… is often an important step in making sense of complex or confusing information.

Finding what’s common across a collection of data is often the key insight to figuring out what’s going on. Scientists look for common data across experiments, detectives search for common evidence in a string of crimes. Everyone else looks for common elements between different models of things we’re buying (from cars to tennis rackets to refrigerators) in order to identify what’s the same AND what’s different between different brands or models.

So for this weeks’ Challenge, I present two cases of Things that Have Something in Common.

Your job? Figure out what the common feature is between them

The first case is pretty straight-forward. (You should be able to figure that out in a couple of minutes.)

The second case might require a bit more search. Both are interesting cases of things worth noticing in the world… See if you can figure this out!

1. Over the past 150 years there have been a huge number of floods in North America. But what do THESE floods have in common?

a. May 16, 1874, Mill River flood of Williamsburg, Massachusetts
b. March 12, 1928, Castaic Junction flood, California
c. August 4, 2014, Polley Lake flood, British Columbia


2. What do these flowers all have in common?

As always, please let us know not just the answer, but also HOW you figured it out. (Even if you just knew the answer off the top of your head, say so!)

Search on!