

Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine - vinutheraj
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html?printable=1

======
huhtenberg
Another view at the same project, courtesy of Daily WTF:

    
    
      By my third interview, I finally got the hang of things:
      I quietly sat while the interviewer read my résumé for
      the first time and then listened to him talk about his 
      exciting computing project. While I can’t remember what
      his project was, I do remember what his response was to 
      my question about its application in science or business:
      "errr, I’m not sure; I guess I don’t really understand 
      why you’d ask that."
    

As you can guess this person wasn't hired.

<http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Thinking-Machines.aspx>

------
asdlfj2sd33
_The act of discovery was not complete for him until he had taught it to
someone else._

That's an amazing trait. As an aide, to get a more complete view of what
Thinking Machines was don't miss this:
<http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Thinking-Machines.aspx>

~~~
Xichekolas
I find the only way I can truly master a topic is when I have to explain it to
someone else. It requires me to stop hand waving and have honest explanations
for every part.

This paragraph really blew my hair back:

 _"In retrospect I realize that in almost everything that we worked on
together, we were both amateurs. In digital physics, neural networks, even
parallel computing, we never really knew what we were doing. But the things
that we studied were so new that no one else knew exactly what they were doing
either. It was amateurs who made the progress."_

Don't ever _not_ work on something just because you are an amateur and there
are all these fancy experts out there. Even if you never contribute something
new, it'll always be new and exciting to _you_.

~~~
Create
I don't know if the joke from my native language gets through, but it is not
unlike the French Jean archetype-series:

"This guy came to me and asked me to explain it. I explained him once, and he
didn't understand. Then I explained him again for a second time, and he still
didn't get it. By the third time I was explaining it to him, even I managed to
understand it, but he was still clueless."

It is why experienced teachers are good...

------
sankara
Seems to be a repeat of a previous submission,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191212>. But yeah wonderful article.

~~~
rms
Repeats that are more than a year old are absolutely fine. Less than that may
be ok, but I wouldn't push it.

------
st3fan
Here is a promotional movie about a later thinking machines model
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blvC0DA96dI>

------
sfphotoarts
I've read this before but RF is one of my personal 'heros' in life and so find
it as touching today as ever. And a tacit reminder that no matter who any of
us are the forces or nature apply equally. I'm sure that one day when cancer
is eradicated from our lives that it will be someone who read RF.

Thinking Machines eventually went out of business but if I remember correctly
the s/w part of the company became part of Sun, which as we all know, also is
no longer. The company DNA has ended up in Redwood Shores, home to both SQL
the language and SQL the airport.

There are a lot of very interesting youtube video interviews with RF from the
British TV series Horizon.

~~~
rglovejoy
I've seen this story before too, but I always enjoy re-reading it.

I especially enjoyed the part where Feynman showed up and they didn't have
anything important for him to do right away, so they sent him out to get
office supplies. A lot of people would have thrown around a lot of attitude
about how running an errand like that was beneath them. Even though Feynman
really was a big shot, he never acted like one (and he despised those who did
act that way). It was just a job that needed to be done, so he went out and
did it.

------
TriinT
Danny Hillis' PhD thesis (MIT 1988) on the Connection Machine:
<http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/14719>

