
Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others - knight17
https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-breakthrough-disregard-others/
======
stephengillie
_Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO
things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop
acting like you have a set path, because you don 't. No one does. You
shouldn't be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren't real and they
were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I'm
following, and I'm not walking in anyone else's footsteps. I'm making it up as
I go._ \- Charlie Hoehn

~~~
copperx
Hamming would be against that.

~~~
yesenadam
i.e. Hamming advised everyone to work on the most important problem(s) in
their field, and precisely _not_ to "Chase after the things that interest you
and make you happy."

Maybe for him these two were the same. There is something cold about his
recommendation, though. I'm not sure what motivated him. Impressing himself
with important discoveries? I never in all his talking about missile
trajectories and weapons-related work came across any evidence of ethical
considerations. Godement's Algebra with its inspiring political and ethical
conscience - its author was _man_ as well as mathematician - made me vividly
aware of how a work of mathematics/physics can either be ethical, or it can
pretend that ethics are not its concern. Or rather, like a heartless child,
act without ever even considering consequences. Maybe Hamming was just working
on the important problems in his field, and disregarding all else, and thought
that was enough.

~~~
yesenadam
Whoops, I meant Godement's _Analysis_.

------
bsmithers
It's interesting that a few people are relating this to team work. I think
that is a misinterpretation. By 'others' I would infer something more like
'competitors', though I mean that relatively loosely. Essentially, ignore what
other labs are working on and focus on your own (group's) works.

My own PhD supervisor had a similar attitude, though it runs against how many
others approach a problem I feel. For example, I'm unconvinced that starting a
project with a thorough literature review is necessarily the best plan. It can
shroud your thoughts, make you miss the same things everyone else has and make
you feel that all the work has already been done.

~~~
ghthor
This is also critical for software engineering as well. Large organizations,
especially older ones that sort of missed the software revolution will get
bogged down in making sure they're software engineers don't recreate an
existing project within the company. This thought process ruins creativity and
motivation. It's more beneficial to recreate the same thing 4 times over, now
you have a team of domain experts 4x the size and you can take that expertise
and factor out the shared patterns into a service or a product. Trying to do
it the other way around is a recipe for failure.

~~~
pm
There are plenty of counter-examples to this. Just look at Google's messaging
efforts (Gmail chat, Hangouts, Duo, Allo, etc.) as a great example of
fragmentation without any obvious benefit.

~~~
nejenendn
Well if you refuse to learn from mistakes you’re going to keep missing. Gchat
is still better than whatever half baked, whitespace filled crap is there now.

------
peg_leg
This goes for everyone - not just geniuses. The burger flipper at your
favorite fast food joint needs to concentrate on his own work, disregarding
what the particular tasks of the counter-worker is. An office worker needs to
concentrate on their own Excel workbook, disregarding the type or quality of
other people's work.

One can't be at peak productivity or creativity while constantly comparing
their work to others. A very basic trap that even Nobel Prize winners get
stuck in apparently.

~~~
simplegeek
One thing I'm not very certain is that can we as software developers totally
disregard others work? I think the analogy doesn't apply here.

We build on what other people build. Some many times I had to read other
people code which I think made me a better engineer. If I work in isolation,
not sure if I can improve the quality.

~~~
TOGoS
Nah, I think it applies just fine.

There is a strong culture of building on top of the work of others, and in
some cases people build really neat stuff that they could never have done on
their own by pulling in years of work in the form of libraries and datasets
and etc, but that way of working isn't for everybody. You might end up
spending more time trying to keep up with the latest and greatest everything
instead of developing your own ideas.

I think of Minecraft as a pretty good example. While everyone else was focused
on making photorealistic shooters on game engine X Notch was all like "what if
everything was cubes that went on forever", and he ended up making something
super unique (and extremely popular).

Or Chuck Moore with all his wacky Forths. Not the billionaire that Notch is,
but he seems pretty happy.

~~~
yathern
The irony in your Minecraft example is that Notch originally set out to make a
better Infiniminer.

------
have_faith
Does this work for Feynman, because he is a genius? in the same way that lots
of successful people offer tidbits of advice that wouldn't apply to someone in
different circumstances, or perhaps with a different level of intellect.

~~~
kornish
Your comment reminds me of the Feynman Algorithm [0], which is pure gold:

1\. Write down the problem.

2\. Think real hard.

3\. Write down the solution.

"The Feynman algorithm was facetiously suggested by Murray Gell-Mann, a
colleague of Feynman, in a New York Times interview."

[0]:
[http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm](http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm)

~~~
chairmanwow
I think I might start suggesting this to my coworkers + friends.

~~~
wiz21c
Not everybody can do that. Note that there's no loop between 2 and 3.

~~~
akvadrako
There is obviously a missing step though, which is to break the problem down
into manageable chunks. That's the only way anyone can do it.

~~~
Klockan
That's a part of step 2.

------
NumberSix
Watson's original account of the discovery of the double helix has been
heavily criticized for downplaying the role of Rosalind Franklin's x-ray
crystallography measurements of the structure of DNA in the discovery.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin)

Disregard or failure to give credit to others where credit is due?

~~~
NotableAlamode
Might this criticism have been politically motivated?

For a while she actively campaigned against DNA being a double helix, see e.g.
her 'obiturary' for the double helix [1] which preceeds Watson and Crick’s
paper. Might her insistence that DNA is not a double helix have misled Wilkins
and others?

[1] [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/fire-in-the-
mind/files/201...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/fire-in-the-
mind/files/2013/04/Franklinhelixobit.jpg)

~~~
NumberSix
This is complicated issue. Specifically, The Double Helix, cited in the
original HN post, does mention Rosalind Franklin but in a rather demeaning way
that slights her contributions -- which came to be highly criticized in
subsequent years.

This is the relevant section from the Wikipedia article, which like most
Wikipedia articles on contentious topics should be taken with a grain of salt
and not substituted for original sources:

Recognition of her contribution to the model of DNA Upon the completion of
their model, Crick and Watson had invited Wilkins to be a co-author of their
paper describing the structure.[186] Wilkins turned down this offer, as he had
taken no part in building the model.[187] He later expressed regret that
greater discussion of co-authorship had not taken place as this might have
helped to clarify the contribution the work at King's had made to the
discovery.[188] There is no doubt that Franklin's experimental data were used
by Crick and Watson to build their model of DNA in 1953. Some, including
Maddox, have explained this citation omission by suggesting that it may be a
question of circumstance, because it would have been very difficult to cite
the unpublished work from the MRC report they had seen.[78]

Indeed, a clear timely acknowledgment would have been awkward, given the
unorthodox manner in which data were transferred from King's to Cambridge.
However, methods were available. Watson and Crick could have cited the MRC
report as a personal communication or else cited the Acta articles in press,
or most easily, the third Nature paper that they knew was in press. One of the
most important accomplishments of Maddox's widely acclaimed biography is that
Maddox made a well-received case for inadequate acknowledgement. "Such
acknowledgement as they gave her was very muted and always coupled with the
name of Wilkins".[189]

Twenty five years after the fact, the first clear recitation of Franklin's
contribution appeared as it permeated Watson's account, The Double Helix,
although it was buried under descriptions of Watson's (often quite negative)
regard towards Franklin during the period of their work on DNA. This attitude
is epitomized in the confrontation between Watson and Franklin over a preprint
of Pauling's mistaken DNA manuscript.[190] Watson's words impelled Sayre to
write her rebuttal, in which the entire chapter nine, "Winner Take All" has
the structure of a legal brief dissecting and analyzing the topic of
acknowledgement.[191]

Sayre's early analysis was often ignored because of perceived feminist
overtones in her book. Watson and Crick did not cite the X-ray diffraction
work of Wilkins and Franklin in their original paper, though they admit having
"been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished
experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and
their co-workers at King's College, London".[81] In fact, Watson and Crick
cited no experimental data at all in support of their model. Franklin and
Gosling's publication of the DNA X-ray image, in the same issue of Nature,
served as the principal evidence:

Thus our general ideas are not inconsistent with the model proposed by Watson
and Crick in the preceding communication.[192]

~~~
NotableAlamode
The section you cite does not mention that F. explicitly campaigned against
the helix model for a while. Why? If we exclude the option that she
deliberately lied about it and publically spoke against the helix model so as
to mislead others (which would be a major breach of scientic ethics) -- and we
should: "de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est" \-- then she failed to see
what others did see. To use the vernacular:

    
    
       she got it wrong.

~~~
NumberSix
This is the link to the Discover blog post text:

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/fire-in-the-
mind/2013/04/2...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/fire-in-the-
mind/2013/04/25/on-dnas-anniversary-how-rosalind-franklin-missed-the-
helix/#.WeekUkyZP64)

The issue with Watson's original account is here in the Johnson's text:

After negotiations between both labs, papers by Wilkins and by Franklin and
Gosling appeared in the same issue of Nature along with the one by Watson and
Crick. (They can all be found on a website at Nature, and an annotated version
of the Watson-Crick paper is at the Exploratorium’s site.) Toward the end of
their paper, they flatly state that “We were not aware of the details of the
results presented [by the King’s scientists] when we devised our structure,
which rests mainly though not entirely on published experimental data and
stereochemical arguments.” Yet they go on to write in an acknowledgment, three
paragraphs later: “We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general
nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F.
Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and their co-workers at King’s College, London.”

The sentences seem to contradict each other, and in any case Watson made a
point, in his book The Double Helix, to describe the pivotal moment when he
saw Photo 51.

So the controversy continues. Was it ethical for Wilkins to show Watson his
colleague’s work without asking her first? Should she have been invited to be
a coauthor on the historic paper? Watson hardly helped his case with his
belittling comments about Franklin in The Double Helix.

The bigger issue from the original Hacker News post is Watson and also
Feynman's portrayal of their work as highly independent of their colleagues:
"disregarding" others.

~~~
NotableAlamode
You keep ignoring the elephant in the room: that she was wrong (in the
charitable interpretation). Why?

I'd appreciate it if you could state clearly whether you think

\- F. got it wrong, or

\- she knew/assumed early on that it was a helix, but lied about it?

Thank you.

As to whether the X-rays should have been seen by Crick/Watson, The research
was publically funded. Publically funded research should be open and
transparent. Or do you disagree with transparency of taxpayer money? Would it
have even been legally possible for F. to refuse the communication of her tax-
payer funded results?

------
Insanity
It was a pleasure to read, but of course it should be taken with a grain of
salt and not applied to every field :-)

Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing? Screw
the rest of the team, I'll work on my own better solution and ignore the parts
that are already working well!

You might end up with a good solution to the problem, but you'll also manage
to piss off a lot of people ^^

A more valuable 'quote' from Feynman would be to "Test everything yourself".
Don't just take for granted the results of others but verify it yourself. That
(in the field of software) can be quite valuable :-)

Still, loved reading that blogpost!

~~~
srean
> Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing?
> Screw the rest of the team, I'll work on my own better solution and ignore
> the parts that are already working well!

If you are competent, have a realistic estimate of your competence, this might
not be a bad idea if what you need is a purely technical solution. In many big
organizations (lets leave them nameless) most of your time might be going in
navigating the politics, guess-estimating different people's internal
incentives and how to steer with or around them, not enough time might remain
for thinking about the actual technical problem. In these organizations its
necessary to take care of these things, because even if you figured out a
great solution that ticked all the technical boxes, including technical
compatibility with others, all that will come to nought if it is not in
alignment with the social and political aspects.

~~~
mannykannot
Unfortunately, for every one who is that person in that situation, there are
several who merely think they are, at least in my experience (the most common
form seems to be the covert rewriter whose work is more 'pure', 'object-
oriented | functional', 'general', 'flexible', 'performant', 'reusable', or my
favorite, 'simple' (for some definition of 'simple') than will ever be needed,
at the cost of considerable additional (and undocumented) complexity.)

~~~
srean
Not only do I agree with you, I think it might actually be worse. Seen enough
primadonnas who think they can walk on water and have.

------
keeptrying
This applies to scientists, not to software engineers working in a team. (This
can also apply to software company founders and side projects but that's a
special case.)

Scientists and researchers are primarily working to build their own brand and
to make a contribution which can be tied To them.

A team of s/w emgineers is working to build a cohesive whole. Much different
goals and incentives.

~~~
gerbilly
>This applies to scientists, not to software engineers working in a team.

And that'w why no software engineers working on teams will ever win a nobel
prize.

I don't mean to be disingenuous, but did you ever stop to think why team work
is so drummed into us?

It's not because teamwork produces better results, it's so corporations can
treat us as interchangeable cogs. They want knowledge spread across a whole
team to 'de-risk' their projects in case someone leaves.

They know full well that the best work is done by expert individuals, but they
choose to promote teamwork anyway.

~~~
nejenendn
Thankfully people actually using the software is more meaningful than awards
:)

Also why is it so weird to see your company wants you to be replaceable? It’s
up to YOU to differentiate yourself.

~~~
gerbilly
It doesn't bother me personally, and of course I know I am replaceable even
though I do differentiate myself.

I was just pointing out that they over-promote the 'effectiveness' of
teamwork.

They sell it based on improved problem solving, when they really want it for
operational reasons.

------
nickoakland
The literary version of "Disregard" is called "The anxiety of influence"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anxiety_of_Influence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anxiety_of_Influence)

------
wrycoder
The truly great ideas in physics are actually quite simply stated. They are
subsequently mathematically elaborated, to the point where it can be hard to
separate out the core idea. Even a Feynman can’t track all the work going on,
and elaboration doesn’t win Nobel prizes. Most physicists don’t have the
ability to rise above elaboration and application - it takes an Einstein or a
Feynman to grasp and extend the core with big ideas, while not being
distracted by the fog of elaborative papers.

My favorite is, Wheeler: “Feynman, I know why all electrons are exactly
alike!” Feynman: “Why?” Wheeler: “There is only one electron!” [looping
through space-time, we see the cross sections]. Ahh....

------
drawkbox
I believe Feynman is saying stay focused on your work, don't get too caught up
changing things or keeping up because of other shiny things, you may miss
important innovative ideas on your own work. It doesn't mean ignore others
work but sometimes it is better to work it through yourself for understanding
and then compare. Put all the energy into your work first and foremost.

Same could go with starting a company or product - competition needs to be
paid attention to, but if you do it too much it will lead you astray. The
product may end up chasing or copycatting while missing out on some innovation
that is entirely new and possibly important.

~~~
baby
> because of other shiny things

It can also be the opinion of others. A lot of people, especially when you're
doing something that goes out of the ordinary, will judge you for not
researching more conventional things. You end up trimming your research so
that it pleases people more.

------
chewyshine
This was fun and all but it doesn't apply to modern academics. Now, if you
'disregard' you won't get grants and you won't be in academics long enough to
make a contribute. Fun but irrelevant today.

~~~
bitexploder
I think this is not the spirit it was meant in. It is more self help advice
for the struggling researcher. I read it more as, despite your doubt,
disregard others in your mind, and do your work. You won't get anywhere if you
have convinced yourself you won't get anywhere, so why start/try?

------
taeric
Feynman's breakthrough seems more to be a full package. I don't think any one
thing he did would work for someone else, but collectively he was very
effective.

My favorite practice of his was keeping toy problems in your head at all
times. Whenever you see a new problem or technique, thing how it relates to a
set you already know.

My favorite behavior of his was uniform respect for everyone. He never assumed
that someone else couldn't understand. If anything, he felt he couldn't
explain. Subtle but important difference.

------
317070
Ha, that's amazing!

I have always encouraged colleagues to read less scientific articles,
especially if it is incremental science. It encourages you to think inside the
box and you will come up with the same solutions everyone else is.

Of course there is more to it, work methodically, formulate problems before
solving them, etc. But I'm glad Feynmann agrees with me on this one.

------
Tepix
Wow. I got goosebumps reading that at the end. Great writing. Thanks for
sharing this valuable advice.

------
j7ake
In general it is high risk and high reward. You need to have sufficient
confidence in yourself that what you're doing is valuable to a community that
is hostile to you. If your work ends up not being recognised as important,
then your losses are much larger than if you followed the crowd and did
incremental research. There is probably analogous stories with start up scene,
incremental start ups get funded, those considered too radical are not given
money.

In science it is not obvious whether or not your work will be important or
recognised as important until much later.

From the point of view from the entire community it makes sense for
individuals to go big risk, but for individuals sometimes you also need to
manage your risk differently

~~~
SuoDuanDao
Good point. I'd add that the expected payback from doing incremental work is
also a variable that can go through extreme changes over the medium term,
which can lead to changes in whether it's rational to play it safe or attempt
to blaze a trail. That makes me wonder whether changes in rates of
entrepreneurialism lead or lag economic downturns...

------
_vlamacko
Very nice little story and good advice, but I think most of us feel that
completely disregarding others is not always the best solution. It really is a
exploration vs exploitation problem.

~~~
vixen99
You mean 'looking at' versus 'using'. But it should be 'and' not 'versus'
i.e., always taking the wider view by looking at what effects the 'using' has
on its environment of which we are all part.

------
Asdfbla
I find it is a hard balance to strike, because on the one hand I think you
certainly need input, inspiration or feedback from other people and people
smarter or more accomplished than you, but on the other hand you it's not good
to get self-conscious about your ideas or achievements relative to theirs.

In principle those to things could be unrelated, but in practice it can be
hard to separate those two aspects.

------
iamben
Just based on some of the comments here - I think this loosely translates not
as to literally disregard what others are doing, but more to disregard how you
_think_ others are interpreting the work that you yourself are doing.

In other words, believe in yourself and everything seems a little easier.

~~~
tome
I don't think that's the case at all. It explicitly says "You have to worry
about your own work and ignore what everyone else is doing", not "ignore how
everyone else is interpreting the work you yourself are doing".

Of course this advice isn't good for those who work in a team.

~~~
iamben
Perhaps, yup. I could be taking it entirely the wrong way, and maybe that's
the beauty of it :-)

I've spent a lot of time trying to deal with imposter syndrome. I guess I saw
the parallel.

------
sidcool
It may be a stretch to think that what worked for the great Feynman would work
for me.

------
agumonkey
Shannon also had a care free attitude regarding his ways. Following his
intuition is important. Not being blind too. Accept the others, just don't
dismiss yours.

------
damontal
I noticed they linked to wikiwand in that article instead of wikipedia. Do
others here use wikiwand? Is it much of an improvement over wikipedia?

~~~
actionscripted
I've used it and loved it. For me it greatly enhanced readability as they had
put a lot of care into the aesthetic and typography.

I'm not a fan of the way it takes over the default WikiPedia URLs, however.
And the Firefox plugin hasn't been updated since 2016 and isn't compatible
with newer versions of Firefox so I don't use it on a regular basis anymore.

------
amelius
But if you disregard others, how do you prevent reinventing the wheel?

~~~
EdwardCoffin
I think he means to disregard what others are _currently_ doing.

~~~
amelius
Well, they could be inventing a new type of wheel.

If you disregard others, you could be inventing the same things as others, or
even less smart versions of those things.

~~~
marcosdumay
Or maybe more smart versions of those things.

In a field where one successful work defines a career, this looks like a good
move.

------
dschuetz
Independence of thought in a nutshell. Thanks for sharing!

------
baxtr
Reminds me very much of Steve. I miss him

------
skc
Wow, I really needed to read this.

------
loup-vaillant
Yup. That works. Just don't forget the follow-up, where external feedback _is_
crucial.

Shameless plug: I've written my own crypto library¹. Not just for the lulz, I
fully intend to use it in production. To do that, I had to disregard the
crypto community, that basically says anyone who does that deserves to burn in
Crypto Hell the time it takes them to count to 2^256. (I might exaggerate a
tad).

They say that for a reason however. I _had_ to seek and listen to external
advice eventually. Which, judging by the holes they poked through my library,
was invaluable.

I think there are two phases. The "I'll show them" phase where you hide under
your cave doing your thing, and the phase where you actually show some results
and confirm whether this was a worthwhile endeavour.

[1]: [http://loup-vaillant.fr/projects/monocypher](http://loup-
vaillant.fr/projects/monocypher)

~~~
woahhvicky
I think the point is that you don’t need approval from anyone to find value in
your own work. Who cares if crypto “experts” condone the use of your library?
All that matters is that it provides you value in your endeavors. “Showing
them” is not necessary for that.

~~~
baking
I don't think that is the point at all. To that end lies madness.

~~~
lovemenot
I suspect you may've misinterpreted your parent.

Showing "them" would be pure social validation and, according to your parent,
not recommended. Showing "that" would be sanity protection, just as you
understand it.

~~~
baking
Thanks for the clarification.

------
grabcocque
I'm not sure if it's reassuring or utterly disheartening that even somebody as
brilliant as Feynman can be laid low with impostor syndrome.

~~~
sidcool
On the contrary, it's the super Genius who are more likely to suffer from
bouts of Imposter syndrome.

~~~
davidy123
It's not particularly imposter syndrome. He might still acknowledge that he's
brilliant and has made some great discoveries, but feel he may not be able to
make any more. Someone with imposter syndrome may never acknowledge their own
achievements.

