Just finished reading "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman" - one of the best reads ever!
If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
51–60 of 81 posts
Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#52Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#53Holy crap, anyone else notice the number of totally obvious paid links on that site? What not to do...
Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing really clever though - he only applies the two most basic sudoku strategies: If a square has only one possible value, eliminate it from the square's peers. If a unit has only one possible place for a value, then put the value there. And then he notes that those simple strategies combined with search yields very reasonable run times.
It might not be that clever, but it is able to considerably reduce the running time of the algorithm (even if the speedup in a 9x9 puzzle is not perceived). In fact, if you ask people not from a CS background to explain the steps they would take to solve a puzzle, they probably wouldn't be able to think of a DFS, but they would state that they should rule out from each cell the numbers already present in its respecti…
Right - my point was that they were expecting the naive approach, starting from human heuristics and building up.
They were confused when I took a more disciplined approach and provided a solution that is robust to simple CP methods.
Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
He basically said those things in an interview once. So while he might not react that way when looking for a job it really just depends on how much he wanted the job.
it really just depends on how much he wanted the job I disagree. Feynman was famous for speaking his mind regardless of the context (Bohr insisted on Feynman's presence at critical points during the Manhattan project for exactly this reason, in fact -- everybody else was too inhibited around Bohr to speak up). Feynman might have kicked himself afterwards, but wanting a job wouldn't have prevented him from pointing ou…
There is a huge gap between speaking truth to power and being snippy to make yourself feel better. As a ridiculously intelligent and anti authoritarian friend put it. "You don't walk around barefoot on the first day of a new job, you need to break people in."
PS: And yes, he would eventually walk around the office / data centers without footwear.
Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#56Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#57Reminds me of the bit in Cryptonomicon where Lawrence Waterhouse takes an intelligence test for the navy: "They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the math part had to do with boats on a river: Port Smith is 100 miles upstream of Port Jones. The river flows at 5 miles per hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles per hour. How long does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long to co…
It's rather arguable that Waterhouse's inability to recognize that the question scenario was a deliberate simplification justifies his naval assignment. Because while he's clearly a brilliant mathematician in the story, he's really too damn dim about everything else to trust with much practical responsibility...
Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similarly, though not as funny, from "The Legend of John Von Neumann" - http://stepanov.lk.net/mnemo/legende.html 'Then there is the famous fly puzzle. Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 m.p.h. At the same time a fly that travels at a steady 15 m.p.h. starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound…
If you like this kind of puzzle, you might enjoy "Thinking Physics" by Lewis Carroll Epstein. This one is right on page 10 of the 3rd edition.
I wish that there was a universal credits system on the internet, and that I could purchase books by the page.
Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
it really just depends on how much he wanted the job I disagree. Feynman was famous for speaking his mind regardless of the context (Bohr insisted on Feynman's presence at critical points during the Manhattan project for exactly this reason, in fact -- everybody else was too inhibited around Bohr to speak up). Feynman might have kicked himself afterwards, but wanting a job wouldn't have prevented him from pointing ou…
There is a huge gap between speaking truth to power and being snippy to make yourself feel better. As a ridiculously intelligent and anti authoritarian friend put it. "You don't walk around barefoot on the first day of a new job, you need to break people in." PS: And yes, he would eventually walk around the office / data centers without footwear.
You don't walk around barefoot on the first day of a new job, you need to break people in
I agree. And I'm sure Feynman would have agreed... until he got excited about something, at which point he would have completely forgotten.
Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)
#60Reminds me of the bit in Cryptonomicon where Lawrence Waterhouse takes an intelligence test for the navy: "They gave him an intelligence test. The first question on the math part had to do with boats on a river: Port Smith is 100 miles upstream of Port Jones. The river flows at 5 miles per hour. The boat goes through water at 10 miles per hour. How long does it take to go from Port Smith to Port Jones? How long to co…
Similarly, though not as funny, from "The Legend of John Von Neumann" - http://stepanov.lk.net/mnemo/legende.html 'Then there is the famous fly puzzle. Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 m.p.h. At the same time a fly that travels at a steady 15 m.p.h. starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound…
all I did was sum the infinite series
This is meant to sound very difficult (and might be, if you majored in journalism), but summing infinite geometric series is easy enough to do in your head if you're facile with fractions: (first_term) / (1 - step_multiplier).
Observe that, of the combined velocity of the fly and the bike approaching him, the fly always makes up 60%. That makes math easier since it eliminates division and time from the problem entirely.
On the first trip, the fly travels 12 miles and the bike approaching him travels 8 miles. There are now 4 (20 - 2 * 8) miles between the bikes.
On the second trip, the fly travels .6 * 4 = 2.4 miles and the bike approaching him travels 1.4 * 4 = 1.6 miles. There are now 0.8 miles between the bikes.
The part where people who are really good with math distinguish themselves from people who are not is realizing quickly that the problem they are looking at, with flies and bikes, quickly decomposes into "sum the series that starts 12, 2.4, etc".
12 / (1 - 0.2) = 12 * 5 / 4 = 15 miles total fly travel.
You can do it a little more formally if you want to verify the intuition that each step takes 1/5th the time (covers 1/5th the distance) of the previous step. (My intuition says "In the time that it takes the fly to go 5 units, the two bikes will chew up 4 units of that distance, so he is only left with 1 unit to travel the next time.")