Escaping the problems through a wormhole is the plot for many science fiction movies. How would it be if you too could manage your problems in this way? Now wormholes are theoretically possible, but have not yet been observed in practice. But in a figurative sense, this is an approach: If you see the wormhole as a gateway to another dimension – an abstract plane – your problems from the “here and now” appear from a different angle. Often the observed phenomenon is only the effect of a completely different problem. Only through an abstract view do the true reasons become visible.

A good example of this is a plant for the selective processing of slag from the waste incineration plant. A new pulse generator was installed there. My job was to perform the calibration. The results were inconsistent and at first glance it looked like a defect in the generator, which would have led to a massive delay in commissioning. Now the recorded data was viewed as a whole. Then I constructed abstract scenarios and derived their effects – signatures. One of these signatures was found in the data. For verification, I designed and ran additional tests that confirmed my assumptions. An extreme value for a parameter in the process room to which the generator was connected was identified as the actual cause. With this knowledge, the calibration could be completed successfully. Furthermore, it was possible to explain a previously not understood behavior of the previously installed generators.

Important for the solution over the abstract space is a large measure of abstraction ability, i.e. to filter out the essential from the jumble of information. I was able to demonstrate and “train” my great capacity for abstraction during my broad education as a physicist and during my intensive involvement with patents.

If you need a wormhole for your problems, don’t wait for it to be discovered, call me first. We will find it together.