses came after a surprise. They did not come before it.

Usually, science class taught things differently. First, you made a guess. Then you did an experiment. Last, you saw what happened. But Mull’s way of learning flipped that order around. First, you got a surprise. This was something weird or unexpected. Then, you thought about the puzzle. You made a guess from that surprise. After that, you could investigate.

Why did Mull do it this way? Real scientists don’