Thread by @ShaanVP

the speech "you and your research" by Richard hamming is A+. I think it's a must-read for any person who wants to make the most of their time & talents.

My notes:

re: Luck - "there is indeed an element of luck..The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not"

I was telling @_johnnydallas_ yesterday: "if you're a founder, every year you have a high chance of failure, but over a decade, you're almost certain to win."

"one of the characteristics successful scientists have is courage. Once you get your courage up & believe that you can do important problems - then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you're not going to."

in some fields (science, math) you do your best work when you're young. In others, like politics, music, literature, it's when you're older.

Why the age effect?

one guess: when you do great work when young, you "find yourself on all kinds of committees and unable to do any more work.

And when you're famous it is hard to work on small problems. You fail to plant little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow.

"They try to get the big thing right off the bat, and that isn't the way to go. Early recognition seems to sterilize you."

(lots of counter-examples to this in startups. Eg. @jack doing Square, @rabois starts opendoor, @ericries with LTSE)

the importance of Ambiguity - "most people like to believe something is true or not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can create a replacement theory."

Darwin writes in his autobiography that he found it necessary to write down every piece of evidence which appeared to contradict his beliefs because otherwise they would disappear from his mind.

the importance of Emotional Commitment:

"great contributions are rarely done by adding another decimal place. It comes down to emotional commitment. Most great scientists are completely committed to their problem. Those who don't, seldom produce outstanding first-class work"

another reason this matters ^

"creativity comes out of your subconscious"

if you're not deeply committed, your subconscious won't work on the problem.

And the finale:

He sits down with some scientists at bell labs for lunch and asks:

"what are the important problems of your field?"
"what problems are you working on?"

If you do not work on important problems - it is unlikely you will do important work. Period

"important problem" must be phrased carefully.

Three important problems they never worked on 1) time travel, 2) teleportation, 3) antigravity

They are not important because we do not have an attack. It's not just the size of the problem, it's also having a reasonable attack.

You can't know exactly where important work happens, but you can be active in places where something might happen.

Put yourself in position for luck, by preparing your mind, creating serendipity, and avoiding busying yourself with "safe work"

"the avg scientist does routine safe work almost all the time - so he or she doesn't produce much."

Hamming carved out "Great Thoughts Time" on Friday's at lunchtime. He asked himself questions like :

"how will computers change science?" "how will computers change bell labs?"

"I thought hard about where was my field going, where were the opportunities, and what were the important things to do. Let me go there so there is a chance I can do important things"

Most great scientists know many important problems. They have something between 10 and 20 important problems for which they are looking for an attack. And when they see a new idea come up, one hears them say ``Well that bears on this problem.''

The great scientists, when an opportunity opens up they drop all other things & pursue it...Their minds are prepared; they see the opportunity and they go after it..

lots of times it doesn't work out, but you don't have to hit many of them to do some great science.

Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed

if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on;

He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'

Is it worth doing great work?

"The struggle to make something of yourself seems to be worthwhile in itself. The success and fame are sort of dividends, in my opinion."