

Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run? - "You and Your Research" - hhm
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/%7Erobins/YouAndYourResearch.html

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jsackmann
This is such a wonderful article. Since I first found it on PG's site several
months ago, I come back and read it about once a month. Not only is it a good
motivator to stay after whatever I'm working on, it's also a great way to make
sure I'm working on what I'm interested in. Without fail, it makes me focus on
what I really should be doing, which, sadly, is not always what I AM doing.

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g00dn3ss
Wow, I've never read that. Here's my favorite section:

'Since from the time of Newton to now, we have come close to doubling
knowledge every 17 years, more or less. And we cope with that, essentially, by
specialization. In the next 340 years at that rate, there will be 20
doublings, i.e. a million, and there will be a million fields of specialty for
every one field now. It isn't going to happen. The present growth of knowledge
will choke itself off until we get different tools.'

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yters
It would be cool if scientist could record their research in a machine
understandable format. Then people could either state their assumptions or
conclusions and the computer would provide the other side, or state what
information is missing.

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rms
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem>

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yters
Oh, I know that scientist currently use computers to prove things. I mean as a
general method of organizing and correlating knowledge that anyone could use.
I've seen a similar project, an ontological Wikipedia, but it's probably too
tedious for the general practitioner.

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bluishgreen
I find this formatting so much more better to read
<http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html>

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hhm
It's a better format, yes, but the original article includes an introduction,
and some questions that aren't in that version.

Edit: my mistake; the questions and answers are included in PG's website. I
think that's only the intro and the biographical stuff that is not in that
version of the article...

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vlad
"When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did
Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great
scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little
acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing
right off."

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asdf333
Wow what a valuable article. That was awesome. Thanks for the post.

