She leaned back. For the first time, she understood the old professor’s final riddle: “Analysis tells you why something works. Synthesis gives you the courage to build what shouldn’t.”

Synthesis was the future tense. It wasn’t about taking apart what existed; it was about weaving together what could be. Synthesis asked: Given a set of desired voltages, frequencies, and behaviors, what circuit does not yet exist to perform them?

An analyst sees a resistor and thinks: Ohm’s Law. V=IR. A constraint. A synthesist sees a resistor and thinks: A ratio. A way to turn current into a warning.