Here are some notes I made while reading a transcript of a seminar called You and Your Research by Richard Hamming. (I’d previously read this article with the same name, but I feel like I got something out of reading this seminar transcript although there’s a lot of overlap).
On courage:
“Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can”
In the Q&A he talks about researchers in the 40′s and 50′s naturally having courage after coming out of WW2.
Age makes you less productive because when you have prestigious awards you only work on ‘big’ problems
Bad working conditions can force you to be creative
You have to work very hard to succeed
“I spent a good deal more of my time for some years trying to work a bit harder and I found, in fact, I could get more work done”
“Just hard work is not enough—it must be applied sensibly.”
On coping with ambiguity
“Great scientists… believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory”
Get your subconscious to work for you. Cf “shower thoughts”, Paul Graham’s The Top Idea in Your Mind
“If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem”
“So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don’t let anything else get the center of your attention—you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning, free.”
On thinking great thoughts
“Great Thoughts Time” from lunchtime on Friday
E.g. “What will be the role of computers in all of AT&T?”, “How will computers change science?”
On having problems to try new ideas on:
Most great scientists “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.″ They drop all the other things and get after it.”
Having an open office door is better:
“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; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance.”
On the importance of working hard
“The people who do great work with less ability but who are committed to it, get more done that those who have great skill and dabble in it, who work during the day and go home and do other things and come back and work the next day. They don’t have the deep commitment that is apparently necessary for really first-class work”
On using commitment devices to create pressure on yourself to perform
“I found out many times, like a cornered rat in a real trap, I was surprisingly capable. I have found that it paid to say, ``Oh yes, I’ll get the answer for you Tuesday,″ not having any idea how to do it”
On putting yourself under stress
“if you want to be a great scientist you’re going to have to put up with stress. You can lead a nice life; you can be a nice guy or you can be a great scientist. But nice guys end last, is what Leo Durocher said. If you want to lead a nice happy life with a lot of recreation and everything else, you’ll lead a nice life.”
“If you want to think new thoughts that are different, then do what a lot of creative people do—get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any answers until you’ve thought the problem through carefully how you would do it”
On been very successful over a long career
“Somewhere around every seven years make a significant, if not complete, shift in your field… When you go to a new field, you have to start over as a baby. You are no longer the big mukity muk and you can start back there and you can start planting those acorns which will become the giant oaks”
On vision and research management
“When your vision of what you want to do is what you can do single-handedly, then you should pursue it. The day your vision, what you think needs to be done, is bigger than what you can do single-handedly, then you have to move toward management”
I like the idea of trying to have some kind of “great thoughts time” each week.
The “having an open office door is better” claim is interesting to think about when I’m considering whether / in what way to return to the office now that it’s an option.
I think a lot about optimal work hours for myself, and I take this talk as a data point in favour of “work long hours”
The vision + research management point kind of resonates / makes sense.
Maybe it could be interesting to try “overpromising” to boost productivity.
Here are some notes I made while reading a transcript of a seminar called You and Your Research by Richard Hamming. (I’d previously read this article with the same name, but I feel like I got something out of reading this seminar transcript although there’s a lot of overlap).
On courage:
“Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can”
In the Q&A he talks about researchers in the 40′s and 50′s naturally having courage after coming out of WW2.
Age makes you less productive because when you have prestigious awards you only work on ‘big’ problems
Bad working conditions can force you to be creative
You have to work very hard to succeed
“I spent a good deal more of my time for some years trying to work a bit harder and I found, in fact, I could get more work done”
“Just hard work is not enough—it must be applied sensibly.”
On coping with ambiguity
“Great scientists… believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory”
Get your subconscious to work for you. Cf “shower thoughts”, Paul Graham’s The Top Idea in Your Mind
“If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem”
“So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don’t let anything else get the center of your attention—you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning, free.”
On thinking great thoughts
“Great Thoughts Time” from lunchtime on Friday
E.g. “What will be the role of computers in all of AT&T?”, “How will computers change science?”
On having problems to try new ideas on:
Most great scientists “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.″ They drop all the other things and get after it.”
Having an open office door is better:
“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; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance.”
On the importance of working hard
“The people who do great work with less ability but who are committed to it, get more done that those who have great skill and dabble in it, who work during the day and go home and do other things and come back and work the next day. They don’t have the deep commitment that is apparently necessary for really first-class work”
On using commitment devices to create pressure on yourself to perform
“I found out many times, like a cornered rat in a real trap, I was surprisingly capable. I have found that it paid to say, ``Oh yes, I’ll get the answer for you Tuesday,″ not having any idea how to do it”
On putting yourself under stress
“if you want to be a great scientist you’re going to have to put up with stress. You can lead a nice life; you can be a nice guy or you can be a great scientist. But nice guys end last, is what Leo Durocher said. If you want to lead a nice happy life with a lot of recreation and everything else, you’ll lead a nice life.”
On “being alone”
“If you want to think new thoughts that are different, then do what a lot of creative people do—get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any answers until you’ve thought the problem through carefully how you would do it”
On been very successful over a long career
“Somewhere around every seven years make a significant, if not complete, shift in your field… When you go to a new field, you have to start over as a baby. You are no longer the big mukity muk and you can start back there and you can start planting those acorns which will become the giant oaks”
On vision and research management
“When your vision of what you want to do is what you can do single-handedly, then you should pursue it. The day your vision, what you think needs to be done, is bigger than what you can do single-handedly, then you have to move toward management”
Things I took away for myself
I like the idea of trying to have some kind of “great thoughts time” each week.
The “having an open office door is better” claim is interesting to think about when I’m considering whether / in what way to return to the office now that it’s an option.
I think a lot about optimal work hours for myself, and I take this talk as a data point in favour of “work long hours”
The vision + research management point kind of resonates / makes sense.
Maybe it could be interesting to try “overpromising” to boost productivity.
You might be interested in checking out Ingredients for creating disruptive research teams e.g. on vision, autonomy, spaces for interaction.
Also I noticed that Jess Whittlestone wrote some probably much better notes on this a few years ago