The Martian Question
A mental model that involves asking naive, fundamental questions to uncover hidden assumptions and spark innovation, exemplified by Martin Cooper's invention of the mobile phone.
THE IDEA
The Martian Question in Real Life
The Martian Question asks you to examine a familiar situation as if you were encountering it for the first time. A basic question can reveal a constraint you have accepted without examining it.
Consider the example of inventor Martin Cooper, the man who is credited with being the “grandfather of the mobile phone.” He didn’t just create a fun new gadget. He looked at the world of telephone communication as it was in the early 1970s, and asked a question: “Why do you have to always call a place—why can’t you call a person?”
You see, his shift in perspective was the very idea that you could detach the ability to make telephone calls from any particular place—it seems obvious to us today, but it wasn’t back then. He pioneered the idea of a phone as a personal thing, saying he wanted to create a “personal telephone—something that would represent an individual so you could assign a number; not to a place, not to a desk, not to a home, but to a person.”
Cooper combined engineering knowledge with a question simple enough for a child to ask. The exercise is to notice which features of a familiar arrangement are necessary and which are conventions that could change.
Get in the habit of asking these kinds of questions yourself.
What would this situation look like to me if I knew nothing at all about it?
What assumptions, expectations, and foregone conclusions am I taking for granted? What if I remove those?
How might my life look to a complete outsider? To someone from a different planet, a different country, a different historical period? What about a younger or older version of myself?
When I answer a question with a term or label, do I actually know what this word means?
What is interesting here? Could it be some other way?
When to use it
Re-evaluating outdated business processes during a transformation initiative.
Designing a product feature by questioning basic assumptions about user needs.
Solving a complex problem by stripping away conventional wisdom and starting from scratch.
Identifying hidden opportunities in a saturated market by asking naive questions.
When explaining a familiar tool, ask which parts of its design solve a real need and which reflect inherited conventions.
When teaching, invite basic questions that reveal assumptions hidden by familiar terminology.
When evaluating a business model, challenge core premises (e.g., 'Why must this be location-based?') to discover new opportunities.
In personal growth, periodically examine your routines and beliefs as if from an outsider's perspective.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Martin Cooper and the Mobile Phone
In the early 1970s, Martin Cooper challenged the assumption that phone calls must be tied to a physical place. By asking 'Why can’t you call a person instead of a place?' he helped develop the idea of a personal mobile phone.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
What assumptions am I taking for granted in this situation?
How would a complete outsider or a child view this problem?
What would this situation look like if I knew nothing about it?
What information would an outsider need before accepting your explanation?
Which assumed constraint could you test with a small, reversible experiment?
When I answer a question with a term or label, do I actually know what this word means?
Often confused with
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Richard Feynmans Mental Models by Peter Hollins
- Richard Feynmans Mental Models by Peter Hollins