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Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

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Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 'd…

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.

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.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#102

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 love this quote thanks for sharing, only thing wrong is that it's framed as career advice and not just general advice. I've spent my life thus far following an explicit path checking the boxes I was 'supposed' to and it was making me deeply unhappy.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#103
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.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#104

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

This was addressed in the appropriate chapter in The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee[1]. It was the first I had heard of Rosalind Franklin and I was very grateful for this account which gave appropriate recognition. (Side note: the entire book is also highly recommended)

[1]: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1476733503

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#105

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

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...

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]

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it's going into production it matters. Bad crypto is only slightly better than no crypto. In some cases it could be worse.

Where did I say bad crypto is fine in production?

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#107
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think so then you’ve misinterpreted my comment.

I would make a distinction between 1) working on some project ignoring what others are working on or what they would say about the potential value of the work until you have reached some milestone and are ready to present it to the world and receive critical feedback, and 2) working on something without concern for anyone else ever finding value in it. Feynman is clearly saying disregard others while you are doing th…

It seems like your view of “valuing your own work” is narrower than mine. I never said disregard criticism, I said approval is not necessary to find value.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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 orig…

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.

Re: Feynman’s Breakthrough: Disregard Others

#110

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.

Not necessarily. Multiple software engineers working to solve the same problem in isolation will arrive at different solutions. Some may work better than others, but that's irrelevant; what's important is that these different engineers will have all achieved a complete understanding of the problem and its solution, and when they collaborate on a new, more complex problem that builds on what they've already done, they…

I eventually started thinking of side projects as the software equivalent of "practicing my chops" as a musician. It doesn't actually matter that much whether all those free-time experiments ever become shippable products - and most of them not only don't, but couldn't - so long as the process of working on them helps me stretch my knowledge and keep my skills sharp.
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